The Emergency Room corridor was a war zone of noise. Monitors beeped in frantic, irregular rhythms. Nurses shouted codes.
"Get out of my way!" Hunt shoved a resident aside, trying to get into the trauma bay where Clare lay pale and gasping. "She's crashing! Do something!"
The elevator doors opened, and the blue-clad phalanx moved in.
"Status?" The lead doctor's voice cut through the noise. It was low, calm, and icy.
"BP is sixty over forty. Tachycardic. We're losing her," a nurse yelled.
Dianna didn't break stride. "Prep for bypass. 1mg Epinephrine, push. Get the OR ready. Now."
Hunt froze. That voice.
It was sharper, deeper, stripped of all the softness he remembered, but the timbre... it hit him in the chest like a sledgehammer.
He spun around, staring at the doctor. As she turned to give another order, her eyes-the only part of her face visible between the cap and mask-met his across the chaotic room. They weren't the pleading, hopeful eyes he remembered. They were cold, hard flint. In that single, silent moment of recognition, Hunt's world tilted on its axis.
"Dianna?" The name slipped out, a raw whisper of disbelief.
Dianna felt his gaze burn into her. Her heart slammed against her ribs-a traitorous, physiological reaction she couldn't control. But her hands didn't shake. She was a surgeon first.
She reached the gurney and checked Clare's pupils. Dilated.
Hunt lunged forward. "Dianna! Is that you?"
A young male intern stepped in front of Hunt, blocking him. "Sir! Step back! You cannot touch Dr. Campbell!"
"Dr. Campbell?" Hunt repeated, the words tasting like ash. "That's impossible."
Dianna looked up from the patient, her expression unreadable above the blue surgical mask.
"Security," she said. She didn't address him. She addressed the room. "Remove this man. He is obstructing patient care."
"Dianna, wait-" Hunt reached out.
"Get him out!" she snapped, her voice cracking like a whip. "I have a life to save."
Two burly security guards grabbed Hunt by the arms. He was too shocked to fight them. He stared at her, his mouth slightly open, his brain unable to process the data. Dianna? A surgeon? The woman who cried when she broke a nail?
Dianna turned back to Clare. "Let's move."
She pushed the gurney, running alongside it. The double doors of the Operating Room swung open. She disappeared into the sterile white light. The doors slammed shut, the "DO NOT ENTER" sign blazing red.
Hunt stood there, his chest heaving. The smell of antiseptic and fear filled his nose.
Jeffrey ran up to him, panting. "Boss? How is Clare?"
Hunt leaned against the wall, sliding down until he was crouching. He put his head in his hands.
"I saw her, Jeffrey."
"Who?"
"Dianna." Hunt looked up, his eyes wild. "She's the surgeon. She's Dr. Campbell."
Jeffrey blinked. "Sir... with all due respect, Mrs. Brennan faints at the sight of blood. Are you sure it wasn't just... a resemblance?"
Hunt closed his eyes. He replayed the moment. The authority. The command. The eyes.
"Go find out," Hunt whispered. "Find out everything about Dr. Campbell. Where she studied. When she started. Everything. Now."
Inside the OR, Dianna held her hands up while a nurse gloved her. She looked down at Clare's unconscious face.
"Don't worry, Clare," she whispered into her mask. "I'm back."
She held out her hand, palm open.
"Scalpel."
The steel instrument slapped into her palm. It felt like an extension of her soul.
