Dr. Hargreaves liked patterns.
She liked them because they usually made sense. Because if you stared at enough scans, enough charts, enough numbers creeping up or down in predictable arcs, the body eventually told you what it was doing. It might not tell you why, but it always told you how. And that was crucial for the next step.
Elias Rowan was not cooperating.
His scans were lit with contradictions. Aggressive markers where stability had been expected. Neurological shadows that refused to sit neatly within any one explanation. His vitals were, for the moment, steady enough to be misleading. It almost seemed... like an anomaly. Normal cancers aren't like this.
Too calm. Too quiet. But still there.
Dr. Hargreaves stood at the foot of his ICU bed, arms crossed loosely, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest.
"Elias," she said, keeping her voice normal, conversational. "I'm going to ask you a few things. I don't need you to answer out loud. Just blink if you understand."
No response.
She waited.
Still nothing.
"Okay," she said softly. "Let's try something else."
She leaned closer, eyes level with his. "If you can hear me, focus on my voice."
His eyebrows fluttered. Subtle, but undeniable.
There you are, she thought.
She straightened and turned to the nurse beside her. "He's in there."
The nurse nodded. "Locked-in?"
"Not fully," Dr. Hargreaves said. "But we're closer to that than I'd like."
She hated saying it out loud. Hated the way the phrase sounded like a verdict instead of a description. She was a doctor who saved lives. Not a judge who gave death sentences.
They adjusted his sedation carefully. Not enough to erase him. Just enough to keep panic from doing more damage than the disease already had.
As they worked, Dr. Hargreaves talked. Not because Elias could answer, but because silence made things worse.
"Your imaging shows progression we didn't expect," she said. "The cancer's no longer playing by the rules we agreed on."
She paused, watching his face for any sign of distress.
"Your nervous system is involved now. That's why your body stopped cooperating so suddenly. This isn't something you caused. It's not stress. It's not fear."
She hesitated, then added, "It's timing."
The word hung there, unfair and insufficient.
She stepped back and pulled up his file. Emergency contacts blinked at her from the screen.
Three names.
Friends.
No family listed.
She sighed quietly.
The first call went to voicemail.
"Hi," she said after the tone, voice professional but gentle. "This is Dr. Hargreaves from St. Vincent's Hospital. I'm calling regarding Elias Rowan. Please call me back as soon as possible."
She hung up, then dialed the second number.
This one answered.
"Hello?" A man's voice, distracted. Background noise. Traffic, maybe.
"Is this Daniel?"
"Yeah. Who's this?"
"Dr. Hargreaves from St. Vincent's. I'm calling about your friend Elias."
Silence.
Then, sharply, "Is he okay?"
Dr. Hargreaves closed her eyes for half a second. "He's alive. But he's very unwell."
"Cancer?" Daniel asked quietly.
"Yes."
"Shit," Daniel breathed. "He said it was… under control."
"It was," she said honestly. "Until it wasn't."
Another pause.
"Can he talk?" Daniel asked.
"No."
That landed.
"Can he hear?"
"We believe so."
Daniel swallowed. "He didn't tell us how bad it was."
Dr. Hargreaves's tone softened. "People rarely do."
She gave him the details. The room number. The gravity, without theatrics or underplaying it.
Before hanging up, Daniel said, "He hates being seen like this."
"I know," she replied. "We'll do our best to respect that."
After the call ended, she sat for a moment, staring at the phone.
Then she noticed something odd in Elias's chart.
A note from outpatient intake.
`Patient attempted to make a personal call prior to consult. Call incomplete.`
Incomplete.
She frowned, then clicked deeper.
There was a timestamp. Early morning. Before admission.
She wondered who he had tried to reach. Who was that important to him?