Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Andy let out a long sigh as she clicked send on the final email of the day. Around her, the Runway office hummed with its usual late-afternoon buzz, the sharp clatter of keyboards, the rhythmic chirp of desk phones, and the distant, hurried murmurs of assistants drifting through the open-plan floor. Usually, she’d be buried under another hour's worth of feature edits, but today was different. A small smile tugged at her lips as she closed her laptop. 

Three years. It felt impossible and inevitable all at once. Three years of early-morning coffees traded in hushed kitchens, late-night work calls where they argued about syntax and layout, and stolen, breathless kisses in the back of town cars. Somewhere along the way, she had stumbled into becoming the person two fiercely independent children called whenever they wanted something.

Just as she reached for her Prada tote, her phone buzzed against the wooden desk, illuminating the screen with a FaceTime invite.

Bronwyn.

Andy answered immediately, a laugh already bubbling up as the screen filled with the ten-year-old’s face, captured from an aggressive angle that suggested the iPad was being held approximately two inches from her nose.

"Andy!"

"Hey there, Miss Charlton," Andy laughed, leaning her elbows on the desk. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"When are you coming home?" The question was delivered with the utmost seriousness, as though Andy's arrival were a matter of national security.

"Soon, baby. I've just finished work."

Bronwyn visibly brightened, but before Andy could say anything else, the frame juddered violently. Another face shoved its way into the camera, or, more accurately, the bottom half of Roark’s forehead.

Andy bit back a laugh, adjusting her phone. "Hello to you too."

Roark wrestled with the iPad until his face finally came into focus. "Hi."

Behind him, Bronwyn rolled her eyes with a theatrical sigh that was pure Emily. "Roark wants to ask you something."

"No, you ask."

"You wanted them!"

"You ask better!"

Andy grinned, watching the siblings stare each other down in a silent battle of wills until Bronwyn huffed in exasperation, turning back to the camera. "Can you bring us éclairs?"

Andy blinked. "Éclairs."

"Please?"

"We really want some," Roark chimed in, his eyes wide.

"And Mummy said no."

"Ah." Andy leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. "So that's why you've called me. The court of appeals."

Both children instantly looked guilty, their eyes darting away from the screen. Then, Bronwyn turned back, flashing a sweet, dimpled smile, the exact, devastating smile she had inherited from her mother. It was a look that usually meant trouble.

"We miss you?" Bronwyn tried, pitching her voice up innocently.

Andy let out a bright laugh. "Right. Of course."

"So you'll bring them?"

"Bronwyn..."

"Please?"

Andy pretended to ponder it, tapping her chin while the kids practically vibrated with anticipation. "Hmm. I don't know..."

"Andy."

"Hmm..."

"Andyyyy..."

"You're very persuasive, do you know that?" Andy teased.

"I get it from Mummy."

The sheer honesty of it nearly made Andy choke. "Oh, you absolutely do."

Bronwyn beamed, sensing victory. Andy shook her head fondly, helpless against the onslaught of Charlton charm. "Fine. I'll get the éclairs."

The speaker exploded with cheers, Roark announcing it was the "best day ever!" while Bronwyn clapped. Andy pointed a warning finger at the camera. "But do not tell your mother."

Bronwyn gasped dramatically, her eyes going wide. "You're asking us to lie?"

"Okay, definitely Emily's child," Andy muttered, dissolving into laughter alongside them.

But the fun was abruptly cut short. Somewhere off-screen, a familiar, clipped British accent floated through the house, sharp enough to cut through the digital static. "Bronwyn? Roark? Why has it suddenly gone quiet in there?"

The siblings exchanged identical looks of pure panic.

"Go," Andy whispered, her eyes dancing. "Before your mother starts investigating."

"See you soon?" Bronwyn asked. It was a casual, simple question.

Andy’s expression softened. "Yeah, sweetheart. Soon."

The screen went black. For a moment, Andy just sat there, staring at her own reflection in the dark glass. Her chest fluttered with an electric spark of excitement that had nothing to do with their dinner reservations or the cake she had to pick up.

Unconsciously, her fingers drifted inside her suit pocket, brushing against the small, square velvet box hidden securely.

When she stood up, the office suddenly seemed brighter, the heavy Manhattan air outside lifting. She slung her bag over her shoulder and headed toward the elevators, her step lighter than it had been in weeks.

"Leaving already?"

Andy turned to see Jin half-buried in a stack of lookbooks at her desk.

"Miracles do happen," Andy replied with a bright wink.

Jin laughed, leaning back. "Big plans?"

"The biggest."

"Well, have fun."

"See you tomorrow," Andy said naturally. 

As she passed the corner offices, Nigel looked up from a mountain of layout proofs. 

One glance at her face and his perfectly manicured eyebrow arched upward. "Somebody's cheerful."

Andy stopped in his doorway, incapable of wiping the grin off her face. "Am I that obvious?"

"Painfully," Nigel said, tossing his pen onto the desk. "What’s got you looking like you just won the lottery?"

Andy adjusted the strap of her bag, a thousand beautiful truths crowding her mind. Because I'm in love. Because tonight I'm going to ask Emily to spend the rest of her life with me. Instead, she settled for a subtler truth. "Tonight's going to be a special night, Nigel."

Understanding dawned across his face, his features instantly softening into a warm, genuine smile. "Ah. Three years."

"Three years."

"Well," he said, waving a hand dismissively toward the elevators. "Don't let an old man keep you. Go celebrate."

"Oh, I intend to."

Turning away, she walked toward the waiting elevators, already mapping out the coordinates of the perfect evening in her head. Collect the balloons. Stop by the bakery to pick up the cakes and the contraband éclairs. Go home. Ask Emily.

It was so beautifully, wonderfully simple.

-

The party shop was only five minutes away, a brief commute that Andy spent singing badly along to the radio and mentally rehearsing her proposal for what had to be the thousandth time. She hated every single iteration she came up with. The romantic version sounded ridiculous and overwritten. The funny version sounded like she wasn’t taking the weight of it seriously. The sincere version made her eyes sting and her throat tighten halfway through the first sentence.

By the time she pulled into the cramped parking lot, she was no closer to a final draft.

"Good," she muttered to herself, killing the engine and grabbing her leather tote. "Nothing says ‘marry me’ quite like total emotional incompetence."

A little brass bell chimed above the door as she stepped inside, and she was immediately hit by a dizzying riot of color. Balloons floated from every available surface, their strings tangled like modern art; streamers hung in festive spirals from the ceiling, and the shelves overflowed with neon banners, crinkling tissue paper, and glossy gift bags. The air smelled distinctly of latex, static electricity, and cheap plastic.

The teenager working the register offered a polite, autopilot smile, which Andy returned before wandering down the aisles. She didn't need much, just a few finishing touches to make the apartment look festive. Something special.

Her gaze drifted upward to the rows of floating spheres. Gold, silver, pastel pink, crisp white, deep navy. Then, tucked near the back were transparent balloons filled with shimmering, metallic blue confetti. As they drifted in the store's air conditioning, the tiny foil pieces caught the fluorescent lights, glittering brilliantly inside the clear latex. It was an arresting, familiar shade. Exactly the color of Emily’s eyes when she was looking at Andy across a crowded room.

Andy immediately let out a quiet, self-deprecating laugh, shaking her head. "God, that’s embarrassing," she whispered to the empty aisle.

She was a forty-six years old woman. She was a successful, respected journalist. A serious writer. And here she was, choosing party decorations like a lovesick teenager because they reminded her of her girlfriend’s eyes.

She grabbed a bundle of them anyway.

Bronwyn and Roark would absolutely steal them the second she walked through the front door, of course. The children treated helium balloons like a natural resource meant for immediate, chaotic destruction. But that was half the fun. She could already picture it perfectly. Roark jumping fruitlessly to reach the strings, Bronwyn fiercely maintaining that they were decorations before covertly snagging one five minutes later, and Emily pretending to be thoroughly annoyed by the racket while secretly hiding a smile behind her wine glass.

The domestic image warmed her all the way to her boots.

Twenty minutes later, the balloons were securely knotted to a weight in her back seat, bobbing gently in her rearview mirror as she made her second stop.

The bakery's display windows glowed with a thick, golden warmth against the cooling late-afternoon air. The rich, intoxicating scent hit her the absolute second she pushed the door open, an overwhelming wave of melted chocolate, sweet vanilla bean, fresh yeast, and bitter espresso. Every wonderful thing in the world, baked into one room.

A young girl looked up from behind the marble counter, a pencil tucked into her messy bun. "Hi! Picking up an order?"

"Yes, Andy Sachs."

The girl tapped a stylus against her tablet, her face instantly brightening. "Oh, right! Give me just a second."

She disappeared into the back kitchen, returning a moment later balancing a large, pristine white cake box. When she briefly lifted the lid for inspection, Andy couldn't help the soft gasp that escaped her. Three luxurious layers of rich chocolate sponge, dressed in an elegant, smooth ganache. It was beautiful without being excessive. Crucially, there was no writing. No piped messages. And definitely no Happy Anniversary.

Emily loathed things being spelled out. She had told Andy once, that years ago, a high-end restaurant had written Happy Birthday Emily across a dessert plate in raspberry coulis. Emily recalled she had stared at the script as if the chef had personally insulted her ancestors and muttered, “If somebody needs icing to remember my birthday, Andrea, they don’t deserve cake.” Andy still laughed every single time she thought about it.

"It’s absolutely perfect," Andy said, pulling out her card.

The employee beamed, carefully taping the lid shut. "I'm so glad. Special occasion?"

Andy looked down at the box, at the intricate, glossy chocolate folds and the giant, ridiculous smile she apparently hadn't been able to wipe off her face all afternoon. 

"Yeah," she said, her voice softening automatically into something tender. "Our anniversary. Three years."

"Aww, congratulations! That's so sweet."

Andy chuckled. She really should have left it at that. But, because she was Andrea Sachs, she possessed absolutely zero ability to keep exciting news to herself. Especially today, when she was too happy, too nervous, the adrenaline humming in her veins like a live wire.

Before her internal filter could stop her, she leaned over the counter slightly and added, "It’s actually going to be a really special night. I’m going to ask her to marry me."

The reaction was beautifully explosive. The girl gasped, a sharp intake of air, and both of her hands flew to her mouth. "Oh my God."

Andy burst out laughing, her cheeks flushing. "I know."

"Oh my God!" A couple of older customers near the bread racks turned to stare, but neither of them cared. The teenager practically vibrated across the marble. "That is amazing! Does she know?"

"No, completely clueless."

"Are you nervous?"

"Terrified," Andy admitted, her heart doing a frantic little dance at the mere utterance of the word.

The girl pointed an authoritative finger at her. "That’s a good sign. She’s totally going to say yes."

The absolute certainty in a stranger's voice settled into Andy’s chest like a heavy, warm blanket. She hoped so. God, she hoped so. Because she loved Emily with an intensity that terrified her. Because she loved the kids. Because somewhere in the middle of all the chaos, this beautiful, messy, unpredictable life had become theirs. It was home.

The employee slid the receipt across the counter, her eyes shining. "I hope everything goes perfectly tonight."

"Thank you so much," Andy said, gathering the box. Then, remembering a very specific FaceTime interrogation, she paused. "Actually, can I add two éclairs to that? Custard-filled, if you have them."

The girl laughed. "Anniversary éclairs?"

"Children bribery éclairs," Andy corrected with a wink. "They requested them personally."

"Well, that’s a matter of national security, then."

A few minutes later, Andy walked back out into the crisp New York evening, holding the box of éclairs balanced carefully on top of the cake. The afternoon sunlight was hitting the city at that perfect, dramatic slant, painting the concrete and glass in brilliant hues of amber and gold.

She loaded the trunk with practiced precision. The cake was secured against the back seat, the balloons bobbed gently above it, and the small box of éclairs sat safely on top. Andy closed the trunk with a solid, satisfying thud and paused, leaning against the warm metal of her car.

She checked her watch. Plenty of time. Everything was ready. The balloons, the cake, the éclairs.

And, hidden safely in the interior pocket of her blazer, right over her beating heart, the small velvet box. All she had to do now was drive home.

Her phone buzzed in her hand. A text from Emily: 

Mired in a budget crisis with Milan. Home soon?

Andy’s smile returned full force, her thumbs flying across the screen.

Just finishing up a few errands. See you soon❤️

She hit send, watched the little blue bubble deliver, and climbed into the driver's seat. She pulled out into the traffic, the golden light reflecting off her windshield, still smiling.

The twenty minutes ahead of her felt like a countdown to the rest of her life. Twenty minutes until she pulled into the driveway. Twenty minutes until Bronwyn and Roark tore into the contraband éclairs with sticky, ecstatic fingers. Twenty minutes until a quiet dinner, a glass of wine, and the moment she would change everything.

Andy settled back into the driver's seat, resting one hand loosely on the steering wheel as she merged into the steady crawl of Manhattan traffic. The sun was hanging low between the skyscrapers, throwing long, amber shadows across the asphalt and bathing the city in a deceptive, cinematic gold. On the sidewalks, commuters hurried toward subway stations, cyclists darted through gaps in the gridlock, and a city bus rumbled past with a heavy mechanical groan. It was all so wonderfully, reassuringly ordinary.

Her phone automatically paired with the car's Bluetooth, and a familiar, bright acoustic guitar intro filled the cabin.

Andy let out a startled laugh, shaking her head. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me."

Of all the songs on her playlist, the shuffle algorithm had chosen Love Story.

"Subtle, universe. Real subtle," she murmured fondly.

She tapped her fingers against the leather wheel in time with the upbeat rhythm, a ridiculous, unbothered grin taking over her face. It was cheesy, it was dramatic, and it was laying the romantic symbolism on a bit thick, but she didn't care. The traffic was moving smoothly, the blue confetti balloons were shifting with a soft, plastic rustle in the back seat, and the ring was resting safely against her chest. Everything was exactly where it belonged.

As the chorus swelled, Andy found herself humming along, eventually singing out loud into the empty car. She had a good voice, but she was no professional, though fortunately, there was no one around to judge her.

“Romeo, take me somewhere we can be all alone…… It’s a love story, baby, just say yes…”

The lyrics made her chest tighten with a sudden, overwhelming rush of anticipation. Her mind drifted effortlessly away from the traffic, pulling her straight to the brownstone. Straight to Emily.

Her stomach fluttered with a sudden schoolgirl nervousness. What was Emily actually going to do? Andy knew she would say yes, or, at least, every instinct in her soul screamed that she would, but predicting Emily’s actual reaction was an impossible science.

She could easily picture the sharp, elegant woman staring at the velvet box for a few seconds before masking her shock with that trademark, razor-thin dryness.

“You took your time, Andrea.”

Or maybe: “I assume this means you’ve finally agreed to let me handle the domestic finances, because this is an extraordinarily expensive way to ask a question.”

Andy chuckled aloud, tapping the gas as a car horn blared a few rows behind her.

But beneath the imagined sarcasm, Andy’s mind lingered on a different possibility. The version of Emily that almost nobody else in the world was privileged enough to see. The Emily who emerged only late at night after the kids were sound asleep, the woman who would shed her armor, curl her long legs over Andy’s lap on the sofa, and look at her with a quiet, defenseless warmth that felt like home.

Maybe Emily would cry. Maybe those brilliant blue eyes would glaze over with unshed tears. Maybe that crisp, aristocratic voice would catch in her throat, for Andy to feel the gravity of what they had built together.

The image was so sweet it made her throat ache. "God, she’d absolutely murder me if she knew I was imagining her crying," Andy muttered to herself, her eyes crinkling.

Up ahead, the traffic light bounced from red to a welcoming green. The line of cars ahead of her accelerated through the intersection, and Andy followed, her mind still anchored a decade into the future. She was already imagining the wedding. The kids growing into teenagers. Summer holidays. Growing old and wrinkled together in a house that smelled of sunflowers and books. All the ordinary, beautiful milestones she couldn't wait to claim.

The nose of her car crossed the white line into the intersection. The music was still spinning its fairytale chorus. The sun caught the edge of her windshield, flashing a brief, blinding glare across her eyes.

Andy glanced to her left. And froze.

A white mass. Moving. Horrifyingly fast.

For one terrible, elastic second, her brain experienced a violent glitch, refusing to comprehend the physics of what she was seeing. The light on that side of the cross-street was red. The vehicles there should have been stationary, waiting. Instead, a massive commercial van was hurtling directly toward her driver’s side door, showing no signs of slowing down.

The world instantly contracted into a suffocating tunnel. The music vanished. The city sounds died. There was nothing left in existence except the terrifying grille of the white van bearing down on her.

Her heart violently slammed against her ribs. Pure, primal instinct took over her body. Andy jammed her foot onto the brake pedal with everything she had.

The tires shrieked, a high scream of burning rubber against asphalt. The steering wheel violently jerked in her grip, threatening to snap her wrists. But the van kept coming, an unstoppable force of momentum.

A cold, lightning-bolt shock of pure panic fired through her veins. No. No, please, no—

There wasn't enough time. There wasn't enough space. There wasn't enough of anything.

In the fraction of a second before impact, through the glass of the passenger side window of the van, Andy saw the driver's eyes. Wide, glassy, and completely detached from reality.

Then the world detonated.

The sound was an apocalyptic, metallic roar, a sickening explosion of crumpling steel, shattering tempered glass, and tearing framework. The sheer physical violence of the impact was indescribable. The force struck the left flank of her car like a missile, instantly caving the door inward and sending the vehicle into a wild, sickening spin.

The steering wheel was ripped brutally from her hands. A split-second later, a deafening bang echoed inside the cabin as the airbags deployed. Thick, white nylon erupted into her face from the front and side, hitting her with the force of a physical blow. The seatbelt locked instantly, cutting deep and painfully across her chest and shoulder, anchoring her as her body was violently whipped sideways.

Everything became a chaotic blur of noise and motion. The screech of metal sliding over concrete, the rain of thousands of tiny glass fragments, the distant, distorted screams of pedestrians on the sidewalk.

And then, the muffled, ringing vacuum that follows a catastrophe. High-pitched tinnitus screamed in Andy’s ears, drowning out the world.

She tried to draw a breath, but her lungs refused to expand. The heavy, deflating mass of the airbag was pressing hard against her chest, and the air inside the cabin was suddenly thick with a powdery white smoke and the sharp, chemical stench of scorched fabric and ozone.

Her thoughts felt incredibly heavy. Sluggish. Distant, as if they belonged to someone else entirely.

She blinked slowly. Once. Twice. The dashboard swam in and out of focus.

Soon, the pain arrived. It started as a dull, localised throb before erupting into a fierce, crushing agony that radiated through her left shoulder, her ribs, and her entire side. A small, weak whimper escaped her lips, catching on the metallic taste of copper in her mouth.

The car had finally stopped spinning. Outside, footsteps were slapping wildly against the pavement. Car doors were slamming. Distant voices were shouting over one another, someone corporate and frantic yelling to “call an ambulance, call 911 right now!”

Andy stared straight ahead through the starburst fractures of her shattered windshield, her mind completely disoriented. The music had cut out. The radio was dead.

The cake. The balloons. Emily.

A sudden, sharp spike of panic pierced through her foggy consciousness, more agonising than any physical injury. Emily. She needed to get out. She needed to get home. She was going to be late.

Her right hand trembled, lifting weakly to fumble along the center console for her phone. Her fingers brushed only cold, broken glass and loose plastic. It wasn't there. Nothing was where it was supposed to be. Everything felt detached, unreal, like a nightmare she couldn't wake up from.

Wisps of smoke continued to curl lazily from the crumpled hood outside. More running footsteps approached her door, and a frantic voice was suddenly right outside her window, telling her to hang on, that help was coming.

Andy didn't look at them. She couldn't turn her head. Instead, her eyes tracked upward, focusing through the cracked glass on the sky above the skyline.

It looked strangely beautiful. The sun was dipping lower, painting the clouds in a brilliant, peaceful wash of yellow and gold. It was serene, as though nothing terrible had happened at all.

Everything after the collision dissolved into a fractured, high-contrast blur. Andy’s world became a disorienting montage of flashing blue light bouncing off shattered glass, hands pressing firmly against her skin, and voices, so many urgent, disembodied voices, raining down on her from above.

"Can you tell me your name?"

"Andrea Sachs," she breathed, the syllables tasting thick and metallic on her tongue.

"Good. Can you tell me what happened, Andrea?"

"Car... accident."

"Stay with me, Andrea. Keep your eyes on me."

The cold bite of shears tore through the sleeve of her favourite blazer. A penlight flared, a blinding, aggressive starburst against her pupils. The world tilted violently on a sickening axis as the paramedics synchronised their movements, lifting her onto a rigid stretcher. The shift sent a fresh explosion of pain tearing through her left side, blinding and white-hot.

Andy cried out, the sound tearing raggedly from her throat.

"We’ve got you."

"Easy, easy, watch her left shoulder."

The golden sky drifted helplessly overhead as they wheeled her toward the gaping rear doors of the ambulance. Beyond the yellow caution tape, shadows of people pressed against the barriers. Traffic was frozen, a river of brake lights. Someone nearby was sobbing into their hands, someone else was holding up a smartphone, filming the wreckage. It all felt completely muted, buried under a heavy layer of acoustic insulation. It felt like watching a tragic scene from someone else's life.

The heavy ambulance doors slammed shut with a definitive thud, and the interior instantly erupted into controlled chaos. Equipment rattled violently against the walls as the vehicle accelerated, monitors chirping a frantic rhythm.

A clear plastic oxygen mask was pressed over her nose and mouth, a rush of cool, chemical-tasting air forcing its way into her starved lungs. Hands moved over her with practiced, terrifying efficiency, tearing open sensors to slap onto her chest, wrapping a velcro blood pressure cuff tight around her arm. Numbers flashed across glowing LED screens. Voices traded clinical data over her head in a rapid-fire dialect she couldn't decode.

"Female, mid-forties."

"High-speed, t-bone impact on the driver’s side."

"BP is dropping. Seventy over forty."

"Possible thoracic trauma. Let's get another large-bore line in her right arm."

Andy stared up at the fluorescent light fixtures on the ceiling, the tubes blurring into long streaks of white. The oxygen mask fogged with every shallow, rattling breath.

"Andrea?"

She turned her head an inch, her neck screaming in protest. A paramedic leaned into her field of vision, her eyes kind but intensely focused over his mask. "Stay awake for me, okay? Keep those eyes open."

Andy tried to nod.

"Good. That's it."

The ambulance swerved hard, the wail of the siren cutting through the metal chassis, echoing off the city buildings outside. Stay awake. Stay with us. Stay awake. The command looped in her brain like a broken record, but her eyelids felt like lead weights. The darkness at the edges of her vision was warm, inviting, and desperately quiet.

Her eyes drifted shut.

"Andrea!" The voice barked, sharp enough to pull her back.

She forced her eyes open again, her chest heaving.

"There you go," the paramedic encouraged, squeezing her uninjured hand. "Keep looking at me."

Andy swallowed hard against the dryness in her throat. Emily. The name anchored itself in the centre of the fog. Emily was waiting. The kids were waiting. The chocolate cake, the blue confetti balloons, the contraband éclairs... she needed to tell them. She needed someone to call the house. She needed—

The thought slipped through her fingers like water, dissolving before she could form the words. The ambulance sped onward, tearing through the gridlock toward Bellevue.

-

Across the city, entirely insulated from the screaming sirens, Emily sat at the head of the polished table in her home office.

Three meetings. Three consecutive hours. Three increasingly long discussions about European distribution rights. Her patience had evaporated entirely forty minutes ago.

A grid of a dozen pixelated faces filled her laptop screen. Someone from Milan was pontificating about Q4 margins, another person from New York was loudly disagreeing, someone else was sharing a spreadsheet that made Emily’s eyes ache. She was only half-listening, her mind already halfway out to the plans Andrea would’ve prepared for tonight.

Her phone vibrated against the wood desk, and she glanced down. Unknown Number. Without a second thought, she flipped the phone face-down and pressed the side button.

The meeting droned on. A new slide appeared.

Then, the heavy timber door of her office burst open, slamming against the stopper.

"Mummy!"

Emily closed her eyes, practicing a controlled breath. Bronwyn stood in the doorway, clutching the cordless house phone to her chest. The ten-year-old was breathing heavily, her chest heaving as if she had run a marathon up the stairs.

"Bronwyn," Emily said, muting her microphone on the Zoom call. "Honey, what did we say about interrupting Mummy when the door is shut?"

Bronwyn hurried across the Persian rug, her eyes wide. "But it's for you."

"Sweetheart, I am in the middle of—"

"They said it's important."

Emily let out a sharp sigh, rubbing her temple. Every child believed every telephone call was a matter of global security. "Can it please wait five min—"

"It's from the hospital."

The air in the room instantly vanished.

Emily straightened in her chair, the corporate posture falling away. "What?"

Bronwyn held the plastic receiver out, her small hand trembling slightly. "They asked for Emily Charlton. That’s you, Mummy"

A cold, heavy weight dropped straight into the pit of Emily's stomach. There was this a bizarre, jarring sense of cognitive dissonance. Why on earth would a hospital be calling her house? Slowly, she stood up from her desk. The voices buzzing from her laptop speakers faded into an incomprehensible murmur.

She took the phone from her daughter's hand. "Hello."

The voice on the other end was perfectly steady. "Am I speaking with Emily Charlton?"

"Yes."

A microscopic pause. "Ms. Charlton, my name is Daniel Harris. I'm a paramedic with FDNY EMS."

Emily’s grip tightened on the plastic receiver until her knuckles turned white. The office suddenly felt suffocatingly, unbearably hot. "Why are you calling me?"

Another beat of silence. "Are you the emergency contact on file for Andrea Sachs?"

Emily forgot how to speak. Hearing Andy's full, formal name spoken by a stranger felt violently wrong. It was foreign. Official. It belonged in a courtroom or a newspaper, not in the quiet warmth of their home. A sharp, physical twist tightened in her chest.

"Yes," her voice came out thin, stripped of its usual sharp authority. "What's happened?"

The paramedic spoke with careful, measured deliberation, as if evaluating the impact of every syllable. "Ms. Sachs has been involved in a severe road traffic collision."

The room seemed to violently contract. Emily stared at the framed fashion prints on the wall, her brain utterly refusing to process the information. A collision. A car accident. No. No, that was impossible. Andy had texted her. She was driving home. She was supposed to be—

A horrific realisation hit her. How had she not noticed the front door hadn't opened? How long had she been sitting in this room, blind to the world?

"Is she alright?" The question burst from her lips, sharp, demanding, and frantic.

The paramedic didn't answer immediately.

"Ms. Sachs is conscious at this time," he finally offered.

At this time. The phrase landed with the brutal precision of a scalpel.

Emily’s heart began to hammer violently against her ribs, a wild, panicked animal. "Which hospital?"

"She is currently en route to Bellevue Hospital."

Emily was already moving. Her corporate detachment shattered completely as she grabbed her handbag from the armchair, her hands shaking so violently she nearly dropped it. Where were her keys? Where were her bloody keys?

"How badly is she hurt?"

"We believe she has sustained significant, multi-system trauma, Ms. Charlton."

The floor beneath Emily’s feet felt like it dissolved into thin air. "No," she whispered, the word slipping past her lips before she could stop it. "No, there’s been a mistake. There’s a mistake."

"I'm sorry, ma'am—"

"No." Andy had texted her. Less than an hour ago. A little red heart. She was running errands. She was coming home. She was supposed to be home.

Emily looked up. Bronwyn was still standing by the edge of the desk, her small face pale, watching her mother with terrified confusion. Waiting for an explanation.

Emily forced air into her lungs, forcing her knees to lock, forcing herself to remain upright. "Tell her I'm on my way. Tell her right now."

"We will. Please drive safely."

The line went dead, returning to a hollow dial tone.

As the call ended, Emily simply stood in the center of her office, holding the silent phone against her ear. She couldn't move. She couldn't speak. The ambient noise of the city outside seemed to have died completely.

"Mummy?" Bronwyn’s small, vulnerable voice sliced through the silence.

Emily slowly lowered the phone, looking down at her daughter. At the pure, unblemished innocence in her eyes. And for the first time in her life, the CEO of Prada realised she had absolutely no idea what to say. No script. No strategy. No way to make the universe make sense.

Now, there was simply no room for hesitation. No luxury for a breakdown. Her fingers were already sweeping across the desk, snatching her phone as she crossed the office floor, the cordless receiver still squeezed tightly in her palm.

Road traffic collision. The phrase repeated endlessly in her head, like a broken ticker tape. Road traffic collision. Road traffic collision.

No. It was a sterile, dramatic phrase used by an overcautious paramedic. Andy would be fine. She had to be. People survived car accidents every single day. They went to the emergency room, they got stitched up, they grumbled about the medical bills, and they came home. Andy would come home.

But with every repetition, the thought felt less like a fact and more like a plea.

Emily snatched her wool trench coat from the back of the chair, simultaneously unlocking her phone. Her thumb jammed into the speed dial. Louise, her trusted assistant, answered on the second ring.

"Hi, Emily—"

"Louise." The razor-sharp, absolute ice in Emily's tone cut off the casual greeting instantly. The line went deathly quiet. "I need you at the house. Right now."

"What's happened?"

"There's... been an accident," Emily said, the word catching like a splinter in her throat. She was frantically tearing through her bag for her keys. "The kids will be alone for twenty minutes at most. I need to get to Bellevue Hospital."

"Oh my God. Emily, I'm leaving right now. I'll be there as fast as I can."

"Thank you."

Emily ended the call with a blunt tap of her finger.

Across the room, her laptop screen was still glowing brightly. The Zoom grid remained active. Voices from Milan and New York drifted faintly into the quiet office, someone confidently pronouncing her name. 

"Emily, if we look at the Q4 projections—" 

She crossed the rug and slammed the lid down without a word, cutting off the digital world. The sudden, absolute silence in the room felt deafening.

She headed downstairs then, gliding down the staircase at a liquid pace that suggested the laws of physics were inconveniencing her personally.

Bronwyn followed her to the living room, ans Roark looked up from the sofa the second her slippers hit the hardwood. Something in their mother’s pale, rigid expression made him instantly sit up straighter, dropping his toys.

"Mummy?"

Emily snatched her car keys from the silver tray on the hallway table. "Listen to me carefully, both of you."

The siblings nodded in unison, their small faces mirroring each other's sudden anxiety.

"Louise is coming over."

"Why?" Bronwyn asked, her brow furrowing. "Where are you going?"

Emily opened her mouth, but the words withered on her tongue. Hospital. Accident. Emergency. None of those words belonged in this room. None of them belonged anywhere near the ears of her children.

"I have to go out," Emily managed, her throat incredibly dry. "I have to do something."

Roark frowned, his small fingers twisting the ear of a well-loved teddy bear. "To do what?"

Emily swallowed hard, the taste of the lie turning to ash in her mouth. "Something urgent for work, darling."

Bronwyn’s eyes, so painfully perceptive, tracked the slight tremor in Emily’s hands. "Is everything okay?"

The question hit Emily directly in the chest, nearly stealing her breath. She forced her shoulders back, summoning every ounce of her formidable acting ability. "Of course it is."

The reassurance came automatically, driven by the primal, maternal instinct that has compelled mothers to lie about monsters in the dark since the dawn of time. "Everything is perfectly fine."

The lie sounded flawless. Convincing, almost. But who was she kidding.

Emily, put on her heels, the closest pair of shoes she could grab, and reached for the heavy brass deadbolt of the front door.

"Mummy?"

She paused, looking back over her shoulder. Bronwyn was standing by the edge of the sofa now, holding her bunny close. "When Andy gets home, can you tell her we saved her some snacks? We didn't eat all the fruit roll-ups."

The innocent request nearly broke her. For a a second, Emily couldn't draw oxygen. Her heart gave a violent, sickening lurch. She looked at her daughter, bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted copper, and gave a stiff nod.

"Yes," her voice came out rough, a low gravelly whisper. "I'll tell her."

The children seemed satisfied, sinking back onto the cushions. Emily turned, ripped the heavy door open, and stepped out into the night.

The biting New York air slapped her in the face, but she barely felt it. All around her, the city was functioning with an offensive, disgusting normality. Cars moved fluidly through the intersections, brakes squealing rhythmically. Pedestrians laughed as they spilled out of a local bistro. A cyclist sped past, a bell chiming. Somewhere down the block, a dog barked.

How dare they. How dare the world keep spinning, how dare the city keep breathing, when Andy was—

She cut the thought off with ruthless efficiency. She pulled out her phone, her fingers flying across the glass screen. Maps. Bellevue Hospital.

Her eyes locked onto the glowing red ETA at the bottom of the display. 10 minutes by car. 38 minutes with current traffic.

The gridlock on the avenues was nearly stationary, a solid river of unmoving red tail lights. Emily stared at the digital map, and then she swore, a sharp, vicious, uncharacteristic curse that would have earned immediate horror from any parenting magazine.

Thirty-eight minutes. It was too long. It was an eternity. Every tick of the clock suddenly felt like sand slipping through her fingers. Every second was precious. Every second was stolen.

She shoved the phone deep into her pocket. And so, Emily ran.

The sharp, rhythmic crack-crack-crack of her high heels echoed violently off the concrete sidewalks. The tails of her expensive coat whipped frantically behind her in the wind. Strangers turned to stare at the elegant, well-known executive sprinting down the avenue like a madwoman, but Emily didn’t see them. She didn't care.

The bright neon signs and towering brownstones of Manhattan blurred into a chaotic stream of color around her. The only sound in the entire universe was the frantic, deafening hammer of her own heartbeat.

Andrea. Andrea. Andrea.

The name set the pace for her feet, echoing with every hurried step. And with the name came the memories, bursting through her defenses uninvited. Andy laughing through a mouthful of coffee over the morning style section, Andy tangled in the bedsheets beside her, warm and soft, Andy patiently explaining long division to Roark at the kitchen island, Andy teaching Bronwyn how to properly zest a lemon, Andy covertly stealing Emily’s cashmere scarves and stretching them out with her ridiculous slouch. Andy, existing beautifully in every single corner of her life.

Twenty-three years. It had been twenty-three years since a terrified, disheveled girl in a lumpy cerulean sweater had walked into Emily's life. They had spent twenty of those years apart, drifting in separate orbits. They had only had three years together. Three years that Emily had fought for. Three years she had finally allowed herself to accept, to believe in, to love.

She couldn't lose her. Not now. Not after the agony of finding her again. Not after building a fortress out of their shared life. Not after becoming a family.

Emily ran faster, her breath turning to white plumes of steam in the cold air. Her lungs burned as if they were filling with ash, the muscles in her legs screamed in anguish. She ignored it all.

For the first time in her entire life, she wasn’t running toward success. She wasn’t chasing a promotion, bargaining for a multi-million-dollar contract, or orchestrating a corporate victory. She was bargaining for a life.

She was praying. Begging. Crying out to God, to fate, to the universe, to whatever cruel entity was listening to her.

Please. Please let her be alright. Please let me get there in time. Please. Please. Please.

-

By the time Emily hurled herself through the sliding glass doors of the Bellevue Emergency Department, she could barely draw oxygen. Whether the suffocating pressure in her chest was from sprinting halfway across the gridlock of Manhattan or from pure, unadulterated panic, she couldn't tell.

The moment she crossed the threshold, she was struck by a jarring wall of bright fluorescent lighting, the sharp sting of chemical antiseptic, and a chaotic symphony of noise. Phones rang in relentless, overlapping cadences, heart monitors beeped in discordant rhythms, and medical staff moved down the corridors in a blur of colored scrubs. Patients waited on gurneys in the hallways, hushed conversations occurred everywhere at once. The entire department existed in a state of high-stakes, organised chaos.

Emily froze for less than a second, her sharp eyes sweeping the room until she locked onto the central nurses' station. She strode toward the high desk.

A nurse looking over a chart glanced up as Emily approached. "Can I help—"

"Andrea Sachs," Emily cut her off, her voice sharp as a razor and thick with urgency. "She was just brought in by ambulance after a road traffic collision. Where is she? Is she alright?"

The nurse blinked, clearly accustomed to the raw, frantic energy of worried relatives. "What is your name?"

"Emily Charlton."

The nurse began typing rapidly on her keyboard. "And your relationship to the patient, Ms. Charlton?"

For a fleeting, manic second, Emily almost laughed. The question felt violently absurd. Relationship? As if there were a word in the English language expansive enough to cover it. As if 'partner' could ever adequately describe what Andrea was to her.

"I am her partner," Emily said, forcing her voice into a rigid, commanding clip. "And her designated medical proxy. It should be detailed on her files in your systems."

The nurse nodded, her eyes scanning the glowing monitor. Several painfully slow seconds ticked by, each beat of the wall clock feeling like a hammer against Emily's ribs. Finally, the woman looked up, her expression shifting into something softer, something careful.

"She’s in the main trauma bay," the nurse said, pointing toward a set of heavy double doors down the hall. "Bed four. Follow the yellow signs on the floor."

Emily was already turning on her heel before the nurse could finish. "Thank you."

"Ms. Charlton—"

But Emily was gone. The yellow strips on the linoleum blurred beneath her feet as she turned left, then right, navigating the sterile maze. A doctor carrying a stack of charts passed her, two nurses hurried by pushing a crash cart. Emily registered none of it. The universe had shrunk to a single, desperate directive.

The main trauma bay opened up ahead, a massive room divided into individual cubicles by heavy, medical-blue privacy curtains. The air was thick with the rhythmic, electronic chirping of vitals monitors.

Bed one. Bed two. Bed three.

Bed four.

Emily stopped dead in her tracks. For the first time since the house phone had rung in her office, true, paralysing fear hit her. She was about to face it. Whatever horrific reality the paramedic had been trying so carefully to cloak in clinical terms was waiting right behind that thin layer of blue fabric.

Her hand trembled, shaking. Emily couldn't remember the last time she had lost control of her own body like that. Slowly, forcing her fingers to obey, she reached out, grasped the edge of the curtain, and pulled it back.

The world stopped spinning. Andrea was lying in the high hospital bed. She was alive. She was awake. And her eyes moved, tracking the sound of the curtain to look directly at Emily.

Relief crashed through Emily so violently she nearly staggered, her knees going weak beneath her trench coat. She’s alive. Oh God, she’s alive.

But when she properly looked at her, the relief shattered like cheap glass.

Andy was pale. Though not her usual winter fair-skinned complexion, and not the hollow look of exhaustion from a long week at Runway. A bloodless, translucent paleness. The kind of pale that made every maternal, protective instinct in Emily’s soul scream that something was fundamentally wrong.

A battery of monitors flanked the bed, their screens dancing with green and red wave lines. An IV line disappeared into the back of Andy’s left hand, and a pulse oximeter clamped to the middle finger on her right hand. Purple, angry bruising was already beginning to bloom across the entire left side of her face, and a thin trail of dark, dried blood marred her hairline. Her usually brilliant, expressive brown eyes looked hazy, struggling to hold a focus.

And she looked... small.

Andrea had never looked small a day in her life. Not when she had been a clumsy twenty-three-year-old standing up to the terrifying elite of the fashion world, not when she had returned to Runway as an editor, not when she had challenged Emily on boundaries that nobody else on earth dared to touch. Andy filled every room she walked into. She filled every conversation. She filled every empty crevice of Emily’s life. Yet here, swallowed by the sterile white sheets and the metal guardrails, she looked impossibly fragile. Like a breath of wind might break her.

Emily’s chest tightened, a fierce ache taking hold. No. No, no. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t my Andrea.

Andy noticed her frozen by the curtain, as the corner of Andy’s mouth twitched upward, managing a smile. It was a tiny, weak, wobbly thing. Poor her.

"There you are," Andy whispered. The words came out rough, scraped raw from the trauma.

Emily felt something vital crack inside her chest. It was a blinding, hurtful pain. God, it hurt.

She crossed the short distance between them instantly, ignoring the tangle of wires, the beep of the monitors, and the sterile cold of the room. Nothing mattered except closing the distance. She reached out, her fingers finding Andy’s left hand. She held it carefully, gently, as though she were terrified the other woman might vanish into thin air if she squeezed too hard.

The fingers that weakly twined through hers were cold. Far too cold.

"Andrea," Emily breathed. The name escaped her like a prayer, a plea, and a reprimand all at once.

Andy’s wobbly smile widened by a fraction. "Hi."

Emily let out a short, broken laugh, half absolute relief, half total despair. "Don't."

Andy blinked slowly, her unfocused eyes swimming. "Don't... what?"

"Don't you dare scare me like this ever again, Andrea." The attempt at her trademark aristocratic humour failed miserably. Her voice shook on the last word, the armor slipping.

Andy’s eyes softened, understanding washing over her bruised face. "Ah."

Emily swallowed hard, fighting back the burning sting behind her eyelids. She couldn't cry. Not now. Not in front of her. Andy didn't need tears, she needed the formidable, practical, immovable Emily. She needed her to be the anchor.

Emily tightened her grip on the cold hand, lifted her chin, and forced herself to look past the bruises to ask the question that had been clawing at her mind. "Tell me what happened."

Andy looked at her for a long, still moment, then lowered her gaze to their joined hands, her thumb making a faint, scraping motion against Emily’s knuckles. When she looked back up, that small, determined smile was still anchored to her lips, the stubborn smile of a woman trying desperately to comfort the person she loved, even while the world was ending.

"Funny story," Andy whispered.

Emily remained rooted beside the mattress, her fingers locked around Andy's cold hand with a fierce, white-knuckled intensity. She was unwilling to loosen her grip even for a second, terrified that releasing her might somehow allow the ambient noise of the hospital to swallow her whole.

The trauma bay monitors filled the silence, ticking over in a steady, maddening rhythm. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Andy seemed to draw in a shallow, deliberate breath, gathering what little strength she had left. As the corner of her mouth twitched into a faint smile, "I was driving down Fifth Avenue," she whispered.

Emily immediately leaned closer, her focus narrowing to the weak cadence of Andy’s voice.

"The light was green," Andy added, a slight, defensive edge to her words. Her gaze drifted briefly toward the sterile ceiling tiles, her eyelids fluttering as if she were watching a film strip of the memory play out. "I checked, Em. I swear."

"I know," Emily murmured, her voice thick. "I know you did, darling."

Andy swallowed hard, her throat clicking. "There was a van coming from the left. I... I thought it was stopping."

Emily’s grip tightened, her palm slick against Andy’s chilled skin.

"It didn't," Andy said. A tiny, humourless laugh bubbled up in her chest, cutting off into a sharp wince. "It very much did not."

Emily closed her eyes against the sudden, violent rush of imagination. The image of caving metal and shattering glass was immediate, terrifying, and altogether too real. She hated it. She hated the universe for allowing it to happen. When she forced her eyes open again, Andy was tracking the micro-expressions on her face with heartbreaking intensity.

"Apparently, they're operating," Andy murmured, her words slurring just slightly.

Emily nodded quickly, desperately clinging to the medical narrative. "Good. Yes. Excellent."

"One of the doctors said they're just waiting for a theatre to clear."

"Good," Emily repeated, the word coming out sharp and jagged, almost desperate. She needed to believe it. She needed the repetition to act as a shield. Surgery meant fixing things. Surgery meant a sterile, infallible solution orchestrated by brilliant minds. Hospitals fixed people. Doctors repaired tissue. Everything was going to be alright because it simply had no alternative.

Andy’s eyes softened, a deep, knowing look washing over her features that made Emily’s chest physically ache. She smiled despite the dark bruising mapping across her cheekbone.

"Happy anniversary, my love," Andy whispered.

The words struck Emily like a physical blow, shattering the rigid, executive composure she had been fighting so hard to maintain. A broken, strangled sound escaped her throat, half a cynical laugh, half a desperate sob.

"Happy anniversary," Emily replied, her voice trembling violently. She despised the fracture in her tone, despised how small and fragile she sounded in the face of Andy's quiet bravery, but she couldn't seem to stop the unraveling.

Andy’s smile lingered, warm and impossibly tender. Slowly, with an obvious, laborious expenditure of effort, she began to lift her right arm.

Emily immediately moved to intervene, her hands hovering anxiously over the mattress. "What is it? What do you need? Don't move, Andrea."

Andy pointed weakly toward the metal bedside table. The gesture was barely more than a heavy twitch of her fingers. "That," she breathed.

Emily followed the line of her gaze, past the plastic cups and the heart rate monitor, until her eyes landed on a small, square velvet box resting quietly on the Formica surface.

Emily simply stared at it. Her brain, usually so analytical, experienced a rare delay, before the realisation hitting her all at once, rushing through her veins like ice water. Her breath caught sharply in her throat.

No. No, no, no.

The whole trauma bay seemed to contract, the flashing lights and the distant shouts fading away until the universe consisted only of that tiny, dark box.

Andy watched her expression closely, a sheepish, familiar smile tugging at her lips. "Will you get that for me?"

Emily couldn't find her voice. The words were completely trapped behind the lump in her throat, so she simply nodded. Her hand trembled violently as she reached across the gap, her fingertips brushing the impossibly soft, plush texture of the velvet. She picked it up and turned back to the bed.

Andy was looking up at her with a nervous expression. "Open it," she whispered.

Emily stared at her for a split second before slowly, carefully pressing the latch and lifting the lid.

Inside, resting against a bed of black silk, sat a diamond ring. The harsh, overhead blinding lights of the trauma bay caught the stone immediately, scattering tiny, brilliant flashes of white fire across the small space. It was an elegant oval diamond, simple, classic, and breathtakingly beautiful. The delicate platinum band glittered with microscopic diamonds channel-set into the metal. Every single detail was perfect. Every single detail flawless. It was so thoughtful and precise, chosen with an abundance of devotion.

Emily sucked in a sharp, ragged breath, her knuckles turning white around the base of the box. "Oh my God."

Andy’s brow immediately furrowed with concern, a reaction so utterly absurd that under any other circumstances, Emily would have laughed. The woman was lying in an emergency department with multi-system trauma, and she was anxious about the presentation of a ring.

"It's... it's not huge," Andy offered uncertainly. "You deserve something much bigger, Em. So much more than a tiny diamond."

The statement was so ridiculously off-base that Emily’s lips parted in sheer disbelief. But Andy continued before she could voice a contradiction, her gaze dropping to their joined hands. "And my love for you is so much greater than whatever fits in a box. But... unfortunately, I'm a journalist. I'm not loaded."

A tiny, self-deprecating smile appeared on Andy's face. "I just... I really hope you like it."

Emily stared at the woman she had spent over two decades orbiting in some capacity. The girl she had dismissed, the colleague she had respected, the woman she had lost, and the partner she had found again. The person she loved more than her own breath.

Slowly, Emily reached forward with her free hand, her fingers ever so gentle as she brushed a stray strand of dark, blood-matted hair away from Andy's pale forehead.

"Are you insane?" Emily’s voice cracked wide open, tears finally spilling over her lower lashes. "I love it. Andrea, I love it."

Andy’s eyes instantly brightened, a wave of relief washing over her bruised face, as though this had been the greatest hurdle of her day.

Emily let out a wet, broken laugh, brushing a tear from her own cheek. "Of course I love it, you idiot."

Between them, the diamond continued to sparkle under the harsh hospital lights, suddenly unimportant. Emily had known from the very beginning, that it had never been about the stone. It had never been about the platinum. It was about Andy. It was always, purely, wholly about Andy.

Andy smiled, and for one fleeting, fragile moment, sitting in a cold trauma bay surrounded by monitors, antiseptic, and overwhelming dread, it almost felt like the anniversary evening they were supposed to have. Almost. It was almost enough to let Emily pretend that everything was going to be okay. And Emily was desperately trying to hold onto that.

The ring remained nestled in its velvet bed between them, beyond the heavy blue curtains, the trauma bay continued its muffled, chaotic hum. But inside their small corner of the ward, it felt as though time itself had slowed, stretching each passing second into an eternity.

Andy stared down at the ring, then up at Emily, before her gaze drifted back to the sparkling diamond. A faint, fragile smile touched her lips. Slowly, with an effort that made the muscles in her forearm tremor, she lifted her hand.

Emily didn't wait for her to reach. She immediately moved to meet her, capturing Andy's hand carefully, protectively, cradling the cold fingers securely between both of her palms. The movement was automatic now, as natural and instinctive as drawing breath. It was a physical necessity, a silent acknowledgment that neither of them could bear to sever the connection.

Andy’s fingers curled weakly around Emily’s knuckles, her thumb grazing the smooth skin. "I had this planned," she whispered, her voice a low, raspy scrape.

Emily swallowed hard against the tight, suffocating lump in her throat. "I know, darling."

A small, breathless laugh escaped Andy, heartbreaking. "I had so many versions, Em. I rehearsed them... constantly."

The mental image was painful just to think about. Emily could picture it with terrifying clarity, Andy pacing their bedroom floor, practicing grand speeches in front of the mirror, editing her syntax, rewriting paragraphs, then tossing the drafts aside to start all over again.

Andy’s wobbly smile lingered, a faint spark of amusement in her hazy brown eyes. "There was a romantic version."

Despite the crushing weight in her chest, the corner of Emily's mouth twitched with a ghost of her usual sharpness. "Of course there was."

"And a funny version."

"I imagine it wasn't funny in the slightest."

"It was not," Andy agreed softly. The amusement faded from her expression, her features softening. "I had one that was supposed to sound completely spontaneous."

Emily huffed out a broken, wet laugh, her fingers tightening around Andy's. "Which means you rehearsed it extensively."

"Extensively," Andy murmured.

The brief levity dissolved, leaving the small cubicle suffocatingly quiet once more. Andy’s gaze drifted downward, taking in the painful reality of their surroundings, of their joined hands, the stark velvet box, the clear plastic tubes taped to her skin, the ruined and ripped suit, and the steady, indifferent chirp of the vitals monitor. It was a landscape of a nightmare, filled with all the sterile, terrifying things that were never supposed to be a part of tonight.

When Andy looked back up, her voice had dropped, stripped of any remaining pretense. "But all of them seem a bit excessive now."

Emily’s chest tightened so violently it felt as though her ribs might crack.

Andy tried to shrug, but the slight movement caught on a deep, internal injury, her brow furrowing as a brief shadow of pain crossed her face. "We never really know what tomorrow looks like," she whispered, a humourless chuckle catching in her throat.

The sound broke Emily's heart into a thousand jagged pieces. Andy was trying. Even now, broken and bleeding in a trauma bay, she was using her remaining strength to make this easier for Emily. She was trying to make light of a reality that neither of them dared to name aloud, and Emily couldn't bear the cruelty of it. Not when Andy looked so bloodless, when her eyes looked so heavy, when she looked like she was slipping away right in front of her.

Andy lifted her gaze fully, locking her eyes onto Emily’s, and everything else in the universe ceased to exist. There were no flashing lights, no ringing phones, no sterile smells. There were only those familiar, deep brown eyes, warm, vulnerable, overflowing with devotion. The same eyes Emily had spent twenty separate years trying not to miss, the same eyes she had covertly searched for in every crowded room, the same eyes she had fallen hopelessly in love with all over again.

Andy looked at her for a bit, her gaze sweeping across Emily’s face as if she were desperately committing every sharp line and elegant curve to permanent memory. Finally, she smiled, and it was devastating.

"So I figured I'd just keep it simple," Andy breathed.

Emily felt her breath hitch, the air freezing in her lungs. Andy’s thumb brushed weakly, rhythmically against the back of her hand.

"Marry me, Em?", her voice trembling slightly. The terrifying weight of the love she was holding started to tumble out. 

"Be more than just my girlfriend," Andy whispered, her eyes shining.

Emily's vision fractured, the sterile room dissolving into a watery blur. "Oh, Andrea..."

Andy’s smile deepened, a beautiful, tragic warmth radiating from her. "Be my forever?"

The burning sting behind Emily's eyelids became unbearable, all of her defenses completely giving way. And then, because Andrea apparently possessed a lethal instinct for emotional devastation, she added, "Till death do us part?"

The ancient vow landed like a physical blow to Emily's chest. And so she broke, completely, instantly, irrevocably. The fierce, stoic composure she had maintained through the frantic phone call, the frantic run across the city, and the terrifying walk down the hospital corridor shattered into dust. The tears she had been ruthlessly holding back finally breached the dam, streaming down her pale cheeks in hot, relentless, unstoppable rivers. One moment she was anchoring herself, and the next, she was completely undone.

"Oh, Andrea," Emily sobbed, her voice cracking into a jagged, unrecognisable ruin. "Don't. Don't joke about that. Please."

The desperate plea escaped her lips before her filter could stop it, totally defenseless.

Andy’s expression softened, a look of deep, sorrowful apology. "Sorry," she whispered.

Emily let out a wet, broken laugh through her tears, miserably aching, tearing at her throat.

Andy watched the tears track down Emily's face, her own eyes softening further as she tilted her head just a little against the pillow. "Is that a yes?"

Emily stared down at her, the woman she loved with a ferocity that frightened her. The woman she would choose over and over again, in every lifetime, under any circumstances. The woman she had spent over two decades finding her way back to. How could there ever have been another answer written in the stars?

"Yes," Emily choked out. The answer cracked wide open, barely carrying enough breath to leave her lips. She sucked in a lungful of air, forcing her voice to stabilise. "Yes."

More tears spilled over her lashes, hot and fast. "I'll marry you."

Andy's eyes ignited. A brilliant, joyful, and breathtaking light transformed her whole face, erasing the bloodless paleness of the trauma ward. Emily couldn't remember a time in her forty-odd years of existence where she had ever seen another human being look so purely, transcendentally happy.

"Really?" Andy whispered, her tone disbelieving.

The sheer innocence of the question nearly caused Emily to sob aloud. "Really."

Andy’s smile widened, stretching across her bruised face. Emily laughed through the tears that were still blurring her sight, wiping her cheek with the back of her sleeve. "Yes, Andrea. Yes." She squeezed the cold hand resting between her palms, pressing down as if she could physically anchor Andy's soul to the mattress, binding her to this earth. "As many times as you need to hear it. Yes."

Andy’s eyes glistened with unshed tears, reflecting the glare of the diamond.

Emily leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a sacred whisper, delivering the words she had subconsciously carried in her heart for twenty-three years. "I do."

Andy beamed, and jsut for a brief moment she finally looked like the woman who had walked out of the offices that afternoon, carrying ridiculous balloons and contraband éclairs and impossible, beautiful hopes.

Slowly, deliberately, Andy reached her trembling right hand toward the black silk lining of the velvet box. Emily immediately guided her, her own fingers steadying Andy's wrist as together, they lifted the platinum band free. The oval diamond caught the harsh tubes overhead, scattering tiny, dancing fragments of brilliant white brightness across the pale sheets.

Andy took a shallow, shaky breath. With reverence, she carefully slid the ring onto Emily's finger.

Neither of them cared that the setting wasn't right. Neither of them cared that they were surrounded by the smell of antiseptic, or that technically, in her haste and disorientation, Andy had slid it onto the wrong finger, intended for the ring finger, managed to put it on Emily’s middle finger instead. Yet, none of the arbitrary rules of the world mattered. The platinum band settled against Emily's skin, solid and heavy.

Andy’s gaze fixed on the glittering stone against Emily's hand, a soft, almost disbelieving smile playing on her lips. "You're really mine now," she whispered.

This at last demolished whatever remained of Emily's emotional composure. A sharp, unpreventable sob tore from her chest, the tears flowing freely, raining down onto the white hospital blanket. She didn't care. She didn't try to wipe them away or hide the ugly, visceral grief of the moment.

Slowly, carefully avoiding the wires and the bruising, Emily leaned over the guardrails of the bed. She pressed her forehead gently, firmly against Andy’s, closing her eyes as the world narrowed to the physical sensation of their touch. She was close enough to feel the faint, uneven warmth of Andy’s breath against her lips, close enough to hear the hitch of every shaky, difficult inhale.

"Yes," Emily whispered against her skin, another tear slipping free to damp the space between them. "Yes, I am." Her voice trembled, every syllable forged from an unshakeable certainty, weighted with twenty-three years of shared history, of unspoken devotion, and everything she had never properly possessed the courage to say aloud.

"I always have been, Andrea. Always have been."

Beneath her, Andy’s eyes drifted closed. A serene smile spread slowly across her bruised face, she looked utterly and completely loved.

And for a few precious, stolen moments, in the heart of the frantic hospital, neither of them let go.

The ring sat securely on Emily's finger, its oval diamond catching the flat, clinical glare of the lights whenever her hand trembled. Andy's hazy gaze lingered on it, her chest rising and falling in shallow, uneven intervals.

Emily looked down at her own hand. And deliberately, she twisted one of her own rings free from her right index finger. It was a simple silver band set with a small, deep-blue sapphire. It wasn't expensive, certainly not by the standards of the world Emily usually inhabited, and it wasn't flashy. It was simply something she had worn for years.

Andy watched her, her dark eyes tracking the movement with fading curiosity. "Em?"

Emily didn't answer. Her fingers shook uncontrollably as she reached across the stark white sheet for Andy's hand. Carefully avoiding the plastic hub of the IV line, she slid the silver band down Andy's ring finger.

The sapphire settled against Andy's pale skin. A matching promise, a matching forever.

Andy's breath caught, a soft sigh escaping her lips, the smile slowly spreading across her cheeks. "Oh," she whispered.

Emily tightened her grip, locking their hands together. Andy stared down at the silver and sapphire band for several seconds before slowly lifting her eyes back to meet Emily's.

God, that smile. It was the exact same open, vulnerable expression that had dismantled Emily's defenses years ago. Seeing it now, framed by purple bruising, felt like it was going to destroy her completely.

"I like this part," Andy whispered, her voice cracking.

A broken laugh escaped Emily's throat, immediately followed by another sharp, uncontrollable sob.

Then Andy's smile faltered. A sharp flicker of pain tightened the skin around her eyes, and her entire body went rigid beneath the thin hospital blanket. A gasp tore from her pale lips, small and involuntary. 

Beside the bed, the vitals monitor quickened its pace, its rhythmic chirping turning into a panicked stutter.

Beep-beep-beep-beep.

Emily straightened instantly, her spine snapping rigid. "Andrea?"

Andy squeezed her eyes shut, her knuckles turning white as her free hand drifted instinctively toward the left side of her ribs. A strained sound escaped her throat.

She had always been insufferably stubborn about pain. Always. She was the woman who would walk three miles through blizzard in ruinous footwear without a single complaint. To see her completely unable to hide her suffering made Emily's stomach drop into a bottomless, icy void.

"Andy." The tears that had briefly eased returned hot and fast.

Andy's breathing grew heavier, shallow and ragged, pushing against the constraints of her chest. When she finally forced her eyes open again, they looked glassier and more distant than before.

Yet, true to form, her gaze immediately found Emily, and she managed a faint smile. As though her own broken body wasn't her primary concern. It was Emily. It was always, without a doubt, Emily.

Trembling violently, Andy lifted her left hand. Emily didn't let her struggle, she immediately caught it, pressing Andy's cold palm flush against her own wet cheek. She held it there as if it were the most precious, fragile artifact in existence.

Andy’s thumb brushed weakly beneath Emily’s eye, trying to smear away the tears. The gesture was useless, there were simply too many of them, a constant deluge spilling over Emily's lashes. But still, Andy tried.

"Hey," Andy breathed. Her voice had grown noticeably weaker, rougher. "Hey, baby."

Emily let out a sound torn directly from the centre of her chest, something between between a suffocating sob and a desperate gasp. Andy’s thumb stroked her cheek again, slowly.

"Don't cry."

Another tear escaped immediately, pooling against Andy's skin, followed by another, and another.

"I'm sorry," Emily choked out, the words tumbling out, devoid of logic. She wasn't even sure what she was apologising for, the universe, the traffic, the van, her own inability to fix this. "I'm sorry, Andrea. I'm so sorry."

Andy shook her head against the pillow. "No." The effort to respond seemed enormous, draining the remaining colour from her lips. "Don't cry, Em."

Emily closed her eyes, burying her face into the shallow cup of Andy's hand, pressing a trembling, desperate kiss directly into her palm. "I can't," her voice shattered, reducing the formidable Prada executive to a scattering of raw fragments. "Andrea, I can't do this."

And for a fleeting second, Andy's brave expression broke, by a little. Letting the terrifying reality of her own fear, her own grief, and her own profound heartbreak bleed through the surface. Yet, she fought it back. She smiled anyway.

"Please don't leave me," the plea escaped Emily's lips before she could summon the strength to suppress it. She felt stupid, it was pathetically childlike in its absolute honesty. She gripped Andy's hand tighter, pressing down, as though sheer willpower. "I can't lose you. I won't."

The room fell silent, save for the mechanical commentary of the machines.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Andy's eyes filled, with an overwhelming, luminous wave of love and sorrow. A single tear slipped from the corner of her eye, tracking silently down her temple into her dark hair.

Yet, she kept that small, trembling smile plastered to her lips.

"You'll never lose me," Andy whispered.

Emily immediately shook her head, her hair brushing against Andy's palm. "No. Don't say that."

"You won't, Em."

Andy lifted her hand slowly from Emily's cheek. The movement looked visibly painful, but she forced her body to comply. Her pale fingers drifted through the space between them, coming to rest against Emily's chest, right over the fabric of her coat, directly above the rapid hammer of her heartbeat.

Andy tapped her fingers weakly against Emily's sternum. "Here," she breathed, the word barely audible over the hum of the monitors.

Emily broke all over again, a harsh sob racking her shoulders.

Andy's hand slipped from her chest, falling heavily back onto the white hospital blanket. Her physical strength was visibly draining away, slipping like sand through a sieve, yet her gaze remained locked onto Emily's eyes, refusing to let go.

"I'll be here," Andy's voice sounded weightless and almost dreamlike.

Another tear slid down Emily's cheek. Andy swallowed hard, gathering whatever microscopic energy remained in her lungs, and continued.

"And in Bronwyn's love of literature." A shaky, shallow breath. "In Roark's... enthusiasm for corn chowder."

The tiniest ghost of a laugh escaped Andy's lips, and the memory struck Emily like a physical blow. She remembered dozens of chaotic, warm Tuesday dinners in their kitchen, Roark standing on a chair, loudly insisting that corn chowder was the single greatest invention in human history, while Andy stood by the stove with a wooden spoon, nodding her head along.

Andy's eyes crinkled faintly. "In every sunflower you see." Her eyelids fluttering. "In every sustainability column you read."

Emily let out a miserable, broken laugh through her tears. Of course. Even now, standing on the edge of a knife, Andrea was thinking about journalism.

"And... every hideous skirt you come across," Andy whispered, her voice dropping to a thready murmur.

Emily chocked back a watery sob. She could hear the immense fondness in Andy's tone, the familiar, teasing amusement that had brought so much joy and memories.

Andy looked so tired. So impossibly, terribly tired. But she kept going, forcing the words out against the dark. "And every cerulean sweater... in every shop window."

Emily bowed her head, her shoulders shaking convulsively. She was completely unable to stop the crying, unable to draw a proper breath, unable to comprehend a universe where she had to walk through the lanes in life without Andy beside her.

Andy watched her with tenderness, warmth filling her eyes.

"And in every girl... called Andrea."

The trauma bay seemed to hold its breath. Andy smiled. "I'll be everywhere, my love."

Emily shook her head frantically, desperate to deny it. "No. No, Andrea, no."

More tears spilled over, flooding her vision. She turned her face sharply and pressed another hard, lingering kiss into Andy's palm, holding her mouth there, refusing to break contact. As if love alone, pure, fierce, unyielding love, might be a strong enough anchor to keep her from drifting away.

"No, no, no."

Beneath Emily's cheek, Andy's fingers curled weakly against her skin. The gentlest goodbye. Though neither of them would ever possess the cruelty to call it that.

Andy's eyes fluttered.

No. No, no, no.

Emily shook her head hopelessly, tears cut hot, endless tracks through the smudged makeup on her face. Her chest throbbed, her throat burned. The absolute impotence of the moment was a suffocating weight. If she could have absorbed Andy’s pain into her own bones, she would have done it without a second thought. If she could have traded places, or signed away years of her own life to anchor Andrea here, she would have handed them over gladly. Anything. Everything. Just not this empty shore.

Andy's hand grew heavier, the fingers that had cradled Emily's cheek losing their strength, slipping downward. Yet, the small, exhausted smile remained, shattering Emily’s composure all over again. Her thumb made one last, thready swipe across Emily's damp skin.

"Remember..." Andy’s voice was a ghost of a sound, barely carrying over.

Emily leaned in instantly, eager and desperate to not miss a single word. Every syllable was a relic now.

Andy’s fading brown eyes found hers, luminous and unreserved. "You're a visionary."

Another harsh, strangled sob tore from Emily’s throat. Andy’s smile deepened by a bit. Even now, trapped in the grim reality of a failing heart, she looked so very proud.

"I'm so proud of you, baby," Andy whispered, inhaling was visibility more difficult for her now, a ragged strain against her chest. "And I always will be."

Emily squeezed her hand with a desperate, white-knuckled ferocity. "No," she choked out, the word fragmented. "No, Andy. Don't."

"No matter where I am," Andy breathed, her eyelids drooping heavily. "I'll always be proud of you."

Emily shook her head harder, her voice cracking. "No. Please."

A soft expression washed over Andy’s face once more. A faint laugh, little more than a warm breath, escaped her bloodless lips. Her gaze drifted briefly to the oval diamond sparkling on Emily's finger, then down to the simple silver and sapphire band resting on her own hand.

"...I'm just happy that I finally got to marry you."

Hearing it broke Emily, her breath hitching before a desperate cry escaped her. 

Andy swallowed with immense difficulty, her focus drifting. "Tell the kids... tell them I love them."

The faces of Bronwyn and Roark flashed vividly behind Emily's closed eyes, the children waiting at home, the saved snacks, the intact, beautiful life that had existed only hours this morning. 

"I will," Emily sobbed. "I promise."

Andy’s eyes fluttered one final time, searching for Emily's face, memorising her, carrying the image into the dark. "And you too. I love you, baby,” she whispered, a final tear tracing slowly down her temple into her hair. "Always have. Always will."

"I love you too," Emily clung to her, the words spilling out continuously. "I love you too, Andrea."

Andy’s wobbly smile returned, strangely peaceful. "I know."

She took one slow, shallow breath, followed by another, weaker still. Her lips parted for the last time. "Farewell, Em."

The words faded into the quiet room. Her eyes closed fully this time, and her hand went limp, slipping out of Emily’s grasp and dropping heavily against the white blanket.

The vitals monitor screamed.

The monitor flatlined, filling the cubicle with a sharp, endless scream. Emily’s instincts didn’t kick in. She just froze, staring at the straight line on the screen. The world stopped moving. Only when the air left her lungs did the sob finally break.

The blue privacy curtain was violently yanked back.

"She's crashing!"

"No pulse. Get me a crash cart!"

"Starting compressions."

Under a second, the room was flooded with a sea of scrubs. Voices became rapid, clinical, and aggressive. Emily was firmly but gently guided backward by a nurse, her ears ringing so loudly that the spoken words lost all meaning.

All she could see was Andrea.

A doctor climbed onto the step-stool beside the mattress, locking his elbows and beginning rhythmic, crushing chest compressions. Hard. Relentless. Andy’s fragile body moved startlingly with every downward thrust. The sight was an unbearable, sickening desecration.

"Another round of epi."

"Pressure's completely gone."

"Massive internal bleed, likely a splenic rupture. The abdomen is filling fast."

"She's coding. Charge to two hundred."

The medical terminology washed over Emily without shape or meaning. She stood frozen against the back wall, the brand-new engagement ring glinting mockingly on her finger under the lights, forced to watch strangers wage a losing war for the woman she loved.

Seconds or minutes passed, time had lost its metric.

Finally, the rhythmic thudding of compressions ceased. The room fell into a heavy, defeated quiet. The lead physician looked from the flatline on the monitor down to Andy's still face, then slowly reached up to peel off his latex gloves. He glanced up at the wall clock. "Time of death..."

Emily tuned out the numbers. She didn't want to hear the specific designation of when her world ended. The machine was switched off, and its relentless, screaming alarm vanished, leaving an enormous, echoing void in the room. One by one, the medical staff bowed their heads, gathered their equipment, and stepped away from the bed.

The doctor approached Emily slowly, practised sympathy etched into his face. "I'm so sorry for your loss. We did everything we could, but the internal hemorrhage was simply too severe."

Emily swallowed against the dryness in her throat. "I understand," she said, her voice terrifyingly steady.

The doctor gave a solemn nod and without a word led the remaining staff out of the cubicle, pulling the blue curtain shut behind them.

And then it was just the two of them again.

Emily stood by the rails for several moments, looking down at Andrea. The violent tension of the resuscitation attempt had passed, leaving Andy's face looking oddly peaceful, devoid of pain. The sapphire ring remained undisturbed on her left hand, a solitary mark of blue against the sterile white linen.

Slowly rising, Emily stepped forward, leaning over the metal frame of the bed. She bent down and pressed her lips gently to Andy’s cool forehead, letting the kiss linger, filling it with every unspoken vow and every goodbye she couldn't bear to articulate. Her lips trembled against the pale skin.

"I love you," she whispered, a low, broken, from now on unanswered prayer.

Another single tear slid down her cheek, dropping onto the blanket. She reached out and brushed a stray strand of dark hair away from Andy's brow, an achingly familiar, domestic gesture she had performed a thousand times before in the calmness of their mornings. Only now, the count had stopped.

"Sleep tight," Emily whispered, her voice cracking just enough to remind her that her own heart was still beating. "Sweet dreams, my dear."

She rested her forehead against Andy’s one final time, closing her eyes in the stillness of the ward. “Come visit me in my dreams."

-

Emily remained beside the bed for an unmeasurable stretch of time. It could have been five minutes, it could have been an hour. In the vacuum of sudden, catastrophic grief, time loses all its metric quality.

The small curtained cubicle felt impossibly still now. The rush of medical personnel had evaporated, leaving behind a heavy, stagnant calmness. No monitors chirped. No voices barked directives. No machines hummed. There was only the silence, and there was Andrea.

Eventually, reality began its slow, unforgiving creep back into the room.

The world outside the blue curtain didn't care that Emily’s universe had just imploded. There were things that required immediate attention. There were logistics. There were people waiting for her. There were Bronwyn and Roark.

The mental image of her children sitting on the living room sofa, waiting for their mothers to come home, nearly shattered whatever fragile structural integrity remained of her composure. Emily closed her eyes tightly, taking one frazzled, hollow breath, and forced herself upright.

The action felt weirdly mechanical, as though she were remotely operating an unfamiliar body from a vast distance. She smoothed the front of her blouse with trembling hands, wiped the cold remnants of tears from her jawline, and squared her shoulders. The armor slid back into place automatically. Really, it was paper-thin and fragile, but who gave a flying fuck anymore.

Emily stole one final look at the bed, at her wife, who lay entirely still, finally out of pain, now eternally at peace. Her hand lingered on the curtain fabric before she finally pulled it open and stepped into the corridor.

-

Walking into the emergency department felt like a physical blow. The fluorescent lights were blindingly bright, and the noise was deafening, clogs clicking on linoleum, phones ringing off the hook, doctors talking over chart notes. The world hadn't stopped. Life was just continuing.

The sheer contrast made her feel sick. Like a slap in the face. How could the wheels of the city still be turning? How could people down the hall be laughing at a joke? How could anyone be working? Andrea Sachs was dead. The world should have ground to an absolute, unmoving halt out of respect, yet it carried on without a single beat of hesitation.

A nurse approached her carefully, her expression practiced and somber. In her hands, she held a clear, heavy plastic property bag. "Ms. Charlton?"

Emily looked down at the bag. A sudden, sickening wave hit her right in the gut, making her chest tighten.

Andy’s entire day sat inside that plastic boundary. Her leather-strapped watch. Her wallet. Her mobile phone, the screen dark. A ring of house keys. The tailored navy suit jacket she had put on that morning while planning the trajectory of the rest of her life.

Emily accepted the bag silently, her fingers locking around the top. The thick plastic crinkled softly in her grip.

"I'm very sorry," the nurse offered, her voice gentle.

Emily gave a single, stiff nod. The words of comfort felt like background noise, unable to penetrate the ice that had formed around her.

The nurse guided her toward a side desk at the central station. "There are just a few forms we need you to sign, Ms. Charlton."

Of course there were. Forms. Signatures. Line items. Verifications. The world always demanded its administrative pound of flesh, even in the middle of a tragedy. Emily sat where she was directed, took the cheap ballpoint pen, and signed where the nurse’s finger pointed. She printed her name. She initialed small boxes. She acknowledged clinical documents. Her hand moved automatically, tracing the familiar cursive over and over.

Emily Charlton. Emily Charlton. Emily Charlton.

The name looked completely foreign on the page.

A hospital social worker eventually joined her, taking a seat in an adjacent chair. She had kind, tired eyes, which wasn’t shocking at all for someone whose entire career was built on delivering worst-case scenarios to unsuspecting strangers.

"Ms. Charlton," the woman began softly, folding her hands over her lap. "Because Ms. Sachs passed away as a direct result of a motor vehicle collision, state law requires a formal post-mortem examination."

Emily stared at her, the syllables taking several seconds to compute. Post-mortem. Andrea. It felt totally wrong to pair these two drastically different concepts in the same sentence.

The social worker continued, her tone measured and careful. "Her body will be transferred to the City Morgue first thing in the morning."

Body. Not Andrea. Not Andy. Body.

Emily hated the word right away with a feral, disgusted intensity. Andrea was not a body. Andrea was warm hands, she was enthusiastic singing in the shower, she was the smell of dark roast coffee in the mornings, she was brilliant, impassioned fashion sustainability columns. she was family movie nights and blossoming sunflowers. She was love. She was the definition of home. She was not a clinical specimen to be transferred.

But Emily simply nodded once, keeping her jaw locked, knowing that if she opened her mouth to speak, she would lose control entirely.

The social worker provided a few more explanations—timelines, medical examiner procedures, contact information cards. Emily heard none of it. Another signature was required, then another, and then, somehow, the paperwork was finished.

As Emily rose to her feet, a police officer in a dark uniform approached the desk, a small leather notebook open in his hand. "Ms. Charlton?"

She turned her head slightly.

"We'll be opening a formal criminal case regarding the collision," the officer said, his voice low. "The driver of the commercial van has been taken into custody under suspicion of reckless operation and running a red signal."

Emily felt absolutely nothing. No flash of anger, no desire for vengeance, no bitter satisfaction. The void in her chest was too massive to house resentment. There was no judicial punishment, no prison sentence, no cosmic retribution in existence that would ever bring Andrea back to life.

"We'll keep your legal counsel updated as the investigation progresses," the officer added, sensing her detachment. He hesitated, clearing his throat uncomfortably, before gesturing down the hall. "We also... we managed to recover the personal items from the vehicle's trunk before the car was towed to the impound lot."

Something finally shifted beneath Emily's guard. She followed the officer down a short, quiet hallway, away from the chaos and into a secured holding room. The moment she stepped inside, she froze.

Sitting on a stainless-steel table was a cluster of transparent balloons, bobbing gently against each other, all filled with delicate blue confetti. 

Beside the balloons sat a bakery box, pristine, undamaged, its white cardboard still tied neatly with a grosgrain ribbon. She knew it was an anniversary cake waiting for a dinner that would never take place. And right next to it was another pastry box from the same bakery.

Emily peeked inside, and saw that they were two éclairs.

Seeing these items laid out in front of her was so brutal Emily almost doubled over, her hand gripping the edge of the table for support. The officer stood quietly a few paces away, giving her a moment of privacy. 

After a long pause, he tipped his cap. "Take care of yourself, ma'am."

The door clicked shut, and Emily was left alone with the remnants of a future that had ceased to exist. The balloons. The cake. The pastries. A celebration, a proposal, an entire life, reduced to items on a hospital staging table.

She stood there staring for what felt like an eternity, before slowly reaching out for the cardboard boxes. There was still a job to do. There were still two children waiting at home who had absolutely no idea that the foundation of their entire world had just been obliterated.

Carefully, meticulously, she gathered everything into her arms. The crinkling property bag, the white cake box, the éclairs, and the ribbons of the blue confetti balloons, which floated gently just above her shoulder.

-

When Emily stepped through the heavy glass exit doors of the hospital, the cool evening air hit her face like ice water. The city stretched endlessly around her, a massive, unfeeling grid of asphalt and brick. Traffic lights cycled from green to yellow to red, yellow cabs jostled for position at the intersections, pedestrians hurried down the sidewalks, eager to get home to their dinners.

Emily stopped on the top step of the concrete plaza.

Above the towering skyline, the sun was undergoing its final, dramatic descent. The sky had transformed into a sweeping, tragic masterpiece. Vibrant amber melted into liquid gold, which faded slowly into deep, bruised pinks and soft streaks of lavender along the dark horizon.

It was beautiful. Painfully, suffocatingly beautiful. It was exactly the kind of sunset Andrea would have stopped dead on a crowded sidewalk to admire. The kind of sky she would have pulled out her phone to photograph, turning to Emily with that bright, childlike wonder in her eyes.

“Look at that, Em. Just look at the sky.”

Emily stared upward into the fading colours, a fresh, hollow ache settling deep into her bones. The sunset felt like a deliberate, gentle farewell. The city saying goodbye. The universe acknowledging a loss. Andrea saying goodbye to her.

A yellow cab pulled up to the curb at the base of the steps. Seeing the volume of boxes and balloons Emily was carrying, the driver immediately shifted into park and stepped out onto the pavement. "Need a hand with all that, miss?"

Emily managed a faint nod.

Together, they loaded what was left of their anniversary into the backseat. The blue confetti balloons bobbed gently against the cab’s upholstered roof. The cake box rested securely on the floorboards beside the pastries. The clear plastic property bag sat heavily in Emily’s lap.

Emily wrapped both of her hands around the plastic, her knuckles turning white as the driver slid back into the front seat and threw the meter.

The taxi pulled away from the hospital curb, merging smoothly into the northbound traffic on First Avenue. Behind them, the gold and pink of the sunset slowly surrendered to the cold, darkness of the New York night.

With every passing cross street, every synchronised green light, and every ticking block, Emily drew closer to her front door. Closer to Bronwyn. Closer to Roark. Closer to a conversation she would rather endure a thousand painful deaths than have to initiate.

The children still believed Andy was coming home. Emily knew, with a devastating, undoubted certainty, that she never would.

-

The taxi pulled into the driveway just as the last traces of sunlight disappeared beyond the rooftops. 

Emily had barely registered a single street corner of the journey. The driver said something over his shoulder, perhaps simply wishing her a good night, but the words never fully penetrated her consciousness. She handed over the cash automatically, fingers moving with a mechanical precision. She murmured a strained thank-you she would never remember saying, and then stepped out onto the concrete pavement.

The blue confetti balloons bobbed softly against her shoulder in the biting wind. The white cake box was tucked securely beneath one arm, the pastries on top, while the clear plastic property bag containing Andy's life remained clutched tightly against her chest.

She turned and faced the brownstone.

The house stood exactly as she had left it less than two hours ago. Warm, amber light glowed invitingly through the large paned windows of the living room, casting a soft radiance onto the stone steps. It was the very definition of home, or at least she had thought so.

Her chest tightened, the familiar sight pressing down on her until she couldn't breathe. Andrea should have been climbing those steps beside her. She should have been dropping her heavy tote bag onto the floorboards, loudly complaining about the unmitigated disaster of midtown traffic, and proudly handing over the far too sweet pastries to two ecstatic children. She should have been stealing fleeting, lingering kisses from Emily while pretending she was just trying to help carry the boxes.

Instead, Emily climbed the front steps alone.