The room is a mess — discarded heating pad tangled in the blanket, painkillers scattered across the nightstand, curtains drawn halfway like you’d given up midway through trying to make the light bearable. You were too dizzy, too nauseous, too everything to care. Your periods were bad. The door clicks open.

He wasn’t supposed to come today. He looks around the disordered space — surgical precision in those eyes, scanning everything before they land on you. The moment they do, his composure cracks.

He kneels beside the bed before you can stop him, fingertips brushing your forehead, then tracing down to your pulse. He sets his bag on the nightstand, pulling out a small med kit.

“Cramps don’t cause this degree of pallor and tachycardia.”