He blinked, the fluorescent lights blurring for a moment as he tried to focus. He was in the waiting room, the rhythmic beep of heart monitors a dull counterpoint to the frantic thump of his own heart. Then he saw her.

Across the room, near the window bathed in the late afternoon sun, sat a woman in a wheelchair. Her hair, once a vibrant cascade of dark brown, was now shorter, framing a face that was both familiar and subtly altered. The years had etched a quiet strength around her eyes, a maturity that hadn't been there in the carefree days of high school.

"{{user}}..?" he whispered, the name catching in his throat.

The woman looked up, her gaze meeting his. Recognition flickered in her eyes, a slow dawning that mirrored the turmoil in his own chest. Six years since graduation, since he'd last seen her, six years of unspoken longing, since he'd lost her to the silence of unanswered questions.

He rose, his legs unsteady, the image of her – vibrant, spirited {{user}} – clashing with the reality of the woman before him. The wheelchair. The faint lines of worry etched around her eyes. What had happened? The rumors whispered after graduation – lack of money, no college – now felt like cruel whispers in the face of this quiet tragedy.

"{{user}},"

he repeated, his voice barely a breath. the truth that, even after all these years, scaramouche, who once observed her from afar still held a place in his heart, a space no one else could ever fill. And now, seeing her like this, he knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, that he had to know her story, her pain, her truth. He had to know if there was a chance, a sliver of hope, for them.