My eyelids flutter, and the bright white lights overhead spark a whole new rush of pain throughout my body. I groan again, louder this time, and I hear other voices now. Unfamiliar ones, male and female, murmuring something.
“—gaining consciousness, that’s a good sign. Mrs. Walloway, can you hear me?”
My eyelids flutter again, and the hospital room swims into sudden, painfully intense focus. There’s John, propped in a chair beside my bed, his hand wrapped around mine. My free hand is covered in bandages, attached to an IV. Something beeps somewhere over my head.
I blink, and another figure swims into view. A female doctor, flanked by two male interns, squinting at my chart. Before I can register anything else, John wraps his arms around me, crushing me to him.
“Thank God,” he murmurs against my hair, kissing my cheek, my jawline, the corner of my mouth, until the doctor laughs softly.
“Mr. Walloway, please, let your wife breathe,” she says.
But when he releases me, it feels harder to breathe than it was with his arms wrapped around me. Still, he doesn’t let go of my hand, and I hold onto it for dear life as I blink around the room, still trying to get my bearings. It comes back to me in flashes.
The ominous creak of that set piece overhead. Bianca’s wide-eyed stare, her soft gasp. Me colliding with her, and then my head hitting the floor.
I don’t remember anything after that.
“That was quite a knock to the head you took,” the doctor is saying softly, and leans in to peer at my face. “Look at me, please.”
I do, and am rewarded with a sudden sharp flash of pen light directly into my eyes. I groan in protest.
“Good dilation response,” she murmurs, checking my other eye quickly, before she grips my chin and turns my head left and right. “Any pain, Mrs. Walloway?”
“Yeah,” I groan, my voice coming out scratchy and thin. “I feel like my head is in a vice grip.”
“Hmm. We’ll give you another dose of Ibuprofen soon,” she says. “What do you remember? Any gaps in your memory?”
“I remember pushing Bianca out of the way of the crash… then… I think I hit my head.” I frown. “Did I pass out?”
The doctor nods. John looks furious suddenly, though not at me. It looks like he wants to punch something, though. Probably he’s mad about the set collapse, or the negligence of whoever let that rope fray so badly before they hoisted up something so heavy on it.
I push the thought away. The doctor is talking again, and with an effort, I focus on what she’s saying.
“I don’t want to give you anything too strong, painkiller-wise, given your condition, but so far Ibuprofen seems like it should do the trick. You’ll let me know, though, if you have any discomfort…”
Condition. My gaze drops from hers, toward my stomach. Oh God. John. He doesn’t know yet. I glance at him, fear and worry warring in my mind. “John, there’s something I need to tell you,” I start, but he shushes me with a finger to my lips, leaning in to kiss my temple. It helps soothe the throb there, at least a little bit.
“I know,” he murmurs. “I found your letter.”
My heart leaps into my throat—and I know, because I can hear the sudden rise in beeping on the machine I’m attached to.
“I’ll give you two a minute,” the doctor says, wisely, and she ushers her two interns out of the room with a gesture. I wait until the door shuts behind them before I risk meeting John’s gaze, not sure what I expect to see there.
What I find is sheer, pure joy. Unmistakable. Mingled with relief, as he touches my cheek, looks me over. “You’re okay? Really?”
“I’m okay,” I promise him, and he leans in to press his forehead against mine.
“When I found out… when I read that letter, and you were already in the ambulance on the way to the hospital… Mara, I can’t tell you how worried I was. How much I feared losing you… and our child.”
Our child. Two simple words. Two words that change everything. But his hand goes to my stomach, and when he caresses the flat plane of my belly, there’s no sign of hesitation or regret on his face. Only excitement.
“It’s really true? We’re going to have a family.”
I smile through a sudden sting of tears. Happy tears mixed with relief that my injury wasn’t worse. “It’s true,” I tell him, and he kisses me again, slower this time.
My lips part beneath his, and I melt against him, sinking into that kiss, savoring his taste, the familiar part of his lips against mine. It’s crazy how just a few weeks ago, we didn’t know one another at all, and now I can’t imagine my life without him in it. I can’t picture a future where we aren’t together.