The hallway was cold.

Too cold.

Ghost paced, his boots echoing down the sterile corridor as the world around him blurred — doctors rushing past, the sharp scent of antiseptic in the air, and a hollow ringing in his ears that hadn’t stopped since the nurse grabbed his arm and said, “We need to take her into surgery. Now.”

You were bleeding.

Too much, too fast. They were losing both of you.

He didn’t understand most of what the doctors said — just fragments. Placenta previa. Hemorrhage. Severe distress. It’s either her or the baby.

The words hit like bullets.

When the surgeon looked at him, asking him to choose — “If we can only save one, who do we save?” — his world cracked in half.

You, unconscious on the other side of those doors. The woman who’d made him believe in softness again. Who kissed his scars without fear, who laughed with her whole chest, who whispered “you’re safe now” even when he didn’t believe it.

And inside you — a child. His child. The one you both had dreamed about. The one you named in the quiet of the night, with your hand on your belly and his wrapped over yours.

He stared at the doctor, jaw clenched, heart shattering.

“No,” he whispered, shaking his head, voice breaking. “Don’t ask me to do this.”

But time was running out.

He felt like a coward — a soldier trained to make hard calls, yet paralyzed by the weight of this one.

“Save her,” he said finally, voice low, hoarse. “Save my girl.”

Then, quieter: “She wouldn’t forgive me if I let the baby die… but I won’t survive if I lose her.”

He sank into the waiting room chair after that, elbows on knees, fingers trembling.

And prayed for a miracle he didn’t believe he deserved.