(Eliana's POV)

The words hit me like a physical blow.

Bone marrow biopsy. Hematology. White cell count.

I sat there, frozen, while Dr. Evans kept talking. His mouth was moving but I couldn't hear anything past the ringing in my ears. Oliver had been running around just last week. Laughing at cartoons, demanding pancakes for breakfast, complaining that his sneakers were too tight. He was five years old. Five. This didn't happen to five-year-olds who demanded pancakes and complained about sneakers.

My hands were ice cold. The whole room felt like it was tilting sideways.

I gripped the edge of Oliver's bed and breathed.

One breath. Then another.

"Okay," I said. "Tell me which hospital."

Dr. Evans blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"The specialized center. Tell me which one is best. I want him transferred today."

He nodded slowly. "Children's Medical on Westfield. It's the top pediatric hematology unit in the city."

"Then that's where we're going."

I started making calls before we even left the room.

Nathan called twice during the transfer. I looked at his name on the screen and declined both times without a second thought. I had nothing to say to him that wouldn't come out as screaming.

When the transport van pulled up to Children's Medical, Claire was already standing at the entrance. She'd beaten us there somehow, still in her coat, her dark bob slightly windswept.

She didn't say anything. She just walked straight up and wrapped both arms around me.

I held on for a moment longer than I intended.

"It might not be what they think," she said quietly. "Results aren't in. It could be a misread. It happens."

"You're a doctor. You know the odds."

"I also know that preliminary flags get walked back all the time." She pulled back and looked me in the eye. "Don't bury him before you have a diagnosis. Okay?"

I nodded. She was the only person I'd told. My parents didn't know, Nathan's family didn't know, and I intended to keep it that way until I had something concrete to tell them.

Oliver tugged at Claire's sleeve. "How come you're not at work?"

Claire crouched down to his level and ruffled his hair. "Because I missed you too much. Couldn't help it."

He looked suspicious but pleased. "You came all the way here just for that?"

"Obviously. You're very important." She straightened up and looked at me. "Come on. Let's get you checked in."

She handled the entire admission process. Forms, insurance, the room assignment, the nurse handoff. I stood beside Oliver and held his hand and let her do all of it, because if I had to speak to one more person about symptoms and blood counts I was going to fall apart in the middle of the lobby.

When everything was sorted, she squeezed my arm. "I have to get back. Call me the second you hear anything."

"I will."

"I mean it, Eliana. The second."

She left, and I felt the absence of her immediately.

Oliver and I took the elevator up to his room. He'd gone quiet, the way he did when he was processing something, his small hand still in mine.

I pushed open the door to his room and we stepped inside. I set the bag down on the chair by the window.

My phone rang. My Mom Miranda.

My stomach clenched. I answered.

"Eliana." Miranda's voice was high and tight. "What is going on? Nathan called your father and me this morning and said Oliver was taken to the hospital last night. Why didn't you tell us? Why have you been blocking Nathan's calls? He's worried sick-"

"He called you." My voice came out very quiet. "Nathan called you."

"He's Oliver's father. He had every right to-"

"I have to step out for a moment." I looked at Oliver, who had climbed onto the hospital bed and was examining the TV remote with focused interest. "Stay right there, okay? I'll be back in two minutes."

He nodded without looking up.

I walked into the hallway and pulled the door mostly closed behind me.

"Mom." I kept my voice low. "Nathan doesn't get to go around me to you. Not about my son."

"Your son? He's Nathan's son too-"

"He was too busy with someone else to show up. I'm handling this. Stay out of it."

She started in on how I was being too hard on him, how he was trying, but I cut her off. "I have to go. Oliver needs me." I ended the call and shoved the phone back in my pocket, anger still burning under my skin.

I stood in the hallway, trying to slow my breathing. Nathan had gone to my parents. Of course he had. He couldn't reach me, so he'd found another angle. He was already building his case, collecting sympathy, making himself look like the concerned father I'd cut out of the loop.

I turned to go back to the room.

Oliver wasn't in the bed.

I pushed the door fully open. The room was empty. The TV remote sat on the blanket. His sneakers were gone from beside the chair.

"Oliver?"

I checked the bathroom. Nothing.

I stepped back into the hallway and looked both ways. The corridor stretched in both directions, pale and identical, full of doors and the distant sound of a cart rolling somewhere.

"Oliver!"

I started walking, then walking faster. Left at the junction. Right. Past the nurses' station. He couldn't have gone far, he'd only been alone for three minutes, maybe four-

"Oliver!" My voice cracked. "Oliver, answer me!"

From somewhere around the next bend, I heard it. A small, hiccupping sob. Then his voice, high and frightened, calling for me.

(Author's POV)

While Eliana was in the hallway on the phone, Oliver grew bored in the empty room. He slid off the bed, pushed the door open a crack, and slipped out. The corridor stretched in both directions, all white walls and numbered doors. He wandered, turning corners, trying to remember the way back. The longer he walked, the more his chest tightened. Soon he was calling out, voice wobbly.

"Mom? Mom!"

At the far end of the corridor, Jasper Knight, his assistant Henry Reed, and Dr. Evans stepped out of a private room. Dr. Evans's face was heavy.

"Mrs. Margaret is still struggling," he said quietly. "Losing her youngest son was too much for her. The grief landed her here."

Jasper's expression stayed calm, but the line of his shoulders was rigid. "I'll come by more often while she's here."

His younger brother had died in an accident a little over a year earlier. The Knight family was still raw with it.

They turned the corner and nearly walked into the small boy crying in the middle of the hallway. Dr. Evans stopped first and crouched down.

"Hey. Hey, it's okay. Can you tell me where your mom and dad are?"

The boy wiped his face with the back of his hand. "I came out to find my mom and then I got lost and I can't find her and I can't find my room-"

Jasper had already turned to leave.

"Sir." Henry's voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "That child."

Jasper paused.

"He looks exactly like you."

Jasper turned around slowly.

The boy had dark hair, slightly messy, and eyes that were a startling shade of blue. His face, even tear-streaked, had a particular quality to it. The line of the jaw. The set of the brow.

Dr. Evans straightened up and looked between the boy and Jasper with undisguised curiosity. "He does have a remarkable resemblance. The bone structure especially-"

"Don't." Jasper's voice was flat. "Don't say things like that."

Henry stepped in quickly. "Dr. Evans, Mr. Knight's personal life is-he's single, he doesn't have children, so let's just-"

"Of course." Dr. Evans looked immediately embarrassed. "I apologize. That was inappropriate."

Oliver had stopped crying. He looked up at Jasper with red-rimmed eyes, studying him with the unselfconscious directness that only small children manage.

"Excuse me," Oliver said, his voice still a little wobbly. "Could I borrow your phone? I need to call my mom."

Jasper looked at him without answering.

Dr. Evans was already pulling his own phone out. "Here, use mine." He handed it over and glanced at Jasper. "Please, go ahead. I've got this."

Oliver took the phone carefully and started pressing buttons, muttering under his breath. "That man is really stingy."

All three of them heard it perfectly clearly.

Henry pressed his lips together.

Jasper's expression didn't change. He turned and walked toward the elevator.

Henry followed. "You know," Henry said, mostly to himself, "if that boy really were yours, and Mrs. Knight found out she had a grandson like that-" He shook his head. "She might actually start getting better."

Jasper didn't reply. He thought of his brother-gone too suddenly, nothing left behind but a uniform and a few boxes. The weight in his chest grew heavier.

Henry reached the elevator and pressed the button. The elevator doors slid open, and suddenly a woman rushed out, nearly colliding with them, her voice trembling with panic.

"Oliver-Oliver?"