Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Oklahoma sky was mercifully clear, brushed with cotton-ball clouds drifting lazily overhead. After weeks of chasing storms, the Wranglers had a rare, quiet afternoon at basecamp. Laughter bubbled from behind the row of trucks where gear was being packed, data uploaded, and circuits checked for the next big run.

Near one of the tailgates, Kate leaned into Tyler, her hand absently tracing the hem of his flannel sleeve. She looked like she might melt into him if she let herself — not in a dramatic, cinematic way, but in that quiet, deeply real way where you just need someone close.

Tyler glanced down at her and smiled, brushing a wisp of hair behind her ear. “You know,” he said, his voice low and teasing, “if you keep leaning into me like this, I might start thinking you actually like me.”

Kate chuckled, lips barely an inch from his shoulder. “You’re just warm. Don’t flatter yourself.”

From a few feet away, Javi arched a brow as he plugged in one of the weather monitors. “Hey, Boone,” he called. “Remember when Kate hated Tyler’s guts?”

Boone, adjusting a satellite uplink with Dexter, didn’t even glance up. “Like it was yesterday. She wouldn’t even look at him without doing that little eye-roll thing.”

“I didn’t hate him,” Kate protested, lifting her head. “It was more like... professional annoyance.”

Tyler gasped with mock betrayal, pressing a hand to his chest. “Annoyance? I saved your data that day. I offered you a ride. I even gave you my last protein bar!”

“Which turned out to be expired,” she said with a smirk.

The group laughed, and Lily called over from the gear station, “What was it? The airport meet-cute turned enemies-to-lovers arc?”

Dani grinned while coiling a cable. “Oh, it was textbook. He flirted, she stormed off. Classic foreplay.”

Kate opened her mouth to argue again, but Tyler caught her off-guard, wrapping an arm around her waist and tickling her side. She yelped and twisted, trying to squirm away through her laughter.

“Tyler Owens!” she shrieked, laughing so hard she nearly doubled over.

He grinned smugly, holding her close again once she stopped squirming. “Doesn’t matter how annoyed you were,” he said, voice warm against her ear. “You’re mine now.”

Kate rolled her eyes—again—but her smile was soft, and she didn’t pull away. “Yeah, yeah. For now.”

Javi raised a bottle of water like a toast. “Here’s to clear skies, good data, and shocking romantic developments!”

“Don’t jinx it!” Dexter called.

Lily added, “Clear skies don’t last forever.”

Boone chuckled. “Neither does the honeymoon phase.”

Kate smirked and glanced up at Tyler. “We’ll survive the storms. Together.”

And in that quiet lull, before the next funnel cloud would inevitably threaten the horizon, the Wranglers paused just long enough to enjoy the sunshine—and the surprise of how far they'd all come.

The team had claimed a corner booth at a tiny pizza place just off the highway, the kind with checkered tablecloths, neon signs, and walls covered in dusty rodeo memorabilia. A couple of weather instruments sat on the bench beside Dexter, because even off-duty, the Wranglers couldn’t quite leave the chase behind.

Half-eaten slices, soda cans, and laughter filled the air. Kate was wedged beside Tyler, one leg thrown casually over his, her head resting on his shoulder while she toyed with a straw wrapper.

“So,” Lily said, licking a bit of sauce off her thumb, “let’s talk about that first motel stop. You slammed the door in his face, Kate.”

Everyone chuckled as Kate’s eyes narrowed in mock suspicion. “Which one of you told her that?”

“Boone,” Dexter said, not even pretending to be sorry. “He said Tyler showed up with some smooth line and got the door in his face before he could finish it.”

“It was not smooth,” Kate muttered into her drink.

Tyler, feigning deep offense, sat up a little straighter. “Excuse you, it was incredibly charming. I said, ‘Hey, thought maybe we could—’ and bam! Door to the nose.”

Javi held up his hands dramatically. “We thought it broke his ego. Turns out it was just a bruise.”

Kate laughed and leaned in. “Well, in my defense, you were cocky. And you were trying to flirt after we’d just nearly lost half the truck to hail.”

“You did end up going to the rodeo with me,” Tyler pointed out, his arm tightening around her. “So, technically... it worked.”

Kate shot him a look over the rim of her glass. “You mean the rodeo where we got caught in that surprise funnel and had to take shelter in the motel pool room? Where we nearly died?”

“That’s the one!” Tyler grinned, unfazed.

Boone laughed so hard he nearly dropped his slice. “I forgot about that! You two clinging to the pool, Tyler almost getting squished by the livestock trailer.”

“Oh, and don't forget.” Dani added, eyes wide. “Kate saved Tyler's life.”

Kate shook her head, but she was smiling. “Yeah. Real romantic. Five minutes at the rodeo, then boom—disaster. Again.”

“But hey,” Lily said, nudging Kate’s foot under the table, “you didn’t slam the door the next night.”

Kate didn’t deny it. She just leaned further into Tyler, her fingers slipping into his. “He wore me down.”

“I’m very persistent,” Tyler said with a wink.

“Persistent,” Dexter echoed. “That’s one word for it.”

“Obsessed,” Boone added.

“Hopeless,” said Javi.

“Lucky,” Kate said, her voice quieter, but with a softness that made the table fall briefly silent. Then she looked up at him. “You are lucky I saved you.”

Tyler grinned, leaning down to kiss the top of her head. “I knew it was love the minute you threatened my life.”

The team groaned and threw napkins at them, laughter rising again.

“Get a room,” Lily called.

“Preferably one without a tornado warning,” Boone added.

But even amid the teasing, none of them missed how Kate and Tyler stayed close — the kind of close that only comes after facing down wind and wreckage and still choosing each other every time.

The motel was quiet, the hum of the ice machine in the hallway the only sound as Kate unlocked their room door and stepped inside. The scent of ozone still lingered faintly from a distant storm hours ago, but here, under the soft flicker of a lamp, the world finally felt still.

Kate toed off her boots and collapsed backward onto the bed, arms flopping out like a starfish.

Tyler shut the door behind him and chuckled. “That good, huh?”

“I am full of pizza and judgment from my coworkers,” she mumbled, eyes closed. “I have no energy left.”

“Judgment?” he said, grinning as he sat beside her. “I think they were impressed we’re still alive after that motel pool incident.”

She cracked one eye open. “I still have flashbacks. But you were amazing. I was half expecting you to make jokes the whole time. ‘Don’t worry, Kate, I’m CPR certified,’” she mimicked, deepening her voice. “Meanwhile, you raced to save that mother and daughter and then protected me.”

Tyler laughed, then reached over to gently brush her hair back from her face. “Hey. I got out. I always do.”

She opened both eyes this time, watching him in the low light. “You ever think about how weird this is? Us, I mean. A year ago, I thought you were the most arrogant idiot I’d ever met.”

He raised his eyebrows. “And now?”

“Now,” she said slowly, reaching up to run her fingers down his jaw, “you’re my arrogant idiot.”

He pretended to be deeply moved, pressing a hand to his chest. “You really know how to romance a guy.”

They both laughed, and the moment softened. Tyler leaned down, their foreheads touching, and everything got quiet again.

“No tornadoes tonight,” he whispered.

Kate nodded, eyes fluttering shut for a second. “I like this part better. After the noise. When it’s just us.”

He kissed her — soft, slow — like he had all the time in the world. When they pulled apart, she stayed close, tucked under his arm, her hand resting on his chest.

“I’m glad you slammed that door in my face,” he murmured.

She snorted. “You’re a liar.”

“True. But if you hadn’t, you wouldn’t have surprised me so much. Wouldn’t have kept me guessing. And I wouldn’t have chased you halfway across Tornado Alley.”

“You didn’t chase me.”

“Oh, I absolutely did.”

She smiled, eyes closing again as she settled against him. “Fine. Maybe a little.”

Outside, wind rustled the motel’s old curtains. Somewhere far off, thunder rolled harmlessly in the distance. But in here, the storm had passed.

And in each other’s arms, Kate and Tyler found the kind of peace that even the strongest winds couldn’t touch.

The morning sun, already bright, streamed through the gap in the motel curtains, painting a stripe of warm light across the rumpled bed. Kate stirred first, blinking against the brightness before burrowing deeper into the pillow, which smelled faintly of Tyler’s aftershave. She felt loose-limbed and content, the lingering echoes of the previous night’s laughter and quiet intimacy still humming in her bones.

A soft groan from beside her signaled Tyler’s waking. He stretched, a low rumble in his chest, and then his arm found her, pulling her closer.

“Morning,” he mumbled, his voice thick with sleep.

“Mmm,” Kate hummed in response, not bothering to open her eyes fully. “Did we survive the night without anyone throwing pizza at us?”

He chuckled, the vibration tickling her back. “Miraculously, yes. Although I think Javi was planning a dawn raid with a super soaker.”

She twisted to face him, propping herself up on one elbow. His hair was a mess, falling across his forehead, and there was a faint red mark on his cheek from the pillow. He looked utterly disarmed, a far cry from the confident, slightly cocky storm chaser she’d first met. And she found she loved this version of him most of all.

“You know,” she said, tracing the line of his jaw with her thumb, “it’s weird, isn’t it? One minute I’m trying to ignore you at the airport, and the next…” She gestured vaguely between them, a soft smile playing on her lips.

He caught her hand, bringing it to his lips. “The next you’re my very annoyed, very brilliant, very beautiful girlfriend.”

“I was not that annoyed,” she corrected, though her eyes twinkled with amusement.

“Oh, you were. You had that little furrow in your brow, and you kept clenching your jaw,” he teased, mimicking her. “It was adorable, actually.”

She swatted lightly at his arm. “You just like a challenge.”

“Maybe a little,” he admitted, his gaze softening. “But you were more than that. You were… are… the most real person I’ve ever met. And you see right through all my B.S.”

Kate snorted. “Someone has to.”

He pulled her closer again, until their foreheads touched. “Seriously though, Kate. I wouldn’t trade any of it. Not the hail, not the close calls, not even the expired protein bar. Because it all led to this.”

She looked into his eyes, and in their depths, she saw not just affection, but a deep, quiet understanding that transcended words. It was the kind of understanding forged in shared adrenaline, in moments of genuine fear, and in the surprising comfort found in the aftermath.

“Me neither, Owens,” she whispered, her voice a little rougher than she intended. “Me neither.”

The motel lot was quiet in that early golden hour hush, everything touched with soft light and dew. Birds chirped in the trees behind the chain-link fence, and the first hints of humidity already clung to the air.

Tyler stood near the open back of the Wrangler’s lead truck, nursing a to-go coffee in a weathered thermos. He watched the sky like he always did — with a reverence most people reserved for cathedrals or fireworks.

Kate stepped up beside him, still tugging her hoodie sleeves down over her hands. Her hair was messy, her boots unlaced, and she looked more at peace than anyone had a right to at 6:30 a.m.

“Clear start,” she murmured.

Tyler nodded. “Might not stay that way.”

“Probably won’t.”

But there was no edge in her voice, just calm — like she could meet the chaos head-on again, as long as he was next to her.

Javi emerged from the motel lobby holding a paper bag and his car keys. “I got bagels, donuts, and like three granola bars that may or may not be from last season’s truck stash.”

“Score,” Boone called, already climbing into the passenger seat.

Lily yawned from the back bench of the truck, head poking out like a tired meerkat. “Tell me we’re not chasing today.”

“No storms until late afternoon,” Dani replied, scanning her tablet. “Plenty of time to pretend we’re normal people.”

Tyler smiled and handed Kate his thermos. “Sip before Javi drinks all the caffeine in Oklahoma.”

She took it, brushed her shoulder against his. “You’re in a good mood.”

“Hard not to be. You didn’t slam a door in my face today.”

Kate smirked and leaned in. “Day’s still young.”

“Fair.”

They climbed into the truck, the doors slamming shut in a familiar rhythm — like the punctuation at the start of a new sentence.

As the convoy pulled out of the lot, tires crunching gravel and laughter filtering out of open windows, the Wranglers rolled toward whatever storm or sunshine waited next.

Kate reached across the seat and found Tyler’s hand. He didn’t say anything. Just squeezed once — steady, warm, like a promise.

Whatever came next, they’d face it the same way they always had.

Together.

The peace of the morning didn't last. By mid-afternoon, the radios were crackling with new alerts, and the familiar hum of anticipation was back in the air. A supercell was brewing to the southwest, and the Wranglers were already mobilizing.

Javi was barking directions, Boone and Dexter were meticulously checking their equipment, and Lily and Dani were packing the last of the food and water supplies into coolers. The motel room was quickly forgotten as the team shifted back into their high-stakes dance with nature.

Kate was double-checking the anemometer readings when Tyler walked up, zipping up his weather-resistant jacket. The easygoing lover of an hour ago was now fully in storm-chase mode, his eyes sharp, his movements precise.

“Ready to dance with another monster?” he asked, a familiar glint in his eye.

Kate tightened the strap of her pack. “Born ready. Just try not to get us stuck in any more motel pools, okay?”

He grinned, that confident, almost cocky grin that had once annoyed her so much. Now, she just found it endearing. “No promises. But if it happens, at least you know I’m CPR certified.”

She rolled her eyes, but a smile touched her lips. “Don’t even think about it.”

As they walked towards their truck, their shoulders brushed, a silent, comforting connection amidst the organized chaos. The Wranglers were a well-oiled machine, each member vital, each knowing their role. But between Kate and Tyler, there was another layer, an unspoken shorthand built on a year of shared experiences and a bond that had blossomed unexpectedly in the eye of the storm.

“Hey, Kate!” Lily called from the truck, already strapping herself in. “Last one to the intercept point buys dinner!”

“You’re on!” Kate yelled back, quickening her pace.

Tyler opened the passenger door for her, and she slid inside, the familiar scent of diesel and electronics filling the cab. He hopped into the driver’s seat, starting the engine with a powerful rumble.

“Hold on tight, Carter,” he said, his eyes scanning the horizon, already looking for the first tell-tale signs of the brewing tempest.

Kate buckled her seatbelt, feeling the familiar rush of adrenaline. She glanced at Tyler, his profile etched against the vast Oklahoma sky. He was focused, a storm chaser through and through. And so was she.

The truck pulled out, joining the others in a convoy heading west, chasing the horizon, chasing the data, chasing the next big storm. They were a team, united by their passion for the unpredictable, and by the unexpected love that had found its way into their lives amidst the chaos.

As the miles melted away beneath the tires, Kate reached over and found Tyler’s hand, lacing her fingers through his. The storms would come, and they would face them, just as they always had. But now, they wouldn’t face them alone. They would face them together.

The road stretched out ahead of them, shimmering in the rising heat as dark, churning clouds began to gather along the horizon. The tension was electric — the kind that sat low in your gut, a silent countdown to something inevitable.

In the truck, the radios came alive with bursts of static and clipped voices.

“Rotation forming near Canton.”
“Shear increasing—gust front tightening.”
“Wranglers, we’re looking at a possible EF3. Intercept window in forty.”

“Copy that,” Tyler responded, adjusting the truck’s course with practiced ease. “We’ll head southeast and try to flank it.”

Kate already had her laptop open, watching the velocity scans update in real-time. “That cell’s gaining strength faster than predicted. We might have a touch-down before we’re in position.”

“Then we’ll get creative,” Tyler said with a glance. “What’s our window?”

“Ten minutes if we floor it,” she replied. “Twelve if you drive like a sane person.”

He smirked and shifted gears. “Guess we’re doing ten.”

Kate shook her head, biting back a smile, then radioed the others. “All Wranglers, Team Alpha rerouting east to flank. We’re pushing hard.”

The wind was picking up now, bending the trees along the highway and sending dust swirling across the fields. Ahead, the sky turned from steel-gray to nearly black, an ominous curtain hanging low over the land. The wall cloud was visible now, a swirling beast crouched over the plains.

“This is it,” Javi’s voice crackled over the radio. “Eyes sharp, everyone. This one’s spinning like it means it.”

From the passenger seat, Kate watched the mesocyclone tighten, the air alive with tension. Then— 

"We’ve got a funnel!” Dani shouted.

“Touchdown confirmed, mile marker 214.”

“There she is,” Tyler breathed.

The twister dropped like a fist from the sky — a narrow rope at first, then widening, thickening as it raked across the open fields with terrifying grace. It was beautiful in the way wild things were beautiful: fierce, untouchable, and full of power.

Tyler pulled the truck off the main road and onto a gravel path, tires kicking up dust. The convoy followed, each vehicle peeling off into position with practiced precision.

“Anemometers up!” Kate called. “Camera’s rolling. Let’s get this data!”

Outside, the wind howled like a living thing. Kate opened her door, crouched low as she set up the probe. Dirt whipped at her face, her ponytail lashing in the wind. Tyler was already out on the other side, planting sensors in the soil, his movements quick and sure despite the looming threat.

The tornado shifted, curving east — closer.

“Kate!” he shouted, pointing. “It’s turning! Back in the truck, now!”

She yanked the probe’s lock into place and ran, vaulting into the passenger seat just as Tyler floored the gas. The truck roared forward, gravel spitting behind them as the tornado veered in, chewing a path across the field they’d just been in.

They hit the road again, the funnel swirling in their rearview like a vengeful ghost.

“Still think we should’ve done twelve minutes?” Tyler panted, glancing at her.

Kate was breathless, eyes wide, but grinning. “Nope. You win. Again.”

“You’re finally learning,” he teased, still riding the high of the intercept.

Over the radio, Boone’s voice came through: “Data’s solid. Everyone accounted for?”

One by one, the team checked in. No damage, no injuries — just hearts pounding and memory cards full of priceless data.

Kate leaned back in her seat, wiping grit from her cheeks. She turned to Tyler, who was still gripping the wheel like it might fly out of his hands.

“Nice driving, Owens.”

He gave her a side-eye. “Nice running, Carter.”

They shared a long, adrenaline-drunk laugh.

Outside, the storm was already beginning to dissolve into rain curtains and distant thunder. The worst had passed.

Kate reached into the backseat, grabbed a protein bar, and handed it to him.

“Still expired?” he asked, eyeing the wrapper like it might bite him.

Kate smirked, settling into her seat with the kind of exhaustion that only came after outrunning a tornado. “Only by... six months. Tops.”

Tyler tore it open anyway and took a dramatic bite, chewing with mock intensity. “Tastes like cardboard and regret.”

“Sounds like your type,” she said, nudging him with her knee.

He raised an eyebrow. “I thought I was your type.”

“You were more of a slow burn,” she replied, cracking a window to let the storm-chilled air drift in. “Like a really annoying cold front that eventually makes you wear socks.”

Tyler barked out a laugh and tossed the half-eaten bar into the cupholder. “Wow. You’re really keeping the romance alive today.”

Kate looked over at him, brushing a bit of debris off his shoulder. “Hey, I gave you my last almost-edible snack. That’s basically a love letter in this job.”

“Good point.” He paused, the grin slipping into something softer. “Thanks for trusting me out there.”

She held his gaze for a second longer than usual. “Always.”

Over the radio, Javi’s voice crackled again, this time lighter. “Wranglers, regroup at the gas station off 385. Let’s debrief and grab something that isn’t expired. Over.”

Dani chimed in next: “If they’re out of donuts, I’m flipping a table.”

“Copy that,” Kate said into her mic. “See you there.”

Tyler turned the truck onto the county road, the storm retreating behind them like a bad memory. In its place: pink-gold light filtering through the clouds and the first hints of sunset streaking across the sky.

“I gotta say,” he murmured, glancing at her, “dodging tornadoes and flirting with you in the same day? Peak career moment.”

Kate rolled her eyes again — but she was smiling. “You think this was flirting?”

His hand found hers again on the console, fingers intertwining like it was second nature. “No. This was surviving. Flirting’s what I do when there’s not a funnel cloud breathing down our necks.”

She let out a slow breath, eyes tracking the horizon. “Well, survive with me a little longer, and maybe I’ll let you flirt later.”

Tyler grinned, tapping the steering wheel in rhythm with his racing heart. “Deal.”

The Wranglers’ trucks gathered in the distance, headlights flickering like fireflies in the coming dusk. Tomorrow would bring another chase. Another sky. Another monster.

But for now, in the calm after the storm, Kate and Tyler had what mattered: each other. Steady hands, shared laughter, and the road ahead. Together. Always together.

The Wranglers had claimed a block of rooms at a roadside motel just outside Fairview - one of those squat, weathered places with paint peeling off the railings and vending machines older than some of the interns back NOAA.

Most of the team had gathered near the trucks, perched on coolers and tailgates, passing around drinks and bags of chips under a buzzing parking lot light. Boone had commandeered the Bluetooth speaker. Javi was holding court with an exaggerated retelling of the intercept, and someone was already laughing hard enough to choke.

Kate stepped outside Room 6, tying her damp hair up into a loose bun. She spotted the rest of the team out in the lot and turned to where Tyler was leaning against the motel’s faded brick wall.

“Come on,” she said, gesturing with her head. “You don’t want to hear Boone’s heroic version of how he saved the gear while screaming like a banshee?”

Tyler smiled, but didn’t move. “Nah. Not tonight.”

She squinted at him. “You okay?”

He pushed off the wall and stepped closer, his tone quieter now. “I just… wanted you to myself for a little while.”

Kate arched an eyebrow. “Is this your way of asking for uninterrupted make-out time? Because you’re getting better at subtlety.”

He grinned but shook his head. “No. Well, yes — I mean, not just that.” He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small box. “I know tomorrow’s technically the day, but I didn’t want to wait.”

Kate blinked. “Wait—what day?”

His brows lifted. “Wow. I’m offended. A whole year of dating and you forget our anniversary?”

Her jaw dropped in slow motion. “Wait. What? That was tomorrow?”

He laughed at her expression. “Relax, I’m not mad. Just thought… we’ve had enough surprises in parking lots. Maybe this one could be a good one.”

He handed her the box.

Kate hesitated, then opened it — inside was a delicate silver necklace, simple and clean, with a small charm shaped like a storm cell, complete with tiny etched spirals that caught the light.

Her mouth parted slightly. “Tyler…”

He shrugged one shoulder, suddenly sheepish. “I saw it a while back. Figured you’d either love it or roll your eyes and call it cheesy.”

“I love it,” she said, her voice softer now. “God. And I didn’t even—” She stopped, then glanced toward her duffel bag sitting just inside their motel room. “Actually… hang on.”

She ducked into the room and returned seconds later with a narrow, gift-wrapped box that looked like it had survived the inside of a chase van for weeks. She handed it to him, cheeks faintly pink.

“I was going to wait until tomorrow morning,” she said, “but, well. We’re doing this now, apparently.”

Tyler tore the paper back with a grin, revealing a rugged, storm-proof watch — dark steel casing, a durable strap, and a back engraving that read:

“Still standing. Still chasing. – K”

He stared at it for a long moment, like it had just hit him harder than any funnel cloud ever could. “Kate…”

“It’s ugly enough to survive you,” she said, teasing but sincere. “And now you’ll stop checking your phone in the middle of a chase to see what time it is.”

He slipped it on, adjusting the fit, still looking at her like she’d just handed him the sky.

Then his voice turned low. “You know… I don’t care that it’s a crappy motel. Or that we smell like road dust and adrenaline. I just wanted this night with you.”

Kate stepped forward, looping her arms around his neck. “You’ve got it.”

Their lips met — slow this time, unhurried, like the storm had finally passed and all that was left was the quiet after. She let the weight of the day fall away in that kiss, in the warmth of him, the steadiness.

They pulled each other into the room, the door clicking shut behind them.

Inside, the light was dim and the sheets were scratchy and the wallpaper peeled at the corners. But none of that mattered.

What mattered was the way he looked at her like she was the eye of every storm he’d ever chased. What mattered was how her hands fit perfectly against his chest, how his touch was reverent, and how laughter melted into something deeper, something more certain.

It wasn’t flashy. It wasn’t polished.

It was real.

They celebrated a year not just of being together — but surviving together. Growing together. Choosing each other in every calm and every chaos.

And that night — in that nothing-special room, with wind rattling the windows and the faint hum of the vending machine outside — Kate Carter and Tyler Owens made a memory neither of them would ever forget.

A year ago, it had started with a slammed door and a near miss.

Tonight, it began again — with love.

And no matter what storms tomorrow brought, they were ready.

Together.

Golden light slipped through the crooked blinds, catching on dust motes and the faint steam rising from the Styrofoam cup of motel coffee balanced on the nightstand. The world outside was stirring — engines idling, a radio playing faint country static — but inside Room 6, everything was still.

Kate stirred first, slowly blinking awake, her body deliciously sore in that not-entirely-from-chasing-storms kind of way. Tyler was still half-asleep, his arm flopped across her waist, hair a mess, face tucked against the pillow.

She shifted slightly, careful not to wake him, and glanced at the clock. 8:46 AM.

“Crap,” she whispered, pushing herself up on one elbow. “We were supposed to meet the team at 8.”

Tyler groaned into the mattress. “They’ll survive. Probably.”

Kate rolled her eyes, but she was smiling — especially when she noticed she was still wearing his shirt, oversized and rumpled, with a faded logo from some storm-chaser bar in Kansas. She reached over and tugged gently at his wrist.

“Come on, Weather Boy. Let’s face the consequences.”

He cracked one eye open. “If Boone makes one comment about my shirt, I swear…”

“You mean my shirt,” she said, climbing out of bed and tossing him a clean one from her bag.

They dressed quickly — or as quickly as two people who’d rather be tangled in each other than in boots could manage — and stepped out into the sunlit parking lot where the Wranglers were already loading up.

Dani was sipping a gas station coffee like it personally offended her. Dexter was half asleep in the passenger seat of their truck. Javi and Lily were arguing over whose turn it was to drive the next leg.

And Boone, naturally, spotted them first.

“Well, well, well,” he drawled, leaning back against the hood of his truck like he’d been waiting all morning just for this. “Look who finally decided to rejoin the land of the living.”

Javi glanced up, saw Kate in Tyler’s shirt, and smirked. “Oh, they were alive. Just… busy.”

Lily nudged Boone. “Do not say it.”

Boone grinned wider. “Hey, I’m just saying — she’s wearing his shirt, he’s wearing a proud grin, and they’re forty-five minutes late. I can connect dots.”

Kate raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “Really going for the Pulitzer this morning, huh?”

“Gotta keep my investigative journalism skills sharp,” Boone replied. “You know, in case storm chasing doesn’t work out.”

Tyler slung his arm casually over Kate’s shoulders, clearly unfazed. “Sorry we’re late. I had… time management issues.”

Kate deadpanned, “He means he wouldn’t stop snoring.”

“That too,” Tyler admitted, kissing the side of her head.

Dexter finally stirred from the truck window. “Do we get to eat now, or are we still making jokes about their sex life?”

“Both,” Dani muttered, opening the tailgate cooler. “Multitasking.”

Kate shook her head, biting back a smile as she leaned into Tyler’s side. “This is your fault.”

He smirked, brushing a lock of hair off her cheek. “Totally worth it.”

The team loaded up, still teasing, still laughing, still the mismatched, chaos-ready family they’d become. As they pulled back onto the highway, radio static humming and clouds lazily building in the distance, Kate looked down at the charm resting against her collarbone — the tiny, silver storm cell shining in the sun.

Tyler caught her looking and gave her hand a quiet squeeze between the seats.

She squeezed back, then reached into the glovebox to check the radar.

The skies were shifting again.

But whatever the day brought — wind, hail, or something stronger — they’d be ready for it.

Late or not, they always found their way back to the storm.

Together.

The flat plains stretched out endlessly in front of them, painted in hues of gray and green as the storm began to gather. Towering clouds swirled like giants waking from slumber, their undersides darkening by the minute. The sky was shifting — the kind of shifting only chasers could read. And Kate read it like scripture.

“This one’s big,” she murmured, scanning the radar tablet between them.

Tyler’s eyes flicked to the screen, then back to the growing wall of clouds ahead. “Javi thinks it could go EF3, maybe higher. Rotation’s tightening fast.”

“Too fast,” she said under her breath, tapping on the screen to highlight the movement. “Look at the hook. It’s already dropping pressure like a rock.”

He gave a low whistle. “Hell of a way to spend an anniversary.”

Kate laughed once, dry and genuine. “This is exactly how we’d spend it.”

The radios crackled.

Javi: “Wranglers, this is Control. Spotters just confirmed rotation southwest of Red Rock. We're changing intercept point. Boone, you’re leading west. Owens and Carter, drop south and flank. We'll coordinate at 36.902 N, -97.145 W.”

“Copy that,” Tyler said into the mic, already turning off onto a smaller farm road.

Kate grabbed the dash to brace as the truck hit gravel. “Terrain’s rough here,” she warned. “We’ll need to be smart. Cell’s moving faster than predicted.”

Tyler nodded, jaw tightening in concentration. “We’ve done worse.”

They had. But this one felt different. The air was heavier. Charged. The silence between radio calls was filled with the low, distant growl of thunder — the kind that rolled through your bones.

“Rotation tightening even more,” Kate said, voice quickening. “Ty, I think this one’s dropping soon.”

“Hang on.”

He accelerated. The truck kicked up dust and pebbles, barreling toward the rapidly darkening horizon. To the west, lightning stitched across the sky, illuminating the edges of the mesocyclone — a perfect, terrible spiral, a masterpiece of destruction.

“Kate,” Tyler said suddenly, voice quieter.

She looked over, eyes narrowing. “What?”

“If anything happens out there—”

She cut him off. “Don’t.”

“I just mean—”

“I know what you mean,” she said, softer now. “But don’t. We go in, we get the data, and we get out. Same as always.”

His hand found hers again, even with the wheel bouncing under his grip. Just one squeeze.

Then—radio chatter erupted.

Boone: “Tornado on the ground! Southwest quadrant, near the county line—”

Lily: “It’s huge! Jesus, it’s already roping—”

Javi: “Visual confirmed! All teams, move into final positions! Owens, Carter, you're in prime intercept. We need that probe deployed now!”

Kate’s hands were already on the equipment, flipping switches, double-checking sensors.

“ETA?” Tyler asked, foot pressing harder on the gas.

“Two minutes to drop site. Wind’s gonna be brutal.”

“You ever miss working in an office?”

She grinned without looking up. “Not once.”

The funnel dropped into full view seconds later, a monstrous column tearing its way across the open plain, throwing dirt and debris into the sky like confetti. It was beautiful. It was horrifying.

And it was heading right toward them.

“Now!” Kate shouted.

Tyler slammed the brakes, swerving slightly to keep the truck upright on the slick grass. Kate leapt out, bracing against the wind as she hauled the probe from the back, the sleek black canister already humming with sensors.

“Thirty seconds!” she yelled.

Tyler was beside her, helping guide the probe onto solid ground. Dirt whipped around them, rain beginning to fall in needles. The roar of the tornado was growing louder, closer, alive.

“Kate!” he shouted over the noise.

She looked up, breathing hard, hair plastered to her face.

“If this thing lifts, we run. No data’s worth it!”

She nodded, eyes locked with his. “Together.”

They scrambled back into the truck, slamming the doors just as the first debris began to hit — tumbleweeds, branches, a distant fencepost skipping like a thrown dart across the horizon.

The probe lit up on Kate’s screen. “We got it,” she breathed. “Ty, we’re getting a full core sample.”

He looked over at her, wild-eyed and breathless. “Hell yeah we are.”

The tornado passed just east of them, close enough to rattle the chassis and make the radio go dead for a full five seconds. Then, like a ghost, it moved on — dancing away across the prairie, leaving only silence and stunned adrenaline in its wake.

Kate exhaled slowly, staring at the fading shape through the windshield.

Tyler reached over, pulling her close without a word. They just sat there, pressed together, letting the moment settle.

The storm was past — this one, at least.

She turned her face into his shoulder. “Happy anniversary.”

He laughed into her hair. “Best one yet.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

The whir of rotor blades grew louder overhead — a dull, rhythmic thunder that vibrated through the air and the broken earth. The helicopter crested over the tree line like an angel of salvation, red lights flashing against the gray sky as it descended.

Javi and Boone waved in the clearing they’d made around the truck with flares and strips of reflective tarp. The moment the skids hit the grass, medics poured out — two flight nurses, a paramedic, and the attending trauma specialist from Stillwater General.

“We’ve got two inside,” Dani called, pointing. “Both restrained. Truck rolled twice, at least. Airbags deployed. Initial signs of concussion and trauma.”

The medic closest to the passenger side crouched fast and low. “Let’s do the male first. Driver-side access looks better. I want eyes on his airway before we risk moving anything.”

Tyler stirred as the door was partially forced open with a hydraulic spreader.

“…Kate?” His voice was hoarse, barely audible through dried blood and grit. “Is she…”

“Easy, bud,” one of the paramedics said gently. “You were in a rollover. We’re gonna get you out, alright? But I need you to stay still for me.”

His eyes fluttered, unfocused. “Kate—she—she was bleeding, she…”

“We’ll take care of her too, but right now I need you to stay awake.”

One medic placed a c-collar around his neck while another checked his vitals: pulse weak but present, BP low, shallow breathing. Blood clung to his hairline and soaked his sleeve, where the broken arm was already swelling beneath torn fabric.

“Likely radius or humerus fracture,” the flight nurse muttered. “Prep an IV. We need fluids started. He’s hypotensive.”

Another slid a pulse oximeter onto his finger. “O2 is dipping — 89 and falling. Get the mask.”

Tyler blinked slowly, trying to twist his head toward the passenger seat.

“K-Kate—”

He tried to reach for her.

“No movement, sir. Stay still. You’ll make it worse.”

And then the voice from the passenger side—low, grave—cut through the chaos:

“She’s unresponsive.”

The words felt like a thunderclap.

Tyler flinched. His eyes widened despite the haze. “No—no, she was breathing. She was.”

“She still is,” the second medic clarified quickly. “But she's not responding to stimuli. Head trauma. We’ve got obvious blunt-force injury on the right frontal. Pupils are unequal. GCS is six, maybe five.”

“Don’t say that,” Tyler rasped, panic rising. “Don’t say that.”

“Prep the backboard,” the trauma nurse snapped. “We need a clean extrication, not a rushed one. Her c-spine needs to be secured now.”

Javi stood back, fists clenched, trying to breathe through the knot in his chest. He watched as Kate was braced with a cervical collar and carefully lifted from the wreckage on a rigid backboard, her head strapped in tight, a clear oxygen mask sealed to her face.

“No visible chest trauma,” one medic called. “No subcutaneous air. No paradoxical movement.”

“But that hematoma is massive,” the nurse said grimly. “Skull impact like that, we need to assume internal bleeding.”

They placed her on the stretcher, bolting the spinal hardware into place as vitals were shouted off and recorded.

BP 104 over 60.

O2 93 with mask.

Pupils still unequal.

Still no response.

Tyler’s breathing had grown ragged, shallow.

One nurse crouched beside him as the medics splinted his arm and loaded fluids into a running IV. “We’re flying you out with her. You both need imaging, now.”

“I need to stay with her,” he mumbled.

“You will.”

But even as they wheeled him toward the chopper, eyes fixed on Kate’s unconscious form, he couldn’t stop repeating it — hoarse, broken, barely a whisper now:

“She was fine. She was fine. She told me we’d be okay…”

The chopper doors closed with a loud clang, and within seconds, the medevac lifted into the bruised sky — its blades beating out a rhythm of desperation as it carried them toward the unknown.

Back on the ground, the Wranglers stood in the wind-blown grass, stunned and shaken.

Boone finally broke the silence.

“Get me a damn coffee,” he muttered. “’Cause I’m not sleeping till I know they’re both alive.”

Javi didn’t say anything. He just stared at the sky — eyes following the helicopter like he could will it to fly faster — and prayed.

The world tilted sideways. Everything smelled like smoke and blood and ozone.

Tyler's vision came and went in bursts — like a camera shutter malfunctioning. One second he saw the bruised sky through broken glass, the next it was boots in mud, hands on him, voices yelling over the wind. Every sound was muffled, like his ears were full of water.

He tried to move, but the pain stopped him cold. A white-hot bolt shot down his left arm — broken, he realized vaguely. And then came the worst feeling of all:

He couldn’t get to her.

“Kate—” The name cracked from his throat like glass underfoot. “Kate…”

“Sir, stay still,” a medic’s voice barked near his ear.

They were everywhere — pressing, moving, strapping. Plastic snapped around his neck — the c-collar — suffocating him. Panic flared. The collar forced his chin up at an unnatural angle, locking his view into the sky.

No. No, I can’t—

“I need you to relax,” the medic said again. “You're tachycardic. We need to lower your BP.”

“I need—” he tried, but couldn’t draw a full breath. His ribs hurt. Airbag? Probably. Every inhale caught on a stitch of fire beneath his sternum. Tight, like someone had cinched his lungs with wire. Or maybe it’s her. Maybe it’s just Kate.

He tried to turn his head but couldn’t. He strained his eyes, desperate to see her.

There.

Movement.

Her stretcher. Her body. Strapped down, pale, unmoving, her face masked in clear plastic and streaked with dried blood. Her hair was soaked and matted, the blonde too dark with red. A medic was speaking into a radio. Tyler couldn’t hear all of it — just bits.

“Female, late-20s. Unresponsive at scene... severe head trauma, frontal hematoma... pupils unequal... GCS five on initial assessment... signs of intracranial bleed likely.”

The words crashed over him harder than the tornado ever could.

Head trauma.

Unresponsive.

His chest seized. He tried to sit up. The straps dug into him. A medic pushed him down again.

“Stop fighting, Owens. You’re making it worse.”

“I have to hold her—”

“You can’t.”

His breath came shallow. Not from the injury, not anymore — from the fear. Pure, concentrated fear.

She looked so small. Even strapped to that backboard, she looked too still, too quiet.

And he was stuck. Trapped. Immobilized. The c-collar was a prison. His broken arm was splinted, and an IV was in his good one now, but none of it mattered because they were treating him, and not her—and he couldn’t do anything.

A sharp stab in his bicep — morphine. Cooling, numbing.

He didn’t want it.

“I need to hear her voice,” he mumbled, barely able to push air out. “I need her to say something. Please…”

The medic near his head gave a glance toward Kate’s team. Then softer, he said, “She’s still fighting, man. Let us do our jobs.”

The stretcher jostled. They were loading him into the chopper. The world bounced and shifted and still, all he saw was Kate. Her fingers, scraped and still. Her lips, parted just slightly under the oxygen mask. No sound.

No movement.

The gurney locked into place. A nurse leaned over him, checking his vitals again.

“BP’s holding steady. O2 climbing. Good response to fluids,” she murmured to the trauma doctor. “But he’s losing focus.”

No, Tyler wanted to say. Not losing focus. Just her. Only her.

He craned his eyes again as the helicopter doors began to close.

One last glimpse.

The flight nurse was placing leads on Kate’s chest. Another injected something into her IV.

“She’s hypotensive. Pupils still unequal. Prep for a CT the second we land. Page neurosurgery.”

Tyler closed his eyes. The hum of the blades overtook everything. Still, he felt the pressure in his chest — too much.

Not from the crash.

Not from the airbag.

From her.

The voice that grounded him every day now gone silent in a way that terrified him more than the funnel ever could.

The cabin roared with engine noise, the chop of blades pounding through Tyler’s skull. He was strapped down — body immobilized, neck braced, IV lines in both arms, monitors hooked up to his chest. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe right. And he couldn’t see her.

Only the edge of Kate’s stretcher was visible across the narrow aisle — her form shrouded by flight medics, wires, and silence.

That silence was killing him.

“BP’s rising—180 over 110!” one of the medics monitoring Tyler shouted.

“Sir! Tyler—stay calm,” a flight nurse said, leaning into his line of sight, her voice cutting through the din. “You’re hypertensive. We need you to breathe. Deep, slow—can you do that for me?”

He barely heard her. The collar on his neck felt like a vice. His chest burned with each shallow breath. Ribs, probably. Maybe a puncture. He didn’t care.

All he cared about was her.

His eyes locked on the medic across the aisle, hunched over Kate’s body. A flashlight beam flicked across her pupils. The medic didn’t smile. Didn’t nod. Just turned to her colleague and said low, urgent:

“Still GCS five. No change. Right side’s sluggish. Her BP’s unstable. Keep pushing fluids. We need to get her intubated at the ER if she drops again.”

Tyler’s heart jackhammered against the stretcher.

“No, no, no—Kate—” he gasped, his voice shredded. He couldn’t sit up, couldn’t reach her, couldn’t fix this.

“Tyler!” the nurse barked. “You're spiking. Listen to me, you’re going to code if you keep this up. Look at me!”

He tried — he really did — but the panic was flooding everything. He couldn’t get enough air. The straps were too tight. The noise was too loud. And Kate wasn’t waking up.

Another medic adjusted his IV. “Push two of labetalol. Drop that pressure before he strokes out.”

“I—I need to be with her,” he said, voice cracking. “She’s all I have. You don’t understand—she’s—”

“We do understand,” the nurse said firmly, placing a gloved hand on his shoulder. “That’s why we’re not letting you die in this helicopter. Deep breath. Right now.”

The meds hit fast. His heart slowed, reluctantly. The jackhammering eased, the lights around the cabin dulled slightly. But the dread—the cold, suffocating weight of fear—remained.

His gaze drifted back to Kate.

She hadn’t moved. Hadn’t blinked. Her face, usually so expressive and full of fire, was now bloodied and blank. A shell.

No sarcasm. No eye-roll. No, “Nice driving, Owens.”

Just… nothing.

One of the medics gave an update through a headset.

“ETA ten minutes. Patient one stable, responding to medication. Patient two—still unresponsive. Suspected traumatic brain injury, frontal lobe, possible midline shift.”

Tyler swallowed hard, throat burning.

Midline shift. He’d heard that term before. A big one meant pressure. Bleeding. Damage.

Sometimes permanent. Sometimes worse.

The tightness returned — different from before. Not physical. Just heartbreak, curling inward until it squeezed.

“Hang on, Katie,” he whispered, a tear slipping into his hairline. “Please don’t leave me.”

She didn’t answer.

The storm might’ve passed, but inside the helicopter, all Tyler Owens could feel was the crushing weight of what might come next.

And for the first time since the day he met her, he had no idea how to weather it.

The ambulance doors burst open with the screech of hydraulic hinges. A voice shouted “Two incoming, non-MVC, tornado-related. One critical, one guarded. ETA zero!” as gurneys flew down the corridor.

Fluorescent lights flashed overhead in a blur — too bright, too fast. Tyler couldn’t turn his head, couldn’t sit up, but he could hear everything.

“Patient One: male, 30s, open fracture left humerus, chest wall trauma, concussion suspected—was hypertensive in air, stabilized en route.”

“Patient Two: female, 20s, GCS five, head trauma with suspected herniation. No pupil response on the right. BP dropping. Bag her! Get neuro paged now!”

Tyler’s eyes, half-lidded from the sedatives they didn’t want to give him, tracked Kate’s gurney across the trauma bay as it slid out of view behind a curtain. A sea of blue and green scrubs surrounded her, buzzing like hornets.

“Kate—” he rasped. A nurse pressed a mask to his face, her voice calm but firm.

“You need to relax. Let us help you.”

But he couldn’t relax. Not with that word.

Herniation.

He blinked hard, a tear sliding sideways into his ear. His head throbbed from its own impact, but that pain barely registered. His thoughts raced through what he knew — from training, from past concussions, from every terrifying article he'd ever read after a bad hit.

Unequal pupils. Decreasing GCS. Dropping BP.

It wasn’t just a concussion. It was mass effect. It was pressure on her brainstem. It was losing her.

And it was happening now.

“Neuro’s on the way!”

“She needs imaging yesterday—CT now!”

“Push mannitol. Let’s try to bring that ICP down!”

Tyler strained against the neck brace as the voices behind Kate’s curtain grew louder. She still hadn’t made a sound. His entire body screamed to go to her — to touch her hand, to say something real, something hers, before the sterile white of the trauma room swallowed her whole.

“Please—let me see her,” he whispered, tearing up again. “I know what this is. You have to let me see her.”

But the words barely came out. The panic hit again — blood pressure spiking fast — and the monitor beside him screamed in response.

“BP 190 systolic. He’s agitating again.”

“Administer 2mg Ativan IV push—now.”

The nurse leaned close, eyes kind. “You’re going to rest now, Tyler. We’ll take care of her. I promise.”

He shook his head, barely.

“She’s my everything,” he said, slurred, the words trailing off.

The sedation finally pulled him under.

The last thing he saw was a flash of Kate’s boot from beneath the curtain.

And the last thing he heard was the trauma surgeon’s voice:
“If that bleed shifts even a millimeter more—she won’t wake up.”

Darkness took him.

“GCS five, right pupil non-reactive, systolic in the 80s and falling. No signs of lateral response—possible posturing earlier in transport.”

Kate Carter lay motionless on the trauma gurney, her face streaked with blood and road grit, IVs already running wide open. A trauma surgeon leaned over her head, fingers checking reflexes with practiced speed.

“No eye tracking. She’s not localizing.”

“Get the scanner prepped. I want a head CT in five—no, three minutes.”

“BP is 78 over 40. She's tanking—vasopressors?”

“Yes, now. Start dopamine, titrate to effect.”

“Saline wide open. She’s going cold.”

Nurses moved fast — gloved hands flying — cutting away the remnants of Kate’s torn shirt, attaching leads, checking breath sounds, suctioning blood from the corner of her mouth. The sound of the heart monitor ticking too slowly echoed under the bright lights.

“Her right pupil’s blown. Midline shift is almost certain,” the attending neurosurgeon said grimly, just entering.

A resident handed him the initial neuro report. “GCS hasn’t improved since arrival. It’s head trauma, likely epidural or subdural hematoma. We’re guessing frontal or parietal. Her vitals are falling off a cliff.”

“We need to intubate. Bag her until we get the tube in. Prep for rapid sequence.”

The anesthesiologist was already there, lifting her chin, calling out meds. “Etomidate and sux ready. On my count—”

Kate’s chest rose in shallow gasps, ribs barely expanding.

One breath. Then two. Then silence.

“She's crashing.”

“Start compressions! Right now—code blue in Bay 2!”

The heart monitor flatlined for a second — a moment too long.

“Charging to 200—clear!”

Thump.

The jolt ran through her body like lightning. A second of nothing — then the rhythm came back, slow and thready.

“Sinus brady. We’ve got something.”

The team exhaled. Barely.

“Intubation complete. She's ventilating.”

“Push mannitol and hypertonic saline—now. We need to reduce intracranial pressure before we lose her again.”

“CT’s ready!” someone called from the hallway.

“Move her now. Trauma team, prep the OR. She’s going straight to surgery if we see a bleed.”

Two nurses flanked the gurney as the doors to the trauma bay swung open.

As they wheeled her out, the neurosurgeon barked over his shoulder:

“If there’s a subdural, she’s got twenty minutes. Maybe less. We cut, or she doesn't wake up.”

The swinging doors slammed closed behind them.

And Kate’s fight for her life continued.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

6 hours post-op

The room was quiet—eerily so—save for the rhythmic beeping of the monitors and the faint hiss of the ventilator cycling through its breaths.

Kate lay perfectly still beneath the pale hospital blanket, a thick gauze dressing wrapped neatly over the right side of her head where a section of skull had been carefully removed. A drainage tube snaked from beneath the edge of the gauze, steadily collecting excess cerebrospinal fluid and post-op blood into a bulb reservoir that a nurse checked every 15 minutes without fail.

Lines crisscrossed her arms—saline, antibiotics, sedation, seizure prophylaxis. Her vitals were stable, for now. Blood pressure hovering around 112/72. Oxygen saturation at 98%. Intracranial pressure holding at 16 mmHg—still elevated, but no longer dangerously so.

A neurosurgery resident stepped in, tablet in hand, flanked by Dr. Malik.

“Pupils?” the attending asked without looking up.

“Equal, sluggishly reactive to light. That’s new—was unresponsive pre-op.”

Dr. Malik finally looked at her. His eyes, guarded all day, narrowed in sharp surprise. “She’s localizing now?”

“Yes, sir. With light pressure to the left hand.”

The nurse, who’d been at Kate’s bedside since the moment she arrived, nodded quickly. “I saw it too. Gentle withdrawal. Deliberate. First time since we brought her in.”

A tense silence passed, the kind that comes right before a verdict. Dr. Malik finally spoke.

“She shouldn’t be doing that yet.” His voice wasn’t skeptical—just stunned. “That’s… promising.”

The nurse smiled faintly, still pressing the cuff around Kate’s arm to record another BP reading. “Told you. She’s a fighter.”

“She had a contusion, midline shift, and a brief posturing episode pre-op,” the resident added. “We didn’t expect neurological response this soon.”

“We didn’t expect survival this soon,” Dr. Malik muttered. “But I’m not arguing.”

“Should we try reducing sedation?”

“Not yet. Let the brain rest. But mark every change in her neuro checks. Every hour. If she opens her eyes—”

“I’ll page immediately,” the nurse promised, already adjusting the chart board on the wall behind her.

Kate lay quietly under the layers of sterile tape and sensors, her fingers twitching once—faint, but real. Not a seizure. Not a spasm. A response.

Dr. Malik turned, voice lower now. “Let Tyler Owens know. If he’s stable, tell him she’s responding. Carefully. He might not believe it.”

The nurse gave a short nod. “He won’t just believe it,” she said. “He’ll breathe again.”

The room was dimly lit, the overhead light muted by the privacy curtain drawn halfway around Tyler’s bed. The beep of the cardiac monitor had grown increasingly erratic—fast, sharp, arrhythmic. His chest heaved under the oxygen mask, despite sedation still hanging on him like a fog.

Tyler Owens was not stable.

“Heart rate’s 133 and climbing. BP’s 165 over 101,” the nurse called, checking the monitor with trembling fingers.

“He’s diaphoretic and tachypneic,” said Dr. Avery, the cardiologist, voice tight. “What’s his troponin?”

“Initial draw came back slightly elevated—0.08, trending up. Second draw just came back at 0.19.”

“Shit.” Avery pressed his stethoscope to Tyler’s chest. “Murmur’s louder now. Get another EKG. Let’s confirm ischemia. We’re not losing him to stress-induced cardiomyopathy on my watch.”

“He’s post-concussive, bilateral chest contusions from the airbag, fractured ulna,” a trauma resident reminded. “Do we sedate further?”

“Not if we can help it,” Avery muttered, snapping off his gloves. “He’s already under Ativan and fentanyl. Anymore and we risk respiratory suppression. But if his pressure spikes again—”

A long beep interrupted them.

Tyler groaned faintly, lips chapped, sweat running into the bruises on his face. His fingers twitched against the bedrail, and when he stirred, his first word—muffled and ragged—was hoarse:

“Kate…?”

A nurse stepped close, gently laying a hand on his wrist. “Tyler, you’re okay. You’re in the hospital. We’re taking care of you.”

His eyes fluttered open, glassy and unfocused. “Where…?”

“She’s in surgery,” another nurse said softly. “They’re doing everything they can.”

Tyler’s chest hitched. The machines caught it immediately—alarms chirping as his heart rate climbed to 141.

“Okay, that’s it,” Avery snapped. “Nitro patch now. Get a beta-blocker in his line—metoprolol, 5mg IV push. Let’s drop his cardiac load before he codes.”

Another nurse appeared with the meds, steady-handed as she opened the port. “It’s going in.”

Tyler grimaced. “Can’t—can’t breathe.”

“You can,” Avery said firmly, leaning over him. “Tyler, listen to me. You’ve got bruising over your ribs and a possible cardiac contusion. You’re not having a full heart attack—but you’re damn close. We need you to stay calm.”

“Kate…” Tyler whispered again, his voice breaking like something deeper than bone.

“We’ll tell you as soon as we know more.”

“Pulse’s coming down,” a nurse called. “133… now 126.”

Avery gave a sharp nod. “Good. Run a repeat EKG, and keep him under cardiac monitoring for the next 24 hours. We’ll transfer to ICU if his rhythm breaks again. Draw another troponin in three.”

He glanced at Tyler, whose eyes were still open, barely tracking the movement above him. “Don’t make me sedate you further, Owens. Not unless I have to.”

Tyler didn’t answer. He just stared up at the ceiling with tear-filled eyes—too weak to fight, too scared to rest—counting the seconds until someone would tell him if the love of his life was still breathing.

Shortly after midnight

The air in the waiting room was thick. Not from smoke or dust, like the storms they knew so well—but from silence. The kind that settled like humidity in the chest, crushing the lungs even when nothing was visibly wrong.

Javi stood with his arms folded tightly across his chest, eyes red but dry. Lily sat on the edge of her seat, one leg bouncing so fast it made the vinyl creak. Boone was pacing, for once not making a sound, and Dani sat cross-legged in the corner, hugging a bottle of water she hadn’t opened.

A nurse finally entered, clipboard in hand, followed by a young trauma liaison.

“They’re alive,” the nurse said gently. “But both are critical. I’m going to start with Tyler Owens.”

Everyone leaned forward like they’d been pulled by the same thread.

“He’s currently in a cardiovascular stepdown room, under close monitoring. He sustained significant chest trauma in the crash—airbag contusions, likely cardiac bruising. But his current condition is complicated further by a probable stress-induced cardiac episode. His blood pressure has been volatile and he’s been in tachycardia since he arrived.”

The words hit hard. But it was the next part that made Javi sit down fast.

“He’s at risk of a full cardiac event,” the liaison said, more delicately. “We’re managing it. He’s responding to medication—but the mental trauma is worsening his vitals. We believe… seeing a familiar face might help stabilize him. Just one of you. Ten minutes max.”

The team exchanged looks, unsure who should go—until Boone, quietly for once, said, “It should be Javi.”

Javi blinked. “What?”

“You were his second out there,” Lily said gently. “You knew Kate before any of us. You can get through.”

“Tyler trusts you,” Dani added. “And he’s scared. If Kate can’t talk to him… he needs someone who’ll tell him what she would.”

Javi hesitated only a second more, then nodded. He followed the nurse down a hallway smelling of antiseptic and despair.

The lights were dimmed. The heart monitor was still spiking higher than it should.

Tyler lay pale, bruised, hooked to machines on all sides. Oxygen cannula at his nose. His arm wrapped in a splint. IV lines running steadily into both hands. But it was his eyes—red-rimmed, haunted—that hit Javi the hardest.

“Hey,” Javi said softly.

Tyler turned his head sluggishly. “She’s dead.”

“No,” Javi said, stepping closer. “She’s alive. Post-op. They’re watching for swelling, but she responded to pain. She made it through surgery.”

Tyler's lip trembled, and his whole body shuddered with a breath that hurt to watch.

“I can’t feel my chest.”

“That’s the bruising. The meds. The panic,” Javi said, trying to stay calm for them both. “But Tyler—listen to me. If you give up, she wakes up alone. You hear me?”

Tyler’s gaze was hazy with unshed tears.

“You don’t get to leave her. Not after all that storm-chasing, not after that necklace, not after that anniversary. You stay. She’s going to want to know you’re okay, man. She’ll need you to be okay.”

“I—” Tyler’s throat closed. His heart monitor picked up again.

Javi gripped his hand, carefully avoiding the IV. “Slow your breath. In through the nose. You remember how you talked Kate through those back-to-back tornado hits last spring? You kept her steady. Now it’s your turn.”

The monitor began to slow—incrementally.

“I don’t know how to be without her,” Tyler rasped, voice barely audible.

“You’re not going to have to,” Javi said firmly. “But you have to hold on until she can hold your hand again.”

Tyler’s breathing slowed. Not normal, not relaxed—but not crashing.

Javi didn’t let go. Not even when the nurse came back in and whispered, “Time’s up.”

He leaned close one last time. “She’s going to ask about you the second she opens her eyes. So be here when she does.”

The room was dim despite it being morning. The monitor screens painted faint green shadows across the walls, the only real movement coming from the steady rise and fall of Tyler’s chest beneath the hospital blanket. An oxygen cannula traced over his cheeks. His color was pale, washed out — and nothing like the wind-chapped, sun-warmed Tyler she knew.

Lily paused at the threshold.

It hit her harder than she expected.

Seeing him like this. Wires running from his chest and arm, his heart monitored like a ticking bomb. The team’s golden boy — all charm and chaos and adrenaline — now ghostly quiet and still. Barely clinging to the edge of the storm.

She stepped in, wiping at her eyes with the sleeve of her hoodie, not even pretending to hide the tears anymore. The only sound was the dull whirr of machines and the occasional blip of his heart rate.

“Hey, hotshot,” she whispered, pulling the chair close. “Guess this isn’t how you planned to spend your anniversary, huh?”

She tried to laugh, but it broke halfway out of her throat and came out as a cracked breath. Her hands trembled as she reached out, resting her fingers gently on his wrist, where the IV lines branched like rivers under his skin.

“You scared the hell out of us, Tyler. You and Kate both.”

Her eyes locked onto his face, still slack with exhaustion and sedation. His jaw twitched once — whether from pain or response, she couldn’t tell.

“I know you think she’s gone,” Lily said quietly. “We see it all over you. The way you stopped fighting. The way you’re slipping away from us piece by piece.”

She sniffled, wiping at her cheek again. “But she’s not. She’s still in there. We don’t know how long or what it’s gonna take — but she’s fighting. I believe that. And I know you do too... somewhere in that thick, broken skull of yours.”

Tyler shifted slightly under the blanket. The monitor picked up a flutter — nothing dangerous, just change. But enough that Lily froze for a moment, watching him.

“I get it. You’re tired. You’re hurting. And God, I know you love her more than anything. But if you give up now? If you stop breathing and don’t come back from this? Then what happens when she opens her eyes and you’re not here?”

Her voice broke again — this time, into a sob she couldn’t hold back.

“She’ll never forgive you, Tyler. And neither will we.”

She stood abruptly, the chair scraping softly across the floor. “You are not allowed to check out. Not after everything we’ve been through. Not after how hard you fought to get her to let you in.”

Her voice lowered, trembling. “We still need you. I need you. Javi, Boone, Dani, Dex — hell, even that busted-up old truck needs you. Kate needs you most of all.”

She stepped closer, leaning down near his ear. “So get your shit together and stay alive. You don’t have to move mountains. You don’t have to chase another storm. Just breathe, okay? Just breathe.”

For a moment, all she could hear was the beep… beep… beep of the monitor. Then Tyler shifted again, his brow furrowing ever so slightly.

Lily stared. Her heart pounded.

“I saw that,” she whispered, voice breaking into a smile through the tears. “You hear me. I know you do.”

She placed her hand over his, squeezing once.

“Don’t leave her,” she said again, quieter now. “Don’t leave us.”

And then she just stood there, holding his hand — letting her tears fall freely — hoping something in him would hear her, and hold on.

It’s quiet.

Too quiet.

Not the peaceful kind, not the kind he’s chased across open fields after the storm’s passed. This quiet is suffocating. Heavy. Pressing down on his chest like a weight he can’t throw off.

He can’t move.

He knows he’s in a bed. He knows there’s something clipped to his finger, wires on his chest, tape pulling on his skin. He can hear the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, loud and slow and so far away. Beep. Beep. Beep.

His body is fire and concrete all at once — everything hurts, but he’s trapped in it. Trapped in stillness. Trapped in fear.

Kate.

It slams into him like lightning. Not a memory. A feeling.

Her voice. Her hand. Her blood.

And then nothing.

“Kate…” His mind whispers it, though his lips won’t move.

He remembers her forehead against his. Rain on her skin. The way her voice caught when she said “together.”

Where is she?

Why isn’t she here?

There are voices. One is soft — crying. Lily?

“You’re not allowed to check out.”

The words echo, bending in the silence like wind against metal. Her voice weaves through the fog, pulling at something in him that had started to unravel.

You’re not allowed to check out.

He wants to tell her he’s not trying to. But he’s so tired. And beneath all the pain in his chest, there’s something deeper, something worse — a jagged hole where hope should be.

He’s convinced Kate’s gone.

Because if she wasn’t, wouldn’t he feel her? Wouldn’t she have found a way to get to him like she always did?

And if she is gone, then what’s the point?

She was his anchor in the storm. His compass. His reason for waking up each morning and getting in that damn truck again. Without her—

No.

No.

Lily said Kate’s still fighting. That she’s still here. That she’d want him to stay.

But how can he? When every breath feels like it might break him? When he can’t feel her fingers in his hand, or her voice whispering “I’m here”?

Something inside him fractures — grief or guilt, or maybe both. And suddenly there’s this flood of images behind his eyes: Kate laughing in the front seat. Kate with her hair braided and her face lit up by lightning. Kate throwing a protein bar at his head.

Kate bleeding beside him, her hand slipping from his.

Don’t go. Don’t go. Please.

He doesn’t realize it, but his heart’s starting to race.

Somewhere outside this broken body of his, alarms begin to chirp again. He hears the shuffle of feet. Voices. Calm ones, urgent ones. The rustle of fabric. A name being called—his.

But all he can hear is Lily.

“We still need you. Kate needs you most of all.”

He doesn’t know how to fight anymore.

But maybe…

Maybe for her, he still can.

Even if it’s just one more breath.

Even if it’s just staying here long enough to see if she wakes up.

He doesn’t have strength left for anything else.

But maybe, just maybe—he can hold on.

The monitor screamed.

Beep… BEEP… BEEEEEEP—

Lily’s heart stopped.

Tyler’s vitals were crashing—his heart rate erratic, blood pressure tumbling, oxygen levels dipping rapidly. In seconds, the room swarmed.

“Code Blue!” the nurse shouted, yanking oxygen rate higher.

Lily was yanked back as two ICU techs burst through the curtain. In their rush, one nearly shoved her aside—then whirled to find Tyler’s wrist, pushing in an emergency IV.

Boone rushed in, eyes wide with fear. “What—what’s happening?”

“He’s brady-ing, then spiking—likely arrhythmia from cardiac contusion,” the trauma attending barked, pressing paddles into Tyler’s chest. “Prep code cart. We’re going in.”

Tyler’s eyes flickered open—only half-focused. He saw Lily’s face first—tears and terror pooled behind her eyes. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a gurgle. His chest heaved; each breath more urgent than the last.

A nurse slapped the monitor with the paddles. Clear! —then pressed with urgency as Tyler jerked.

“BP’s 60 over 30—give him epinephrine!” the cardiologist ordered, voice steady but strained. “Push 1mg.”

Tyler’s vision blurred. Through the haze he heard the alien voices—Lily’s desperate shout; the rattling of the cart; the medic’s countdown: “1… 2… 3…”

The next shock rolled through him.

He felt the pain—but he barely registered it anymore.

There was boiling terror in his chest—and something else.

Lily’s face, so close. “Tyler—stay. You have to stay,” she begged.

Time slowed.

It came down to this.

Stay or fade.

He felt a spark. Maybe the Epinephrine. Maybe something deeper.

His eyes snapped open—focused for a moment on Lily.

He squeezed her hand.

Just a twitch. But enough.

The doctor yelled, “He’s back! Rhythm’s stabilizing!”

Everything slowed again. The beeping steadied, the color returned, machines sighed.

Tyler’s chest rose again—labored, but alive.

Lily sobbed, relief flooding her face as she slid into a chair.

And somewhere inside Tyler, something shifted.

He stayed.

The monitor whispered truth: still here.

There’s light.

Not the sterile kind that burns in his eyes through hospital fluorescents. This is different. Warm. Faint. Flickering like headlights on a rainy backroad.

He’s not cold here.

He’s not in pain either. Just floating. Tired, but not drowning.

And she’s there.

Not in the blood-soaked, broken way he last saw her. Not motionless in the wreckage. But whole.

Kate.

She’s laughing, barefoot in tall grass, her braid coming loose in the wind. The sky behind her is that deep Oklahoma blue, the kind that only comes after the worst storms have passed.

“Come on, Owens,” she calls over her shoulder, spinning once like she might take off and fly. “You’re too slow.”

He wants to go to her.

He wants that more than anything.

But as he takes a step forward, he feels it—pulling at him. The weight of wires. IVs. Bandages. Pain. The sound of machines… whispering in the distance.

Beep... beep...

And then another voice—Lily, raw and tearful, distant but undeniable:

“Kate would want you to live.”

He hesitates.

She’s still smiling at him. That soft, crooked smile he fell in love with when she thought he wasn’t looking. But this isn’t goodbye.

He knows that now.

This is a choice.

Stay in this peace… or wake to the pain.

Live without her… even if she never opens her eyes again.

Even if she chooses not to stay.

His knees tremble under the weight of that truth. But then he remembers her hand in his on the highway. The motel nights. Her snorting laughter. The way she said his name when she was tired. The storms they chased. The life they built together — imperfect, unpredictable, theirs.

If she doesn’t come back…

He’ll live for her anyway.

He’ll carry the storm and the sunshine.

He’ll keep her name alive in the data, in the wind, in the crew that became family.

And if — when — she does come back…

She’ll never have to do it alone.

His hand twitches.

The light fades.

Pain rushes back in jagged edges — in his ribs, in his skull, in his heart.

He breathes.

He chooses.

He stays.

Chapter Text

The steady rhythm of the monitor was the only sound in Kate’s room. Javi sat beside her, elbows on knees, hands clasped tightly beneath his chin. He hadn’t moved in over an hour. He just watched her.

Watched the stillness.

The occasional flicker of her eyelids was the only thing keeping him tethered to hope.

Then: a soft knock at the doorframe. Boone.

His usual swagger was gone. He looked like a man who’d aged ten years in one afternoon. His eyes were red. And tired. So tired.

Javi turned slowly. The expression on Boone’s face hit harder than the wind.

“What happened?” Javi asked, voice low and tense.

Boone swallowed hard. “Tyler… he crashed.”

Javi stood up too fast. “What do you mean—crashed? His heart?”

Boone nodded, jaw clenched tight.

“Holy crap,” Javi whispered, gripping the back of the chair. “Is he—?”

“They brought him back.” Boone’s voice cracked. “Just barely. He’s in ICU now. Vitals were tanking from the moment they sedated him. They think it was a mix of the trauma, the heartbreak, and… giving up.”

Silence blanketed the room like dust after a collapse.

Javi turned slowly back to Kate.

“Damn it, Kate… he’s not gonna make it if you don’t come back to him,” he said softly. “You both need each other too much.”

Boone rested a hand on his shoulder. It wasn’t much. But it was what he had to give.

The shift was subtle at first.

Nurses were charting, reviewing post-op bloodwork, and adjusting the IV meds when one of them froze, eyes on the monitor.

“Hold on,” she murmured. “His BP is climbing.”

Another nurse joined her. “Look at that pulse pressure narrowing. He's stabilizing.”

“Pulse ox back to 98. Sinus rhythm holding for ten minutes straight.”

The attending entered just as they were rechecking the EKG.

He looked at the numbers, then to Tyler. Still unconscious, but the tension had eased from his face. His breathing no longer ragged or shallow.

“Has he had another sedative push?” the doctor asked.

“No,” the nurse replied. “We haven’t touched anything since the last bolus hours ago.”

The attending approached the bed, checking reflexes, then leaning in to listen to Tyler’s heart.

“Sounding cleaner… less murmur. No more irreg pacing.”

He straightened up, surprised. “That’s not medicine. That’s will.”

The nurses looked at each other. One whispered, “Maybe he turned a corner.”

Outside the glass, Lily watched through a pane, hands clenched to her chest as her eyes welled up again. But this time, it wasn’t fear she felt—it was something dangerously close to hope.

Tyler Owens was still fighting.

And finally… he was winning.

The room was dim, lit only by the monitors and the soft morning light bleeding in through the blinds. The steady beeping of the heart monitor filled the space — calmer now. Controlled.

Tyler stirred.

It wasn’t dramatic. No gasping, no jerking upright. Just a twitch of fingers, a slow furrow of his brow. His eyes fluttered open — glassy and unfocused, pupils sluggish.

He blinked a few times against the light, lips dry and pale. A hoarse breath slipped from him.

“...Kate?”

Lily, sitting in the corner chair, was at his bedside in a second. Her tear-streaked face broke into a mixture of relief and concern. “Hey,” she said gently, brushing his hair back. “You’re awake.” It had been a long two days.

“Wh—?” Tyler’s voice cracked.

“You’re safe,” she said. “You had surgery. The crash… it was bad.”

He swallowed. Winced. “Kate.”

“She’s… still fighting,” Lily said softly. “She made it through surgery. Still no movement yet, but she’s stable.”

That word barely registered.

Tyler closed his eyes, the lines of his face pinched with pain — physical, yes, but deeper than that. A tremble in his voice gave him away.

“I should’ve pulled back sooner… storm was shifting—pressure was—” He sucked in a breath that hitched in his chest. “She trusted me.”

“Tyler—”

“I saw the hook tightening,” he whispered. “I saw it. And I still—”

Lily took his hand, gently but firmly. “You didn’t make that tornado drop out of nowhere. You didn’t flip the truck. You were doing your job—both of you were.”

“She hit her head,” he choked. “I couldn’t get her to wake up.”

Lily’s own throat tightened. Boone, who had slipped into the doorway, didn’t say anything at first — just leaned against the frame, arms crossed but eyes unusually soft.

“You’ve been carrying this like it’s your fault,” Boone said, quietly. “But I saw the data. That thing jumped a whole mile east and dropped ahead of projection. You had seconds. No one would’ve done better.”

Tyler didn’t answer. His gaze drifted toward the ceiling, eyes rimmed red, chest rising too quickly.

“She trusted me,” he said again, as if that one truth absolved or condemned everything.

Boone moved further into the room, voice low. “She still does, man. She’s still here.”

Lily wiped her face, biting back more emotion than she could contain. “And so are you. Don’t let this be the thing that tears you apart inside. Please. Don’t do that to yourself.”

Tyler closed his eyes again, letting their words settle. His breath stayed shallow, but steadier now. The monitors stayed calm.

They didn’t push him for more.

But now… they understood.

The silence he’d carried since the crash wasn’t just trauma.

It was guilt.

And for Tyler, who could survive hurricanes of debris and chase EF4s into the dark, guilt was the one storm he didn’t know how to outrun.

The steady hum of machines filled the quiet room, punctuated by the soft beeping of the heart monitor and the subtle hiss of the ventilator. Kate lay motionless beneath crisp white sheets, her skin pale but warm, the bruises across her temple darkening with healing.

Javi sat slouched in a chair at her bedside, elbows on his knees, eyes red from exhaustion and too many silent hours of watching her not move. He hadn’t spoken in a while — just listened to the rhythm of the machines and tried to believe she could still come back to them.

A nurse entered quietly, glancing over the monitors. “She’s stable. We’re going to try a neuro check.”

Javi straightened. “What does that mean?”

“She’s not fully conscious, but if there’s function, she may start following simple commands.” The nurse moved closer to the bed, her voice gentle as she leaned over Kate. “Katherine, can you hear me?”

Kate didn’t move.

Javi’s breath caught in his throat.

The nurse continued, calm but firm. “Kate, if you can hear me, I want you to squeeze my hand.”

Silence. Then—Javi saw it. Just the barest movement in her fingers. A twitch.

The nurse noticed too. “That’s good. Let’s try again. Squeeze my hand.”

Kate’s hand, pale and limp moments ago, slowly curled around the nurse’s fingers.

Tears sprang to Javi’s eyes. He reached across and took her other hand, brushing his thumb along her knuckles.

“Kate…” His voice cracked. “You’re still in there.”

Her eyelids fluttered, just once. No opening, no full awareness. But there was a flicker of something. A presence.

“Can you squeeze mine?” Javi asked softly, hopeful. “One squeeze for yes.”

Her fingers shifted again. Weak, but deliberate. Yes.

He sat back in the chair, swallowing hard. “We’re right here. Tyler’s okay. The others are okay. You scared the hell out of us.”

He didn’t expect another response, but her hand stayed wrapped in his, a quiet promise of fight.

The nurse offered a faint, surprised smile. “That’s the best response we’ve seen.”

Boone and Lily were at the door now, drawn by the monitor's slight uptick and Javi’s barely-contained emotion.

“She squeezed my hand,” Javi said, voice thick.

“She squeezed it?” Lily asked, eyes already glossy with tears.

“Twice.”

The nurse nodded. “We’ll note purposeful movement. It’s early, but it’s real. She’s tracking stimulus.”

Boone exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Damn right she is. That’s our girl.”

Javi leaned in again, voice low. “You keep fighting, Kate. He’s waiting on you.”

Kate didn’t respond this time, but the silence no longer felt empty.

It felt like hope.

The room hummed with the low, rhythmic sounds of machines — heart monitor steady, oxygen flow whispering quietly from the ventilator in Kate’s mouth. She lay still, wrapped in blankets, her head bandaged and color slowly returning to her cheeks.

Javi sat in the corner, fingers steepled against his chin, watching. He hadn’t moved much for hours or days — just quietly bearing witness, waiting for something to change.

Then…

A twitch.

Small. Barely noticeable.

But Javi saw it.

Her right fingers curled just slightly, as if grasping at something unseen.

He froze, eyes narrowing.

Another twitch. A flutter in her eyelids.

“Kate?” he whispered, heart suddenly pounding.

He stood slowly, not wanting to startle her. He moved to her bedside, gently brushing his fingers across the back of her hand.

Her brows knit together faintly — a flicker of awareness.

“Kate… it’s Javi. You’re safe. We got you out.”

The heart monitor ticked up just slightly.

And then—her lips moved. No sound. Just a dry, broken shape of a word.

He leaned in closer.

She was mouthing something. One word.

“Javi…”

Javi swallowed hard, his hand gripping hers a little tighter. “Tyler’s okay. He’s alive. He’s in the ICU. We’re all okay, Kate. We’re here.”

She blinked.

It wasn’t long. It wasn’t full consciousness.

But it was more than they’d had since the crash.

He turned toward the door, calling out with barely restrained urgency. “Lily! Boone! Get the nurse!”

A moment later, the door burst open. Boone took one look and went still. Lily covered her mouth with both hands, eyes already brimming.

The nurse arrived within seconds, alert and calm as she began checking vitals and responsiveness.

“She’s trying to wake,” Javi said, not daring to look away. “She said my name.”

The nurse nodded, her expression hopeful as she shone a small penlight across Kate’s pupils.

“Pupils reactive. Blood pressure stabilizing,” she confirmed. “She’s trending in the right direction.”

Boone exhaled a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

Lily whispered, “Come on, Kate. Keep going.”

Javi sat back down beside her, hand never leaving hers.

He didn’t say anything more — just offered her the one thing that had gotten them through every storm so far.

His presence.

And the quiet promise: You’re not alone.

Sunlight filtered faintly through the drawn blinds, casting soft lines across the pale walls of the ICU. The machines continued their rhythmic chorus — the beeping of monitors, the steady whoosh of the ventilator, the occasional hiss from oxygen lines.

Kate lay still, but not unresponsive. The bruises along her cheekbone had deepened into purple hues, but her color had improved. Her vitals were holding steady, even trending stronger. She was no longer just surviving — she was beginning to fight.

A nurse hovered at her bedside with another nurse and a neuro resident. Clipboard in hand, eyes sharp but gentle, she glanced between Kate and the updated chart. “We’ve got a full 24 hours of stabilized vitals, appropriate motor response, and reflexes intact,” she said quietly to her colleague. “Let’s check her again before we talk about pulling the vent.”

She leaned down, voice calm and clear. “Katherine, I’m going to ask you to follow a few commands. If you understand, I want you to blink twice.”

There was a pause. Then—two slow, deliberate blinks.

“Good,” the nurse said softly, her tone careful not to startle. “Can you squeeze my hand again?”

Kate's fingers curled weakly around the nurse’s hand.

“She’s tracking,” the neuro resident said, nodding. “Let’s see if she can do more.”

“Kate,” the nurse continued, “can you wiggle your toes?”

The sheet near Kate’s feet shifted slightly. It wasn’t strong, but it was purposeful.

The team exchanged quick looks of relief — and a cautious smile bloomed on the nurse's face.

“She’s ready,” the resident said. “We can start prepping to extubate.”

The respiratory therapist arrived with the attending physician and a small team. Monitors were checked and updated, vitals reviewed one last time. The nurse leaned over Kate, gently brushing a loose strand of hair away from her temple.

“Katherine,” she said again, “we’re going to take the tube out now. You’re doing really well. You may feel some discomfort, but try to stay calm and breathe with us. Just like we practiced.”

Kate blinked once, slow but responsive.

As they carefully loosened the tape and slid the endotracheal tube free, Kate gagged slightly, her body instinctively reacting. The nurse supported her head while the RT suctioned gently, speaking reassurances in a steady voice.

“Almost there. Deep breath for me, Kate… good. That’s it.”

The tube slid free. Kate coughed hoarsely, chest rising in shaky rhythm, but she was breathing — on her own.

Everyone stood still for a beat, watching the oxygen saturation numbers. The monitor climbed. 89%. 93%. 97%.

She was breathing. Awake. Weak — but there.

“She’s clear,” the attending said. “Keep oxygen on standby, but she’s tolerating it.”

The nurse placed a gentle hand on Kate’s arm. “Welcome back.”

Kate blinked slowly, her lips dry and cracked. Her throat burned too much to speak, but her eyes were wet now — aware, exhausted, but conscious.

“She made it past the first hurdle,” the neuro resident said, scribbling notes. “Now we see how her cognition and language come back over the next few hours.”

The room smelled of antiseptic and stale coffee. Beeping machines punctuated the silence, steady and sterile. Tyler lay in his ICU bed, pale beneath the harsh overhead lighting, the bandages on his arm stark against his skin. His chest still felt tight — not from injury this time, but from the lingering, gnawing fear.

He hadn’t asked what time it was. Or how long it had been since he last heard Kate’s name. He was too scared to know.

He stared at the ceiling, breathing through the dull ache in his ribcage, the fog of sedatives still dragging at the edges of his thoughts. But even through the haze, his mind was locked on one truth — she wasn’t in this room with him.

She hadn’t opened her eyes.

And until she did, nothing else mattered.

The door opened with a soft knock, and Javi stepped inside. He looked like hell — dark circles under his eyes, dirt still under his nails, and the kind of exhaustion you don’t sleep off.

Tyler looked at him, dread pinning him to the mattress. “Is she—?”

“She’s breathing on her own,” Javi said quietly, stepping closer. “They extubated her twenty minutes ago.”

Tyler blinked. “What…?”

“She blinked on command. Moved her hand. Toes too. Nurses say she’s following commands.”

Tyler’s breath caught. His dry lips parted, and his heart — still bruised and stitched together with adrenaline and hope — skipped.

“She moved her hand?” His voice cracked. “She—moved?”

Javi nodded. “She’s not out of the woods yet. But she’s here. She’s fighting.”

Tyler didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then his face crumpled. He turned his head into the pillow, one arm curled up weakly toward his chest. The sob broke out of him before he could stop it — rough and painful. All the grief, the guilt, the terror he'd swallowed since the crash cracked wide open with that one word:

Moved.

The idea that something as small as a twitch of her fingers could undo him so completely should have felt ridiculous. But it wasn’t. It was real. It was everything.

He laughed once, brokenly, through the tears, his shoulders shaking. “She moved her hand,” he whispered again, like a prayer.

Javi didn’t speak. He just stepped closer, placing a solid hand on Tyler’s good shoulder. He didn’t need to say anything. Tyler wasn’t alone in this.

His body still hurt. His heart still throbbed under the weight of all the unknowns. But in this one moment, Tyler let himself feel something he hadn’t since that truck rolled:

Hope.

The sunlight filtering through the blinds had shifted, painting long shadows across the floor. Tyler lay propped slightly in the hospital bed, still pale, his movements slow and stiff beneath the weight of healing bones, healing heart, and an exhaustion deeper than sleep could fix.

A quiet knock sounded at the door. Boone stepped in, a small clear hospital-issued bag in hand. He didn’t say anything at first — just walked over, set the bag down on the bedside tray, and looked at Tyler.

“Your stuff,” Boone said, voice lower than usual. “From the truck.”

Tyler’s gaze drifted to the bag, unsure he wanted to look. Boone waited, then gently pulled the zipper open, laying the contents out slowly:

His wallet, scuffed but intact.

His lucky coin from his storm-chasing mentor.

And the watch.

The silver watch Kate had given him the night before the crash — the one she’d saved up for secretly, the one he hadn’t taken off until the paramedics cut it off during triage.

Tyler stared at it. The crystal was cracked. The band, dusty and scraped. But the engraving on the back — "Chase this life with me – K" — was still there.

He reached out slowly with his good hand, fingertips brushing the metal.

The moment he touched it, something in him fractured again — not in pain, but in longing.

He held it close to his chest, pressing it into the fabric of the hospital gown like it might bring her heartbeat back to him. Like if he held it tight enough, she might hear it too — wherever she was, in that hazy place between waking and sleep.

“I almost lost her,” he whispered, more to himself than Boone.

Boone didn’t answer. Just stood there, jaw tight, the weight of the truth too close for comfort.

“I didn’t even tell her I loved her that morning. I made some dumb joke, and she laughed like always. But I didn’t say it.”

He closed his eyes, knuckles white around the watch. “She gave me this… and I never got the chance to say thank you.”

“You’ll get it,” Boone finally said, voice hoarse. “She’s fighting.”

Tyler didn’t move, just let the tears slide silently down the side of his face as he clutched the broken watch like it held the last of his strength.

She’d given him time. And now all he wanted… was more of it.

Javi stood just outside the ICU room, the small hospital bag in his hands feeling heavier than it should. He hadn’t opened it yet.

Didn’t need to.

He knew what was inside.

Kate’s personal effects had come back from surgery sealed in a sterile pouch, untouched since they’d wheeled her in. The nurse had handed it over with a quiet kind of reverence, like she knew what was in it mattered more than the chart. He hadn't dare open it until now.

Inside: her cracked phone.

And the necklace — the one Tyler had given her just days ago, their anniversary.

Not flashy. Just a tiny silver tornado charm on a chain. Subtle. Steady.

Like them.

Javi hesitated at the door. Inside, Tyler hadn’t moved in a while. Still sitting slightly upright, still clutching that shattered watch, as if it were the only thing anchoring him.

The soft beep of the machines felt louder in the silence.

Finally, Javi stepped inside.

“Hey.”

Tyler didn’t look up, but his jaw clenched slightly. Heard him. Registered him.

“I… uh…” Javi rubbed at the back of his neck. “They gave me her stuff. From the crash.”

That made Tyler shift. Just barely. His eyes flickered toward Javi, then down.

Javi moved carefully, like he was approaching a wounded animal — not out of fear, but out of deep respect for something raw and hurting.

“I figured you should have it,” he said, voice low.

He opened the bag slowly, pulling out the phone first. The screen was spiderwebbed, the background a selfie Kate had taken of her and Tyler — wind in her hair, that ridiculous grin on her face, and him mid-eye-roll, trying not to laugh.

Javi set it gently on the table next to the bed.

Then came the necklace.

It had been cleaned, but one of the chain links was bent — likely from the crash, or the chaos after.

He held it for a long second. Then stepped forward, crouching a little so he was eye-level.

“She was wearing it,” Javi said.

Tyler’s eyes locked onto the charm. His breath hitched audibly. One hand slowly let go of the broken watch, reaching out — hesitant, almost ashamed — and took the necklace like it was fragile glass.

“She really loved it.” Javi added quietly.

Tyler nodded once, barely.

“She… she woke up. Sort of,” Javi said after a beat. “Not for long. But she tried to say my name.”

That broke something in Tyler.

His hand closed tightly around the necklace, knuckles white. His shoulders shook once. Then again.

Javi didn’t say anything more.

Didn’t need to.

Instead, he stepped back, gave him space. Let the silence hold what words couldn’t.

Tyler turned the tornado charm over in his fingers, again and again, like maybe if he kept doing it, he could find his way back to her.

Back to them.

Chapter Text

The light above her was soft, but it felt sharp — slicing through her eyelids like a blade. She blinked, sluggishly, the world sliding in sideways. Shapes. Shadows. A ceiling fan that wasn’t moving. The rhythmic beep of monitors nearby.

Her head ached — not a normal headache, but a deep, pounding pressure behind her forehead, like something swollen or bruised beneath the surface. The air felt thick in her chest. Limbs heavy. Voice buried in sand.

Then — a presence.

Javi.

Sitting beside her bed like he’d been there for days. Face tired. Eyes soft.

“You’re awake,” he said gently.

Her gaze drifted, unfocused — ceiling, lights, wall — and then landed on him.

She blinked again, slower this time. Let her gaze settle on him. It took a moment, but when his name came to mind, it came with warmth.

“Javi,” she rasped. The sound was hoarse, like her throat had been scraped raw.

Relief flooded his expression, but he kept it measured — careful not to overwhelm her. “Hey. Yeah. I’m here.”

Her eyes shimmered, just for a second. But before anything else could pass between them, a knock came at the door. The neurologist entered with quiet precision, flanked by a nurse already updating vitals.

“Miss Carter,” the doctor said, approaching with calm authority. “I’m Dr. Renner. We’re going to do a quick neuro check, alright?”

Kate nodded, slowly.

The penlight came first. Her pupils were still slightly unequal — the left reactive, the right sluggish — but both responded now. Better than expected.

Then came the cards.

“I’m going to ask you a few questions. Take your time.”

Kate stared at the color square held in front of her. Green.

A pause.

“Green,” she said.

Dr. Renner nodded. “And this one?”

“Red.”

“And this?”

“Blue.” Her voice was slow, but steady.

They moved to shapes — triangle, square, circle — and then to simple recall. Days of the week. Her birthday.

She didn’t answer quickly, and her face tightened with the effort of each response. But she got them all.

Javi stayed quiet at her side, a hand near — not touching, just there. Anchoring.

And then—

“What hospital are you in, Kate?”

Her brows pulled together. She glanced toward Javi, then back at the doctor.

“New York General?” she said uncertainly.

Javi’s stomach dropped.

Dr. Renner didn’t react. Just nodded gently and continued his exam without pause.

But Javi felt it.

That tiny, hairline crack in the moment. Not enough to shatter anything… but enough to make you wonder if the glass would hold.

When the test ended, Dr. Renner glanced at the nurse and made a small note in the chart.

“She’s doing remarkably well considering the severity of the initial trauma,” the doctor said. “Her Glasgow Coma Score was five at the scene. We weren’t sure how responsive she’d be today. This is… promising.”

Kate looked toward Javi again, this time more alert. “How long was I out?”

“Seventy-two hours,” he said softly. “You gave us a scare.”

She sank into the pillow, eyes fluttering closed just for a moment. Not from pain, exactly — just exhaustion. The kind that runs soul-deep.

But this time, she didn’t drift away.

She stayed.

And Javi stayed with her — letting the silence speak, letting the relief soak in quietly.

Javi closed the door gently behind him and caught up to Dr. Renner just outside.

“Doc,” he said quietly. “The New York thing… how concerned should I be?”

Renner turned, pausing mid-note in his tablet.

“She’s showing mild disorientation, but it’s consistent with post-operative recovery from intracranial trauma. The bleed was near the prefrontal cortex — that affects executive function, memory, even perception of time and place. The fact that she remembered you, responded to color and shape… those are strong indicators.”

“But…?” Javi pressed, not liking the gentle tone.

“But,” the doctor said, “this is early. She’s not out of the woods neurologically. We’re trending positive, but we won’t know the extent of any deficits — if there are any — until the swelling continues to decrease and she’s more alert.”

Javi nodded slowly, jaw tight. “So it’s a wait-and-see.”

“Yes. And right now, she’s awake. She’s stable. She knew your name. Those are wins.”

Javi ran a hand down his face, exhaled. “Okay.”

Renner gave him a nod and moved on.

Javi stood there in the hallway for a moment longer, listening through the door.

Kate was alive.

But something inside him couldn’t shake the moment she said New York.

It was small.

But it didn’t feel small.

The overhead lights were low, just beginning to shift into day mode. Machines blinked softly. The wall clock ticked toward 08:00.

Tyler lay half-upright, pale but conscious, jaw tight as he shifted against the sling immobilizing his left arm. His breathing was shallow — manageable — but the fatigue was etched deep beneath his eyes.

The door opened with a quiet knock. Dr. Avery, mid-40s, sharp and composed in dark scrubs under a white coat, entered with a tablet in one hand and a cuffed blood pressure monitor in the other.

“Mr. Owens,” he greeted gently. “I’m Dr. Avery — your cardiologist. I wanted to take a look at that heart of yours and talk about what we’re seeing.”

Tyler gave a slow nod, voice raspy. “Okay.”

Dr. Avery stepped to the side of the bed, glancing briefly at the telemetry screen. Heart rate: 103 bpm. Still elevated.

“I know you’ve been through a lot,” he said, keeping his tone even. “But I want to make sure we’re not missing something that could sneak up on you now that the acute trauma’s settling.”

He adjusted the leads across his chest — bruises still stark across his sternum and left flank. Seatbelt sign. Airbag pattern. The fracture in his left forearm had been stabilized, but even the slightest motion drew a wince.

“I’m going to listen to your heart and lungs, alright?”

Stethoscope to chest. His eyes narrowed slightly in concentration as he listened across multiple points — apex, base, axilla — before switching to the posterior thorax.

No crackles. No pericardial rub. Clear, but rapid.

He set the stethoscope aside and took his blood pressure manually.

“Still hypertensive,” he murmured. “154 over 96. You feeling lightheaded?”

“Just… tight. In the chest,” Tyler admitted. “Not sharp. Just like… it’s all clamped down.”

He nodded, noting it.

“That pressure you’re describing, combined with your tachycardia, elevated troponins from yesterday, and the wall motion abnormalities we saw on your echo — that’s why I’m leaning toward stress-induced cardiomyopathy.”

Tyler’s brow creased faintly. “That… like a heart attack?”

“Not exactly,” he said. “It mimics one. But it’s different.”

He turned the tablet toward him, showing a rough diagram of the heart.

“Stress cardiomyopathy — also called Broken-heart Syndrome — is a temporary weakening of the heart muscle. Triggered by intense physical or emotional stress. In your case, both. It can cause chest pain, shortness of breath, elevated heart rate, and EKG changes.”

“So…” he struggled, “it’s not permanent?”

“Usually not. Most patients recover completely in a few weeks with proper rest and medication. But while you're in it, your heart isn’t pumping efficiently, and that puts strain on everything else — especially with the trauma you’ve taken to the chest.”

He scrolled to his echo images from overnight.

“You’ve got bilateral pulmonary contusions and soft-tissue damage from the airbag deployment. Left ventricular function was mildly reduced yesterday — EF around 45 percent. It’s not dangerous yet, but it is something we’re watching closely.”

Tyler’s gaze dropped to his splinted arm. “And the concussion?”

“We’re coordinating with Neuro. Your MRI didn’t show any bleeding, which is good. But post-concussive symptoms — fog, irritability, memory trouble — all expected. Especially layered over this much physical trauma.”

He let out a slow breath. “I didn’t think… you could actually break your own heart.”

Dr. Avery smiled faintly — professional but kind.

“Well. You were panicking about someone else’s.”

That landed with weight.

He looked away.

“We’re starting you on beta-blockers to manage your rate,” he continued. “A low dose, carvedilol. We’ll monitor for hypotension. You’ll stay on telemetry at least another day or two.”

Tyler nodded faintly, swallowing hard. “Can I see her?”

“We’ll talk to ICU. Your vitals need to hold first. But…” he softened, “I know that’s probably the most effective medicine we could offer you right now.”

He tapped in a few final notes, then gave a nod to the nurse by the door.

“You’re not out of the woods,” Dr. Avery said gently. “But you’re walking the edge. And your heart — for all it’s been through — is still trying to hold.”

And with that, he left him — monitors still blinking, heart still pounding, but maybe just a little steadier than before.

The lights were brighter. Clean. Cool. Everything too sharp for a brain still trying to make sense of its own short circuits.

Tyler sat stiffly in the bed, his injured arm in a sling across his chest. His heart monitor leads trailed loosely from his gown to the telemetry machine. Boone sat nearby — quiet, solid, a presence more than a participant.

The door opened and Dr. Lena Voss, Neuro attending, stepped in. Early 40s. Brisk but not unkind. She carried a tablet and wore scrubs with a dark gray fleece vest — Stillwater Regional embroidered in pale thread.

“Mr. Owens,” she said, glancing briefly between the two men before settling her attention on the patient. “I’m Dr. Voss. You gave us quite the chart.”

Tyler’s jaw tensed. “So I’ve heard.”

“I’m going to run a brief cognitive and neurologic screen,” she explained. “It’s not exhaustive, but we want to determine if you're stable enough for brief movement — like, say, a visit down the hall to the ICU.”

That caught his attention.

Boone gave a small, encouraging nudge with his elbow. “Let’s get you cleared, man.”

Dr. Voss pulled up a chair across from Tyler and clicked her penlight once. “Any nausea or vomiting today?”

“No.”

“Headache?”

“Yeah. Dull. Worse in the morning.”

“Vision changes?”

“Double if I move too fast. Better now.”

She leaned in and checked his pupils — still a touch asymmetrical, but reactive. No nystagmus. Then she moved to basic coordination: finger-to-nose, heel-to-shin, grip strength on his right hand only.

He was sluggish. Deliberate. But intact.

Then came the questions.

“What day is it?”

Tyler blinked. “Uh… Monday?”

“Correct. Can you name the last U.S. president before the current one?”

He hesitated. “Biden.”

“Count backward from 100.”

Boone watched silently as Tyler closed his eyes, clearly struggling.

“…99. 98… 97… 96…”

He winced, then stopped. “Can’t focus. Sorry.”

Dr. Voss just nodded, scribbling a note. “Post-concussive cognitive fatigue. It’s expected. Especially layered on top of the cardiac meds and trauma.”

“Can I still see her?”

Dr. Voss paused.

Then turned the tablet so both of them could see.

“These are your vitals over the last six hours. Heart rate’s trending stable — hovering just under 100. BP’s down. Oxygenation is holding. Neurologically, you’re impaired, but not dangerous to yourself or others. So…”

She softened.

“If ICU clears it, you can have a short visit. But wheelchair transport only. And ten minutes, max.”

Boone clapped his hand lightly against Tyler’s good shoulder, voice low. “You earned that.”

Tyler didn’t smile, but his eyes burned with something close to gratitude. Or maybe relief. It was hard to tell through the exhaustion.

Dr. Voss stood. “I'll chart the clearance. But one more spike, one fall, one confusion episode — it’s over. Understood?”

“Understood.”

She nodded and left.

For a long moment, Tyler didn’t move. Just stared at the floor, chest rising in slow, measured effort.

Boone finally broke the silence.

“You’re gonna see her, brother.”

The room was too quiet.

Plastic chairs. A vending machine humming in the corner. The flicker of a muted weather channel looping storm footage on an old TV. The kind of space designed to feel neutral — but offering no real comfort.

Javi stood near the window, arms crossed tightly over his chest. His eyes were still glassy, voice calm only because he was forcing it to be.

Lily, Boone, Dani, and Dexter sat scattered across the room, postures all bent inward, like they were bracing for aftershocks.

“She’s showing mild disorientation,” Javi said carefully, “but the doctors say that’s consistent with post-op recovery from the brain injury. The bleed was near the prefrontal cortex — which controls executive function, short-term memory, orientation. So confusion right now isn’t unexpected.”

He paused, jaw tense.

“She remembered me,” he added, softer. “And she got the color and shape tests right. That’s a strong sign. The neurologist said those were very encouraging.”

“But,” Lily asked, barely above a whisper, “she thought she was in New York?”

Javi nodded once. The weight of that simple error felt louder than anything else.

“Yeah. She said ‘New York General.’ Didn’t recognize the ICU. Didn’t know she was in Stillwater. I didn’t press. She was already exhausted.”

No one said anything.

Dani shifted, arms wrapped around her middle like she was holding herself together. Dexter ran his thumb across the worn brim of his ballcap, eyes unfocused.

Boone leaned forward, elbows on his knees, head low. “How early are we talking?” he asked. “Like… this clears up in a day? Or is this one of those ‘it might never’ things?”

Javi’s voice stayed even, but there was a fracture behind it.

“They won’t know the full extent of the damage — if there is any permanent — until the swelling continues to go down. Could be days. Could be weeks. Could be... more.”

The silence that followed wasn’t shock. It was worse.

It was knowing.

They’d all seen it before. In storm zones. In hospitals. People walking out of mangled cars with nothing but cuts… and others never waking up because of what no one could see.

“She’s trending positive,” Javi added quickly. “That’s what they keep saying. She’s stable. Responding. But…”

He stopped himself.

But it doesn’t feel right.

But what if she forgets this?

But what if she forgets him?

“I just wanted to keep you all in the loop,” he said finally, quieter now. “She’s sleeping again. Deep sleep. They say that’s good.”

He turned back toward the window, blinking hard, like he couldn’t take the weight in their eyes a second longer.

Boone stood slowly, walked over, clapped a hand on Javi’s back — not as reassurance, but acknowledgment.

“Thanks, man,” Boone said. “We got you.”

Lily nodded too, even as her lip trembled. “And her.”

No one dared say what they were really thinking.

What if she doesn’t come all the way back?

What if the best parts of her stayed in that field?

But for now, they sat with it. Together.

Because they’d chased a hundred storms.

This one just hit closer than any of them were ready for.

The silence hadn’t lasted long.

Boone looked up from his phone, the message still open — a short update from Dr. Voss.

He cleared his throat. “Tyler’s doctors think… if his numbers stay steady for the next couple hours, they’ll let him go see her.”

Everyone turned.

Lily’s brows lifted, hopeful. Dani straightened. Even Dexter, silent for most of the day, looked up with a flicker of cautious relief.

But Javi stood like someone had slapped him.

“No,” he said immediately, voice sharp.

Boone blinked. “What?”

“No,” Javi repeated. “That’s not a good idea.”

“Javi—”

“He’s not stable, Boone.” Javi’s voice rose, tension tightening every word. “You weren’t there in trauma. I was. His BP hit 190. He went into full-blown cardiac distress. They had to sedate him just to stop the spiral.”

“He wants to see her,” Boone said, jaw locking. “You really think keeping him away is going to help?”

“If she so much as blinks at him wrong—if she doesn’t remember him, or if she says something confusing—he’s going to go straight back into that state. And next time, they might not get ahead of it in time.”

“He’s not made of glass, man.”

“No,” Javi snapped, “he’s made of adrenaline and unresolved guilt, and he’s one step away from coding every time her name comes up.”

The tension in the room snapped taut.

Boone stood now too. Bigger. Broader. Less measured.

“He needs to see her to get better. You think locking him in a room by himself while she lays down the hall unconscious is helping? You think that's making him safer?”

“What if it kills him?” Javi fired back. “You want to explain that to her if she wakes up fully tomorrow? ‘Sorry, we let him visit because he needed it, and his heart couldn’t take it’? Is that the bet you want to make?”

“You think I haven’t thought about that?” Boone’s voice cracked, just slightly — enough for the edge to turn raw. “You think I don’t see it every time I look at him?”

Lily stepped between them, arms out slightly — trying to de-escalate, even as her voice shook. “Guys. Stop. This isn’t helping.”

“Javi, he’s her partner,” Dani said softly from her seat. “You saw them out there. He’ll never forgive himself if he doesn’t—”

“He already doesn’t,” Javi muttered, eyes flicking away. “You didn’t see him break in trauma. I did.”

Dexter finally spoke, low and firm. “That doesn’t mean he doesn’t get a chance to see she’s still here.”

Silence fell again, charged now with everything unsaid. Javi ran a hand over his face, turning away toward the window, breathing hard.

Boone stepped back, the tension still coiled in his shoulders.

“I’m not saying it’s without risk,” he said, voice quieter now. “But I know him. Five minutes with her might be the only thing that pulls him out of this.”

“And if it breaks him?” Javi asked, not turning around. “If it’s five minutes that ends up costing him everything?”

He didn’t have an answer. None of them did.

They just sat with it. Again.

Two people in two rooms. Both fighting to come back.
And everyone else caught between hope and fear.

The room held a silence so thick it could suffocate. You could hear the wind from outside tapping against the window glass — weak compared to the storm brewing inside.

Boone’s arms were crossed, tension in every muscle. Javi still stood near the window, facing away, fists clenched and shoulders rigid.

Then, unexpectedly—

Lily stood. “Javi’s right.”

Boone turned to her, eyes narrowing. “What?”

“I was there,” she said quietly. “In trauma. When his heart rate dropped, then spiked. It wasn’t just stress. The doctor said it was likely arrhythmia from a cardiac contusion. They couldn’t stabilize him until they sedated and cardioverted.”

She hesitated.

“They had to shock him.”

The words landed like a slap.

Boone’s jaw flexed, grief and frustration bleeding through. “He needs her.”

“And if she doesn’t recognize him?” Lily asked. “If she says the wrong name? Or panics? We don’t know how alert she’ll be next time she wakes up. If he spirals again—”

“I can let him see her,” Boone cut in, voice hard now. “I’m his proxy since Kate can't. If the doctors clear it, there’s nothing stopping me.”

Javi turned, eyes sharp. “Except me. I’m Kate’s. While her mother’s still on the East Coast, I make the call. And I’ll tell Dr. Renner she’s not cleared for visitors outside immediate medical personnel.”

Boone stepped forward. “You serious?”

“She’s barely responsive. She’s disoriented. We don’t know what she remembers or what she thinks she remembers. And Tyler is a walking time bomb.”

“I know what he is!” Boone snapped. “I’ve been with him through every damn step of this! But he’s still in there. And this—she—is the only thing grounding him!”

“Then he needs to wait until he can handle it!”

“Who gets to decide that?”

“I do!” Javi shouted, chest heaving. “Because I’m the one sitting next to her bed praying she remembers who she is when she wakes up again!”

Dani stood abruptly, hands out, trembling. “Stop. Both of you.”

They froze. The room did.

“This is tearing us apart. And it’s not about sides. This isn’t Kate versus Tyler,” she said, voice tight with emotion. “We love them. Both of them.”

She turned to Javi, eyes shining. “You’re right. We have to protect her. But Boone’s right too—he’s not just grieving, Javi. He’s unraveling.”

Dexter nodded quietly, adding, “There has to be a middle ground.”

But Javi was already backing away, grabbing the nearest hand sanitizer without looking anyone in the eye.

“I’m going to check on her,” he said stiffly. “If she wakes up again, I want to be the one who’s there.”

And then he was gone.

The hum of the vending machine filled the silence again.

Boone sat down heavily, rubbing his hands over his face.

“I didn’t want it to go down like that.”

Lily lowered herself next to him. “None of us did.”

Dani looked between them. “We’ve chased the same tornadoes. We’ve saved each other in ditches, in motels, in the middle of chaos. We’re not going to fall apart now.”

No one spoke.

Because they didn’t know how to fix this storm either.

Not yet.

The fluorescent lights buzzed faintly above, cold and clinical. The kind of hallway you don’t walk down unless something important is broken.

Javi moved quickly — not fast enough to draw attention, but just enough to show he was unraveling beneath the surface. His hand hovered near the ICU doors.

“Javi,” Lily’s voice called out from behind him. Not loud. Not sharp. Just… deliberate.

He stopped. Shoulders stiff.

She caught up slowly, boots barely making a sound on the tile. He didn’t look at her.

“You shouldn’t be alone right now,” she said softly.

“I’m not,” he replied. “She’s in there.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

A long pause stretched between them.

Javi didn’t turn. Just stared through the small ICU window where the curtain was half-drawn around Kate’s bed.

“She knew my name,” he said, almost to himself. “But then she said she was in New York. She thought she was at a completely different hospital. It’s like—” His throat caught. “Like she’s right there, but already slipping away.”

“She isn’t,” Lily said.

“You don’t know that.”

“No,” she admitted. “But I do know you. And I know you’re scared if you give an inch—if you let Tyler close—you’ll lose your place in all of this.”

That hit harder than he expected. Javi turned now, eyes flashing.

“This isn’t about me.”

“I know,” Lily said again, calm, measured. “But maybe part of it is. You’ve carried her through every second since the crash. You’re protecting her like she’s—”

“She is my family,” Javi cut in. “She’s not just my crew. She’s—” He swallowed hard. “She’s the reason I stayed. The reason I chase. If I lose her, Lily…”

His voice broke.

Lily stepped forward, not touching him, just standing close.

“I was there when they shocked Tyler,” she said, quieter now. “His whole body jerked off the table. I thought… I thought we were going to lose him too.”

Javi’s eyes flicked down.

“And still,” she continued, “I think he needs to see her. Not because it’ll fix him. Not even because it’s safe. But because he’s not going to try to heal until he knows she’s still fighting.”

Javi nodded once, tightly. “So I’m just supposed to let him walk in there and fall apart again?”

“No,” Lily said. “You’re supposed to help him stay standing.”

She held his gaze. And for the first time since the crash, he looked… tired. Like the weight of every choice was finally settling in.

“Just think about it,” she said, gently. “Before you talk to the doctor. Before you say no.”

Javi hesitated, then turned back toward the window.

Inside, Kate didn’t move. But she was breathing. Still here.

“Five minutes,” he said under his breath. “If the doctors clear it.”

Lily offered a small nod. Not victory. Just understanding.

And together, they stood in the silence — the storm between them finally quieting.

Muted sunset light filtered in through half-closed blinds, casting long amber shadows across the room. The beeping of the heart monitor had become a steady companion — quieter now, almost gentle.

Tyler sat propped up, pale but alert, one arm immobilized in a bulky splint. His chest still ached with every breath, his ribs bruised and taped, but there was a spark in his eyes that hadn’t been there in hours.

Dr. Avery, his cardiologist, clicked the tablet closed with a satisfied nod. “Your rhythm’s held steady the last two hours. BP’s back in range, and your troponins are stable. No evidence of infarction. With nursing escort and vitals monitored, I’m comfortable with a brief transport — five minutes, max.”

Tyler’s breath hitched. “I can… I can see her?”

A beat of stunned silence passed — the kind that carries too much weight for words.

Then Boone, standing at the foot of the bed, let out a breath like he’d been holding it for days. “You’re cleared, man. We’re really doing this.”

Tyler closed his eyes. Relief — raw and pure — flooded through him like oxygen.

Then came Lily, gently but firmly stepping closer. Her eyes met Tyler’s with that careful look she used when she was trying to be kind without softening the truth.

“Before you go,” she said, “you need to know what to expect.”

Tyler looked up, still clutching the side rail with his good hand. “Okay.”

“She’s on heavy sedation,” Lily continued. “Dr. Renner’s holding the dose steady while they assess her responses, but… it makes her groggy. In and out. She might not recognize you. She probably won’t be able to talk. Or move much.”

Tyler absorbed that quietly. The tremble in his fingers betrayed the calm on his face. “I don’t care.”

“I just…” Lily hesitated, her voice dipping. “I don’t want you to expect something and break apart when it’s not there.”

“I don’t expect anything,” he said. “I just need to see her.”

Boone’s hand clapped gently on Tyler’s shoulder. “Then let’s get you there.”

Lily gave Boone a sidelong glance as the nurse came in to prep the wheelchair and IV pole. The tension between them was subtle but present — two people on the same team, both unsure if they’d made the right call.

Boone leaned in, voice low. “We’re doing the right thing. He needs this.”

Lily nodded slowly but didn’t answer.

Her eyes lingered on Tyler — pale, hurting, heart still healing from more than just trauma — and the woman waiting at the end of that hallway who might or might not even know he was there.

The hallway buzzed with soft activity: distant voices, wheels squeaking on waxed linoleum, the occasional soft ding of elevator doors.

Tyler sat in the wheelchair, left arm immobilized, IV trailing from the opposite hand. His hospital gown hung loose around his shoulders, chest still wrapped tightly beneath it. The bruising had deepened to a harsh plum beneath his collarbone, and a patch of dried blood clung near his hairline despite efforts to clean it.

But his eyes were fixed forward.

Boone walked just behind the chair, pushing slowly. Careful, steady. Like moving too fast might crack something open again.

Lily walked ahead with the nurse, guiding them through the maze of corridors.

Tyler shifted, uncomfortable. His breath hitched once, caught on the edge of pain — or something deeper. He said nothing.

They passed other rooms. Other lives. Machines humming. Families whispering. The grief and hope of a thousand stories tucked into each square foot of Stillwater Regional’s ICU wing.

But for Tyler, everything else faded.

Because at the end of this hallway, behind a glass door and a pale blue curtain, was her.

The last time he saw Kate, she was limp in his arms on the roadside. Her blood on his hands. Her breath barely there.

Now… she was alive.

He told himself that over and over. She’s alive.

Lily slowed as they reached the door. The nurse peeled off toward the station. Boone stopped the chair gently.

They were here.

Tyler stared at the nameplate: CARTER, K. – ICU 312.

He didn’t breathe.

Through the thin panel of glass, he could see the vague silhouette of machines. A pulse-ox monitor lit in green. An IV stand. A heart rhythm tracing up and down like a soft wave.

Then — a glimpse of her.

Her profile. Pale against the white sheets. Still.

He swallowed hard, his throat dry.

“Tyler,” Boone said gently. “You okay?”

Tyler didn’t answer right away.

His hand tightened around the armrest. The pain in his ribs flared with the motion, but he didn’t care.

“Can I have a second before I go in?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper.

Boone nodded. “Of course.”

Lily turned away, giving him space, though her brow creased with worry. She exchanged a glance with Boone.

The nurse returned with vitals equipment, but Tyler waved it off for now.

He just needed a moment.

Because what waited on the other side of the door wasn’t just Kate.

It was everything they hadn’t said.

Every storm they’d survived.

And the one they were still in the middle of.

The lights were dimmed now, casting a gentler glow than earlier. The machines still hummed and beeped in their careful cadence — oxygen, heart rate, pressure, sedation. All steady. All survivable.

Javi sat at Kate’s bedside, the rigid tension in his shoulders never quite softening despite what the monitors said. He hadn’t moved much in the last hour — not since her eyes first opened again.

The first thing Kate noticed was the light.

Too bright. Too white. Not sunlight — not really. It didn’t warm, it only stung. She blinked, but the movement sent a sharp, sick ache through the front of her skull. A pounding pressure just behind her eyes. Her fingers twitched, heavy and slow.

The world swam.

She heard a voice.

“Kate?”

It was muffled, like through a wall of water. But familiar. Something safe in the sound, even as the words floated oddly disconnected from her surroundings.

She turned her head toward it, barely.

Pain lanced through her temple — sharp, then dull and lingering.

Javi.

He was leaning forward now, eyes full of a mixture of hope and dread. Like someone staring at the last flare from a lighthouse on a storm-wrecked night.

“You’re okay,” he said gently. “You’re safe. You’re in the hospital. There was… an accident. You were hurt. Pretty badly.”

She blinked again. Her mouth was dry — her tongue like sandpaper. “I…”

The word dissolved before it could take shape.

“You’ve been out since surgery,” Javi continued, quieter now. “They fixed the bleed. There’s still some swelling, but you’re stable. You’re doing great, Kate.”

Her eyes drifted past him. The monitors. The IV bags. The faint sound of her own breath. It didn’t feel real.

He stood slowly, gave her hand one last squeeze.

“I’ve got someone who’s been dying to see you,” he said, forcing a smile. “You’re gonna want to see him too.”

Tyler sat slumped in the wheelchair, heart hammering against bruised ribs. He heard the words from Javi inside the room and tried to sit up straighter. His face was pale, clammy, but his eyes were locked on the door.

Boone stood behind him, hand on the chair’s handle.

“You sure?” he murmured. “You don’t have to—”

“I need to,” Tyler said before Boone could finish.

The nurse opened the door, gently wheeling him inside.

Kate’s head turned slowly toward the new presence. Her eyes — unfocused but open — found him. Blinked.

Tyler smiled. Big. Too big.

She was awake. She was breathing. She was here. That was already more than he’d let himself hope for.

“Hi, Kate,” he said, his voice trembling despite the grin.

Her brows drew together slightly, confusion creeping in like fog.

She stared at him.

Then, quietly, faintly:

“…Are you?”

The words landed like a punch to the ribs — no, worse. A rupture.

Javi went still, his throat tightening.

“No,” he said softly, stepping forward, already seeing the color drain from Tyler’s face.

Tyler’s lips parted. He tried to breathe, but it caught.

“No,” he said, forcing the word out. “It’s me. It’s Tyler.”

Her eyes searched his face harder. She repeated it, slower this time.

“Ty…ler?”

She frowned, as if testing the shape of it against her memory. But nothing clicked. The name hung between them like someone else’s ghost.

He didn’t break. Not visibly. But the breath he took afterward sounded like something crumbling quietly beneath his ribs.

She looked away. Not scared. Not cold.

Just… lost.

“I don’t remember,” she said after a moment. Her voice was barely more than breath.

And Tyler — his hand twitching in his lap, chest rising too fast — smiled anyway.

“It’s okay,” Javi said quickly, gently, to fill the silence. “You’ve been through a lot. Head injuries can mess with memory, okay? This is normal. You just need time.”

He reached to adjust her blanket, grounding himself in the motion.

“Just rest,” he said again, more to Tyler than to her now. “It’ll come back.”

Kate blinked slowly. Then her eyes drifted closed again, exhaustion tugging her back under.

Tyler sat frozen, eyes on her even as she slipped back into sedation. His lips trembled. Not from pain.

From something deeper.

Boone moved forward to push the wheelchair back, but Tyler didn’t speak. Didn’t move. His whole body had gone rigid. Like something inside him had locked up — an engine seized.

Javi finally looked up at him.

He didn’t say it.

But the look in his eyes said everything:

This was why I didn’t want him in here.

Chapter Text

Boone pushed the wheelchair slowly, carefully, like any jolt might snap whatever thin thread was still holding Tyler together.

But Tyler didn’t react to the motion at all.

His body stayed upright only because Boone had set him that way. His hands rested uselessly on the armrests. His eyes stared ahead — not unfocused, not closed.

Just… empty.

The hallway lights passed over him in pale strips, but he didn’t blink at them. The hospital smell, the distant beeping, the low rumble of carts and footsteps — none of it reached him. He moved like someone being carried through a world he was no longer part of.

Boone kept glancing down at him, jaw tight.
He’d never seen Tyler this silent. Not even after the crash. Not even when they’d first wheeled him out of surgery, barely breathing.

This was worse.

This was Tyler disappearing.

“Hey,” Boone murmured finally, voice low so it wouldn’t echo. “We’re almost there, alright? Just a few more minutes.”

Nothing. Not even a twitch.

Boone swallowed. His fingers tightened on the handles.

This is what they were afraid of, he thought. This right here.

They turned into Tyler’s room. The nurse was already waiting, and her face softened the moment she saw him.

“Oh,” she breathed. “Sweetheart…”

She didn’t finish. She didn’t have to.

Together, they moved him gently from the chair to the bed. Tyler didn’t help, didn’t resist. His limbs were pliant, cooperative only by accident. His head lolled slightly when they lifted him, and Boone caught it before it could drop.

“Easy, buddy,” Boone whispered.

Tyler still didn’t look at him.

The nurse checked the monitors, quiet and efficient. But even her hands hesitated at the end, lingering just a second too long on the pulse ox as if hoping his vitals might give her some reassurance.

They didn’t.

Everything about him broadcast the same message: Fading.

When she left, Boone dragged the chair close to the bed and sat, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. The silence stretched thin.

Finally, he tried.

“Ty…”

No answer.

Boone let out a shaky breath. “I know that was rough. More than rough. I know you’re hurting. Anyone would be.”

Tyler’s eyes stayed fixed on some point at the far wall. As if he could see through it, past it, to something Boone didn’t have access to.

Boone rubbed a hand over his face. “But you gotta hear me, alright? Kate waking up confused — that doesn’t mean she won’t remember. That happens all the time. People forget names, faces, whole days. It comes back. She just needs time.”

For the first time since they’d left Kate’s room, Tyler’s throat moved.

Not a sound. Just a swallow around something jagged.

Boone leaned in. “Hey. That’s good. Say something. Anything.”

Tyler blinked — slow, heavy.

Then his breath hitched.

Boone froze.

Tyler’s lips trembled once before he managed to get the words out, cracked and raw:

“She… doesn’t… know me.”

Boone closed his eyes for half a second, because hearing it aloud was somehow worse.

“Tyler—”

“She looked at me,” Tyler whispered, more breath than voice, “like I was nobody.”

Tears slid down the sides of his face, soaking into the pillow.

Boone’s chest tightened painfully. He reached for Tyler’s hand — and this time Tyler didn’t pull away, but he didn’t hold back either. His fingers just lay limp in Boone’s palm.

“It’s over,” Tyler said, quiet, final. “Everything we had. Everything I held onto. It’s gone.”

His voice broke on the last word.

Boone shook his head immediately. “No. Don’t you say that. She’s right there. She’s alive. And memory loss isn’t permanent. You of all people know that.”

Tyler finally turned his eyes toward Boone.

And the look in them — hollow, defeated — chilled Boone straight through his bones.

“My Kate is gone,” Tyler whispered. “Even if she comes back… even if her memories come back… she won’t be the same. And I… I don’t…” His breath shuddered, chest tight. “I don’t know how to live in a world where she’s not mine anymore.”

Boone’s heart dropped.

Because he knew, with sick certainty, that this wasn’t grief talking.

This was Tyler slipping.

Untethering.

And Kate — the last thing keeping him anchored to the world — had just vanished from his grasp.

Boone tightened his hold on Tyler’s hand, voice low, fierce, trembling.

“I’m not losing you too.”

Tyler didn’t answer.

He just stared past Boone again, tears still sliding, breath still breaking.

And Boone — watching his friend disappear inch by inch — felt something inside him crack with helpless fear.

Boone scooted the chair even closer, like proximity alone might pull Tyler back from whatever edge he was standing on.

“Ty,” he said softly. “Look at me, man. Please.”

Tyler didn’t.

His eyes drifted toward the ceiling, unfocused again, as if he were letting himself float away from his own body.

Boone swallowed hard. “You can’t do this. Not after everything you’ve been through. Not after everything she’s been through. You both fought too damn hard to still be here.”

Tyler’s chest rose shakily — not a sob, not fully — just something breaking down deeper than sound.

Boone pushed, gently but desperately. “You love her. I get that. But you can’t decide it’s over because of one moment. One reaction. She was barely awake, Ty. She’s injured. Confused.”

Tyler shut his eyes tight, as if the words hurt.

“She didn’t know me,” he murmured. “She didn’t feel anything.”

“You don’t know that—”

Tyler flinched, finally reacting, but only to interrupt him.

“You weren’t there.”

Boone stopped. The room held its breath.

Tyler opened his eyes again, staring up, hollow. “You didn’t see her face. The way she looked at me. Like I was… nothing. A stranger touching her life.”

Boone shook his head. “That’s the brain recovering—”

“No.” Tyler’s voice was barely a whisper, but it cut sharp. “No, Boone. It wasn’t confusion. It was emptiness. I felt it. She was gone.”

Boone’s heart clenched. “Tyler—”

“It would’ve been easier,” Tyler whispered, almost too quiet to hear. “If we hadn’t survived.”

Boone froze.

The words hit like a gunshot — not loud, but devastating.

“Ty— Jesus, man.” Boone’s voice cracked open in horror. “Don’t say that. Don’t even think that.”

Tyler didn’t look at him. Didn’t defend it.
Which somehow was worse.

Boone leaned forward until his elbows were braced on the mattress, until he was in Tyler’s line of sight whether Tyler wanted him there or not.

“Kate being alive is a miracle. Do you hear me?” Boone said, his voice trembling but firm. “She survived something that should’ve killed both of you. She’s here. Breathing. Healing. And memory comes back. It does. You’ve gotta hold onto that.”

Tyler didn’t blink.

Boone’s voice softened, pleading. “Somewhere in her heart, she still loves you. That doesn’t just vanish. She just needs time to find her way back.”

Tyler’s expression didn’t change. If anything, it closed further, retreating inward.

“Don’t give up, Tyler,” Boone whispered. “Not now. You both made it out of that crash. You fought for your life in that ambulance. You fought in surgery. You have to keep fighting now.”

Nothing.

Tyler just stared straight past him — past the room, past the world — like hope itself had become an artifact he couldn’t remember the shape of.

Boone felt a cold dread grip his spine.

“Please,” he said. “Talk to me. Say something.”

Tyler finally turned his head… but away. Away from Boone, away from everything he was offering. As slow as if gravity itself had doubled.

Then he closed his eyes.

More tears escaped, silent, steady, slipping over his temples and pooling in his hair. He didn’t wipe them. He didn’t hide them. He didn’t seem to care.

Every breath he took sounded thin, frayed, as though each inhale was a reminder of what he’d lost.

Boone sat there, helpless, watching the one person who never stopped fighting decide — quietly, completely — that maybe there was nothing left worth fighting for.

“Ty…” Boone whispered again, but he knew, this time, Tyler wasn’t listening.

He’d vanished into the memory of Kate’s face — that blank, unfamiliar look — an image now carved so deep into him it hurt just to breathe.

And nothing Boone said could reach him through that pain.

Nothing mattered to Tyler anymore.

Not without Kate.

The room was still. Dim. The only sounds came from the soft, metronomic beeping of the monitors and the occasional sigh of the vents overhead.

Javi sat hunched in the visitor’s chair, knuckles white around a paper cup of cold coffee. He hadn’t touched it in over an hour. His knee bounced restlessly. His jaw clenched. His eyes — red-rimmed and haunted — didn’t leave Kate.

She stirred slightly, a subtle shift under the blanket. Her brows drew together as though surfacing from deep water. Then—her eyes opened.

Javi sat forward instantly.

“Kate,” he breathed. “Hey. You’re okay. You’re still here.”

Her head turned toward him slowly. Eyes unfocused at first… then finding his face.

“…Javi?” Her voice was rasped, dry, confused. But the recognition was there.

He smiled. It was reflexive — a flash of joy mixed with exhaustion. “Yeah. I’m here.”

She blinked slowly, taking in the room, the wires, the IV pole.

“I thought I… was dreaming. This feels like… a bad one.”

“It’s real. You’re in Stillwater Medical. You’ve been out for a while. You were in an accident,” he said, gently but efficiently. The words felt rehearsed now. He’d said them to her twice already in the last day.

Her face tightened with a flicker of discomfort. She reached for her temple, wincing. “My head…”

“I know. The doctors said there was swelling. You had surgery to relieve pressure — there was a bleed.”

She took that in without answering, eyes fluttering closed again for a second before reopening with more intent. “How bad was it?”

“Bad enough we almost lost you,” he said, quieter now. “But you’re still here.”

She gave a faint nod, absorbing it all with the calm detachment of someone still wading through a medicated fog. Then she looked at him again.

“Javi…?”

Javi froze.

The air in the room changed. His throat closed.

“Tyler’s here,” he said eventually. His voice strained. “In the ICU. But he’s… not doing great.”

Her eyes sharpened a little at that. “Did he get hurt?”

Javi hesitated — too long.

“He’s got injuries,” he said, finally. “But… it’s more than that. His heart’s not handling the stress. The crash… you not remembering… it’s—” He faltered.

Kate’s brows pinched together. “I don’t understand.”

Javi exhaled shakily, fingers raking through his hair. “Kate… you don’t remember him. Not fully. And he knows. You looked at him like he was a stranger. And I think… that broke him.”

Her mouth parted slightly. “What…?”

“He’s spiraling. His body’s shutting down. His doctors don’t think he’s giving up — they know he is.” Javi’s voice cracked, low and ragged. “I don’t know how to help either of you.”

Kate stared at the ceiling, expression unreadable. “I didn’t mean to…”

“I know.” Javi’s voice dropped to a whisper. “But that doesn’t matter to him right now.”

He sat back in the chair, palms pressed to his face, voice muffled. “He said he’d rather you hadn’t woken up at all than look at him like you didn’t know him. Like he didn’t exist.”

Kate flinched.

Silence spread between them — deep and heavy.

Finally, Kate whispered, “Is it really that bad?”

Javi didn’t answer.

He just stood, turned toward the door with a shaking hand on the handle, and said, “I can to go check on him.”

And when he slipped out of the room, the ache he left behind filled the space like fog. Kate, alone in the silence, stared at nothing — but for the first time since waking, her eyes filled with tears.

The light through the slats of the blinds had warmed slightly, casting soft amber tones over the sterile white walls. The monitors beside Kate hummed steadily, but the furrow in her brow hadn’t gone away.

Javi had returned quietly, bringing her water and silence — letting her breathe, letting her think.

She shifted slightly in the bed, her voice hoarse but steadier now.

“Javi,” she said, looking at him more directly than she had since waking. “Can I ask you something?”

He glanced up from the corner of the room, alert. “Anything.”

She hesitated, her gaze falling to her lap, where her fingers toyed with the edge of her blanket.

“Who is he to me?” Her voice was small. Fragile. “Tyler. You said he’s not doing well. I just… I don’t feel anything when I hear his name. And that makes me feel—” She stopped. Shook her head. “I need to know.”

Javi swallowed. He reached into his pocket, quietly pulling out a small velvet pouch. He walked over to her bedside and carefully placed it in her hand.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“Open it.”

She did — slowly, with unsteady fingers. Inside was a delicate silver necklace with a charm shaped like a funnel cloud, tiny but beautifully made. She stared at it like it might explain something.

“He gave that to you a few nights ago, before the crash,” Javi said, voice thick. “Your anniversary. One year. You joked that only Tyler Owens would celebrate a relationship milestone with weather-themed jewelry.” It had pained him that after the failed visit Tyler had given it back to him.

Kate didn’t laugh, but something flickered in her eyes. Something close to surprise… or understanding.

“We were…” she began, then stopped.

“In love,” Javi said, gently. “You lived together. Chased together. Argued like hell about forecast models and truck maintenance, but always came back to each other.”

Kate kept looking at the necklace, her thumb brushing over the charm. “I went back to chasing?”

Javi nodded. “You were nervous at first. Scared, honestly. You’d taken a break. But you came back this season. And Tyler? He never once rushed you. You found your own way back to the sky.”

Her lips parted slightly. She didn’t remember any of it, but something — deep in her chest — didn’t rebel against it either. It didn’t feel foreign. It felt… quietly right.

“I don’t feel afraid,” she said. “Shouldn’t I feel afraid?”

Javi’s breath hitched softly, hope glinting behind his eyes. “That might be your brain remembering something before your memory does.”

Kate nodded slowly, still holding the necklace.

Javi sat on the edge of the chair again. “Look, memory’s weird. Trauma messes with how and where things land in your mind. But the fact that you’re asking about him now? That you wanted to know who he is?” He gave her a small, fragile smile. “That means something.”

Kate looked back at the necklace, her expression unreadable.

“Can I… wear it?” she asked softly.

Javi nodded, already moving to help clasp it behind her neck.

She touched it once more when it was on — then leaned back into her pillow.

Somewhere deep in her mind, maybe the storm hadn’t scattered everything. Maybe the important parts — the ones that mattered — were just waiting to be found again.

Javi stayed beside her, heart a little lighter.

Maybe Tyler wasn’t as lost to her as they all feared.

Maybe all she needed… was a reminder.

The walls felt like they were closing in.

Tyler lay motionless, pale against the sheets, sweat slicked across his brow despite the cool temperature of the room. Monitors traced sharp, erratic lines across the screen. BP: 88/56. HR: 122. Resp: shallow.

The nurses were already moving fast.

“His pressure’s still dropping.”

“O2 saturation’s tanking—eighty-two and falling.”

“He’s throwing PVCs again—possible V-tach.”

“Notify Dr. Avery. Now.”

One nurse reached for a bolus of fluids while another prepped the crash cart — not because he was coding, not yet — but because the team could see where this was going.

Tyler’s eyelids fluttered as if he wanted to come back up — but he couldn’t. His fingers twitched at his side, searching for something that wasn’t there. Someone.

He mumbled something, unintelligible at first. Then clearer.

“…Kate…”

The name escaped like a wound, raw and cracking.

“Tyler, can you hear me?” a nurse leaned in. “Stay with us.”

His eyes opened, just barely — glassy, unfocused, full of something that looked too close to surrender. He wasn’t thrashing. Wasn’t crying. He was simply… disappearing.

Dr. Avery rushed in seconds later, his lab coat half-on, stethoscope already around his neck. One look at the monitors, and his jaw tensed.

“Damn it. Push a second liter of saline wide open. Start dopamine at 5mcg/kg/min—he’s circling the drain.”

“He was stable an hour ago,” a nurse said, shaking her head. “What the hell happened?”

Avery moved fast, checking Tyler’s chest, lifting his eyelids, watching how slow the pupils responded now.

“His system’s giving out. The sympathetic surge we were worried about earlier? It’s swinging the other way now — full-on parasympathetic collapse. His body thinks the trauma’s over, but the emotional shock is still active. It’s shutting him down. Slowly. Systematically.”

“Like he’s… giving up,” the nurse said quietly.

Dr. Avery didn’t answer that. He didn’t have to.

They worked to stabilize him — again. Fluids, vasopressors, oxygen. But it wasn’t just about numbers anymore. It was about something deeper unraveling inside him. A fracture of the will.

He’s alive. But slipping.

And the terrifying truth was this: his injuries hadn’t killed him. His grief might.

Dr. Avery stepped out for a moment to update the team.

Inside the room, Tyler lay silent again — the machines doing the work his heart couldn’t keep up with.

The storm wasn’t over.

It had just gone quiet.

Dr. Avery steps out of the room, face drawn and urgent. Boone, Lily, and Javi gather around, watching his expression sharpen into concern. “His pressure’s crashed—now averaging around 88/52. Heart rate’s wavering 120–130 with non-sustained VT. Oxygen’s dropping—mid-80s on high-flow,” Dr. Avery says quietly. He pauses before continuing, “He’s experiencing autonomic collapse—his body is physically shutting down in response to emotional overload. We’ve started dopamine support, another liter of IV fluids, but these spikes and drops—this isn’t just cardiac. This is grief and guilt overloading his system.”

“So—he can’t just fix himself?” Boone asks, strained.

“Not without direct support,” Dr. Avery replies. “We could consider a medically induced coma—ventilate, sedate him, let his body reset without the psychological triggers. But that comes with risks.”

Silence stretches around them before Lily takes a sudden step forward, tears streaming down her face. “Do it. Put him in a coma. Sedate him. Do something to stop this from killing him!” she cries, her voice breaking.

Boone and Javi both look at Lily, shocked by the raw desperation in her voice.

“It’s not a decision we take lightly,” Dr. Avery says softly. “A coma means sedation, intubation—he’d be on a ventilator. It stabilizes vitals, removes sensory and emotional triggers…but it’s not a cure. It buys time for his mind to calm and his heart to heal.”

Lily’s tears fall harder—anger, fear, and sorrow all tangled in her plea. “He’s dying, Doc. And it’s not the crash. It’s his heartbreak, his guilt. He can’t survive like this!”

Dr. Avery studies her, then meets Boone’s gaze. “Would you authorize that? Induce a coma to save him?”

Boone hesitates, heart pounding. “If it’s what he needs—yes. I’ll authorize it. Whatever it takes.”

Dr. Avery nods, pressing numbers into his tablet. “Alright. I’ll initiate sedation—targeted, controlled. I’ll talk to the ICU team about mechanical ventilation prep. We’ll monitor his intracranial pressure and reassess in 24 hours.”

Lily sways, her emotions spilling free. “Thank you,” she whispers.

Dr. Avery places a reassuring hand on her arm. “You all made the right choice under impossible circumstances. We’ll keep fighting for him. Just know… you’re not giving up on Tyler.” He turns and heads back inside.

Boone reaches for Lily’s hand. Javi places a gentle hand on his shoulder. The three stand together, breath shaky, as all they can do right now is wait—and hope. 

Chapter Text

The room is tense, sterile lights casting sharp shadows over monitors beeping steadily. Tyler lies pale and fragile on the bed, chest rising and falling unevenly. Nurses and respiratory therapists bustle quietly, preparing equipment.

A nurse checking lines, says, “Sedation meds are primed. Starting with a slow titration of propofol.”

“Ventilator’s ready. Intubation kit’s prepped,” the respiratory therapist adds.

Dr. Avery stands at Tyler’s bedside, calmly but firmly directing the team.
“We’re going in slow. Goal is to reach sedation level that suppresses autonomic storm but maintains minimal hemodynamic instability.”

Tyler’s eyelids flutter weakly, his breaths shallow and ragged. Boone stands just outside the bed rails, hand resting lightly on Tyler’s shoulder, voice low and steady.

Boone murmurs, “Hey, man. We’re gonna help you breathe easy. We’re right here.”

The nurse begins administering the sedative. Slowly, Tyler’s breathing deepens briefly, then begins to slow. His eyes close, his face slackening into an expression of fragile peace.

Monitors beep steady but slower now. Heart rate stabilizes at a gentler rhythm, blood pressure creeping up slightly.

A second nurse reports, “Sedation level holding. Vitals stabilizing.”

Dr. Avery leans close to Boone.
“He’s responding well. Intubation in two minutes.”

The respiratory therapist gently places the endotracheal tube as Tyler’s body goes limp, now fully sedated. The ventilator hums softly as it takes over breathing.

Boone’s hand tightens briefly on Tyler’s shoulder, eyes moist but resolute.
Boone says, “You’re safe now, man. Just rest.”

Dr. Avery adjusts Tyler’s sedation drip, then steps back to observe monitors alongside the team.
“This buys us time. For his heart, his brain, and his mind. Now we wait.”

The room falls into quiet focus, the steady beep of machines the only sound as Tyler lies in controlled, medicated sleep—far from the chaos of pain and panic, for now.

Lily and Boone sit close, tension thick in the air. Both wear visitor badges, but their faces betray exhaustion and worry. Boone’s fingers drum nervously on his knee; Lily’s eyes are rimmed red from tears held back too long.

Lily's voice trembles, “I keep thinking… did we do the right thing? Putting him under like that. Sedation’s risky for a heart already on the edge.”

Boone's quiet, conflicted. “I know. But if we didn’t… he might have spiraled faster. The last episode nearly killed him.”

Lily swallows hard, looking away for a moment before meeting Boone’s eyes again.

Lily quietly adds, “Still. He didn’t say yes. He couldn’t. I hate that we made a decision for him.”

“I’m his medical proxy. If he was in his right mind, he’d want to fight. But he’s not. He’s broken right now. And this was the only way to save him from breaking worse.” Boone's voice is low, resolute.

They both fall silent, the weight of that responsibility pressing down.

“What if this doesn’t work? What if… sedation takes him further from us?”

Boone says grimly, “Then we fight again. But right now, we have to trust the doctors—and that Tyler’s stronger than this storm.”

Lily nods slowly, tears escaping despite her best effort.

“I just hope he knows we did it because we love him.”

Boone reaches out, squeezing her hand briefly, a shared silent vow.

Tyler’s eyelids feel heavy—like lead—pressed down by a relentless fog that seeps deeper with every breath. His chest tightens, heartbeat pounding unevenly beneath fragile ribs. The room blurs, sounds folding in and out, distant and muffled.

His mind spins.

He can’t stop thinking about her—Kate. The way her eyes didn’t recognize him. The way the name Tyler felt foreign on her tongue. A crushing weight settles deep in his bones.

I’m nothing without her.

The thought echoes, fracturing, fracturing…

A nurse’s voice cuts through the haze. Soft, clinical, urgent.

“Sedation coming in now, Mr. Owens. Just relax.”

Warm liquid slides into his vein, cool and heavy, dragging him under like waves pulling him from shore.

His breathing slows. Heart still races, but dimming.

The last clear image in his mind is her face—lost, distant, unreachable.

Please don’t forget me.

His lids fall closed.

Darkness swallows him whole.

The sedative floods Tyler’s system. His muscles relax, his frantic heart rate begins to slow, though still irregular. His breathing evens, shallow but steady.

Dr. Avery watches the monitors closely—ECG tracing jagged and erratic, oxygen saturation wavering.

“This is the best we can do right now,” he says quietly but firmly to Lily and Boone, who stand tense by the bedside.

Lily’s eyes glisten with tears. “He’s so fragile… I hope this sedation holds.”

Boone clenches his jaw. “Is this really what Tyler would want? To be comatose, unable to fight?”

Dr. Avery sighs, his gaze locked on the screen. “At this point, it’s a choice between letting his heart keep crashing or giving it a chance to rest. Sedation buys time for his body—and mind—to recover.”

The nurse adjusts the ventilator settings as Tyler’s chest rises and falls in a slow, controlled rhythm.

Lily swallows hard. “He needs us to make the right calls.”

Boone nods, voice barely above a whisper. “For him. For Kate.”

Dr. Avery steps back, arms folded. “We’ll keep monitoring closely. Any change and we act immediately. But for now, he’s stable—just.”

The room falls into a heavy silence as Tyler lies still, fragile between life and the abyss, the last flicker of consciousness swallowed by the steady hum of machines.

The next few hours Tyler had held steady. The steady beep of the heart monitor fills the room—a fragile rhythm, tentative but still there. It had gave Boone and Lily a fragile piece of hope.

Dr. Avery returned to scan the monitors, his face tight with concentration. He adjusts some settings on the ventilator, then turns to Lily and Boone.

“His arrhythmia has calmed somewhat, but his cardiac function remains compromised,” he explains. “Sedation reduces metabolic demand, gives the heart a chance to rest. It’s essential right now.”

Lily exhales shakily, wiping tears from her cheeks. “I just… I don’t want to lose him. Not like this.”

Boone places a firm hand on her shoulder, voice low. “We all feel that. But this is his best shot.”

A nurse enters quietly, checking lines and IVs. “We’re watching for any signs of instability. Any change, we’ll be here immediately.”

Dr. Avery nods. “We need to prepare for the possibility of longer-term ventilation and critical care support. This isn’t over yet.”

Lily looks to Boone, then back at the monitors. “If we had acted sooner… maybe…”

Boone shakes his head. “We did what we could with what we knew. Sometimes, there’s no clear answer. We just keep fighting.”

The room feels heavy, burdened with the uncertainty of survival. Machines hum, monitors blink, but the future remains unwritten.

Dr. Avery steps to the computer, documenting, then looks toward the door.

“I’ll update the team and coordinate next steps. For now, we hold tight.”

Boone and Lily exchange a glance, determination settling amid the fear.

“Whatever it takes,” Boone says softly.

Lily nods, eyes shining with resolve. “For Tyler.”

The monitors beep steadily, but each pulse feels tenuous in the tense air. Everything was riding on this 24 hour reassessment.

Dr. Avery reviews Tyler’s vitals on the central monitor, then glances at the arterial line waveform and ECG tracing.

“His ejection fraction remains low — consistent with stress-induced cardiomyopathy,” he reports, voice clinical but edged with concern. “The heart muscle is stunned, likely due to the catecholamine surge from emotional and physical trauma.”

A nurse adjusts the IV drip rates carefully, watching for any sign of hemodynamic instability.

“Sedation is helping reduce oxygen demand, but his blood pressure remains borderline low. We’re maintaining inotropic support to optimize cardiac output.”

Lily’s hands tremble slightly as she glances at Tyler’s monitor, eyes flicking between the readings.

“We need to monitor for arrhythmias continuously,” Dr. Avery continues. “Any spikes in heart rate or irregular rhythms could worsen myocardial stress.”

Boone leans in, voice low but firm. “What’s the prognosis if this keeps up?”

Dr. Avery’s gaze hardens. “It’s critical. If we can’t reverse the myocardial stunning, the risk of heart failure or cardiogenic shock rises dramatically.”

The respiratory therapist adjusts ventilator settings, ensuring Tyler is comfortable and adequately oxygenated.

The nurse checks sedation levels and administers a bolus of midazolam to keep Tyler calm.

“Right now, we’re balancing on a knife’s edge,” Dr. Avery says quietly. “This is a race against time and the body’s own stress response.”

Lily swallows hard, voice breaking. “Is there anything more we can do?”

Dr. Avery pauses, then meets her gaze. “We continue with sedation, cardiac support, and close neuro monitoring. We reassess every hour. It’s a fragile situation.”

The door opens softly. Dr. Renner, neurologist, steps in, followed by a nurse. The room hums with machines—ventilator, monitors, infusion pumps—all steady but delicate.

Dr. Renner approaches Tyler’s bedside, clipboard in hand, eyes scanning the chart before looking at Tyler’s still face.

“Tyler, I’m Dr. Renner. I’m going to do a quick neurological check to see how your brain is doing,” she says calmly, her voice low but clear.

She starts gently: testing pupillary reflexes with a penlight—both pupils sluggish but reactive. Then she assesses corneal reflexes and facial movements—none evident; Tyler remains unresponsive.

She moves on to assess motor responses: applying a painful stimulus to the trapezius muscle—Tyler flexes his arm slightly but no purposeful withdrawal.

“His Glasgow Coma Score remains low, around 6,” she notes quietly. “No significant improvement since last assessment. Brain swelling could still be affecting his responsiveness.”

The nurse checks intracranial pressure monitor readings—numbers trending just below critical thresholds, but not reassuring.

Dr. Renner scribbles notes, then steps back.

“He’s sedated and in a medically induced coma, which complicates assessment,” she explains to the team gathered nearby. “But from what we can tell, there’s ongoing cerebral edema likely from the initial trauma compounded by hypoxia.”

She looks toward Dr. Avery.

“This combined with his cardiac dysfunction makes management very complex. Both systems are critically intertwined right now.”

Dr. Avery nods grimly.

“We continue supportive care. Repeat neuroimaging will be needed in 24 hours or sooner if there are signs of deterioration.”

The team silently absorbs the gravity of the update.

Dr. Renner steps out quietly, leaving the team focused on the monitors, the steady beeps, and the fragile thread holding Tyler’s life together.

Dr. Avery, Dr. Renner, Lily, Boone, and Dani gather around a monitor displaying Tyler’s vital signs, neuroimaging scans, and cardiac telemetry. The room is hushed, lit only by the rhythmic glow of the screens as each of them studies the data in tense silence.

Dr. Avery says, “Tyler’s cardiac status remains fragile. We’re managing the stress cardiomyopathy medically—beta blockers, ACE inhibitors, cautious fluid management. But any neurological deterioration will complicate this further.”

Dr. Renner steps closer to the monitor, her expression tight. “His CT shows persistent cerebral edema with no new hemorrhage, but the midline shift hasn’t improved. We’re watching for signs of increased intracranial pressure—any spike could be catastrophic.”

Lily swallows hard before speaking. “So what’s the plan? Do we consider surgical intervention, or keep him sedated and wait it out?”

Dr. Renner answers steadily, “Surgery at this stage is high risk and won't reverse the cardiomyopathy. We continue with medical management—osmotic therapy, sedation, ventilation to control CO2 levels, and ICP monitoring. We’ll reassess with repeat imaging in 24 hours or immediately if his status changes.”

Dr. Avery adds, “From the cardiac side, we’re titrating meds slowly to avoid hypotension, which could worsen cerebral perfusion. It’s a delicate balance.”

Boone’s voice is quiet, almost hopeful. “Is there any chance he’ll wake up soon?”

Dr. Renner shakes her head. “At best, it’s days, maybe weeks. It depends on how things resolve and whether the cardiac system stabilizes. We’re stabilizing the environment for potential recovery.”

Dani asks softly, “What about the sedation? How long can we keep him like this safely?”

Dr. Avery replies, “As long as necessary. We’ll monitor for complications—ventilator-associated pneumonia, blood clots, kidney function. The sedation is essential to reduce metabolic demand on the brain and heart.”

Lily wipes her eyes, her voice tight. “We just have to hope this works.”
Boone nods silently.

Dr. Renner concludes, “We’ll keep a close watch. Any changes, we act immediately. But right now, it’s a waiting game.”

The team disperses quietly, tension heavy in the room as monitors continue their steady beeping — life hanging in delicate balance.

The weight of reality felt suffocating. What was supposed to be a temporary solution to help Tyler has started to look long-term. Starting to feel like all they did was prolong the inevitable. Tyler's body wasn't fighting anymore. Somewhere he gave up.

And worse was the whispers about supportive care. 

Not recovery. 

Not healing.

But palliative.

The question that lingered for the last few hours finally made it's way to surface. "Is this our fault cause we let him see Kate?" Lily's voice cracked with the weight of it. 

The answer in itself wasn't yes or no. 

Boone sighed, "Tyler’s injuries from the crash weren't helping this situation but him being so heartbroken had only made his already fragile heart weaker. It all came down to the fact Tyler wanted to see Kate. He made his own choice."

Blame really only fell on that stupid second tornado. 

It had stolen parts of Kate they weren't sure they'd get back. And it was well on it's way to stealing Tyler from them completely.

The room is dim but alive with the soft hum of machines — ventilator, infusion pumps, monitors flashing steady rhythms.

Two nurses, work quietly but efficiently as they tend to Tyler.

One checks the IV lines and adjusts the sedation drip, eyes scanning the monitor.
“Sedation levels steady. No fluctuations on the EEG. Vitals stable for now.”

Another gently cleans Tyler’s skin, mindful of pressure points.
“He’s vulnerable to infections. We need to be vigilant. And turning him every four hours is critical.”

The nurse nods, documenting the notes.
“Neuro checks scheduled every hour. ICP readings holding steady, but the margins are tight. One spike, and we’re all hands on deck.”

“He’s fighting somewhere in there. We just have to give him time.”

Suddenly, an alarm sounds — a subtle beep from the monitor. The nurse moves swiftly to assess.
“BP dropping—heart rate dipping. Call Dr. Avery and get rapid response ready.”

She presses a button on the call system, voice calm but urgent.
“Code Blue to ICU, room 412.”

Emergency meds were primed while checking lines.
“We need to maintain cerebral perfusion—keep his MAP above 70.”

Another confirms the sedation pump is adjusted accordingly.
“Keep him sedated. Don’t want any spikes in ICP.”

Minutes later, Dr. Avery arrives with the rapid response team. He's briefed instantly as they prepare for interventions.

His hands fly over the monitors, adrenaline controlled but steady.
“Administering vasopressors per orders.”

“Airway patent, ventilation settings adjusted to optimize oxygenation.”

Dr. Avery monitors Tyler’s status, directing the team.
“We’ve stabilized him for now, but this is a warning sign. We need to reassess the sedation depth and hemodynamic management.”

The machines return to their steady chorus as the night deepens, a silent vigil held by the nursing team committed to Tyler’s fight.

The team gathers quietly, tension thick in the air. Boone paces, hands clenched. Lily sits with her head in her hands. Dani and Dexter exchange worried looks.

Lily's voice breaks, "I hate that this is happening. We pushed too hard. Tyler’s heart just couldn’t take it."

Boone snaps bitterly. "Javi warned us. Said it wasn’t the right time. We didn’t listen."

Dani tries to steady herself. "It’s not about blame. We need to focus on what’s next — how to help him now."

Dexter nods, "The sedation’s working for now, but he’s still fragile. We can’t underestimate how close this is."

Lily wipes tears away, then clenches her jaw. “We have to consider a longer-term plan. If he doesn’t stabilize, we may need to escalate — more invasive support, maybe even ECMO.”

Boone stops pacing, looks up sharply. “ECMO? That’s a last resort. But if it’s what he needs… we have to be ready.”

Dani exhales deeply. “And Kate — we don’t know how she’s doing either. Javi said she was taken for a CT. We’re still waiting.”

Dexter pulls out his phone, checking messages. “No updates yet.”

Boone sinks into a chair, voice low. “I just wish Tyler knew she’s fighting too — even if she doesn’t remember him yet.”

Lily looks at him, eyes softening. “We’ll get through this. Together.”

They all nod, silently agreeing to hold the line — for both Tyler and Kate.

The lights are dimmed. The vending machine hums. The television on the wall plays softly in the background — something forgettable, easily drowned out by the heavy silence in the room. Lily sits curled into a corner of the couch, arms wrapped around herself. Boone leans forward in a chair, elbows on knees, staring blankly at the floor. Dani paces slowly, while Dexter stands by the window, phone in hand but untouched.

Dani, quietly, finally breaking the silence, says, “We should talk about what Dr. Avery said earlier. About… if this goes on longer.” Boone lifts his gaze, slow and unwilling.

“You mean if Tyler doesn’t come out of it.”

Dexter, flatly: “Prolonged sedation. Ventilator dependence. Long-term ICU support. It’s not just about now anymore.”

Lily, hoarse, barely a whisper: “How long do we keep him like this? When is… enough?”

The question hits the room like a gust through a broken window — not cruel, but inevitable. Boone exhales sharply, scrubbing a hand over his face.

“In his rodeo days, when a guy went down hard, couldn’t move, stuck on machines — he used to say he’d never want to live like that. Said if you can’t ride or run or laugh without help, what’s the point?” He swallows hard.

Boone continues, “He didn’t say it like a joke. He meant it. I didn’t think I’d ever have to remember it like this.”

Lily closes her eyes against the sting. “But this isn’t the same. It’s not permanent. We don’t know that yet.”

Dexter speaks gently: “We don’t. But the longer he’s under, the more risk. Pneumonia. Organ stress. ICU psychosis — if he wakes up. And if he doesn’t… what then?”

Dani finally sits down, her pacing ended not by exhaustion but emotional gravity. “We’re not making decisions now. But we need to be ready to talk about it. If his condition doesn’t turn a corner soon… we’ll have to ask what Tyler would really want.”

Lily shakes her head slowly. “He’d want Kate. That’s all he’s ever wanted.”

Boone, bitterly: “And right now, even that’s not enough to keep him here.”

No one says anything after that. The silence stretches, filled with machines down the hall and unspoken fears neither medicine nor data can resolve.

Chapter Text

A tentative calm fills the room. Javi sits beside Kate’s bed, a half-drunk coffee growing cold between them. Over the past hours, she’s opened her eyes more frequently, smiled when she recognized him — small, beautiful sparks in the fog of her recovery.

He leans forward as she stirs again.

“Morning,” he whispers. “How are you feeling?”

Kate blinks, slow but present. “…Better, I think.” Her voice cracks on the words. She reaches for his hand. “You didn’t leave?”

“Never,” he replies, squeezing hers gently. “I’ve only been here.”

A pieced-together medical record slides across the counter toward Javi: Kate – CT brain scan results.

He holds it with both hands, scanning the lines.

No new bleeding.
Swelling greatly reduced — despite the initial trauma four days ago.

He exhales, relief washing through him.

Behind the good news, a lean regret lingers:
Memory loss is still present.
Could recover slowly—or permanently altered.

Javi’s grip tightens before loosening.

A nurse catches his eye and offers a soft smile. “Good news,” she says quietly.

He nods. “Yes. It is.”

Javi sits down slowly and placing the report beside Kate. She notices the paper.

“CT,” she whispers.

“Yeah,” he nods. “It’s good. The swelling’s mostly gone.”

Kate closes her eyes as if feeling the weight lift from inside her skull. Relief and exhaustion washes over her face.

“But your memory…” Javi continues gently. “It’ll take time. It may come back… or it may not.”

She opens her eyes again, focusing on him. “Time,” she repeats. “That’s okay.”

To Javi, her acceptance is a soft blessing. She squeezes his hand again.

Javi steps out of the room for air, adjusting the coffee cup in his hand. The hallway is dim and quiet.

A faint alarm echoes from down the corridor. It's faint but familiar.

Without thinking, Javi walks toward the ICU waiting room.

Lily, Boone, Dani, and Dexter fall silent. Emotions hang thick: worry, exhaustion, unspoken fear.

Javi folds into an empty seat, tired eyes drifting over the group.

It’s been too long since he’s seen them like this. The weight of the situation sits heavy in the room.

Silence stretches uncomfortably until Javi finally speaks up.

“Scan’s clean,” he says quietly. “No new bleeding. Swelling’s down — a lot, actually. She’s … recovering.”

He pauses. “But memory’s still a question. It’ll come back—or it might not. She’s accepting that.”

Hope flickers across their faces — relief tempered with the lingering fear of what’s next.

Boone shakes his head slowly. “That’s… good news.”

Lily breathes out. “She’s fighting.”

Javi nods. “She is.”

He looks at each of them in turn: solidarity, grief, fragile hope.

“We’ve still got a long road,” he says softly. “But this is a start.”

They let that moment sit there. No one dares to speak — not yet.

But inside, they all know that even small victories can mean everything.

The room is quiet except for the soft whir of machines and the low hum of the overhead lights. The setting sun casts a pale amber wash across the sheets, warm and delicate. Javi sits beside Kate, elbow on the edge of the bed, one hand loosely holding hers, the other swiping at his tired eyes.

She’s been awake longer this time — clearer, steadier. Her voice isn’t strong, but her presence is. And that alone… is everything.

Kate turns her head slightly toward him, her eyes following the trailing edge of a sunbeam.

“I remember the way you always leaned left in the truck,” she says, faint amusement in her voice. “Like gravity owed you something.”

Javi blinks, startled by the specificity.

A laugh breaks through his throat — one short, incredulous. He covers his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes shine. “God, Kate... You remember that?”

She nods faintly, a tired but genuine smile on her lips. “You complained about my playlist more than the storms.”

He huffs a breath that turns into a tear. “Yeah, well. You’ve got a soft spot for ‘90s heartbreak.”

“I regret nothing,” she murmurs.

Emotion rolls through him. He brushes his thumb along her hand and shakes his head slowly, the words catching.

“It’s you,” he whispers. “It’s really still you.”

Kate watches him carefully, a flicker of concern slipping through her soft smile.

Then — gently — she brings her fingers up and touches the small silver storm pendant at her neck. The one Tyler gave her before the crash.

Her gaze lingers there.

“Tyler,” she says quietly. “You’ve talked about him. But I still… I don’t remember him.”

Javi’s expression stills.

“I know,” he says after a moment. “I didn’t want to push.”

“Is he okay?”

Javi hesitates. His mouth opens, then shuts again. His heart breaks a little as he wrestles with how much to tell her.

“He’s… not good, Kate.”

Her brows furrow. “Because of the crash?”

Javi swallows hard. “Not just the crash. You. Seeing you… not recognize him. It was a lot. He’s… in the ICU. They had to sedate him to stabilize his heart.”

Kate’s lips part. Shock flickers across her features.

“He—because of me?”

“No,” Javi says quickly. “Because of how much he loves you.”

She looks away, stunned. Her fingers brush the pendant again — lightly, as though unsure if it’s even hers.

After a long pause, she whispers, “Can I see him?”

Javi blinks. “What?”

“I want to see him,” she says, firmer this time. “I… I don’t remember him. But maybe I don’t need to. If it’s this bad… if he’s hurting… I want to help.”

The moment stuns Javi to silence. He looks at her — pale, exhausted, recovering from a near-fatal injury — and still, her instinct is to comfort someone else.

A tear escapes his cheek before he can stop it. He reaches for her hand again, and holds it like it’s made of something sacred.

“I’ll talk to his doctors,” he promises softly. “I’ll do whatever I can.”

Kate nods. “Thank you.”

And just like that — through the haze of trauma and memory loss — Javi knows:

She may not remember everything.

But her heart hasn’t forgotten a thing.

Lily, Boone, Dani, and Dexter sit in heavy silence, the fluorescent lights above flickering as they wait for any sign—good or bad. Every glance towards the nurses’ station is a plea.

Javi enters quietly, shoulders drawn, face softened. He pauses, taking in the room, then approaches the group with something fragile in his eyes.

Javi's voice trembles softly, "Kate… she asked to see him."

The words hang between them like a promise.

Lily's eyes widen. "She did?"

Javi nods, looking down at his hands. “She doesn’t—remember him clearly. But she felt something. The way he gave her this necklace…it clicked. And she asked: ‘Can I… see him?’”

Boone exhales, standing slowly. He glances around the room, voice low but steady. “That’s… hope. She wants him. That could be what grounds him—hearing her voice, feeling her presence.”

Dani leans forward. “It’s more than hope. It’s a lifeline.”

Dexter watches Javi with gentle intensity. “Wow. That’s powerful.”

Javi’s voice cracks as he continues. “She’s fragile—recovering. But she wants to see him. She said… if he’s hurting, she wants to help.”

A beat of silence, then Lily closes her eyes.

"That… that means something." She whispers.

Boone steps forward and lays a hand on Javi’s shoulder. “I’ll talk to Dr. Avery in the morning. We’ll see if we can allow a brief, controlled visit—maybe just hands. No long conversations yet. But something.”

He pauses, voice catching. “It could be the breakthrough Tyler needs.”

Javi looks up and meets Boone’s eyes, relief shining through exhaustion. “Yeah… maybe.”

The team exchanges quiet nods—Lily’s tears inching free, Dani’s gaze steady but hopeful, Dexter’s jaw set with determination.

Boone adds softly but firmly, "We’ll take it step by step. One heartbeat at a time."

They stand together in the glow of the hallway lights, a fragile unity coalescing around a single thread of hope: that her voice could be what saves him.

Boone stands just outside the frosted glass door, shoulders square but tense. He’s been through warzones of weather and chaos on the road — but nothing quite like this. With a quiet breath, he knocks twice.

“Come in.”

Dr. Avery is reviewing Tyler’s most recent charts. The monitors hum quietly behind him — vitals displayed, meds listed. A styrofoam coffee cup sits half-drunk near his elbow. He glances up as Boone steps in.

“Boone. Morning.”

“Doc. Appreciate the time.”

Dr. Avery gestures to the chair across from him. Boone sits, posture tight.

“You’re here about Kate?”

“Yeah. Javi said she asked to see him. Tyler.”

The doctor’s pen stills over the notes.

“I figured that might be coming. She’s improving — cognitively and physically. But... I assume you understand my hesitation.”

Boone nods once, bracing.

“Yeah. Last time we thought Tyler was stable, he crashed hard. He wasn’t ready. None of us were.”

“His vitals haven’t worsened, but they also haven’t improved meaningfully. He’s still ventilated, sedated, and deeply fragile. His cardiac status is better maintained under sedation — but his mind’s driving this, not just his body.”

Boone exhales. He knows what that means.

"You're saying seeing her again could push him either way."

Dr. Avery doesn’t soften the truth.

“Yes. Neurological stimuli — even emotional ones — can alter his pressure, rate, oxygen demand. If it’s grounding, it could help. But if it shocks the system… we could lose ground. Again.”

Boone hesitates, then leans forward.

“She asked for him. Her memory’s hazy, but there’s something in her that knows she needs to see him. That has to count for something, right?”

Dr. Avery studies Boone for a long moment.

“I’m not saying no. I’m saying not yet.”

Boone stiffens — not angry, just bracing against the blow.

“Let me run another neuro assessment. If Tyler’s intracranial pressures are stable and his EEG looks clean, I’ll authorize a highly controlled interaction. Monitored vitals. Short.”

“How short?”

“Two minutes. Maybe less. No conversation. Just presence.”

“That might be enough.”

“We’ll prep the teams. But Boone—if he destabilizes again, I’m pulling the plug on all non-essential contact. Permanently.”

“Understood.”

Dr. Avery marks the chart. Boone rises but pauses in the doorway.

“He loved her enough to put himself in that storm. She loved him enough to follow. I think they’re both still in there. Somewhere.”

Dr. Avery looks at him, expression unreadable.

“Let’s hope you’re right.”

Tyler’s room is dimmed again. The hiss-click of the ventilator keeps time with the slow rise and fall of his chest. Monitors blink steadily, not perfect — but no longer in full crisis red.

Two ICU nurses move with practiced quiet — one adjusting his IV drips, the other gently cleaning around the chest leads as they prep for the upcoming neuro and cardiac reassessment.

“Vitals holding steady. Sedation window’s closing in thirty minutes. We’ll reduce the Dexmedetomidine to let him clear.”

“And EEG leads ready. Dr. Avery wants clean baselines before any stimuli.”

She checks his eyes with a small penlight — no response, as expected. She gently tapes the electrode leads in place across his forehead and temples.

The door clicks open. Boone steps in slowly, hands in his jacket pockets, gaze heavy as he looks at Tyler.

“We’re just about done. He’ll be coming around a little more soon — if you want to sit with him.”

Boone nods.

“Thanks.”

They step out, quiet and respectful.

Boone sits beside the bed, pulls the chair in closer. The machines beep softly around him. Tyler’s face is pale and unshaven, lips slightly parted around the ventilator tubing. He looks nothing like the storm-chaser who once grinned through hurricane-force winds.

Boone leans forward, elbows to his knees, voice low but grounded.

“They’re gonna start lifting some of the meds. Just for a little while — to see where you’re at.”

His voice breaks just slightly. He clears it.

“I talked to Dr. Avery. We want to let her see you — Kate. But you gotta meet them halfway, man. You gotta show them there’s still something firing upstairs.”

He glances toward the door, lowers his voice even more.

“She asked for you. Not by name. But it’s there. Something inside her… it knows. And you’ve got to be strong enough to hold on ‘til the rest of her catches up.”

Tyler doesn’t move — but Boone watches the heart rate flicker slightly. A point. Maybe two.

“You told me once that if you ever ended up like this, you didn’t want to be kept around on wires and prayers. But I don’t believe you meant this — not when she’s still fighting, too.”

He leans back slightly, his voice raw now.

“You want to give up, I get it. Hell, I’d feel the same. But she’s here. Kate’s here. And this is your shot.”

The monitors blink on. Respiratory rate shifts — shallow, a fraction faster. Boone notices, nodding to himself.

“They’re gonna test you. Brainwaves. Cardiac pressure. Response to stimuli. You hold the line, brother. You do that — I’ll get her through the door myself.”

There’s no miracle flicker of eyes.
No hand squeeze.
But the trace on the cardiac monitor holds.

And for Boone, in this moment?
That’s enough.

The room is calm but charged, the only noise coming from the ventilator and the soft hum of infusion pumps. Dr. Renner enters with Dr. Avery, flanked by two techs carrying an EEG machine and portable ultrasound/equipment. They nod to the nurses and settle by Tyler’s bedside.

Dr. Renner cleans Tyler’s hand and gently taps the nail bed with a reflex hammer. No purposeful withdrawal, but a minimal flicker of the index finger.

She brings out a penlight again, moving it in from the side of his field of vision. Pupils remain sluggish — not fully tracking yet.

Next, she speaks in a clear, calm tone. “Tyler, squeeze my hand if you can hear me.” A very slight pressure, enough to register, but not enough to move the limb.

She pauses, recording in her notes: GCS remains low but showing a glimmer of purposeful response.

Dr. Avery places gentle pressure on Tyler’s chest and listens with his stethoscope. “No new murmurs. Still consistent with stress cardiomyopathy.”

He attaches an ultrasound probe to Tyler’s chest, observing cardiac wall movement. The ejection fraction—still suppressed at roughly 35%, but now with slightly improved contractility.

Meanwhile, the telemetry monitor beeps steadily: HR 100 bpm, blood pressure a fragile 100/60, no arrhythmias in the last 10 minutes.

One nurse turns down the sedation drip fractionally, closely watching for arousal.

Another adjusts the ventilator mode, increasing the tiny pressure support to encourage spontaneous breathing.

Dr. Renner reviews notes. “He’s responding — slightly, but noticeably. These are the first signs of purposeful motor activity since sedation.”

Dr. Avery nods quietly. “Cardiac response is encouraging. No tachycardias or hypotensive episodes since taper started. He tolerated the reduction.”

They exchange a look—a small ripple of hope.

Dr. Renner addresses the room. “Continuing hourly neuro checks. If he shows further motor response or tracking, we can consider minimal verbal prompts. But only if he remains hemodynamically stable.”

Dr. Avery adds. “We elevate wean on sedation gradually. Manage fluids and vasoactive drips to keep BP above 90 systolic. Re-assess EF with formal echo tomorrow to track cardiac recovery.”

Boone leans forward, voice low. “She asked about him. We’ll take this second chance.”

The team steps back. Tyler remains still — yet something has changed. A small flicker of the machine’s trace, the lightest finger press, steady rhythm—tiny victories in the silence.

Javi, Lily, and Dani stand waiting in the doorway, catching the eye of Dr. Avery, who gives a slight nod: this was the green light. They share a glance—hope isn’t over. Not yet.

As the ventilator breathed for him. Steady, mechanical, and cold.

Tyler looked peaceful — too peaceful — lost somewhere deep beneath sedation. But today, he had given them needed answers.

He'd managed a small flicker, barely there, but real movement. The index finger of his right hand twitched, just once.

It was hopeful but restrained.

Pupil reacted was sluggish, but not fixed. An improvement from earlier in the week.

Tyler showed the faintest brush of pressure on the doctor's palm when asked of he knew his name.

Across the room, Boone stood silent, barely breathing.

No new issues had surfaced. 

No new murmurs.

No arrhythmias.

Blood pressure holding.

Boone hated watching as Dr Avery guided the ultrasound probe into place on Tyler’s chest, watching the real-time image of the struggling heart. It made it all feel so real. 

“The wall motion’s a touch better than yesterday.”

The words nearly stopped Boone’s heart. 

But the best part was watching them let Tyler try spontaneous breathing. It was risky. But necessary. And he was doing it. 

Next steps, watch for more motor response or visual tracking. And the idea that they could try minimal verbal prompts next. 

It was something. Something to hang on to.

Dani stepped forward then, voice low, heavy with both guilt and hope.

“He asked about her. Before everything. If he knows she’s still here… that could matter.”

Both Boone and Lily paused at that. A shared look — cautious, but open to possibility.

“He’s responding,” Lily said, quietly. “It’s not a lot, but it’s real. Purposeful motor activity for the first time since we put him under.”

It wasn’t a miracle. But it was something. The smallest light breaking through a long, dark fog.

Outside the doorway, Javi, Lily, and Dani watched quietly. Boone exhaled.

They weren’t out of the woods — not by a long shot.

But Tyler was still here.

And that meant there was still time.

Chapter Text

The window light had softened. The worst of the storm — literal and otherwise — felt like it had passed, but the air in the room still carried tension.

Kate sat upright in bed, propped with pillows, her eyes sharper than they’d been in days. Her hands trembled slightly as she toyed with the edge of her blanket, the necklace around her neck catching faint glints of sunlight.

Javi stood beside her, arms crossed, trying to find the words.

He’d been silent for a few minutes now.

Kate looked at him. Really looked.

“You think I’m not ready,” she said softly.

“It’s not that,” Javi replied, though it was half true. He stepped closer and pulled the chair to her bedside. “I just don’t want you going in there carrying something that doesn’t belong to you.”

Kate frowned slightly, unsure.

Javi exhaled. “Tyler’s not doing well. You know that. But none of this is your fault.”

She looked away, throat tightening. “I saw the way the others looked at me. The way they wouldn’t meet my eyes. I think they blame me… even if they’re trying not to.”

“They don’t,” Javi said, gently but firmly. “They’re blaming themselves, if anything. We all are. But not you. And Tyler—” his voice cracked, “—he’d be the last person in the world to put this on your shoulders.”

Kate blinked hard. “But I forgot him.”

“That’s not something you chose. That’s your brain protecting itself after trauma. You took a hit that could’ve killed you. It didn’t. You came back.”

Her voice dropped. “He saw me and I didn’t know him, Javi.”

“I know.” Javi swallowed hard, forcing back the emotion that surged every time he replayed that moment. “And that almost broke him. But he came anyway. He asked for you. He wanted to see you.”

Kate nodded, slowly. She placed a hand over the necklace — the one he’d given her before the storm.

“I don’t remember everything. But when I hold this, I feel… steadier. Like something good’s tied to it.”

Javi smiled faintly. “It is. You two — that was never just work. It was storm season and late-night diner coffee and bickering about radios. You loved each other through the most dangerous job in the world. And somehow made it look easy.”

Kate looked down, tears brimming but unshed. “What if I go in there and I still don’t remember?”

“Then you start from there,” Javi said. “But this time, you won’t be alone.”

There was a knock at the door.

A nurse peeked in gently. “We’re ready when you are.”

Kate nodded. She wiped her palms against her blanket, trying to will her strength back into her limbs. Javi stood and offered his arm.

She took it.

“Let’s go see him,” she whispered.

The wheels of the transport chair squeaked faintly against the polished floor. The lights overhead were dimmed for the ICU wing, but it still felt too bright — sterile and watchful.

Kate sat stiffly in the wheelchair, her hands folded in her lap to hide the way they trembled. Her breathing was shallow but steady, each inhale pulled through lungs that felt too small for everything sitting inside her chest.

Javi walked beside her, one hand lightly resting on the handle behind her shoulder. Silent. Present.

The hallway stretched ahead like something too long, too final. At the far end — Tyler’s room. One door. One man. And a thousand pieces of a life she couldn’t remember.

Kate’s gaze flicked to the rooms they passed. Other patients. Machines. Murmured voices behind curtains. None of it stuck. None of it mattered.

Except the fact that she was about to walk into a room where the man she used to love lay unconscious — his heart failing, his body barely holding on — and she couldn’t remember the sound of his voice.

Her fingers curled tighter.

The last two years were gone.

Gone.

She remembered New York. She remembered waking up alone in a city that never slowed down. She remembered grief and panic, and why she’d sworn off storm chasing forever. She remembered being afraid of feeling too much again.

But not Oklahoma.

Not the team.

Not the life she’d built with them.

And certainly not the man who, just days ago, had been her entire world.

Kate’s voice was barely above a whisper. “How can I love someone I don’t even remember?”

Javi didn’t answer right away.

He slowed, crouched beside her instead, his expression gentle.

“You don’t have to solve everything today,” he said. “But love isn’t only memory. Sometimes it’s instinct. Sometimes it’s what your body holds even when your mind forgets.”

She looked away, blinking fast.

“So much is riding on this,” she said. “Everyone’s waiting for some miracle. For me to fix what’s broken in him. But what if I can’t? What if I go in there and feel nothing?”

Javi nodded. Not dismissing it. Just letting it live in the air between them.

“Then that’s okay too,” he said. “Because this isn’t about pressure. This is about showing up. For him. For yourself.”

Kate hesitated — long enough that the nurse pushing her finally glanced back, concerned.

Javi offered his hand again.

“You don’t have to remember everything,” he said quietly. “Just… remember how to be brave.”

She looked at him.

Nodded.

And let them continue down the hall.

With every inch closer to that door, her pulse beat harder in her ears — but she didn’t turn back.

Didn’t stop.

Not because she remembered him.

But because deep down, she wanted to.

And maybe — just maybe — that was the first thread she needed to start finding her way back.

The door opened with a hush of hydraulic hinges. Cool air met her skin — colder than the hallway, laced with the antiseptic scent of alcohol wipes and something heavier. Sterile. Still.

Kate’s breath caught in her throat.

Tyler lay motionless in the bed.

Wires and tubes coiled around him like vines. An oxygen mask covered his mouth. His chest rose and fell with mechanical precision, the ventilator doing what his body no longer could on its own. His left arm — splinted and bruised — rested limp across the blankets. IVs trailed from both hands. The heart monitor pulsed with slow, uncertain rhythm.

And then there was his face.

His usually sun-touched skin now pale, nearly gray under the sharp lighting. A beard — a few days old — darkened his jaw. He looked older than thirty-two. Stressed. Worn. The muscles of his face tense even in unconsciousness, like his body hadn’t stopped fighting even after surrendering to the coma.

Kate stared at him, eyes wide.

And felt…

Nothing.

No flicker of recognition.

No visceral pull.

No memory of his touch, his voice, the smile Javi had said once lit up entire rooms.

Just a hollow.

A vacuum.

A stranger in a hospital bed that she was supposed to love.

Her stomach clenched.

She wanted to run. Wanted to escape the machines and the weight and the expectations. Her fingers gripped the armrests of the wheelchair like they were the only thing holding her to the floor.

He’s dying, her mind whispered. And you’re not enough to save him.

The panic crawled higher, tight in her throat, threatening to spill over in shaky breaths. She hadn’t expected it to feel like this — so empty. So wrong. Everyone had said this moment would matter. That it could bring him back. That she could bring him back.

But how could she, when she didn’t even know who he was?

Her jaw clenched. A breath pushed out through her nose.

This isn’t for you, she reminded herself. It’s for him.

You don’t have to feel it.

You just have to be here.

Kate swallowed hard and let her eyes settle on his hand. One still enough that it felt fragile just to look at.

With effort, she reached out.

Her fingers brushed his.

She didn’t flinch.

She didn’t cry.

But she didn’t let go either.

“I don’t know you,” she whispered, voice barely audible. “But you know me.”

She looked at the necklace still around her throat — the one Javi said Tyler had given her the night before the crash. It glinted under the fluorescent lights. It didn’t feel familiar. But it didn’t feel wrong either.

“I don’t know if I loved you,” she said. “But I came back for a reason, didn’t I?”

The monitor beside her beeped steadily.

She squeezed his hand just once. “So I’ll stay.”

And for now — that was all she had.

The room was quiet, but not peaceful.

The kind of quiet that crackled under tension — unspoken fears stacked in the corners like loaded storm cells, ready to break at the first gust of bad news.

Boone paced slowly near the windows, arms folded tight against his chest, like he could hold back the memory of Tyler’s vitals crashing the last time someone said the name Kate too loudly.

Lily sat curled in one of the plastic chairs, fingers twisted in the fabric of her sweatshirt, her knee bouncing restlessly. She hadn’t spoken in minutes.

Dani leaned forward, elbows on her knees, face pale but focused — watching the clock, tracking the length of Kate’s visit down to the second.

Dexter sat closest to the door, eyes glued to it like he could will it open with good news.

“Five minutes,” Boone muttered, checking his watch again. “We said five minutes. She went in at—”

“Boone,” Dani said gently, “if something was wrong, we’d know by now.”

“Would we?” he snapped. “Last time she looked at him like he was a stranger, his heart couldn’t take it. You all saw the monitors. You saw the code sheet. He flatlined.”

Lily flinched. “We were the ones who pushed for it. We wanted it so badly to help him—”

“And it still might,” Dexter cut in. “She’s not the same as she was days ago. Neither is he. Maybe… maybe this time it lands differently.”

Boone turned back to the window, jaw tight. “We shouldn’t be hoping on maybes.”

Silence again. Thick with guilt. Hope. Fear.

Lily spoke quietly, almost to herself. “I just want him to come back. The real him. Not this version in a hospital bed, sedated because his heart is too broken to stay awake.”

No one responded.

They didn’t need to.

Every one of them was thinking the same thing.

If this didn’t work — if Kate’s presence didn’t ground Tyler this time, didn’t reach whatever place his mind had retreated to — they didn’t know what would.

Boone turned again toward the hallway just as a shadow flickered behind the glass of the ICU door.

He froze. The others did too.

The door didn’t open yet.

But something had changed.

And they all felt it.

The moment stretched.

The team hadn’t moved since the flicker of movement behind the door — as if stillness could somehow anchor the fragile thread of hope that was finally being tugged again.

Then Dani exhaled slowly. “What if it’s false hope?”

The words dropped like a pin in a silent church.

Boone turned, brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean what if… this works?” she said, quieter now. “What if seeing her does help? What if his heart stabilizes, his neuro improves… and then we have to look him in the eye and tell him she still doesn’t remember him? Not really.”

Lily closed her eyes, the truth of it hitting hard.

“He’s fighting so hard just to be alive for her,” Dani went on. “But she’s still missing two years of her life. That includes all of us… but especially him. What if this—this one visit gives him the will to fight and when he wakes up, all he gets is…” She couldn’t even finish the sentence.

Boone ran a hand down his face, the weight of the question pressing into his spine. “You think he’ll spiral again.”

“I know he will,” Lily said suddenly, voice thick. “You weren’t in the room when he looked at her and she didn’t know who he was. I was. He didn’t fall apart, Boone. He came undone.”

Dexter leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “But if we don’t try… we’re just watching him die. Isn’t some hope better than none?”

“Only if it doesn’t destroy him worse when it goes away,” Dani murmured.

The room went still again.

None of them wanted to admit how right she might be.

Because it wasn’t just about Tyler’s vitals anymore.

It was about what he woke up to. What kind of pain might be waiting for him on the other side of this.

Lily finally spoke again, softly, “If he wakes up for her… and she can’t find him in her memory… how do we help him survive that?”

Boone didn’t answer.

No one did.

Because none of them knew.

The hiss of oxygen. The steady beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor. The low hum of machines that didn’t stop, even when people broke.

Kate sat frozen just beside the bed.

Tyler lay there—still. Too still. The ventilator clipped gentle breaths from his chest, his arms pale and bruised against the white sheets. The beard was unfamiliar. The lines on his face weren’t in her memory.

He didn’t look like someone she had ever known.

And that truth pierced her like shrapnel.

She took one uncertain step forward, then another, her hand brushing the edge of the bed rail.

Then she faltered.

Her breathing hitched, and her fingers curled against her palm. “I can’t—” she whispered.

Javi, waiting silently behind her, stepped into the room. He didn’t rush her. He simply came to her side.

“You okay?” he asked, voice low.

Kate nodded — then shook her head. Her hand came to her necklace, fingers absently toying with the storm pendant. “I don’t feel anything,” she admitted, eyes wide with guilt. “I keep looking at him and I know I should — but it’s like standing next to a stranger who’s breaking for me.”

Her voice cracked.

“I don’t remember him. I don’t even remember me. How am I supposed to help him if none of this feels real?”

Javi looked over at Tyler, at the man who had loved Kate harder than anyone. Then back at the woman who stood here now, terrified by the empty space where their memories should’ve lived.

He stepped gently closer, his voice just above a whisper. “Kate… you don’t have to feel something right now. There’s no switch that makes this easier. I’ve known Tyler for years — and he doesn’t even look like himself to me right now either.”

Her eyes filled. “Then what am I supposed to do?”

“Just trust your heart,” Javi said. “You don’t owe him memories. You don’t owe him miracles.”

He nodded toward the bed. “But you can tell him you’re here. Tell him you’re okay. Tell him he can stop fighting so hard just to hang on.”

Kate’s throat tightened. Her gaze drifted back to Tyler, to the soft rise and fall of his chest.

“You think he can hear me?” she asked, trembling.

“I know he can,” Javi said.

Kate hesitated another moment… and then slowly reached for the side of the bed.

Her hand hovered over his for a beat — then she let it settle there, lightly.

She leaned closer, voice shaking.

“Hey,” she whispered, barely audible over the oxygen. “I’m here. I… I don’t really understand what’s happened yet, and I don’t know what you mean to me. But they say you mean a lot.”

She swallowed.

“You don’t have to keep fighting so hard. I’m okay. I made it. And maybe… maybe that’s enough for now.”

Her thumb brushed his knuckles.

“I’m here, Tyler,” she said again, softer. “You’re not alone.”

Behind her, Javi blinked against the burn in his eyes.

And beside her, Tyler didn’t stir. But the monitor—just barely—ticked down a single beat.

And then held.

The wheels of the transport chair rolled softly down the corridor, the fluorescent lights above humming with the kind of cold clarity that made everything feel a little too real.

Javi walked beside Kate silently, one hand on the back of her chair, the other clenched at his side. He didn’t rush. Just walked her back, steady and present — a calm tether in a storm neither of them had asked for.

As they passed the team still waiting outside Tyler’s room, Javi met their eyes. No words. Just a long, knowing look.

Dani stood with her hands clasped tightly, Boone’s jaw was clenched, and Lily… Lily had tears brimming, not quite falling.

No one moved.

No one dared ask what happened.

Javi didn’t stop. He gave a small nod — half hope, half warning — and kept going.

The team stood in tense formation just outside the glass of Tyler’s room, the sterile hallway heavy with unspoken prayers. Not one of them moved, hardly breathed, as the door creaked open.

Kate was the first to appear, pale and visibly shaken, her hands folded tightly in her lap as Javi wheeled her out. Her shoulders were hunched inward, jaw tense, gaze fixed somewhere far away — like her body had left the room but her heart hadn’t caught up yet.

Behind her, Javi followed, one hand on the wheelchair, the other quickly wiping beneath his eye.

Dani noticed first — the red rim of his eyelids.

Then Boone clocked the stiffness in his walk.

Lily’s heart sank. She stepped forward, instinctively reaching for Kate, but stopped short at the look on her face — not pain exactly. Just… emptiness. Like someone still trying to climb back into their own skin.

Javi didn’t speak.

He didn’t need to.

He met their eyes as he passed — one by one — and that single look told them more than any update ever could.

It hadn’t gone how they hoped.

Not badly.

But not the miracle they were praying for either.

As the elevator doors opened at the end of the hall, Boone muttered under his breath, “He’s still in there… right?”

No one answered.

Because they all knew what Boone meant.

Tyler.

Hope.

Both.

Lily let out a shaky breath, hand covering her mouth as she tried to hold herself together. “Do you think it helped?” she whispered. “Even just… hearing her voice?”

Javi didn’t turn around. But his voice came low, barely audible, over his shoulder.

“I don’t know.”

Then he was gone — wheeling Kate down the corridor, his silence louder than any heartbreak could be.

The team stood frozen in it, afraid to speak the truth aloud.

That maybe the connection between them — the one that used to feel unbreakable — was still there.

But buried too deep for either of them to reach.

The moment they returned, Kate settled onto the bed with the kind of quiet exhaustion that made Javi’s chest ache.

She hadn’t said a word since they left Tyler’s room.

He adjusted her blanket, careful not to touch the IV line at her wrist.

“You did good,” he said, his voice softer now. “I mean it, Kate. You did really good.”

She didn’t look at him. Her eyes stayed locked on the opposite wall.

Javi lingered, unsure if she wanted more… but also knowing she needed space.

“I’ll give you some time,” he added gently. “Get some rest, okay?”

Kate nodded once — tiny, almost imperceptible.

He hesitated another beat, then stepped out of the room.

The door clicked shut behind him.

And as soon as it did — the weight collapsed.

Kate curled slightly on her side, trembling, her hand reaching beneath the blanket to find the necklace.

Her fingers closed around the storm pendant.

It felt heavy.

Too heavy.

Tears spilled fast. She didn’t even try to stop them.

“I don’t remember you,” she whispered into the stillness. “But I think I broke you.”

She pulled the necklace to her chest and wept, silently, bitterly — for what she couldn’t remember.

And what she couldn’t fix.

Chapter Text

The team stood solemnly, watching Dr. Avery at Tyler’s bedside. The ventilator hissed softly, and the heart monitor pulsed with cautious normalcy. The aftermath of Kate’s visit still hovered in the room’s stillness.

Dr. Avery leaned close to the monitor, eyes narrowing.
“BP’s holding a touch higher—now 105 over 65, before it was averaging 100 over 60.”
He scrolled through the telemetry. No arrhythmias registering—the ST segments stable, no extrasystoles in the past ten minutes.

The nurse glanced up from her clipboards.
“He’s also maintaining a slightly improved respiratory drive—there was a tiny dip in support needed,” she noted. “Still sedated, but more stable.”

Dr. Avery tapped the chart thoughtfully.
“It could be nothing. A random blip.” Then softer, more hopeful, “Or… it could mean something went right in there. Something we hoped might.”

Boone, Lily, and the rest pressed closer, breaths held in tense anticipation.

Dr. Avery raised his hand slightly, as though offering caution and comfort at once.
“We’ll keep monitoring. We don’t know yet if this sticks—but it’s the best sign we’ve seen.”

The machines hummed on — but for just a moment, their rhythm felt tethered less to fear, and more to fragile possibility.

Boone caught Dr. Avery just as he was stepping out of Tyler’s room, pulling off a pair of gloves and sanitizing his hands with practiced ease.

“Doc,” Boone said, voice low but urgent.

Dr. Avery turned, his expression already guarded. “Boone. I figured you’d want an update.”

Boone nodded, glancing briefly through the glsss at his best friend — still motionless, still pale, but now with the faintest uptick in vitals that offered the first shred of hope in days.

“You said earlier it might be nothing. But it also might not be.”

Dr. Avery met his eyes. “Correct. I don’t want to give you false hope. But his systolic pressure is climbing, fractionally. His cardiac rhythm’s been more consistent. And his brainstem response—while still dampened—is not worsening.”

Boone swallowed hard. “And that means what, exactly?”

“It means something in that room reached him,” Dr. Avery said gently. “Or his system is starting to stabilize independently. Could be neuro-hormonal. Could be autonomic. Either way—it’s a shift in the right direction.”

Boone folded his arms across his chest, tension bracing every muscle in his body.

“And how long can he stay like this?” he asked. “Sedated. On a machine. Before we’re not hoping anymore—just holding on?”

Dr. Avery didn’t answer right away. He looked through the glass again, as if the sight of Tyler might ground his next words.

“If this change holds, and continues to build, we can begin to wean the sedation in phases. Slowly. But if he declines again, we’ll have to reevaluate supportive care. And—yes—how long we can justify keeping him under.”

Boone’s jaw flexed. “He said once… if he couldn’t ride again, couldn’t move… he didn’t want to be kept alive just because we couldn’t let go.”

“I understand,” Avery said quietly. “But right now, we aren’t there. Not yet. Today was a positive sign. And we don’t get many of those with patients like Tyler.”

Boone nodded slowly, hands on his hips, heart pounding.

“Thank you,” he said. Then after a pause: “You’ll let me know the second something changes.”

“You’ll be the first,” Dr. Avery promised.

They stood in that liminal space between hope and heartbreak, neither daring to step too far in either direction.

The air in the waiting room was stale with hours-old coffee and unspoken tension. Boone sat with his elbows on his knees, fingers laced, eyes fixed on the tile floor like it might offer answers. Lily leaned against the windowsill, arms crossed tight against her chest, watching the ICU hallway through the glass. Dani and Dexter sat silently nearby, shoulders brushing like they were trying to draw strength from each other.

The door opened.

Javi stepped in.

His eyes were bloodshot. Shoulders tense. He looked like a man who’d spent the last hour holding himself together with barbed wire. But he was here.

Boone stood immediately. “Hey—how is she?”

Javi exhaled, rubbing the heel of his palm into one eye. “She made it through the visit. She… did great, honestly. She was brave.”

“But?” Lily asked, already hearing the weight in his voice.

Javi hesitated. “She didn’t… feel anything.”

Silence fell hard over the room.

“She said it herself,” he went on. “She didn’t recognize him. And when she saw him lying there, she—” His voice cracked, just for a second. He cleared his throat. “She didn’t feel anything. And she hated herself for it.”

Dani’s eyes welled immediately. Dexter looked away, jaw tight.

“She’s not cold,” Javi said quickly, needing them to understand. “She’s overwhelmed. She’s lost two years of her life, and every face in it. Including ours. But she wanted to help. She wanted to be in that room for him. That has to mean something.”

“It does,” Lily said gently.

Javi looked at them all, voice quieter now. “But… Tyler?”

Boone stepped forward. “Avery noticed a shift. Small, but real. Heart rate stabilized. BP’s up. No more drops. It’s not much, but it’s better than we’ve had since he crashed.”

Javi blinked, surprised. “So… it helped?”

Boone gave a short nod. “Yeah. I think it did.”

The corners of Javi’s mouth twitched. A spark of something flickered behind his tired eyes — not relief, not yet, but possibility.

“I’ll take that,” he whispered. “I’ll take any of it.”

They all stood in that fragile moment, hope balancing on the edge of heartbreak. And for the first time in days, the silence in the waiting room didn’t feel quite so heavy.

Darkness had weight.

It pressed in around him, thick and heavy like storm clouds behind his eyelids. Time didn’t move here. There was no beginning, no end — just the low hum of machines and the distant echo of breath that wasn’t quite his own.

His body was still. Too still.

And yet somewhere… something reached through.

A thread of sound.

Faint. Fragile. But real.

A voice.

Soft. Uncertain. Shaken.

“Hi, Tyler…”

His name.

His chest didn’t rise fast, couldn’t — the sedation had him anchored like a stone — but something deeper in him stirred. Like recognition sparking in the corner of a stormy sky.

“I don’t know if you can hear me,” the voice said. She paused. “But they told me you’ve been fighting for me.”

He knew that voice. He knew it.

Even though the world was locked behind cotton and static, her words moved like wind under the door — slipping into the cracks, stirring things he’d thought were already lost.

“I’m sorry I don’t remember you,” she whispered. “I wish I did. But I know you’re important. I can feel it.”

Something inside him pulled toward her.

Not his limbs — those were heavy, useless things — but the part of him that never stopped reaching for her. The part that survived the crash. The part that begged to stay alive even when his heart wanted to stop.

He wanted to respond. God, he wanted to.

To reach out. To open his eyes. To say something.

But all he could do was feel.

And in that feeling — her voice cradling his name, her presence beside him — something shifted.

The pain didn’t vanish, but it dulled. The weight didn’t lift, but it cracked just slightly.

Her fingers brushed his.

Warm. Grounding.

“I’m here,” she said. “I’m okay.”

The words didn’t just soothe — they anchored.

He didn’t remember slipping any deeper. But for the first time since he fell into the void, he stopped sinking.

And somewhere behind the haze, the sound of her voice played again like an echo that refused to fade.

She was real.

And she was here.

The sun had just begun to rise over the flat Oklahoma horizon, casting slats of pale gold through the narrow blinds of the ICU. The light painted quiet stripes across Tyler’s bed — a bed that had held still too long.

A low chime from the vitals monitor broke the silence as the morning shift took over. A nurse entered, quiet and practiced, chart in hand, followed by Dr. Avery and a cardiovascular tech wheeling in the portable echo machine.

Tyler lay motionless, ventilated, still under light sedation. But his numbers overnight — they’d held.

Dr. Avery stepped closer, his voice soft, professional. “Chart notes say mild improvements in MAP, no ectopy overnight. He tolerated the sedation better this time.”

The nurse nodded, already placing fresh leads. “Temp stable, no fever spike. SpO2 hovering at 96 on support. BP’s been consistent.”

Dr. Avery crossed to the bedside and leaned over Tyler, lifting one lid to quickly assess pupillary reaction. Still sluggish… but more reactive than two days ago.

“We’ll do another full neuro once cardio’s done,” he said. “We need to know where his heart is today. Because if the heart holds…” He trailed off — not needing to finish the sentence.

Boone leaned against the wall just outside the room, arms folded across his chest. Lily joined him, coffee in hand, bleary-eyed. Neither said much. They didn’t need to. This morning mattered. The results could shift the trajectory — one way or the other.

The echo tech gelled Tyler’s chest and began imaging. The soft swoosh of blood flow through valves filled the quiet as the probe glided over bruised skin and healing fractures.
Dr. Avery leaned in to watch the monitor.

A beat.
Then another.

The left ventricle was functioning — barely hypokinetic now, rather than severely. There was still myocardial strain, especially from the chest trauma and stress cardiomyopathy, but…

The echo tech spoke softly. “EF’s improved. Borderline low, but climbing. No pericardial effusion.”

Dr. Avery’s face remained unreadable, but he gave a single, short nod. “That’s what I needed to see.”

He turned to the nurse. “Start prepping for a possible reduction in sedation. I’ll speak with the team about next steps.”

The team — Javi, Boone, Lily, Dani, Dexter — sat in scattered silence, half-eaten muffins and cold coffee on the table. When Dr. Avery stepped in, every head lifted.

He didn’t sugarcoat it.

“Tyler’s trending in the right direction. Heart function is improving. Neurologically, we won’t know anything definitive until sedation is lightened and we assess fully.”

He took a breath.

“But this morning’s test results give us room to consider tapering sedation within the next 24 hours. We’ll watch how he responds and be ready to intervene if his vitals shift.”

The weight in the room didn’t lift. But it shifted. From dread… to something else.

Hope, maybe. Or fear of what hope might cost.

Because if he wakes — and remembers she doesn’t know him. If the heartbreak still lingers, waiting…

There are still hard decisions ahead.
And morning light doesn’t promise easy ones.

The hum of machines blended with the soft whoosh of oxygen. Kate sat propped upright in bed, the IV still snaking from her hand, a blanket tucked carefully around her legs. Her hair was matted, her skin pale, but her eyes were more alert than they’d been in days. Still, there was something distant behind them.

Javi entered quietly, a paper cup of weak hospital coffee in hand. He didn’t say anything at first — just gave her a small smile and settled into the chair beside her bed. She didn’t meet his eyes right away.

After a beat, he offered gently, “I talked to Dr. Avery this morning. Tyler’s heart is improving. Slowly. They’re considering tapering sedation soon. Could be today, maybe tomorrow.”

Kate’s gaze lifted to his, then dropped to her lap. Her fingers twisted the edge of her blanket.

“He’s stable?” she asked, voice rasping at the edges.

Javi nodded. “For now, yeah. The visit yesterday… I think it helped. There was a slight change in his numbers afterward. Positive change.”

Kate stared at him. Then, slowly, her expression crumpled — not from relief. But from pressure.

“I’m trying,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “I really am.”

Javi leaned forward. “Kate—”

“I don’t remember him,” she said, louder now, frustrated. “Everyone’s hoping I will, that something will click — but I can’t force it. I can’t feel something that isn’t there. I know I should… but it’s like looking at someone else’s life. Someone I don’t recognize.”

She blinked hard, her chin trembling.

“I didn’t even remember coming back to Oklahoma,” she continued, voice thin with disbelief. “Let alone chasing again. That version of me — the one who let her guard down enough to fall in love? I don’t know her.”

Javi stayed quiet. Let her speak.

Kate’s breath hitched. She shook her head, jaw clenched as tears spilled freely down her cheeks. “And now everyone’s just… waiting. Hoping I’ll fix him. Hoping I’ll remember and make it all okay. But what if I can’t? What if I’m not who they want me to be?”

Javi’s eyes burned as he reached out, resting a hand over hers.

“You don’t owe anyone anything,” he said firmly. “Not a memory. Not a miracle. Not even Tyler.”

She looked up at him, startled by the softness — and the truth — in his voice.

“You’ve been through a trauma, Kate. A real one. Physical. Neurological. Emotional. Everyone loves you. Yes. And we’re scared. But no one — no one — has the right to make you feel like it’s your job to put the pieces back together.”

Her fingers gripped his. Desperately.

“I hate feeling like this.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “I hate seeing you like this.”

They sat there for a long moment. The machines beeping steadily in the background.

“You were brave yesterday,” he said finally. “Even if it didn’t feel like it.”

Kate swallowed hard. “It didn’t.”

“But it meant something,” he added. “To all of us. To him.”

She nodded faintly, the weight still sitting heavy on her chest. But Javi’s words gave her something solid to hold on to.

Not a memory. Not certainty.

But grace.

And right now, that was enough.

The blinds were half-drawn, casting soft slats of sunlight across the bed. The hospital still hummed around them — quiet footsteps, the occasional intercom buzz, the whisper of a passing gurney. But in this room, time felt slower. More careful.

Kate was sitting up again, the fatigue in her eyes now mingling with something else — a cautious curiosity.

Javi sat across from her, a tablet in hand. His shoulders were tense, like even this gesture was fragile. Heavy.

He cleared his throat gently. “Would you… want to see him? I mean — not now him. Not the version in the hospital bed.”

Kate turned her head slightly, eyes narrowing. “What do you mean?”

“The real Tyler,” Javi said quietly. “The guy you knew. The guy you… maybe still know. We did these YouTube episodes — Wrangler Storm Team stuff. Just short clips. You and Tyler hosted most of them. It might help. Just to see him. See how you two were.”

Kate’s expression flickered — nervous. Hesitant. “I… I don’t know. What if I still feel nothing?”

Javi smiled, just a little. “Then you don’t. And that’s okay. But… sometimes the heart remembers before the head does.”

She didn’t answer — just nodded once, tentatively.

Javi tapped into the playlist and turned the screen toward her. The thumbnail showed a wide-open sky, the signature “Wrangler Storm Tracker” logo bold in the corner. And there they were — Kate and Tyler — standing against a flat horizon with a rotating wall cloud in the distance. Both of them grinning like the world hadn’t touched them yet.

He hit play.

The intro music kicked in, upbeat and low-budget, and then Tyler’s voice came through — clear, animated, teasing:
“Alright folks, this is it — storm number five and Kate’s still claiming I’m overhyping our thermals—”

Kate’s voice cut in, younger, light:
“I’m just saying you called for a full wedge last week and we saw a rain curtain.”

Laughter. Easy, unfiltered. The kind of chemistry you can’t script.

Kate watched in silence, her lips parting slowly. The person on the screen looked like her. But brighter. More confident. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with a man she didn’t recognize but somehow… didn’t feel entirely like a stranger either.

Her fingers tightened slightly on the blanket as Tyler’s smile filled the screen — a flash of mischief, sunburn, and awe for the sky behind him.

Javi didn’t speak. He couldn’t. His throat was tight. This video had been filmed almost a year ago, back when the whole team had felt invincible. Before the season that broke them all.

Before the truck. Before the storm. Before this hospital room.

But when he glanced up, he saw it.

A flicker.

Just the smallest curve of Kate’s lips.

She was smiling.

Not wide. Not certain. But it was there.

And for Javi, that made every shattered second of the last few days worth it.

He let the video keep playing as her eyes stayed locked on the screen — searching for a version of herself she might still find again.

The lights had dimmed. The world outside the window was tinted blue-gray, dusk settling over Stillwater with a hush that matched the slow, steady beep of the heart monitor beside Kate’s bed.

Javi stirred in the hard plastic chair — a twitch of his shoulders, a sharp inhale through his nose. His back ached from the angle, his neck stiff and unforgiving. It took a second to remember where he was, but the pain did the work for him.

His eyes blinked open, heavy and dry.

And then he saw her.

Kate. Still sitting up, her expression softer than he remembered — lips gently parted, eyes focused on the tablet resting on her lap.

Tyler’s voice drifted softly from the speakers.

“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you don’t drive through a flooded culvert with a spotter screaming at you—”

Kate smiled.

Not the tired, fogged-over grimace she’d been wearing for days — but a real smile. Subtle. Lopsided. A flash of something that looked dangerously like joy.

Javi watched her for a beat longer, breath caught in his chest.

Then she turned, sensing his gaze.

“You’re awake,” she said, and her voice had a brightness to it — light cracking through clouds.

He nodded, rubbing a hand over his face. “Yeah. Guess I crashed.”

“You looked like someone shoved you off a roof,” she said, smirking a little. “Might’ve drooled.”

He huffed out a short laugh. “Thanks for that.”

Kate tilted the tablet slightly. “He’s… funny.”

Javi sat up straighter. “Tyler?”

She nodded. Her fingers hovered over the screen, still playing footage of a storm chase from last summer. Tyler’s voice carried on, lively and animated, pointing toward a lowering cloud base and joking about Boone’s inability to read road signs.

“I can see what you all like about him,” Kate said, the words light but genuine. Her eyes lingered on the screen a moment longer, then flicked back to Javi.

His chest tightened. He hadn’t realized how much he needed to hear that. A breathless, unexpected sense of relief swept over him — enough to make his throat sting.

“That’s good,” he said quietly.

“It’s weird,” Kate admitted. “Because I still don’t remember him. But… I don’t know. Something about the way he talks. How he looks at the storm. How he looks at… me. Feels familiar.”

Javi didn’t answer at first. He just watched her, watched the color start to come back into her voice, her face, her posture.

It wasn’t everything. It wasn’t her memory.

But it was something.

And after the past five days — it was the best something he’d seen yet.

The sky hung dark and warm over Stillwater, the air finally cooled by the breeze that stirred through the trees lining the sidewalk. A few street lamps flickered lazily above the weathered benches just outside Stillwater Regional’s main entrance, where the team had taken a breather with paper cups of lukewarm coffee and fast-food wrappers rustling at their feet.

It was the first time they’d all managed to get outside together since the crash.

Lily leaned against the brick wall, arms crossed, her eyes constantly flicking toward the doors like she expected them to swing open with bad news. Dani sat on the bench beside Boone, quietly picking at a mostly uneaten sandwich. Dexter paced near the curb, restlessness in every step.

Boone glanced up first as the glass doors finally parted.

Javi stepped out into the night.

He looked... tired. Like the last five days had finally sunk into his bones. But there was something else there too — a flicker of something not entirely grief.

Boone stood first.

“You ghosted all day,” he said flatly.

Lily pushed off the wall, her voice sharper than she intended. “Seriously, Javi? We’ve been texting, calling—Dex even tried the nurses’ station.”

“Sorry,” Javi said, holding up his hands. “I should’ve answered. I know.”

Dani stood too now, voice quieter but strained. “What the hell happened?”

Javi stepped closer, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Kate had a good day.”

That quieted everyone.

He let it sit for a second before continuing. “She’s still missing a lot, yeah. But... today we talked. Really talked. She watched videos of Tyler, smiled at one of his jokes — said she could see why we all liked him.”

Boone let out a long breath and sat back down, shoulders slumping slightly like some piece of tension had loosened in his chest.

“She smiled?” Lily echoed, eyes wide.

“Real one,” Javi said. “Whole face. And when I woke up — yeah, I passed out in the chair — she was still watching him.”

Dani blinked fast, her voice wobbly. “She didn’t ask for more pain meds, or sleep the whole day?”

“Nope.” Javi smiled faintly. “She teased me about drooling in my sleep.”

That made Dexter snort. “Classic Kate.”

The emotion swept over them all at once — a mix of stunned relief and raw exhaustion. Boone wiped subtly at his eye, pretending something got in it. Lily looked away, jaw tight.

Javi sat down on the bench beside Boone and leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

“I just... I didn’t want to miss it,” he admitted. “After everything. After Tyler… I needed today to just exist in the good.”

They understood.

None of them said it aloud, but they all felt it — the weight of their people still caught between worlds. One fighting back to herself, the other being held under by the storm of his own mind.

And for the first time in days, hope wasn’t a stranger anymore. It was sitting right there beside them on the sidewalk. Tired. Bruised.

But breathing.