Aarav
I hadn't slept in over forty hours.
The adrenaline had worn off somewhere between the third emergency thoracotomy and the fractured skull we couldn't save.
Now I was just… empty.
But not enough to forget her.
I didn't text. Didn't call.
Just showed up at her door.
The city was sleeping, the streets outside her brownstone unusually quiet, the buzz of sirens replaced by the hum of a distant subway.
It was 2:17 a.m.
I leaned against the frame and pressed the buzzer, once.
A full minute passed.
Then another.
The door cracked open and there she stood — sleepy, barefoot, in an oversized sweatshirt that looked like sin on her.
Her expression went from confused to wide-eyed in seconds.
"Aarav?"
"Hi," I said, voice rough. "Sorry. I shouldn't have come. I just—needed…"
She opened the door wider before I could finish.
"Come in."
The warmth of her apartment hit me like a balm. Soft lighting. Sandalwood and bergamot. The quiet of home.
She guided me toward the couch. I dropped onto it with a sigh that felt like it came from my bones.
"Forty-two hours in the trauma bay," I muttered. "One pile-up on the bridge. Three lost. One girl—seven years old—made it."
Meera sat beside me, silent.
"I stitched through smoke and screams and shrapnel. Karan handled the field trauma. Aryka ran triage. Omar took over when I couldn't hold the scalpel straight anymore."
Her hand slid over mine.
Small. Still.
"I watched someone die while I was trying to keep another alive," I whispered.
"You saved someone else, didn't you?"
I nodded.
"That's who you are," she said. "You run toward chaos. You pull people out."
"I didn't come here to be told I'm noble."
She smiled, soft and tired. "Then why did you come?"
I looked at her, really looked at her.
"I needed a reason to feel something again."
We sat in silence for a while.
Then she spoke.
"You scare me."
That wasn't what I expected.
"I do?"
"Not like that." She glanced down. "You scare me because you make me want things I've trained myself not to want."
I shifted toward her, slowly. "Like what?"
"Comfort. Care. Vulnerability. You."
I swallowed.
She added, "My whole life, I've worn armor. Polished, sharp, beautiful armor. And you—you're the first person who made me want to take it off."
"I'm not trying to break you open, Meera."
"No," she said. "You're trying to see me. And that's scarier."
I leaned forward, brushing her knuckles with my thumb. "What if I told you I'm just as scared?"
"Of what?"
"That I'm not enough for someone like you. That you'll walk away the second you realize I'm not always the guy in the trauma bay. Sometimes I'm just… the guy who shows up at 2 a.m. needing a soft place to land."
She was quiet for a long moment.
Then she said, "I don't want perfect."
I blinked. "You don't?"
"I want real. I want this. Whatever this is."
I leaned in.
So close.
Her breath caught.
"Tell me to stop," I whispered.
She didn't.
Instead, her lips met mine like a confession — not rushed, not reckless — just true.
Slow. Intentional. Warm.
Like we both knew this wasn't just a kiss.
It was the beginning of everything else.
We didn't sleep that night.
Not because it turned into something more.
But because we lay there on the couch — tangled, vulnerable, seen — trading stories like secrets and laughter like healing.
And when the sun rose, casting gold light across her living room, her head was on my chest, fingers curled around mine.
For the first time in a long time… I didn't feel empty.
I felt home.