The next few hours were a haze, and when I looked back on them the next day I only remembered them in disjointed chunks.

Clarissa gently tugging me away from Ciar so that the rescue team could get him to the waiting ambulance. Someone boosting me up into my own ambulance, insisting on examining me. Staring at the ceiling as we raced to a hospital. Waking up with entirely too many bandages for the scrapes I'd accumulated.

She was there, sitting in a chair beside my bed. The deep creases in her pantsuit hinted at the hours she'd spent there. It was dark, and for a moment, I thought she was sleeping, too. But by the time I opened my mouth, she had already straightened up and begun to scoot closer.

She took one of my bandaged hands, looked me right in the eyes, and said, "We got them."

A huge sigh gusted over my lips, but the second it left my lungs, I gasped again.

"Ciar," I began.

She stiffened but forced a smile. "He's fine. Came out of surgery last night."

I closed my eyes. "I need to see him."

She didn't stop me as I sat up, but she also didn't let go of my hand. As I moved to stand, she settled a hand on my shoulder and gently pushed me back down.

"Maisye, wait."

I waited. She looked away, her chin resting on her shoulder as she stared out the window at the city, the Hancock spearing the sky like a sword.

"I'm sorry," she finally said, staring at our fingers.

"For what?" I wasn't going to argue the fact that she owed me an apology, but I was curious what she thought warranted one.

"Everything." She raised her shoulders high and held them there, as if the length of a shrug could encompass all that had happened. "Not believing you. Not being there for you. Bringing you into this at all. I—"

She swallowed, her mouth pinching as if she'd tasted something bitter.

"I used you. I didn't see you as a person, not really. Not your own person, anyway. You suffered because I cared too much about Tillie."

She dropped her forehead against my leg, and I froze. The contact felt foreign coming from her after all the professional distance she'd placed between us. Contracts couldn't force my trust, but this...

Maybe she was human after all.

Before I could say anything, the door burst open. I tensed, my hand closing around Clarissa's as Mark stood there, staring between the two of us.

She sat up, let me go, and brushed at her pantsuit, trying to smooth out the wrinkles. "I'll leave you to talk," she said, her voice just as stiff as her shoulders.

I tried to swing my legs over the bed. "But—"

"Maisye. Please." Mark closed the distance before I could ask Clarissa to stay, and she slipped out behind him.

I stared at him, my heart tugged in several different directions. Torn between the comfort of him still caring—enough to travel across the entire country—and his lack of faith in me.

Not that he was wrong about the latter.

I eyed him warily as he sat down in Clarissa's chair. Maybe he hadn't ignored my calls, but he was still Mark, the man who'd served me divorce papers from the other side of a glass wall. Mark, who had left me to face my demons alone because he couldn't bear to look at them.

I fiddled with my bandages, trying to compose myself. I'd never felt the need to hide around him; he'd known the worst parts of me, and for the longest time, I'd thought there was no limit. Nothing that could make him run away. Now that I knew I was wrong, I felt an overwhelming need to be fine in front of him.

"Why did you come here?" I finally asked when the silence became too heavy.

"Maisye." There was an admonishing edge to his tone, like I should have known better.

"Don't tell me 'of course you came' or some bullshit like that. If you meant that, you never would have left in the first place. So why are you here?"

He took a long, careful breath. "Can you imagine losing contact with a suicidal loved one?"

"Loved one?" A laugh burst from my lips before I could contain it. "You don't even—"

He held up a hand, and the exhaustion etched into his face made me stop. "Care?" he asked. "I do, Maisye. Whether you believe it or not, that is why I'm here."

All I heard was that he cared, but not enough. I glared at him and started to rise. "I need to see Ciar."

Maybe I said it to hurt him, but it was still true. Ciar was the one who'd been there for me.

Mark sighed. "Can't we talk? Like old times?"

"Old times?" I spotted a set of fresh clothes neatly folded on a chair across the room and shuffled over to them, turning my back to him. "If you wanted 'old times,' you shouldn't have left."

"What was I supposed to do? Let you come home and realize for yourself that it wasn't going to work? Drag it out and try to pretend?" He shook his head. "You would have hated me for that, too."

He was right. I picked up the shirt and fiddled with its collar, knowing that I couldn't keep blaming him for everything.

"Did you ever love me?" I mumbled. "Or did you just feel obligated to keep an eye on me?"

The longer his silence stretched, the harder the lump in my throat became. I slowly shuffled back around to face him, and this time, I finally saw what I felt. It stared back at me, reflected in his eyes.

Pain. It hurt him, too.

"Did you ever love me, or did you just need someone to need you?" he asked back.

I looked away. I didn't know. I thought I'd loved him, and in a way I knew I had. But was it the right way? The way that would've meant growing old together? The way that meant I would have loved him no matter where and when we met?

Maybe we were never going to work out.

"Who's at home?" I finally whispered, remembering the phone conversation I'd overheard. "Who are you going home to? Who is she?"

"Are you sure—?"

"Yes."

He stared at me, as if gauging whether or not I'd snap if he told me. I held his gaze, refusing to blink.

He gave a long, drawn-out sigh, then scratched at the back of his head. It was his classic nervous gesture, and it still stung a little that I knew him well enough to know that.

"It's nothing serious," he said. "We only met a few months ago. I don't even know if—"

"What's her name?"

He tore his eyes from the floor. "What?"

"What's her name?" I repeated.

"Corrine."

I nodded. I was happy for him. I was. Someday it wouldn't hurt too badly to tell him.

I cleared my throat as the moment stretched thin. "I need to see Ciar."

He didn't move. "I'm sorry I didn't believe you that Tilda was alive."

I shrugged, trying to appear offhanded as I shook out the clothes. "Haven't exactly given you a reason to."

He watched the leg of the pants as it draped over the chair. I knew he got the point, and if he didn't get a move on, I was going to start changing whether he left or not.

He turned, stopped, and looked at me one last time. "Love doesn't magically fix things, Maisye. You need a doctor."

I bit back the bitter retort that jumped to my tongue. He was right.

With the click of the door, I was alone again.

▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁

Ciar's room was only two floors up, but I found out the hard way that nurses didn't take well to patients walking out of their rooms. When Clarissa had finally convinced them to let me go, she walked me upstairs and dropped me off outside.

"I'll wait out here," she said, surveying me with folded arms and a stern frown. "We're not done talking."

"I know." Mark's words played through my head: You need a doctor.

I promised myself to ask for one the second I came back out.

I cracked Ciar's door open and poked my head around the corner. He sat on the bed, one leg immobilized in a white cast. He gave me a lopsided grin, and I slipped inside.

"So," he said as I stopped beside the bed. "Welcome to the first official meeting of the 'my sibling is in jail' club."

I didn't laugh.

"Okay." He pulled himself up straighter, his humor dying. "We're being serious. What's on your mind?"

"Everything." I ran a finger along the rough surface of his cast. "Are you okay?"

He arched a brow. "Are you?"

I bit my lip. He wasn't avoiding the question. He was answering it. There was no way either one of us would be okay for a long while.

"I can't believe she's alive," I whispered.

"Yeah." He fell silent, staring off into space. Was he thinking about her? How much he loved her? Did he still, after everything?

My heart stung with every beat.

"Who are you?" he finally murmured.

"I'm—"

Maisye! The answer was supposed to be simple. But the vehemence with which I would have replied just twenty-four hours ago was gone.

"I don't know." I stared at his leg, avoiding his gaze. "But I wasn't lying when I told you about what happened when you kissed me on the roof. I believed it then. When I thought she was still dead. I wasn't lying just to get you to sleep with me."

"Doesn't really matter," he said. "I still shouldn't have done it."

"We both did it."

"Yeah, but it's not like—"

"You said you wouldn't take it back," I reminded him.

He took a deep breath and held it, then let it out with a whoosh. "Let me ask you this. Would you do it again?"

I sat down on the edge of the bed and fiddled with the sheets. I didn't even have to think about it. The answer was no. Not with the way things were now. Not when I didn't know who I even was anymore. Not when we were both dealing with the realizations of yesterday.

Not until I knew I would do it for the right reasons.

Ciar nodded into the silence as hindsight enveloped us.

"I'm sorry for dragging you into this," I mumbled after a while. It was an inadequate apology, but nothing I could ever say would cover the magnitude of what he'd risked and lost by standing beside me.

He shook it off at once. "What's an adrenaline junkie live for if not a good chase?"

I gave him a look. "That's not what I meant."

"Drop it, Flash. Apologies make me uncomfortable."

"But—"

His hand landed on my thigh. "No."

I sighed. I wasn't going to make it up to him in this hospital room, anyway.

I leaned back on the bed, my shoulder tight against his side so we could both fit. We sat there in silence, and just like the night on Upper Mystic Lake, it was enough.

Still, as the minutes stretched on, all I could think about was Clarissa waiting outside.

"I have to go," I finally said, sitting up.

He seemed to know I didn't just mean visiting hours were over. He exhaled, sinking further into the mattress with each passing second. Then he nodded. "When I told you to leave Boston," he said, "it was for me. Because I was selfish. I wanted you gone. But now I want you to leave for you."

He propped himself up on his elbow, staring up at me with earnest care. "It's not good for you here, Maisye. Not right now, anyway."

My mouth twisted into a wry smile. "I should've listened to you."

"No. Never listen to me. I'm an idiot." He tilted his head toward the door. "Listen to that FBI lady. She seems to know what she's talking about."

I looked at the door, imagining Clarissa checking her watch on the other side. I wondered what she thought I was up to in here. Then I wondered if she cared.

And then I felt the ghost of her gentle squeeze around my hand, the weight of her forehead as it rested on my thigh while she asked for my forgiveness.

I slid off the bed. Ciar looked up at me, leaning his head on his hand, and offered a tiny grin. He didn't even try to stop me, or tell me what to do or where to go. Almost like he trusted me to decide for myself.

I bent down to press a gentle kiss to his temple. It was the best way I knew to say thank you for everything he'd given me.

"Good luck, Flash," he said as I curled my fingers around the doorknob.

When I stepped outside, Clarissa was still there.