Chapter Six: 

Claris looked worse than the last time Mal had seen him, but not gone. Still freckled, still wearing that tired-little-fighter smirk. His hair was messy and longer, and curled even more. His voice was rough, but when he saw Mal in the doorway with that doctor’s coat and a paper coffee cup, he lit up.

“‘Morning, doc,” he croaked, patting the space beside him like it belonged to Mal now. Malachai didn’t hesitate.

“I heard you bullied the nurses until they let you keep the plant in here.”

“Not a crime,” Claris said, sipping the weak tea on his tray. “But if it is, you’re my lawyer. Also: this is terrible.” Mal reached into the bag and handed him the cup.

Claris blinked. “You brought coffee?”

“Low-caffeine. Barely rebellious. But I figured you’d complain anyway.”

Claris grinned behind the lid. “You’re really getting to know me.”

That first day, they talked for hours. Nothing grand. Just them. TV shows they hated. The smell of subway platforms. Whether bees had opinions. Claris stretched like a cat every chance he got, arms overhead, bones cracking. Mal made fun of him for it. Claris said Mal’s posh vowels sounded like they belonged in the British Museum. Mal said he’d rather be buried under student loans and medical debt than carry a flowerpot across a train. That made Claris laugh hard enough to wheeze.

By the third day, they were curled up on the narrow hospital bed, Claris’s head on Mal’s shoulder, their fingers twined beneath the blanket. It was stupid. It was against protocol. But Mal wasn’t just a doctor, not here. Not with Claris. He was still Mal. Still tired and grieving and human. And Claris made him feel like it was okay to be all of those things at once.

“I keep forgetting I’m technically dying,” Claris murmured one night.

Mal tensed. “Don’t say it like that.”

“Well, I am. Technically. Statistically. Probably.”

“You’re also technically beautiful,” Mal muttered, and Claris blinked.

“Did you just flirt?”

“Shut up.”

“Did you—Malachai Bennett—flirt with a patient?”

Mal turned to him. “You kissed me first.”

“Barely!” Claris laughed, cheeks going pink. “It was a peck.”

“A reckless peck,” Mal said, leaning in to steal another. They stayed like that until the nurse knocked, and they both pretended they hadn’t just been breaking six different rules.

By the fifth day, Claris had declared them “official.”

“No grand proposal,” he said, toes peeking from under his blanket. “Just—you’re mine now.”

Mal nodded. “Good. I was tired of waiting.”