The hospital courtyard wasn't particularly beautiful—patches of manicured grass bordered by concrete paths, a few benches under the shade of tired trees—but to Adrian, it felt like the first breath of fresh air in days. He sat on the edge of a bench, left hand resting limply in his cast, right hand gripping a paper cup of lukewarm coffee.
He stared out at the patchy clouds overhead, trying not to count the days he'd been off-set, or the number of unread messages from his manager. The world expected Adrian Blake to bounce back—funny, charming, marketable Adrian. But lately, he couldn't even pretend.
A breeze passed. He closed his eyes.
"Coffee here is terrible," came a familiar voice.
His eyes opened to find Dr. Evelyn Hart standing nearby, arms folded as usual, white coat fluttering slightly in the wind. But she wasn't looking down at him with her usual clinical detachment. She looked… tired. And maybe just a little curious.
He blinked. "I didn't realize Ice Queens came out in daylight."
One corner of her mouth twitched upward. "Even ice melts under sun exposure."
He let out a surprised laugh, genuinely amused. "Was that a joke, Dr. Hart?"
She didn't answer directly. Instead, she moved to sit beside him—awkwardly at first, as if unsure what to do with herself outside sterile walls and surgical gloves.
For a long moment, neither spoke. The silence between them wasn't hostile, just tentative. Two people, used to wearing armor, now sitting side by side in something that almost resembled peace.
Adrian broke it first. "I used to love silence," he said quietly. "Now it just feels like a reminder."
Evelyn tilted her head, eyes on the horizon. "Of what?"
"That I'm not who I used to be."
His voice cracked just slightly, a hairline fracture beneath the polished surface. Evelyn turned to him, studying his profile. The set of his jaw. The way his fingers twitched against the coffee cup.
"I know that feeling," she said, surprising herself with the honesty. "You wake up one day and realize the person you were… isn't coming back. And you don't know when the change happened, just that it did."
He looked at her then, really looked. "What did you lose?"
She hesitated. The hospital version of her—the guarded, untouchable version—screamed at her to shut it down. But sitting here, under a weak sun beside a man whose soul looked just as bruised as hers, she let herself exhale.
"My sister," she said softly. "She died during a surgery I couldn't save her from. I was only a resident."
He went still beside her.
"She was the lively one," Evelyn continued. "Always laughing, singing off-key. I used to be different, before her. More… alive, I guess."
Adrian's fingers tightened around the cup. "That's why you never smile."
She gave a breathy, humorless chuckle. "Something like that."
They sat with that pain, quietly holding space for it. No advice. No pity. Just understanding.
"You know," he said, voice low, "I wasn't just doing stunts when I got hurt. I was pushing limits. Hoping for something to break. Hoping maybe if something broke on the outside, it would explain the mess inside."
Evelyn didn't flinch. "And did it?"
He looked at his cast, then shook his head. "No. It just gave me six weeks with my thoughts."
She gave a faint nod. "Thoughts can be loud."
He turned toward her, their eyes meeting again. But this time, there was no sarcasm, no witty lines.
"Do you think people like us can really heal?" he asked.
Evelyn considered that for a long moment. "Not completely," she said at last. "But maybe… we find people who help carry the weight."
His lips parted slightly. He didn't speak.
And she didn't pull away when his good hand gently brushed hers on the bench.
They didn't speak again after that. But in the quiet between heartbeats, something fragile and real began to grow—something neither of them could name just yet.
But it was there. And maybe, just maybe, it was a beginning.