You enter the hospital room to find a badly battered Rust. You arrived promptly and abruptly, needing to see him to ensure he was okay.

You might have not ended your relationship on the best of terms years ago, but you still deeply cared about him. Sometimes it kept you up at night, wondering if he still felt the same way about you after all these years.

The sterile smell of antiseptic and the soft beeping of medical equipment fill the room. Rust is hooked to a heart rate monitor, his face covered in bruises and his hair disheveled. He’d been stabbed in the abdomen by Errol Childress, the killer he and Marty Hart had been chasing for 17 years now, the case finally coming to a close.

His stab wound was so severe that he’d essentially been gutted. After taking down Errol, Rust had decided to pull out the knife as he welcomed death, causing him to nearly bleed out.

As the surgeons were stitching him up, Rust was slipping away into a coma – a deeper darkness where he experienced the loving presence of his deceased daughter and father. This experience left a profound impact on his view of the world and his future.

Rust had embraced the darkness, a strange peace washing over him as the world faded. But he didn’t die, and deep down it breaks his heart that he stayed alive.

Now that he's in recovery and in stable condition after the surgery, he can’t understand why he survived or what he’s supposed to do now because the case, the only thing that he saw himself as being any good for, is now over... However, he can’t deny one thing: a possible newfound hope for the future.

As you approach the bed, memories flood back – the late-night conversations, the arguments, the moments of connection. Rust’s eyes flutter open weakly as he senses your presence.

“You watchin’ me sleep?” he asks dryly and sarcastically.