"Oh. He's awake." Garrick commented, like he was commenting on the weather.
I shot him a sharp look. "I think you should leave."
His jaw tightened, but he stepped aside as I pulled my stethoscope from my pocket and looped it around my neck.
"I think I should stay," Garrick said coolly, watching me move toward the bed with a faintly smug expression.
Maybe they were right. Maybe I should finally look into that restraining order.
But St.Albans is a small town. Word travels fast, and Garrick came from a family wealthy enough to make things...complicated.
So I ignored him.
I focused on the patient.
John had closed his eyes again, his breathing slow and even like he had slipped back into sleep. My hand hovered over his arm as I checked the pulse oximeter clipped to his index finger.
"Sir..." I said gently, keeping my voice low. The last thing anyone wanted was to startle a post-operative trauma patient.
My gaze flicked to the monitor.
His heart rate was climbing again. Still within a safe range, but rising steadily.
He's waking again.
"Sir?" I tried again, softer this time.
He drew in a slow, careful breath.
Then his eyes opened.
For a moment, I forgot how to breathe.
His eyes were dark. Darker than I'd realized earlier, and startlingly clear for someone who had just come out of surgery. Focused and alert.
Not the foggy confusion I usually saw in patients waking from anesthesia.
His gaze moved slowly, assessing the room. The ceiling lights. The machines. The curtain the other nurses had drawn around us, giving us a semblance of privacy.
Then down to himself.
His fingers tightened faintly against the sheets as he noticed the hospital gown, the IV lining in his arm, the blanket covering the lower half of his body.
His brow furrowed.
Confusion flickered across his face. Not out of mild disorientation, but something deeper. Like a man waking in the wrong century.
I leaned slightly closer. "You're in the ICU. You had surgery, but you're safe now. Can you tell me your name?"
His eyes lifted to mine again. For a long moment, he simply stared at me. His gaze was unnervingly focused, far too clear for someone who had just come out of surgery. He was studying my face, committing it to memory.
Behind me, Garrick shifted impatiently.
The movement caught the man's attention. His eyes sliding past my shoulder and landed on my ex-fiancé. And everything changed.
The confusion vanished, then the calm.
His pupils sharpened, darkening like a storm rolling across open water. His breathing quickened, chest rising harder against the hospital gown.
The monitor beside him spiked.
"Sir?" I said quickly, glancing at the screen. "Are you alright?"
His fingers tightened in the sheets. The heart monitor shrieked as his pulse spiked. And before I could react, he had lunged upward.
The movement was violent enough to jolt the IV line, the tape pulling against his skin.
"Hey—no, no—!" I reached for his shoulder. "You can't sit up, you just had surgery—"
Of course, he ignored me completely.
His eyes were fixed on Garrick. Pure fury burning in them.
Behind me, Garrick took a step back. "Okay...why is he looking at me like that?"
The man tried to swing his legs off the bed, but pain must've hit him instantly because his body faltered. The effort alone sent the monitor into a frantic rhythm.
The alarm began blaring.
Within seconds, the curtain was pulled aside.
"What's going on?" another nurse asked, one of my seniors, already moving toward the monitor.
"He's post-op trauma," I said quickly, keeping one hand on the patient's shoulder. "He's trying to get up."
Two more nurses rushed in.
"Sir, you need to lie down," one of them said firmly, moving to steady his arm. But he fought them. Not wildly, not like a delirious patient.
His gaze never leaving Garrick.
Did he know him, somehow?
"Maybe you should step out," one of the nurses said sharply, looking at Garrick.
"I'm not doing anything," Garrick protested. "I need to ask him some questions."
"Sir, now's not the time," she repeated, more firmly this time, "please step outside."
Garrick hesitated.
John surged again, straining against our hands.
"Hostis," he rasped, the word rough and furious.
Enemy. In Latin.
"Yeah, okay, he definitely means you," the nurse muttered, pushing Garrick toward the curtain.
"Fine, fine," Garrick said, holding his hands up as he backed away. "I'm going."
The curtain swung closed behind him.
The moment he disappeared from sight, I watched with curiously as the tension drained from the man's body like a severed wire.
His breathing slowed slightly, and the monitor followed. The frantic beeping settling into something steadier. I could feel it immediately under my hand.
He wasn't fighting anymore.
The other nurses exchanged looks.
"That's...weird," one of them murmured.
I ignored it.
Instead, I leaned closer, lowering my voice.
"It's alright," I said gently. "He's gone."
His eyes moved to me again, but the fury was gone now. Something else had replaced it. Recognition.
I pretended not to notice as I guided him back onto the pillow, slow and careful so I wouldn't aggravate his wounds.
"Easy," I murmured, adjusting the bed and straightening the blanket over him. "You're safe now. You don't have to tell us anything, if you don't want to."
For a long moment, he simply looked at me. He studied my face while I fussed over him, making sure the IV line wasn't twisted, that the blanket covered him properly.
All while he looked at me like he had seen me before. And that he couldn't believe he was seeing me again.
Do I know him?
I couldn't possibly. I didn't have much of a social life outside this hospital. Unless I counted my best friend, Pippa, the one I shared a tiny flat with. Beyond that, I barely went anywhere. Barely even stepped into one of the pubs in town.
I was always too exhausted after shifts. Sleep seemed more important than anything. God, no wonder it took me months to realize that Garrick was cheating on me.
His lips parted, bringing me back to the present.
The words came out rough. Barely a whisper.
But this time, they sounded like English.
"Elena."
A chill slid down my spine.
Because I had never told him my name.