The safehouse medical room smelled like antiseptic, rainwater, and smoke carried home from the compound.

Outside the windows, dawn had started bleeding slowly into the city skyline.

Nobody slept.

Dominic paced the hallway eating stolen vending machine crackers.

Kane argued quietly with three separate police scanners.

Sofia threatened violence twice before breakfast.

Inside the medical room, everything finally slowed down.

Evie sat on the examination table wrapped in one of Cassian’s black hoodies while Sofia finished cleaning the cut near her temple beneath harsh white overhead lights.

“You’re lucky,” Sofia muttered.

Evie winced slightly.

“That feels like a medically concerning sentence.”

“It means the bruise looks worse than the damage.”

“Excellent. Love cosmetic suffering.”

Sofia pressed fresh gauze against the cut.

Evie hissed quietly through her teeth.

Across the room, Cassian sat in a chair beside the wall with blood dried across both sleeves and one knuckle split open badly enough to stain the bandages wrapped loosely around his hand.

He hadn’t spoken much since the compound.

Hadn’t looked away from Evie either.

Sofia noticed.

Unfortunately for him.

“You,” she said without turning around, “need stitches.”

Cassian’s eyes stayed on Evie.

“I’m fine.”

Sofia looked at him flatly.

“That phrase should legally count as a concussion symptom.”

Evie smiled faintly despite herself.

Cassian caught the expression immediately.

The tension in his shoulders eased slightly after that.

Tiny change.

Still enough to notice now.

Sofia finally stepped back from the table and removed her gloves.

“Congratulations. Neither of you died.”

“Strong medical optimism today,” Evie murmured.

Sofia pointed directly at Cassian.

“Ten minutes. Then I’m stitching your hand whether you cooperate or not.”

Cassian nodded once.

Sofia left the room muttering something in Russian that sounded deeply threatening.

The door shut behind her.

Silence settled softly afterward.

Not uncomfortable.

Just tired.

Morning light drifted pale gray through the windows while rainwater still clung to the glass outside.

Evie adjusted the oversized sleeves of Cassian’s hoodie around her hands.

Then looked toward him carefully.

“You’re bleeding through the bandage.”

Cassian glanced down once at his hand.

Didn’t seem interested.

Evie sighed quietly.

“Come here.”

Cassian looked at her.

“You just survived a hostage situation and you’re still bossy.”

“You say that like it’s new.”

A faint shadow of a smile touched his mouth briefly before disappearing again.

Cassian stood slowly and crossed the room.

He stopped in front of the examination table while morning light cut softly across the side of his face.

Up close, exhaustion showed everywhere now.

The bruising beneath his eyes.

The dried blood near his jaw.

The way his shoulders finally looked heavy instead of prepared.

Evie reached carefully toward the bandage around his hand.

Cassian’s fingers tightened automatically before relaxing again.

Reflex.

Old instinct.

Evie noticed the hesitation immediately.

Then quieter this time:

“It’s okay.”

Cassian watched her for a second before sitting down beside the table.

Close enough now that their knees brushed lightly together.

Evie unwrapped the loose bandage carefully.

The cut across his knuckles looked deeper than she expected.

Not life-threatening.

Just ugly.

“You punched somebody concrete-adjacent again, didn’t you.”

Cassian looked toward the floor briefly.

“Yes.”

“Emotionally shocking answer.”

Evie reached for antiseptic beside the tray.

Cassian didn’t move while she cleaned the wound.

Didn’t flinch either.

The room stayed quiet except for the faint hum of fluorescent lights and distant footsteps moving somewhere through the safehouse hallway.

Evie held his hand gently between both of hers while working.

Warm skin.

Rough scars.

Calluses built from years of violence and survival.

Cassian looked down at their hands silently.

No gloves.

Evie noticed that too.

The realization arrived slowly.

Then all at once.

She looked up immediately.

Cassian understood the second her expression changed.

His bare hands still rested quietly in hers.

No tension.

No withdrawal.

Just skin against skin beneath cold morning light.

Evie’s voice softened.

“You took them off.”

Cassian stayed still for a moment before answering.

“Yes.”

No excuses attached to it.

No tactical explanation.

Just yes.

The simplicity of it hit harder than she expected.

For months the gloves had existed like armor.

Distance disguised as habit.

Protection disguised as professionalism.

Now they sat abandoned somewhere upstairs beside bloodstained weapons and ruined tactical gear.

Evie looked down at his hands again slowly.

The old scars crossing his knuckles.

The faint burn mark near his thumb.

The hands he always hid first whenever someone got close.

“You know,” she said quietly, “this is probably the most emotionally vulnerable thing you’ve ever done.”

Cassian looked at her.

“That’s concerning.”

Evie laughed softly.

Then carefully pressed fresh gauze against the cut.

Cassian’s fingers shifted slightly against hers afterward.

Not pulling away.

Holding on.

The movement stayed there between them quietly.

Small enough that another person might’ve missed it.

Evie didn’t.

Morning sunlight brightened gradually through the windows while the city outside started waking beneath rain-dark skies.

Cassian watched her tape the bandage into place with more concentration than most people reserved for combat.

“You’re staring,” Evie murmured without looking up.

“You’re shaking.”

Evie paused briefly.

Annoying.

Very annoying.

“I almost lost you yesterday,” she admitted softly.

Cassian went quiet after that.

Evie finally looked up from the bandage.

His expression had changed again.

Not panic this time.

Not grief.

Something gentler.

More dangerous.

The kind of look that arrived after someone stopped trying to deny how much another person mattered.

Evie’s chest tightened slightly beneath it.

“You know what the weirdest part is?” she asked.

Cassian waited.

“I’m not scared of you.”

The sentence settled softly through the room.

Cassian looked down once toward their hands still touching between them.

Then back toward her.

“You should be.”

Evie smiled faintly.

“Yeah,” she murmured. “That’s usually your argument.”

Cassian’s thumb brushed once lightly against the inside of her wrist before he seemed to realize he moved at all.

The contact lingered.

Neither of them mentioned it.

Outside the medical room, Kane shouted something about coffee filters while Dominic yelled back that “bean water is temporary anyway.”

The noise drifted faintly through the hallway.

Normal.

Alive.

Evie looked toward the closed door briefly.

Then back at Cassian sitting beside her with bare hands resting quietly in her own.

No gloves anymore.

No armor left between them.

For the first time since she met him, he looked like a man learning how to stay instead of preparing how to leave.