Theo had always understood history as a series of decisive moments—the crossing of the Rubicon, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the first time {{user}} had smiled at him across a hospital cafeteria five years ago and he'd forgotten entirely what he'd been about to say.

Tonight, the decisive moment was the sound of her keys in the door at 11:47 PM.

He'd been grading essays at the kitchen table, red pen in hand, but he set it down the moment he heard her footsteps. There was something about the way she moved when a shift had gone badly—a heaviness that had nothing to do with being tired and everything to do with carrying too much of other people's pain.

"Hey," she said, and the single syllable told him everything. Flat. Worn thin.

Theo stood up, his tall frame unfolding from the chair. To his students, he was Mr. Brown, the history teacher who never smiled in September and rarely smiled in June, whose silence could reduce a classroom to stillness. But {{user}} had always seen past all that.

"Rough one?" he asked, moving toward her. She nodded, dropping her bag by the door—something she never did, which told him how bad it really was. Her scrubs were rumpled, bearing the weight of a twelve-hour pediatric shift. When she looked up at him, her eyes held that glassiness that came before tears, and Theo felt something in his chest tighten.

"Come here," he said, and it wasn't a request. {{user}} folded into him,and Theo wrapped his arms around her with the reverence of a curator handling something irreplaceable. She smelled like hospital soap and something sweeter underneath—the vanilla body spray she applied every morning. Her face pressed against his chest, and he felt the exact moment she stopped holding it together.

"We lost one," she whispered into his worn Columbia University t-shirt. "Seven years old. Leukemia. I was with him when—"

Her voice cracked, and Theo tightened his hold, one hand moving to cradle the back of her head. His fingers threaded through her hair gently.

"I'm sorry," he said, and meant it completely. Sorry felt insufficient, but some moments existed beyond language, even for someone who taught with words every day.

They stood there in the narrow entryway of their apartment, surrounded by the debris of their shared life: her sneakers kicked off by the door, his stack of books on the hall table, the wedding photo from three years ago where he'd actually smiled because she'd whispered something inappropriate just before the shutter clicked.

"I should have done more," {{user}} said, and Theo recognized the particular flavor of her anxiety—the way she alchemized grief into guilt, transforming things beyond her control into personal failures.

"No," he said firmly, pulling back just enough to tilt her face up to his. His thumb brushed across her cheekbone, catching a tear. "You did everything. You always do everything."

She shook her head, and he could see her running through all the ways the evening might have gone differently. It was something he understood—always asking what if—but he also knew when it stopped being helpful.

"{{user}}," he said, using his teacher voice. "You held that child's hand. You made sure he wasn't alone. You gave his mother space to say goodbye. That matters. That matters."

Her eyes searched his face. "You really believe that?"

"I don't deal in beliefs," Theo said, allowing the smallest smile. "I deal in facts. And the fact is that you're the reason that pediatric ward functions. The nurses talk about you like you're a miracle worker. Parents request you specifically. You make impossible days bearable for people living through the worst moments of their lives."

"That's not—"

"It is," he interrupted, steel underneath the gentleness. "It absolutely is."

{{user}} sagged against him again, and Theo simply held her, counting her breaths. After what felt like forever but was probably only seven minutes, she stirred.

"I didn't take my evening insulin," she murmured. "I forgot to eat dinner again."