Warm and Held

"You can't save everything you care about. But you can be there."

The treatment centre was quiet when I entered, the midday lull settling over the building like a held breath. Most of the morning's urgent work had been completed — medications administered, wound dressings changed, the endless cycle of feeding and monitoring that kept the facility running. In an hour or so, the afternoon tasks would begin. For now, though, the space belonged to the hum of equipment and the soft rustling of animals in their enclosures.

I'd been putting this off all day.

The small mammal intensive care unit occupied the far corner of the treatment centre, a row of climate-controlled enclosures designed for animals requiring close monitoring. Most of the current patients were routine cases — a brushtail with a healing leg fracture, a pair of sugar glider joeys on four-hourly feeds, a wombat with mange working through the long process of skin recovery. But the enclosure at the end of the row, the one I'd been avoiding looking at directly since I arrived this morning, held something different.

Pip had been at the Haven for three weeks.

She'd come in on a Tuesday evening, brought by a woman from Stirling who'd found her at the base of a eucalyptus in her backyard. No visible injuries, but clearly distressed — circling, head tilting, unable to climb when placed against the tree trunk. The woman had done everything right: kept the possum warm and dark, called the Haven immediately, driven her straight over without attempting treatment. By the time Pip arrived, Dr. Groves had already left for the day, but the on-call assessment suggested head trauma, possibly from a fall or a glancing blow from a car.

The first week had been cautiously optimistic. Pip stabilised quickly, accepted food, showed none of the severe symptoms that would have indicated catastrophic brain damage. The head tilt persisted, but that wasn't necessarily permanent — vestibular injuries often resolved with time, and plenty of animals had been released with minor residual symptoms that didn't affect their survival. We'd moved her from ICU to the small mammal ward, started the process of reducing human contact, begun thinking about the timeline for rehabilitation.

Then the seizures started.

The first one happened on day ten, a violent episode that left her exhausted and disoriented for hours afterward. Dr. Groves adjusted her medication, ran additional tests, talked about inflammation and secondary complications in the careful language of someone managing expectations. The second seizure came three days later. The third, two days after that. Each one seemed to take something from her, leaving her a little slower, a little less present, a little further from the animal she'd been when she arrived.

I'd named her during the second week, when it became clear she wasn't going to be a quick turnaround. The Haven discouraged naming rehabilitation animals — it created attachment, blurred professional boundaries, made the hard decisions harder than they needed to be. But I'd spent too many nights checking on her, too many early mornings sitting beside her enclosure watching for signs of improvement, to keep thinking of her as "the ringtail in ICU-7." She needed a name, even if it was just for me.

Pip. Small and quick and unassuming, like the sound a possum might make. It suited her, or it had suited her, back when she'd still been trying to groom herself and accepting food from my fingers.

Now I stood in front of her enclosure and made myself look.

She was curled in the corner, her tail wrapped loosely around her body in a posture that should have indicated rest but somehow didn't. Her fur, once sleek and well-maintained, had developed a dullness that spoke of declining self-care. Her eyes were open, but they had that unfocused quality I'd learned to recognise — present but not entirely there, as though part of her had already retreated somewhere I couldn't follow.

"Hey, Pip," I said quietly, crouching to bring myself level with the enclosure. "How are you doing today?"

She didn't respond. A week ago, she would have turned toward my voice, tracked my movement with the alertness of a prey animal assessing potential threat. Now she just lay there, her breathing shallow but steady, her gaze fixed on something I couldn't see.

I checked her chart, though I already knew what it would say. Food consumption: minimal. Activity level: negligible. Seizure activity: one episode overnight, duration approximately ninety seconds. Dr. Groves had added a note at the bottom in her careful handwriting: Consultation scheduled for this afternoon. Discuss prognosis and options.

Options. As though there were more than one.

I knew what that meant. I'd known for days, probably, even as I'd kept hoping for some sign of improvement, some indication that we hadn't reached the end of what medicine and time could offer. But hope was a luxury in wildlife rescue. You could hold onto it for a while, use it to fuel the late nights and early mornings, but eventually the evidence accumulated past the point where hope could sustain itself. Eventually you had to look at what was actually in front of you and make a decision.

The treatment centre door opened behind me. I didn't turn around, but I recognised the footsteps — Dr. Groves had a particular rhythm to his walk, unhurried but purposeful, the gait of someone who'd learned to conserve energy for the moments that required it.

"Jerome." His voice was gentle, which told me everything I needed to know about what was coming. "I thought I might find you here."

"I was just checking on her."

Dr. Groves moved to stand beside me, his gaze settling on Pip with the clinical assessment that was second nature to him. Stephen Groves was in his early forties, with dark hair and the kind of face that had settled into permanent lines of concentration. He'd been at the Haven for six years, had seen thousands of animals pass through these enclosures, and he approached each case with a combination of scientific rigour and genuine compassion that I'd come to deeply respect.

"I reviewed her chart this morning," he said. "And the overnight notes."

"The seizures are getting worse."

"They are." He paused, and I felt the weight of what he wasn't saying pressing against the silence. "I ran some additional tests yesterday, while you were at university. The results came back this morning."

I made myself ask. "And?"

"The neurological damage is more extensive than we initially thought. The seizures aren't a temporary response to inflammation — they're a symptom of progressive deterioration. The brain tissue itself is compromised."

The words landed with the dull finality I'd been bracing for. I kept my eyes on Pip, on the shallow rise and fall of her breathing, the dullness of her fur, the emptiness in her gaze.

"So there's nothing else we can try."

"There are always things we can try." Dr. Groves's voice was careful, measured. "We could increase her anti-seizure medication, though at the doses that might be effective, we'd be dealing with significant side effects. We could continue supportive care and see if she stabilises. But Jerome—" He paused, and I heard him take a breath. "I need to be honest with you about what that would mean."

"Tell me."

"It would mean managing her decline, not reversing it. It would mean more seizures, each one causing additional damage. It would mean watching her quality of life deteriorate until her body gives out on its own." Another pause. "It could take days. It could take weeks. But the endpoint would be the same."

I'd known. Of course I'd known. But hearing it spoken aloud, in Dr. Groves's quiet, compassionate voice, made it real in a way that my own suspicions hadn't.

"She's suffering," I said. It wasn't a question.

"She's not in acute pain, as far as I can assess. But she's not... present, either. Not the way she was when she came in. The animal she was — curious, alert, responsive — that animal is already gone, Jerome. What's left is a body going through motions that don't connect to anything meaningful anymore."

I thought about the first time I'd fed Pip, the way her small hands had gripped the syringe with surprising strength, the brightness in her eyes as she'd watched me move around her enclosure. I thought about the way she'd started to recognise my voice, turning toward me when I approached, accepting my presence as something familiar and safe. I thought about all the small moments of connection that had accumulated over three weeks, building into something that felt like relationship even though I knew better than to call it that.

"You're recommending euthanasia."

"I'm recommending we have a conversation about what's best for her." Dr. Groves turned to face me, his expression holding something that might have been recognition. "This isn't a decision I make unilaterally. But yes, Jerome. If you're asking my professional opinion, I believe euthanasia is the most humane option at this point."

The word hung in the air between us. Euthanasia. From the Greek, I remembered from somewhere — eu thanatos, good death. As though death could be good, as though the ending of a life could be anything other than loss.

But that was human thinking. Pip didn't understand death the way I did, didn't conceptualise it as an ending to be feared or a threshold to be crossed. She understood comfort and discomfort, safety and threat, the immediate sensations of her body and the instincts that drove her responses. Right now, her body was failing her and her instincts had nowhere to go. Keeping her alive meant keeping her trapped in that failing body, waiting for a release that would come eventually whether we chose it or not.

"Okay," I said. The word came out rough, caught on something in my throat. "Okay. When?"

"Now, if you're ready. There's no benefit to waiting, and—" He hesitated. "I think it would be harder, for both of you, to drag it out."

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

"Do you want to be present?"

The question was genuine — not everyone chose to stay, and Dr. Groves never pushed. Some people found it easier to say goodbye before the procedure, to remember the animal alive rather than carry the image of its ending. I understood that. Respected it, even.

But Pip had spent three weeks in my care. She'd trusted me — as much as a wild animal could trust a human — to keep her safe and help her heal. The fact that I couldn't do either of those things anymore didn't release me from the obligation of being present. Of witnessing what happened next.

"Yes," I said. "I want to stay."

Dr. Groves prepared the procedure with the practised calm of someone who had done this hundreds of times. He gathered the necessary supplies — the sedative that would relax Pip into unconsciousness, the barbiturate that would stop her heart, the small towels and warming pads that would keep her comfortable in the final minutes. Every movement was deliberate, respectful, performed with an attention to detail that spoke of deep familiarity with both the medicine and the weight of what it meant.

I lifted Pip from her enclosure carefully, cradling her against my chest the way I had during the first days of her care. She was lighter than I remembered — she'd lost weight over the past week, her appetite declining along with everything else. Her fur was soft against my hands, still carrying that faintly sweet smell that was particular to ringtails, a scent I'd learned to associate with late-night feedings and early-morning checks and the quiet satisfaction of watching an animal improve.

She wasn't going to improve. I had to keep reminding myself of that.

"You can sit here," Dr. Groves said, indicating a chair he'd positioned near the treatment table. "Hold her in your lap if you'd like. Some people find it easier."

I sat, settling Pip against me, feeling the rapid flutter of her heartbeat against my palm. Her eyes were still open, still unfocused, but something in her posture shifted slightly — a small relaxation, as though she recognised the warmth of human contact even through the fog of her damaged brain.

"I'm going to administer the sedative first," Dr. Groves explained, his voice low and steady. "It will take effect within a minute or two. She'll become drowsy, then fall asleep. Once she's fully unconscious, I'll give the second injection. That one is very fast — her heart will stop within seconds. She won't feel anything. She won't know."

I nodded, my throat too tight for words.

Dr. Groves approached with the first syringe, and I watched his hands — steady, professional, gentle — as he located the injection site. Pip didn't flinch when the needle went in. Maybe she was too far gone to register the small pain, or maybe she simply didn't care anymore. Either way, it was done in a moment, and then there was nothing to do but wait.

"Talk to her, if you want," Dr. Groves said quietly. "She can still hear you."

I didn't know what to say. What did you say to an animal who couldn't understand language, who had no concept of what was happening, who only knew that she was warm and held and that the sharp confusions of her damaged brain were beginning to soften around the edges?

"You did good, Pip," I heard myself say. My voice sounded strange — thick, unfamiliar. "You fought hard. You tried."

Her breathing was slowing now, the rapid flutter of her heartbeat gentling into something calmer. Her eyes drifted closed, opened again, drifted closed once more. The tension in her small body was easing, her muscles releasing their grip on alertness, on vigilance, on all the instincts that had served her species for millions of years.

"It's okay," I said. "You can rest now."

I don't know if she heard me. I don't know if it mattered. But her eyes stayed closed this time, and her breathing deepened into the slow rhythm of genuine sleep, and somewhere in the transition I felt the moment when she stopped being Pip-who-was-suffering and became Pip-who-was-at-peace.

Dr. Groves checked her responses — a gentle touch to the eye, a light pinch of the paw — and nodded once.

"She's fully under. She won't wake up from this."

"Okay," I managed. "Okay."

The second syringe was smaller, the injection faster. Dr. Groves administered it with the same steady professionalism, and I kept my hands on Pip's body, feeling for the moment when everything changed.

It was quieter than I expected. No dramatic gasp, no final shudder, no visible sign of the transition from life to death. Just a gradual slowing, a deepening stillness, and then — nothing. The heartbeat beneath my palm fluttered once, twice, and stopped.

Dr. Groves pressed his stethoscope to Pip's chest, listened for a long moment, and then straightened.

"She's gone."

The words were simple, factual, delivered without drama or false comfort. I appreciated that. Anything else would have felt like a lie, and I'd had enough of lies — the lie that hope could sustain indefinitely, the lie that wanting something badly enough could make it happen, the lie that caring about a creature could somehow protect it from the fundamental cruelty of a world that didn't care back.

I sat there for a while, holding Pip's body, feeling the warmth slowly leaching from her fur. Dr. Groves didn't rush me. He busied himself with quiet tasks at the other end of the treatment room, giving me space without leaving me entirely alone.

The tears came eventually, hot and unexpected, sliding down my face in a way I couldn't control. I wasn't a crier — hadn't been since childhood, had trained myself to manage grief the way I managed everything else, with patience and distance and the careful compartmentalisation of feelings that might otherwise overwhelm. But something about the smallness of Pip's body, the softness of her fur, the absolute stillness where life had been, broke through the barriers I'd built.

I cried silently, my hands still cupped around the body of an animal I'd tried and failed to save. I cried for Pip, who'd deserved better than a broken brain and a quiet death in a wildlife facility. I cried for all the animals who came through these doors and didn't make it back out, whose stories ended here instead of in the wild where they belonged. I cried for the gap between what we wanted and what we could actually achieve, the endless insufficiency of good intentions in the face of genuine suffering.

And somewhere underneath all of that, I cried for other things too. For Nate's face in that bathroom, white with terror. For Luke, alone in whatever life he'd built away from our family. For every version of damage that people carried without being able to name it, the wounds that didn't show but never quite healed.

Eventually, the tears stopped. I wiped my face with the back of my hand, took a breath, and looked up to find Dr. Groves watching me with an expression of quiet understanding.

"First one?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Third. But the first I've been... present for. All the way through."

He nodded slowly, as though this confirmed something he'd already suspected. "It doesn't get easier, if that's what you're wondering. But it does get different. You learn to carry it without letting it crush you."

"How?"

"By remembering that the alternative was worse." He moved closer, pulling up a chair to sit across from me. "Pip was suffering. Not dramatically, not visibly, but genuinely. You gave her three weeks of comfort and care, and when that wasn't enough anymore, you gave her a peaceful end. That matters, Jerome. It matters more than you might think right now."

I looked down at Pip's body, at the stillness that had replaced all her small movements and quiet sounds. She looked peaceful, I realised. More peaceful than she'd looked in days.

"What happens now?"

"I'll take care of the body. Standard procedure — we document everything for our records, then cremation through the vet service we use." He paused. "Unless you'd prefer something else. Some people want to be present for that part too."

"No." The word came out more forcefully than I intended. "No, I just... I need to step outside for a minute."

"Take all the time you need."

I laid Pip's body on the treatment table, arranging her gently, as though the positioning still mattered to her. Then I stood, my legs unsteady beneath me, and walked out of the treatment centre into the sharp winter light.

The cold air hit my face like a slap, bracing and clean after the controlled warmth of the building. I stood on the steps for a moment, breathing deeply, letting the ordinary sounds of the Haven wash over me — birds calling in the distance, the rustle of wind through eucalyptus leaves, the faint bleating of a kangaroo joey somewhere in the macropod paddocks.

Life went on. That was the thing about death — it didn't stop anything except itself. The other animals still needed feeding, the enclosures still needed cleaning, the phone would still ring with reports of injured wildlife and the cycle would continue regardless of what had just happened in that small treatment room.

I walked without direction, my feet carrying me along familiar paths while my mind stayed somewhere else entirely. Past the small mammal ward, past the raptor complex where Ghost sat on his perch with eyes that should have been afraid, past the education area where an hour ago I'd held a blue-tongue lizard and talked to children about survival and adaptation.

Eventually I found myself at the boundary fence, looking out over the paddocks that stretched toward the treeline. The winter grass was pale gold in the early afternoon light, and a mob of kangaroos grazed in the middle distance, their movements slow and unhurried. They'd come from the rehabilitation programme, most of them — hand-raised joeys who'd graduated through the system and been released into this semi-wild space, still protected by the Haven's boundaries but living something close to natural lives.

Some of them had made it. Some of them were out there right now, grazing and resting and doing all the things kangaroos were supposed to do. The success stories, the ones who justified the work and the heartbreak and the endless accumulation of loss that came with trying to help animals who couldn't help themselves.

Pip wasn't one of them. But she could have been, if things had gone differently. If she'd fallen from a different tree, or been found a few hours earlier, or had the particular luck that separated the survivors from the casualties. There was no logic to it, no fairness, no cosmic accounting system that ensured good outcomes for deserving cases. There was just the work, and the hope, and the willingness to keep showing up even when the hope ran out.

I stayed at the fence for a long time, watching the kangaroos, letting the grief settle into something I could carry.