Chapter Text
The emergency bay of Frontier Medical Center was alive with its usual chaos—nurses darting between beds, the steady chorus of monitors rising and falling like a pulse, the metallic tang of antiseptic clinging to the air.
Gurneys rattled across the floor, voices overlapped with clipped urgency, and somewhere down the hall, a patient wailed.
Sky slipped into step as if he’d been born for this.
At twenty-five, and six months into his residency, he had already learned how to walk into the storm without hesitation.
His coat trailed lightly against his knees, stethoscope bouncing at his chest, an anchor in the constant current of emergencies.
For Sky, the ER was both battlefield and classroom.
Every day sharpened his instincts, tested his limits, demanded that he be faster, steadier, sharper than the day before.
And though fatigue often gnawed at the edges of his focus, he carried it quietly.
That was what was expected of him—Sky, the one who’d graduated at the top of his class, the one who never faltered under pressure.
Yet even as he moved through the noise, there was an emptiness he couldn’t quite shake. Other residents already had their paths staked out—surgery, cardiology, internal medicine.
Sky, despite his spotless record, was still undecided. Pediatrics tugged at him sometimes, but the thought never held long enough to settle.
He figured time would decide for him.
For now, the ER demanded everything he had.
One particular night though, fatigue pressed heavily at the edges of his focus.
He slipped into the men’s restroom for a moment’s reprieve. The fluorescent light hummed overhead, the tiles cool beneath his shoes. He was reaching for the sink when he stopped cold.
The heavy scent of blood.
It wasn’t the faint trace he sometimes carried on his own gloves after a procedure. This was heavier—an iron-rich scent that coated the air and raised every hair on his arms.
“Hello?” Sky called, voice low but steady.
“Is anyone here?”
Silence answered him.
“Sir?” He tried again, sharper this time. Still nothing.
His pulse picked up. In the ER, silence was rarely good news.
Sky’s instincts kicked in. If someone wasn’t responding, they might be unconscious. Or worse. He moved quickly, pushing open each stall door one by one. Empty. Empty. Empty.
Until the last one.
At first, he thought it was just linen abandoned in a rush—one of the hospital-issued blankets, soaked through with blood and shoved into the corner. He crouched to pick it up. That was when he froze.
A tiny foot slipped free.
For one long, shattering heartbeat, Sky didn’t move. His mind refused to connect what his eyes were seeing. Then the realization hit him like ice water: a newborn, swaddled haphazardly, bloodied, umbilical cord still attached. And not breathing.
His chest tightened, but his body moved on instinct. He scooped the infant into his arms, nearly stumbling in his urgency, and bolted from the restroom.
“Clear a bay!” Sky’s voice cut through the ER as he burst in, nurses snapping their heads toward him. He laid the bundle onto the nearest gurney, his tone clipped and professional despite the rush of adrenaline surging in his veins.
“Newborn male, unresponsive! Found in the men’s restroom, wrapped in hospital linen. Estimated delivery within the last hour—umbilical cord incompletely severed. No spontaneous respirations, no palpable pulse. Body still warm—initiating resuscitation!”
Gloved hands moved with his. The room shifted instantly into action. A nurse clamped and cut the cord while Sky began compressions with two fingers, his other hand bracing the tiny chest. Another voice called out for a neonatal crash cart. Oxygen hissed as the mask sealed over the infant’s face.
“Come on, little one,” Sky muttered under his breath, barely audible over the chaos.
Seconds stretched into eternities. Compressions, breaths, checks. Nothing. Again. Compressions, breaths, checks.
Then—so faint at first he thought he imagined it—a cry. Thin, fragile, but undeniable.
The ER stilled for half a breath, the sound cutting through the tension like light in a tunnel. The monitors blinked, registering life.
Sky exhaled, only then realizing how hard he’d been holding his breath. The baby was alive. For now.
The police were called within the hour, hospital administration stepping in alongside them. An infant abandoned in a restroom—still covered in blood, left to die—was no accident. Whoever was responsible would be charged with attempted murder.
Frontier Medical Center’s security team worked hand in hand with the investigators, combing through every angle of the surveillance footage. Hours of recordings were reviewed, until finally, the culprit was identified.
She wasn’t a stranger.
Achara Aruwat. One of FMC’s own patients, admitted to the OBGYN ward just days prior.
Police dispatched to her registered home address, only to arrive too late. Achara was found collapsed at the threshold, her body already cold, a crimson pool spreading across the entryway tiles. Severe blood loss—the aftermath of a delivery gone wrong, untreated and alone.
The officers moved carefully through the small house. No infant supplies. No partner in sight. Only the silence of a life cut short. Then, in the bedroom, a single notebook rested open on the desk.
It wasn’t long before they realized it was a journal. A battered notebook, its corners frayed, its pages stained with ink and fingerprints. And it told a story far darker than the hospital’s CCTV could ever show.
The entries were frantic at first—pleas scrawled in shaky handwriting. Achara wrote of the threats she received, relentless and cruel, from the man who had fathered her child. She never dared to write his name. He was always just him. Every line dripped with terror—her fear of the doorbell ringing at night, of the footsteps she thought she heard outside her window, of what he would do if he ever found her.
But fear turned to despair. Her words became apologies to a baby not yet born, promises she knew she could not keep. I will protect you. I will find a way. Each page sounded more like a prayer whispered into the void, unheard by anyone who could help her.
The last entry broke the silence of the room. The handwriting was jagged, ink smudged with what could only have been her tears:
"I’m sorry, little one… Mommy isn’t strong. I screamed, but no one heard me. I prayed, but no one came. I’m a coward. Tonight, I will set you free—from me, and from his cruel hands. Mommy loves you. Remember that, even if the world forgets us."
The page ended there, the ink blotched where her pen had pressed too hard, as if she had run out of strength.
When the investigation wrapped, the officers returned to Frontier Medical Center with grim faces. Their report was straightforward, but the silence that followed every sentence carried more than the words themselves.
They gathered the senior staff first, but Sky was summoned not long after. He didn’t know why—residents weren’t usually called into these briefings—but when he stepped into the small conference room, he understood.
The lead investigator, a middle-aged man with tired eyes, didn’t mince words.
“The infant’s mother has been identified. Achara Aruwat. One of your OB patients. She was found deceased in her home earlier this evening. Postpartum hemorrhage, untreated. She didn’t make it.”
The words hit like a blunt force. Sky sat still, hands clasped too tightly in his lap.
The officer continued, voice quieter now. “We also recovered a journal. She’d been under threat from the child’s father. Repeated harassment. Violence implied, if not explicit. Based on her final entry…” He hesitated, then pressed on. “…it seems she attempted to take her child’s life not out of hatred, but desperation. She believed she was sparing the baby from him.”
For a long moment, the room was silent save for the hum of the air conditioner.
Sky felt something burn behind his eyes, and before he could stop himself, tears blurred his vision. He’d hated her at first—hated the idea of a mother abandoning her child in blood and silence, leaving the ER to fight for a life she had nearly thrown away. But now… now he couldn’t summon that anger. Not when he pictured her scribbling those words alone in the dead of night, bleeding and terrified.
He bowed his head, pressing the heel of his palm against his eyes, but the tears slipped free anyway.
“She must have been so scared,” he whispered, more to himself than anyone else. “She had no one.”
The officer said nothing, only closed his notebook and gave a small nod. There was no judgment left to make.
In the ER, the infant stirred faintly in his incubator, chest rising and falling in soft, uneven breaths.
Alive—against all odds.
—
Two months had passed since the night Sky found the newborn in the restroom. The image still lingered in his memory, but his life had moved on—rotations had shifted, and he was no longer stationed at the emergency bay.
Except tonight.
The assigned resident had called in sick at the last minute, and Sky—half a year into his residency—was pulled in to cover. He’d been running on caffeine and adrenaline for almost twenty-four hours now, moving from patient to patient with steady precision.
Sky was about to grab a chart when a commotion near the ER entrance broke out. He didn’t even glance up.
Arguments, protests, raised voices—this was just white noise in the emergency bay.
Most of the time, they fizzled out.
But this one didn’t.
The shouting only grew louder, echoing through the ward.
A man was refusing treatment, nurses tried to reason with him, and another voice muttered curses in irritation.
Sky’s temple began to throb.
The noise scraped against his frayed patience.
Finally, with a sharp exhale, he turned.
What he saw bordered on ridiculous.
A broad-shouldered man sat on a gurney, blood dripping steadily from a cut on his head. He barked at anyone who dared approach. The nurses, clearly terrified, hovered in a semicircle around him, exchanging helpless looks.
“Sir please—” one nurse attempted carefully.
“I said I’m fine!” the man snapped. His glare was sharp enough to make the nurse falter.
“It’s just a scratch.”
Sky pinched the bridge of his nose. Fine. If no one else was going to deal with this circus, he would.
Fed up, Sky finally strode up to the gurney and, without hesitation, smacked the back of the man’s bleeding head.
Prapai jerked.
“What the actual hell?!”
“Shut up,” Sky snapped, glaring down at him.
“You’re not a child. The least you can do is let the nurses assess your wound.”
“Assess my—?!” Prapai’s voice shot up an octave.
“You hit me! I’m injured!”
“Oh, so now you’re a patient?” Sky arched an eyebrow.
“That’s funny, because ten seconds ago you said it was just a scratch. Which is it? Make up your mind.”
Prapai opened his mouth, closed it again, then glared.
“You’re insane. Do you even know who I am?”
“No,” Sky said flatly, already motioning for the nurse to bring the trolley.
“And frankly, I don’t care. Right now you’re just an annoying man dripping blood on my floor.”
The nurses gasped. Prapai gawked.
“Dripping—?! This is a head injury!”
Sky clicked his tongue.
“It’s a shallow gash. It only looks bad because head wounds bleed like fountains. Honestly, you’re worse than my pediatric patients.”
“I’m thirty-one years old!” Prapai barked.
“And you’re acting like you’re three.” Sky deadpanned.
The ER went quiet except for the hiss of someone trying not to laugh.
“You—” Prapai sputtered, pointing at him
“—you’re going to regret talking to me like this.”
“Oh, is that a threat? Great, let me write that down in your chart under ‘Temper: childish.’” Sky turned to the nurse.
“Vitals kit, please.”
Prapai’s jaw dropped.
“You can’t just—”
“I can, and I will. Now sit still.” Sky’s tone was sharp enough to cut glass.
“If you so much as twitch while I’m cleaning your wound, I’ll throw you off this bed myself.”
For a moment, no one breathed. Then, shockingly, Prapai sat straighter, scowling but obedient, like a schoolboy caught misbehaving.
Sky’s hands were deft, feather light as he cleaned the gash and plucked out small bits of grit. His sharp words didn’t match the care of his touch.
“See? Not so hard.” Sky muttered.
“I didn’t even need duct tape to keep you in place.”
Prapai bristled.
“You’re lucky I’m letting you do this.”
Sky snorted.
“Oh, thank you, Your Majesty. Should I kneel next?”
The nurses nearly choked trying to hold in their laughter.
When the wound was cleaned and bandaged, Sky reached into his pocket, pulled out a lollipop, and pressed it into Prapai’s hand before patting his hair.
“There. For being such a good boy.”
Prapai blinked, utterly dumbfounded. He was just about to retaliate—snap something sharp, reclaim his pride—when the doctor’s lips curved into a soft smile.
Not mocking. Not smug. Just… gentle.
It was the kind of smile that didn’t belong in a place drenched with blood and panic. The kind of smile you’d give a scared child to tell them everything would be okay.
And damn, it caught him off guard.
His chest gave an unfamiliar stutter before his pride screamed at him not to let this ridiculous man have the last word.
“Don’t think that smile’s going to work on me,” Prapai said quickly, straightening his shoulders.
“I’m not one of your little kids.”
Sky tilted his head.
“Could’ve fooled me. You threw a tantrum just like one.”
The nurses bit their lips to stop the laughter.
Prapai scowled.
“You’ve got some nerve talking to me like that.”
“You’re welcome,” Sky replied, deadpan.
“That wasn’t a compliment!”
“Good, because it wasn’t meant to be.”
Prapai’s mouth opened, then closed again. He looked down at the lollipop in his hand as if it had personally betrayed him.
“…This is ridiculous.”
“Eat it or don’t. I don’t care,” Sky said, already turning to the next chart.
“Just try not to bleed on my floor again.”
“Your floor?” Prapai repeated, incredulous.
“Yes. My floor. I’ve mopped enough of it tonight to earn the deed.”
That actually stole a snort from one of the braver nurses, which only deepened Prapai’s scowl.
Sky turned on his heel and strode toward the doctor’s lounge without another glance, as if the terrifying CEO wasn’t even worth remembering.
The silence cracked when a low whistle echoed across the bay.
Phayu Venice Theerapanyakun, leaning lazily against the wall, pushed off with a grin.
“Damn,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear.
“That doctor’s got guts.”
Prapai ground his teeth, clutching the lollipop still in his hand. He could feel the eyes on him, the suppressed laughter in the room.
“Shut it, Venice,” he growled.
Phayu’s grin only widened.
“What’s wrong, Little Pai? Cat got your tongue? Or was it the doctor patting your head like a toddler?”
“Venice…” Prapai warned, voice low and dangerous.
Phayu chuckled, completely unfazed.
“Relax. Be a good boy, eat your candy, and let’s go home.”
Prapai glared at his cousin, but the faintest heat lingered in his chest.
And though he’d never admit it out loud—he still couldn’t get that damn smile out of his head.