4338.206 · July 25, 2018 AD
After the Needle Falls
The crisis demanded everything—steady hands, clear thinking, the calm that others needed to believe in. Glenda gave it all. Now the patient sleeps, the supplies are stacked in careful rows, and the tent has gone quiet. This is the part no one trains you for. The moment when there's nothing left to do, nothing left to hold onto, and the weight you've been carrying finally asks to be felt.
Luke returns with everything on the list—and more. Bags overflow with supplies he grabbed in haste, items he can't even name. Glenda doesn't waste time on gratitude. She moves into action: sterile field, inventory, priorities. The morphine is drawn, administered, delivered with the precision of a woman who has done this a thousand times.
Jamie's body surrenders. The tension drains from his muscles. His breathing steadies. Sleep claims him gently, mercifully, and for the first time in hours, the tent holds something close to peace.
He's going to be okay, isn't he? Luke asks. I hope so, she answers—the most honest words she has.
He apologises before he leaves. She tells him he did the right thing. Go confidently, she calls after him, and watches his shoulders straighten as he steps into whatever comes next.
Then she's alone. And the silence is too loud. And the composure she's held together with will and training begins to unravel. The sob that escapes is deep, guttural, the kind that comes from the soul. There's no Pierre here. No familiar hand. No home.
Just Glenda, kneeling beside a sleeping patient, in a world that doesn't know her yet.
