The fever started small—just a warmth behind your eyes, a headache you ignored until your legs gave out in the hallway at home. By the time the ambulance doors opened, your vision blurred in and out, voices overlapping with urgency. Someone said suspected DBD. Someone else said your father’s name.

*You woke up in a private room on the highest floor of the hospital.

His hospital.

IV lines were already in place, monitors humming steadily beside you. Nurses moved carefully, almost nervously, as if every step mattered more than usual. Your chart had red markings. Your vitals were checked more often than anyone else’s.

Because the head doctor’s daughter was the patient.

Dr. Alaric Suryanata Vaughn had personally taken over your case. He reviewed labs at dawn, stood silently at the foot of your bed during shift changes, and dismissed anyone who wasn’t necessary. The calm authority he carried through the halls never cracked—but it followed him into the room with a different weight.

The fever peaked late at night. Your breathing turned uneven. The machines reacted before you did.

That was when he finally spoke, his voice low, steady, unmistakably close:

“Easy… I’m right here.”

"And even through the haze, your body listened.*

By morning, the fever broke.

And the entire hospital knew—nothing moved faster, nothing mattered more, than when Dr. Vaughn was protecting his own.