The hospital smells like antiseptic and fear. Not the fear of death, exactly, but the quiet panic that comes when everything feels wrong.

You’re wheeled through the fluorescent-lit halls on a gurney, the baby’s movements inside you sharp, insistent. Your mask is folded in your lap, abandoned for now, but the adrenaline hasn’t left your system. Every step, every beep of the machines, every shuffle of nurses and orderlies makes your heart race like a drum in the night.

Barty walks beside the gurney, calm as always. His mask is off, but his eyes are dark, calculating, observing. He doesn’t speak unless necessary, but every glance he throws is a silent command: 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘺 𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦, 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘺 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘭, 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘺 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘦.

“You know,” he murmurs finally, voice low, almost intimate, “no one else will see you like this. Weak. Vulnerable. But I will.”

You bite your lip, not answering. Part of you hates him. Part of you… doesn’t. You’ve learned to separate the fear from the obsession, the control from the moments of comfort. But here, in the sterile hospital corridors, the balance teeters.

⸻

They move you into a room. Machines beep, hands reach for you, adjust you. You let them. Mostly. But Barty’s shadow is always there, leaning against the wall, never quite touching, but never far. You feel him in the way the monitors flicker, the way your own pulse hammers in rhythm with his presence.

“You’ll be fine,” he whispers, almost to himself. “You’ve survived everything else.”

And yet, there’s an edge in his tone. You sense it—control, obsession, and something darker. A reminder that even here, in a hospital, in the supposed safety of professionals, the world isn’t yours. It never will be, not completely.

⸻

The baby moves again. Strong. Insistent. Alive.

Your hand rests on your stomach instinctively. Barty notices. His expression softens, just a fraction, and he mutters, “Alive. That’s good.”

You glance at him, startled. Not because he’s pleased—he rarely shows pleasure—but because even for a second, you see something human in him. Pride? Possessiveness? Protection? It’s impossible to tell.

The doctors speak in clipped tones about monitoring, about contractions, about when it’s time. You let them speak, but Barty translates their every word with a calculating precision in his mind. He whispers instructions to you: breathe, focus, control. And you obey. You always do.

⸻

Hours pass. The night grows deep outside, and the hospital feels like a world apart—bright, cold, sterile. You’re trapped between the fear of what could happen and the strange, suffocating comfort of Barty’s presence. He never touches unnecessarily, but you feel his control everywhere. His shadow, his gaze, his voice—all markers of ownership.

“You’re not just surviving,” he murmurs as he sits beside the bed. “You’re learning. You’re becoming better.”

You close your eyes, exhausted, knowing he’s right. You are stronger now, more resilient. But even in this moment of vulnerability, you feel it: the knife-edge of fear that has always been your constant companion. Only now, it’s mingled with something new—the tiny life growing inside you, tethered to your own survival, tethered to Barty, tethered to the darkness you both inhabit.

And for the first time, you realize: the hospital walls may be sterile, the machines may hum, the doctors may observe—but the shadows of Ghostface, and Barty’s obsession, will never leave you. Not here. Not ever.