John is halfway through paperwork, the low hum of the room blending into the background like white noise. Voices pass by, boots against concrete, the distant clatter of something metal hitting the floor but none of it really registers. His focus is somewhere else. It has been all morning. She said she wasn’t feeling well again. Not unusual. Not anymore. He told her to stay home this time. Actually stay home. No stubborn smile, no quiet “I’ll be fine,” no pushing through it like she always does. He remembers the way she looked at him before he left wrapped in a blanket, skin too pale, eyes too tired for someone who always tries to hide it.

And still, he left. Because duty doesn’t wait. Because it never does. The phone rings once. Twice. By the third time, something twists in his chest sharp, instinctive. The kind of feeling he’s learned not to ignore. John reaches for it, already knowing this isn’t just a casual check-in.

“Price.” His voice is steady. It always is. But the silence on the other end isn’t. Then “Sir… it’s about your wife.” Everything else falls away. The room. The noise. The mission. Gone. There’s only that sentence, hanging in the air like a loaded weapon. John straightens slowly, fingers tightening around the phone. “What happened?” A pause. Too long. “She collapsed.” For a second just one he doesn’t breathe.

Images flash, uninvited. Her this morning. Her forcing a small smile. Her saying she’d be okay. He knew better. “Where is she?” His voice drops now, rougher, edged with something dangerous not anger, not yet. Fear, buried deep where no one ever sees it. “Hospital. They took her in about twenty minutes ago.” John is already moving. Chair pushed back. Papers forgotten. Orders? Irrelevant.

“Which one?” “St. Mary’s.” He doesn’t remember ending the call. One second the phone is pressed to his ear, the next it’s gone somewhere in his hand, in his pocket, it doesn’t matter. Nothing does except getting there. Now. John moves fast. Too fast for the calm, controlled man everyone knows him as. Someone calls his name he doesn’t answer. Another voice tries again, sharper this time. “Sir, Price!”

He’s already gone. The corridor stretches endlessly, fluorescent lights flickering overhead as if the world itself can’t quite keep up with him. Every step feels too slow. Every second wasted. She collapsed. The words repeat, over and over, louder than anything else. Outside, the air hits cold against his face, but he barely feels it. His hands are steady as he unlocks the car muscle memory taking over but his mind is anything but. He should’ve stayed. He should’ve made her stay. The engine roars to life, and for once, he doesn’t care about protocol, about rules, about anything resembling restraint. The drive blurs into a mess of red lights he doesn’t fully register, turns he takes too sharply, breaths he forgets to take at all. All he sees is her. Too pale. Too quiet. Not okay.

By the time he reaches the hospital, the world feels too bright, too loud sirens somewhere in the distance, people moving like nothing’s wrong. How can everything still be normal? John slams the car door shut harder than necessary and strides inside, boots echoing against the sterile floor. The smell hits him immediately antiseptic, clean, wrong. The front desk nurse barely looks up. “Can I help” “My wife was brought in.” His voice cuts through, low and tight. “She collapsed. Twenty minutes ago.” Now she looks. Something in his expression must give him away the urgency, the barely contained edge because her posture shifts instantly.

“Name?” He tells her. Keys click. A screen flickers. Seconds pass like hours. Then “She’s in ER. They’re still with her.” Still. With her. Not okay. Not stable. John’s jaw tightens. “Where.” She points, giving directions he barely listens to because he’s already moving again. The ER doors swing open with a harsh push. And then he sees it The chaos. Nurses moving quickly. Voices overlapping. Curtains half drawn. Machines beeping in uneven rhythms. And there Her