"Reinhard!"
He didn’t answer. Emily stared at him for a moment, almost expecting him to open his eyes and tell her he was fine. He remained completely still, a thin line of blood running beneath his nose, another stain at the corner of his mouth.
"Reinhard?"
Still nothing.
The fear she’d been holding back finally began to settle in. She reached for the wheelchair controls and pushed forward. But she was still getting used to how responsive the new chair was. It accelerated faster than she expected. One wheel struck the edge of the table, jerking the chair sideways.
She caught the armrest and steadied herself. Her heart was pounding as she looked back at Reinhard. After taking a breath, she pushed forward again, more carefully this time. "Please..." Her voice trembled. "Please wake up."
When she reached him, she leaned forward as far as the chair allowed and placed a hand against his cheek. "Reinhard?"
Still no response. She forced herself to calm down enough to check his breathing, watching his chest carefully until it rose and fell. Relief came immediately, though it did little to ease the panic still running through her.
He was breathing. He simply wasn’t waking up.
She knew she needed help, and her sisters were the first people who came to mind. She turned the wheelchair around and hurried into the hallway.
"Maki?"
No answer. She called for Lily and Yuna as she checked their rooms, the apartment strangely quiet around her, her breathing growing faster as she moved from one empty room to another. It took several moments before her eyes landed on the clock.
Then she remembered. They had all left that morning.
She stopped beside the living room doorway, her hands slowly tightening around the controls. "Right..." None of them would be back for several hours. For the first time since finding Reinhard on the floor, she realized there was no one else here. She was going to have to handle this herself.
She turned and rushed back toward the kitchen, and finally saw the room properly. The finished medicine still sat on the counter. The ingredients he’d used were scattered across the table, and Vane’s formula remained open beside the empty pot.
She remembered seeing him standing there that morning, his hair a mess, his eyes exhausted, trying to act like nothing was wrong when she’d asked whether he’d slept.
She looked from the kitchen to Reinhard lying on the floor, and the answer became obvious. He hadn’t slept. He’d spent the entire night making the medicine for her.
Her eyes softened. "You idiot..." she whispered, voice trembling. "You really did all of this for me."
Her first instinct was to reach for her phone and call for help. Her thumb hovered over the screen, but she paused, thinking of how he’d looked that morning, pretending his exhaustion didn’t matter.
She remembered how many times she’d done the exact same thing to the people around her. "Just like me," she murmured, lowering the phone. "You never listened either. So why should I?"
She set the phone aside and looked back at him. "You’d do the same thing for me," she whispered. "So I’ll do this for you."
She didn’t know exactly what had happened to him, and she wasn’t foolish enough to assume he was fine. But he was breathing normally, and there was no sign that his condition was worsening. If that changed, she would call for help immediately. For now, there was something she could do instead of simply waiting.
She would stay with him and take care of him.
She began moving through the apartment as quickly as she could, still learning how sensitive the new chair’s controls were, nearly clipping the wall on the way to the bathroom before slowing herself down.
She hurried toward the bathroom and grabbed a towel, then returned to the kitchen only to realize she needed water as well. After bringing back a glass, she paused there for a moment, trying to decide what else she could do. Her thoughts were moving too quickly to settle. She remembered the blood beneath his nose and went back for paper towels and something cold.
Once she had everything she could think of, she returned to his side and carefully wiped the blood from his face, her hand trembling slightly as her fingers brushed his cheek.
"You scared me..." she whispered.
She cleaned away the remaining blood and let her hand linger against his cheek for a moment before pulling it back.
"You really scared me. So don’t do that again."
He didn’t answer.
She lowered her eyes. "...Please."
That was when she realized he couldn’t stay on the floor. She looked toward the couch, then back at him. "You’re going to hurt yourself lying here."
She reached for his arm and pulled. Nothing happened. His weight was far greater than she could shift from where she sat.
She tried again, putting more strength into her arms, but this time the wheelchair rolled backward instead. She froze and looked down at her trembling hands.
The familiar feeling of helplessness began creeping back in, that horrible awareness of wanting to do something and not knowing whether her body was capable of doing it.
For years, this was where she would have stopped. She would have waited for someone else to come, because there had always been something her body could no longer do.
But Reinhard was lying in front of her.
He had spent everything he had trying to help her. He had pushed himself past his limit so she could feel something she thought she’d lost forever.
Now he needed her.
Emily gently smacked her own cheeks and took a deep breath. "Not today." Her fingers tightened around his shirt. "I’m not giving up today."
She pulled harder, glanced toward the couch, too far to drag him there, and her eyes landed on the pillows scattered across its cushions. An idea took shape. She moved quickly toward the couch, grabbed one, and rushed it back to his head, then went for another, then a third, until several sat arranged on the floor around him.
Then came the harder part.
She lowered herself carefully from the wheelchair, her arms trembling almost immediately. She’d spent years avoiding movements that demanded this much from her, and even getting onto the floor left her breathing harder than expected, nearly losing her balance halfway down before catching herself and continuing.
When she finally reached him, she wrapped both hands around his shirt and pulled. His body shifted slightly, and Emily froze.
For a moment, she simply stared at him.
"I moved you..."
A small laugh escaped her, half disbelief and half relief. "I actually moved you."
It was barely an inch, but she’d spent years believing even something this small was beyond her. She rested for a moment before trying again. This time, Reinhard moved farther. Her arms were already aching, but she kept going.
She used the pillows to protect him as she slowly worked her way across the floor, stopping whenever she needed to catch her breath before trying again. Several minutes passed before his head finally reached the first pillow.
She adjusted it beneath him, added another beneath his back, and sat back to catch her breath, arms trembling badly, looking thoroughly exhausted.
Yet she couldn’t help smiling. "There." She brushed his hair away from his forehead. "Much better."
It wasn’t mana. It wasn’t the strength or power the world had once celebrated her for.
It was something much smaller, something nobody watching from the outside would have considered impressive. She had simply moved a man across the floor and pulled herself back into her wheelchair. But she’d done it herself. And somehow, that mattered more than she expected.
Getting back into the wheelchair proved harder still.
Emily reached for the seat and tried to pull herself up. Her arms shook almost immediately, and halfway there her grip slipped, sending her back onto the floor.
She lay there for a moment, breathing heavily as she stared at the wheelchair.
Then she looked toward Reinhard.
"Again."
She reached for the seat once more. This time she pulled herself higher before losing her grip again. Her arms were burning, and every part of her body wanted her to stop, but she rested only long enough to catch her breath before trying again.
On the third attempt, her fingers tightened around the edge of the seat. She shifted her weight forward, gathered what strength remained in her arms, and pulled herself back into the wheelchair.
She leaned against the backrest, completely exhausted, and a small laugh escaped her.
"I did it."
She looked toward Reinhard and smiled faintly.
"I’m getting better. I’m sure you’d feel bad that you missed that."
Once that small victory settled, she turned her attention fully to caring for him, and the frantic urgency of the last hour gradually gave way to something steadier.
Emily spent the next several hours taking care of him as best she could. She retrieved the cold towel again and laid it across his forehead, checking his breathing periodically and wiping his face whenever needed. She adjusted the pillows beneath him until he looked as comfortable as she could make him, then found a blanket and draped it over him.
Between each small task, her eyes kept returning to him.
Eventually, she noticed his hand resting beside him and reached down to take it. His fingers were warm. She held his hand quietly for a while, her thumb resting lightly against his.
"You know..." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "You always tell me we’ll find another way."
She looked at his sleeping face.
"Even when there isn’t one."
A faint smile touched her lips.
"I used to think you were just being stubborn."
Her fingers tightened gently around his.
"Maybe you really are."
Her gaze drifted toward the tiny spark of mana that had returned to her palm. It was faint, barely enough to do anything with, but the fact that she could feel it at all was enough for now.
She looked back at Reinhard.
"You gave this back to me."
Her voice grew quieter.
"So I’m not letting you disappear. Not after you came this far for me."
She squeezed his hand.
"I’ll stay."
Time passed slowly after that, the apartment settling into a quiet stillness broken only by the occasional sounds of the city outside. Emily changed the towel when it warmed, checked his breathing again and again, and never let go of his hand for long.
Eventually, exhaustion caught up with her. She moved out of her wheelchair and rested near him. She had spent years believing she was the one who needed someone else to stay. For now, she was the one staying.
Her eyes finally closed, but even in sleep, she didn’t let go of his hand.
Emily didn’t know when Reinhard would wake up. She didn’t know what the treatment had truly done to her Gnosis, or how much of her old strength she could recover. But for the first time in years, she wanted to find out.
She would try again.