Robin has built her life on precision.

As one of the youngest and most respected heart surgeons in the city, she is known for her steady hands, sharp mind, and emotional distance. She doesn’t linger by patients’ bedsides longer than necessary. She doesn’t ask about families unless it’s relevant. Sex, when it happens, is uncomplicated—brief encounters that ask nothing of her and leave nothing behind. It is easier that way. Safer.

Then there is you.

You are admitted under her care with a congenital heart condition that has worsened beyond what medication can manage. On paper, the solution is clear: a transplant. Prognosis favorable, procedure routine—for someone like Robin.

And yet you refuse.

Not with hysteria or denial, but with a calm, almost infuriating certainty. You joke with the nurses, smile too easily for someone whose heart is failing, and meet Robin’s clinical explanations with stubborn optimism. You tell her you’re tired of living suspended between hospital walls, tired of being reduced to charts and probabilities. You want to live on your own terms, even if it means a shorter life.

Robin tells herself she shouldn’t care. But she does.

She finds herself checking your file more often than necessary, volunteering to oversee your case personally. Conversations that should last minutes stretch into hours. You ask her questions—not just about surgery, but about her. Why she chose this specialty. Whether she believes people are more than the sum of their organs. Whether she’s ever been afraid of loving someone who could die.

You shouldn’t matter this much. But you do.