Epilogue
VIKRAM
Vikram watched as Cassie stitched a wound up with expert precision while he held a screaming woman down.
She'd been right that work on the front line was hard, but she'd been right that it was rewarding, too. The first few months he'd struggled with doubts about whether he was good enough to be a medic, about his anxieties that she was unsafe working in hospitals in the middle of conflict, but as the years had passed he'd settled into his role, and he couldn't imagine ever going back to being a bodyguard.
Not that he wouldn't have minded some middle ground, either. Nothing was ever going to stop him worrying about Cassie out here.
She tied the end of the thread and the woman didn't stop screaming. She wasn't screaming from the pain, she was screaming because she'd just watched her child take a fatal bullet to the chest.
Cassie had stitched the wound with a stone cold mask of an expression, but tears had run down her cheeks. Now it was finished, and she stood there looking at a loss for what to do. More people needed medical attention, but this woman was in no state to be left alone. "We need to get her to Mala," she said. "She can help."
He tried to urge her to stand up, but she curled into the fetal position and shrugged out of his grip instead. "I'll get Mala over here," he said. "You go and tend to someone who needs you." She was a much better medic than he'd ever be. He was better at the manhandling.
The makeshift hospital they were in was just a tent, really. It was unsanitary and packed with people, most of them injured civilians. They were totally understaffed.
He couldn't believe that in a universe where they had the technology to teleport, a place like this could exist.
"Mala," he called. "I need your help over here."
He heard the beginning of her reply, but she was cut off by a loud explosion just outside the tent.
His rage was upon him in seconds, the sound of gunfire lost to the ringing in his ears as his spine stretched and his tunnel vision kicked in.
Cassie was the only thing on his mind. He barreled through the crowd trying to find her. When an amphibious woman of the separatists hell bent on killing the civilians in the hospital aimed a gun at him, he'd taken her head in his hands and twisted without a second thought.
Enraged, he stood a head above most people in the tent, but he still couldn't see Cassie.
In his panic, he almost lost complete control and slammed someone wearing the blue sash of his charity out of the way striding around the tent searching for her.
When he finally saw her in the corner, she was struggling with an amphibious man who hissed close to her face. His forked tongue had just touched her cheek when Vikram got there, and he grabbed the soldier by the neck, throwing him to the ground. His blood boiled with disgust, and if he hadn’t had the voice at the back of his mind reminding him he needed to help elsewhere, he would have gladly watched the blood drain from the soldier's face and the light die from his eyes with pleasure.
Instead he had to snap his neck.
He couldn't form words in this state, but he looked to Cassie, who nodded. She couldn't hide that she was shaking, but she tried her best. "I'm okay." She grabbed her pistol from the floor and surveyed the scene. "We need to help."
Vikram moved through the soldiers easily, killing as he went, but never losing sight of Cassie.
It hadn't been a large ambush, and within ten minutes it was all over.
Vikram's rage subsided and he was left breathing heavily with exhaustion. Cassie made a move to grab a first-aid kit, but Vikram wrapped an arm around her waist and held her against him, face buried in her hair. "I love you," he whispered.
She hugged him back, tighter and longer than he'd expected. He thought she'd have been pulling away to go and help people, but her nails dug into his back beneath his shirt and she buried her face in his chest. "Thank you for saving me."
He pulled back just enough to kiss her, hard and quick. He wanted to beg her that maybe they could go somewhere safer. This was the first time they'd seen any real combat—it was rare that someone attacked a charity's hospital—but it had skyrocketed his existing anxieties and he was struggling to even let her go and tend to people.
He didn't know if he was cut out for it.
If he lost her, he'd be nothing.
For now, though, he let her lace her fingers through his and pull him from bed to bed, helping the newly injured people as best he could and never moving more than a meter from Cassie.
When their shift was over and they were back at camp, in their own tent, Cassie burst into tears.
Vikram wrapped his arms around her, murmuring soothing words in her ear. "It's okay. It's okay. What's wrong?"
Her arms were cradling her stomach. "I've never been so scared in my life. I… I think we have to leave here. Go back to Suytov.”
The relief almost made his shoulders sag, but it wasn't that simple. "You love this work." He'd been a bundle of nerves, but she lived for every person she helped. "What's changed?"
She took his hand and put it on her stomach. "There's three of us now." She gave him a teary grin. "Well, four maybe. Or five. I'm hoping we don't have all our kids at once, though."
All the exhaustion of the day left him, and he spun her around before embracing her once more. "You mean it? We're pregnant?"
"Of course I mean it. I found out this morning. I was planning on doing a sexy reveal this evening and fucking to our success, but that was a wake-up call I needed. I can't bring a baby into this. I'm not going to risk losing this. I've wanted it for so long."
Vikram cupped her cheeks and kissed her all over her face. "We're on the first ship out of here." There was nothing to feel yet, but he couldn't bring himself to move his hand from her stomach. He'd dreamed about this moment since he'd held his first nephew in his arms.
Adding Cassie to that dream was the best thing that had ever happened.