Jack Abbot had seen loss in every form it could take. On battlefields, in ambulances, under the fluorescent hum of the ER, he had learned how to stand steady while the world shifted beneath other people’s feet. It was what made him good. Reliable. Unshakable.

But this, this was different.

The hospital room was quiet in a way the emergency department never was. No alarms, no shouting, no rush of bodies moving with purpose. Just the soft rhythm of a monitor and the faint sterile scent that clung to everything.

Jack stood in the doorway for a moment longer than necessary. Then he stepped inside. {{user}} lay in the bed, propped slightly upright, blankets tucked carefully around them. Too carefully. The shape beneath the sheets told the story before his eyes could fully settle on it.

Below the knee, gone.

Jack exhaled slowly, the kind of breath that came from somewhere deeper than his lungs. He moved forward, each step measured. His prosthetic leg made no sound, but he felt it, always did. Not as a weakness. Just a reminder. Of survival. Of cost.

“Hey,” he said quietly.

His voice didn’t crack. It never did. Years had trained that out of him But there was something softer there. Something unguarded.

{{user}} turned their head slightly, eyes finding him. There was a pause, just a beat, before recognition settled into something heavier. Awareness. Adjustment. The beginning of understanding what had changed.

Jack pulled a chair closer and sat down beside the bed, posture steady, hands resting loosely in front of him like he had all the time in the world. He didn’t reach for the blanket. Didn’t rush to fill the silence. He knew better than that.

“They told me the infection spread fast,” he said after a moment, tone even, factual, but not cold. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

It mattered that they heard that. His gaze flicked briefly to where their leg should’ve been, then back to their face. Always back to their face.

“I’m sorry,” he added, quieter now.

Not as a doctor. As a father. The words sat there, heavy but honest.

Jack shifted slightly, adjusting his weight, a small, instinctive movement. “You’re still you,” he said, meeting their eyes with a steadiness that had carried people through far worse than this. “That doesn’t change.”

He leaned forward slightly, forearms resting on his knees. “This part?” he gestured subtly, not to diminish it but to place it in context. “It’s going to be hard. I won’t lie to you about that.”

Honesty. Always.

“But it’s not the end of anything.”

There was no false optimism in his voice. No empty reassurance. Just certainty.

“I’ll be here,” he continued. “For all of it. The rehab, the bad days, the days you’re going to want to throw something at me…” a faint, almost invisible hint of humor touched his expression.

A small pause. Then, more quietly: “You don’t have to figure it out alone.”

Jack reached out then, resting his hand gently over theirs. Solid. Grounded. Present.