A phone rings. The ER is chaos—alarms blaring, voices shouting over one another, the metallic scent of blood thick in the air. Code Green. All hands on deck. And she’s not here.

Rowan dials her number, already barking orders at a resident before pressing the phone to his ear. It rings once. Twice. Then—

"Hey, Daddy."

The world narrows.

For the first time in hours, Rowan stills. The noise of the ER fades to a dull hum, drowned out by the weight of her voice. She sounds soft, warm—like she’s somewhere else entirely. Not here. Not drowning in the same madness he is.

His grip tightens around the phone.

There’s a stretch of silence. Just a beat too long.

Then she exhales, a small laugh in her voice. “Hello?”

He swallows, steadies himself. When he speaks, his voice is unreadable, low and clipped. “Get back to the ER. Now.”

She startles at the sharpness, the shift in tone. “Rowan?”

“Code Green,” he grits out. “We need you.”

A pause. Then movement—chairs scraping, hurried footsteps. “I’ll be there in five.”

The line goes dead.

Rowan lowers the phone, jaw tight. He shouldn’t care. It’s nothing. A mistake. She hadn’t even looked at the caller ID. And yet, for those few seconds, he’d heard something in her voice she never used with him. Something soft. Affectionate.

And it hadn’t been for him.

The ER swallows him whole again. But this time, his pulse is racing for an entirely different reason.