The second morning found the ward rinsed in that hospital color that isn't quite daylight—more like an idea of it. Trays rattled. TV murmured from a room where no one watched. Someone down the hall laughed, then coughed until the laugh turned into apology.
Kara was charting at the station when Zane stepped out of the elevator with a slim white box tied in twine. She looked at the box, then at him, and one eyebrow did a small, acrobatic thing.
"You brought contraband," she said.
"Technically, dessert."
"Technically, we call that contraband." Her mouth tipped. "Vitals first, sugar second. I'll check her orders."
He waited while she scanned a screen. He'd worn a different suit today, darker, quieter. The box felt ridiculous in his hand and exactly right.
"She's on regular diet," Kara said at last. "Pain's down, appetite meh. You can try a few bites if she wants them." She lowered her voice. "Small fork. Slow. You watch for nausea."
"I can do slow," he said.
"I'm learning," she said, amused, "that you can."
He knocked once and slipped inside.
Willow was half propped, hair pulled back in an uneven tie that made her look too young and too fierce at the same time. The flowers he'd brought yesterday—white irises framed with pale tulips—had found a clear plastic vase and the kind of water that looks colder than it is. They stood on the sill like a quiet decision.
She saw the box. Her face didn't change, but something in the air did.
"Good morning," he said.
"Is it?" she asked, the ghost of a smile traveling through the words.
He set the box on the rolling tray and loosened the twine. "You ate a lemon tart at Hale & Sons once," he said, surprising himself with the sentence even as he spoke it. "Some charity thing. Everyone was talking; you weren't. You waited until the speeches finished and then you picked the tart with the brûléed edge, scraped the sugar with the back of your spoon. You took your time."
Her head cocked, tiny movement. "You remember that?"
"I remember you said most desserts are moral theater. Too sweet, too obvious." He opened the lid. The lemon tart blinked up at them like a small sun. "You said this one was honest."
A beat. "That sounds like me," she admitted, and he could hear the carefulness in the concession. She gestured to the cake with her chin. "Did you stand in a line somewhere and practice that speech, or is this… spontaneous repentance?"
"It's dessert," he said. "I didn't script it."
"Pity," she murmured. "You give good scripts."
He could take that a dozen ways. He opted for none. "Kara said we can try a little. If you want."
"If I want," she echoed. "Is that new?"
"I can learn," he said.
She looked at him without blinking—developer assessing a feature request—and then she nodded once. "Okay. A bite."
He searched for a fork, found a packet, tore it open with the inefficient hands of a man who doesn't usually touch plastic cutlery. He set a small piece on the fork, the lemon custard yielding, the glaze cracking with a faint, clean sound.
"Ready?" he asked.
"Don't make a ceremony of it," she said, but her mouth softened.
He offered the bite. She leaned very slightly, met him halfway, and the fork was empty. She closed her eyes. For a second, the hospital fell away—beep, hum, antiseptic—replaced by acid and butter and sugar pretending to be smoke.
The light on her face shifted as she chewed, pale against the sterile room. The sunlight fell through the blinds in bars, like the world was being measured and divided, and for the first time since the accident, something resembling peace crossed her features. It wasn't softness exactly—it was reprieve.
Zane watched that fleeting expression the way people watch sunrise through glass: quietly, unwilling to move and break it.
Her hand trembled slightly as she reached to brush a strand of hair from her cheek. The movement was small, human, unbearably normal. "It's good," she said, and her voice had a texture it hadn't had since the accident.
"Again?" he asked.
She opened her eyes, and that's where the war was: gratitude surfacing, mistrust lashing it back. "Careful. You might trick me into thinking you're kind."
"I'm not trying to trick you," he said.
"You're trying to do something," she replied. "I haven't decided what."
He offered another small piece. She accepted it with the slightest lift of her chin, as if conceding a point she intended to win back later.
The third bite made her swallow and press her tongue to the roof of her mouth. "Too fast," she said. "My stomach's negotiating."
He set the fork down. "Negotiations can adjourn."
"Look at you," she murmured. "Adapting."
For a moment, silence stretched like a truce—fragile, unfinished, and full of things neither of them dared name. The tart sat between them, glowing faintly in its white box. He looked at it, then at her, and realized that this—this small, absurd exchange of sweetness and silence—was the closest thing to peace either of them had earned in a very long time.