Page 54 of Dose

“Not fixed.”

“I didn’t ask if it was fixed.”

“Then yes.”

He walks me back toward the common level.

“Caring makes fear unavoidable,” he says. “Stillness only stops the fear from choosing what you do next.”

That sentence stays with me.

The message arrives at two in the morning, six hours before Theon’s planned return.

I am in his bed, awake beneath sheets that smell more faintly of him with every hour, when my tablet chimes.

ATLANTA ACCESS COMPLETE. ARCHIVE CLONED. PERSISTENT CHANNEL ACTIVE. MANUFACTURING UNDISTURBED. NO IDENTITIES COMPROMISED. ALL PERSONNEL MOBILE. THREE NONCRITICAL INJURIES. ETA 0800.

Three noncritical injuries.

There are three people on the access team.

I read the message four times. They are alive. They are coming home. Theon is injured, although the word noncritical covers too much territory to be useful.

I reach the medical bay two minutes later.

Raphael is already there, reading the restricted injury summary on his terminal. Of course he received it too. This is his work, not mine.

“Darius has an injured left shoulder,” he says. “Damon took a blow to the face. Theon has a controlled laceration across the back of his left shoulder. No loss of consciousness. No gunshot wounds. Stable vitals.”

Air enters my lungs again.

“What can I do?”

He looks at me, then points to a cabinet. “Check the seals and expiration dates on the external-wound packs. Do not open them. Then stock water and food for when they arrive.”

It is not medically necessary. It is a task he can safely give me.

I do it twice.

At five, Raphael takes the checklist from my hands. “Shower. Breakfast. Clean clothes. They do not need you exhausted when they arrive.”

This time, I understand the instruction well enough to follow it.

At seven fifty-two, the communications board updates: decontamination at the landing site has taken longer than planned. Revised arrival, eight forty-five.

At eight forty-four, I am standing inside the medical-bay door.

At eight forty-five, the elevator opens.

Darius emerges first with his left arm in a field sling, talking rapidly enough to prove that pain has not improved his personality. Damon follows with a dark bruise across one cheekbone. Theon comes last.

His shirt is torn at the left shoulder. A field dressing is strapped across his upper back, clean except for a rust-colored stain at one edge. He is tired, dirty, and moving carefully.

Alive.

His eyes find mine.

I start toward him, remember the injury, and stop before I collide with his chest. Theon closes the remaining distance himself. His uninjured arm locks around my waist and pulls me against his right side.