She picked up the glass and drank it.
Then she looked at the second glass—the one she had poured for him—and tilted her head with a dazed, almost sheepish expression.
"Why did I forget you can't drink?" She laughed softly to herself. "I'll take this one too, then."
She drank it in one go.
"That's actually really good." She pressed her lips together, savoring it.
The deep red wine left a faint shimmer on her lips, making them look full and impossibly soft in the dim light.
She had always been a terrible drinker. She almost never touched alcohol.
But tonight, she didn't care.
She poured herself another glass—nearly to the brim—and drank it like water.
By the time she set the glass down, she felt light. Weightless. Like something that had been pressing on her chest all day had quietly lifted away.
*This is nice.*
She tilted her head and looked at Kellan.
"Kellan… if you woke up right now, you probably wouldn't accept any of this, would you?" She spoke to him easily, the wine loosening her tongue. "Yesterday we were complete strangers. Today we're legally married. Honestly, it feels like a dream to me too."
"But if you could wake up—" she paused, "—I'd give you ten years of my life. Willingly. Just wake up, and we can get a divorce, and everything goes back to normal."
She leaned forward as she said it, and somehow the distance between them closed without her noticing.
Her cheek came to rest against his chest.
She lay there, still, and listened.
*Thud. Thud. Thud.*
Slow. Strong. Steady.
She hadn't expected that. The rhythm of it settled around her like something warm, and she felt—against all reason—safe.
After a long while, she lifted her head.
"Your skin is incredible," she murmured, studying him with unfocused eyes. "Like porcelain. The expensive kind."
Her hand moved before she thought about it, and her fingers brushed his cheek.
Warm. Smooth.
The faint scent of wine on her breath drifted across his face—sweet, with a faint edge.
"And these eyelashes." She leaned closer, squinting. "Are these real? Some women spend a fortune on falsies and still don't get this. It's not fair."
She reached out and gave them the gentlest tug.
Real.
She laughed, barely a sound.
She hadn't noticed that, somewhere between the wine and the wondering, half of her weight had shifted onto him. Her arm had been braced beside his shoulder for too long. The moment she tried to push herself up, it gave out—numb from the elbow down—and she pitched forward.
Her lips landed on his.
The contact lasted less than a second. She jerked back immediately, hand flying to her mouth.
*Oh no.*
She stared at him in horror.
His lower lip was faintly red. More than hers.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered, panicked. "I swear I didn't mean that."
He didn't move. He didn't react. He simply lay there, breathing.
Emily exhaled slowly.
Right. Vegetative. He can't feel anything.
She leaned closer anyway, studying the small red mark on his lip with a guilty frown.
"…Does it hurt?"
Silence.
"Can I blow on it? It'll feel better if I blow on it."
She leaned in and blew—soft, careful, barely a breath—the way you might comfort a child with a scraped knee.
The wine-warmth of her exhale fell across his mouth.
After a moment she straightened, and with the same automatic tenderness, pressed her palm lightly to his forehead.
"There. All better."
Her eyes drifted, unfocused now, moving slowly down.
And then Dr. Bennett's voice surfaced in the back of her hazy mind, clear and clinical as ever:
*"Kellan is fully capable of fathering a child. But you'll have to rely on yourself."*
She sat upright like something had shocked her.
"Emily!" She slapped both cheeks lightly. "What are you thinking!"
Even if she had to go through with it eventually, she needed to be in the right headspace. Not like this. Not half-drunk and floating.
She took a breath and leaned toward him again, folding her hands in her lap.
"Kellan," she said carefully, "your mother made it clear—she wants me to have your child. I don't have another option. I keep my promises. If I don't follow through, your mother won't go easy on me, and I can't afford to lose her support."
"I can't lose my mother either."
"So I'm sorry. I don't mean any disrespect. I'm not doing this to take advantage of you. And I want you to know—" she hesitated, "—I really would give ten years of my life for you to wake up. Twenty, even. Whatever it takes."
She pressed her hands together and shut her eyes.
*Please wake up. Please, please wake up.*
After a moment of silence, she opened them again.
Her head felt thick and warm. The ceiling swam gently above her.
She climbed into the bed.
It felt like the most natural thing in the world to curl up beside him, tuck her face against his arm, and close her eyes.
He was warm, and solid, and still.
*Not bad,* she thought drowsily. *Like a very expensive body pillow.*
She was asleep within seconds.
---
Late that night, Dr. Bennett sat at his desk running routine checks on the monitors.
He was nearly nodding off when a cluster of data lit up on the screen.
He lurched forward, fully awake.
He crossed the hall in quick strides, reached Kellan's door—and stopped.
The door was locked from the inside.
He stood there for a moment, hand raised.
Then he remembered.
*Right. The wedding night.*
He lowered his hand slowly.
He looked back toward the monitoring room, where that extraordinary readout was still blinking on the screen.
Kellan's brainwave activity—measured, documented, and flat for three years—was responding. Fully. Vibrantly. Indistinguishably from a conscious person.
Dr. Bennett stood in the hallway outside the locked door and made a very deliberate choice not to think too hard about what had caused it.
*Whatever she did in there,* he thought, *it worked.*
He exhaled, ran a hand through his hair, and turned back down the corridor with a quiet, disbelieving smile.
*At this rate, waking up is only a matter of time.*
---
Morning came in soft and gold.
Emily opened her eyes to a white ceiling and blinked at it for several seconds.
Then she sat up so fast she nearly knocked the lamp off the table.
She pressed her hands to her face.
*Right. The hospital room. The wedding night. The wine.*
She spun sideways—and found only blankets beside her.
Her heart lurched.
She threw back the covers.
Kellan was still there, half-buried under the duvet she had apparently kicked onto him at some point in the night, his face faintly flushed, a fine mist of sweat across his forehead.
Emily stared.
"Oh no." She reached over and pressed two fingers carefully below his jaw.
Pulse. Steady.
She dropped her forehead into her hands.
"I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry." She exhaled shakily. "I didn't mean to— I wasn't trying to—"
He said nothing. He never did.
She straightened up, smoothed the blanket back properly, and got to work fixing the mess she'd made of the sheets.