The hospital buzzed with motion, nurses rushed by in scrubs, gurney wheels squeaked across linoleum floors, and the sharp tang of antiseptic hung thick in the air. But for Jamie, everything else faded. Her world had narrowed to the exhaustion weighing down her limbs, the raw sting of bruised wrists, and the warmth of her daughter, asleep in her arms.
She'd spent the first fifteen minutes outside the ambulance arguing with Ethan.
"You need to sit down," he'd insisted, jaw tight. A nurse standing behind him with a wheelchair smirked as she watched the stubborn little showdown unfold.
"I can walk," Jamie snapped, her voice sharper than intended, though she trembled with fatigue. "I'm not broken."
"I didn't say you were," Ethan said softly, but steadily.
"But you're hurting. I'm here to h
