omg baby an idea for dr rafe came up to me at work and i'm shksjcnd!!!! okay hear me out<33 reader is at work waitressing and for the last couple days she had that strange stomachache but she didn't really care about it when it suddenly hits her at work (it turns out to be an appendix) and she ends up in the hospital and when rafe sees her at the ER all the flashbacks comes back to him but he tries his best to stay calm to take care of her and be there for her 🤍
BABE <3 NOT ME WANTING TO GET HOME ALL DAY TO WRITE THIS!!!!!!!!!!!! HOPE YOU ENJOY, MY LOVE!
-
The ER doors burst open with a gust of hot air and urgent voices.
The emergency department was loud with the usual noise—overhead pages, squeaking gurney wheels, a child crying somewhere in the pediatric hallway—but Rafe barely registered any of it. His shift was rounding the corner of hour fifteen, and his spine was curved with exhaustion, the tendons in his shoulder aching from an earlier reduction. He hadn’t eaten. He hadn’t sat down. And he sure as hell wasn’t in the mood for small talk.
He was halfway through charting when he heard the commotion.
“Twenty-five-year-old female—acute abdominal pain, febrile, suspected ruptured appendix. Transport was delayed due to emesis and instability—possible septic onset.”
Rafe didn’t even look up at first. The words meant something clinical, standard—he'd heard a thousand variations of them over his years. But then a nurse muttered your name.
And the pen slipped from his hand.
His chair scraped violently against the floor as he stood, already moving, already knowing.
You.
Not a patient. Not a stranger.
His wife.
You—who had just started teaching again, your sweet voice now filtering into the corners of your shared home as you led virtual classes from the kitchen table in oversized sweaters and soft joggers, hair pinned up with one of his old surgical caps. You—who had fought through months of agony and immobility after the accident that nearly took your life. You—who now called him baby when you were half-asleep and Rafe when you were afraid.
He caught a glimpse of you on the gurney and it nearly buckled his knees.
You were curled in on yourself, one hand clutching your lower abdomen, the soft blue knit of your teaching sweater soaked with sweat. Your glasses were crooked. There were tears on your cheeks and vomit crusted near your collar. Your laptop bag had been hastily tossed onto the floor beside the EMT, as if you’d collapsed mid-lesson and someone had simply tried to gather your life in one arm before rushing you here.
His stomach dropped.
It was the accident all over again.
That night; The blood in your hair. The way your body seized in his arms, arching as your heart gave out. The weeks spent hovering between here and gone. The breathless nights where he held you through the pain, praying you'd come back. The memory ripped through him like a blade.
And now—this.
You whimpered as they adjusted your IV. The pain was eating you alive.
Rafe forced himself forward, teeth clenched so tightly his jaw ached. He reached your side, brushing the damp hair from your temple, thumb ghosting across your cheek.
“I’m here,” he whispered, voice thick, steadying himself for you even as his knees trembled beneath the weight of it all. “You’re okay, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”
Your eyes fluttered open—barely. But you found him. You always did.
“Hurts,” you whimpered, and Rafe swallowed hard, nodding.
“I know. Appendix ruptured—we’re going to surgery. I’ll be right there the whole time.”
You groaned, curling tighter, your knees drawn toward your chest.
“S-sorry,” you gasped.
That shattered him. Sorry—like you had done something wrong by hurting. Like your body failing was somehow a burden.
“Hey. No,” he said, firmer now, his forehead pressing to yours. “None of that. You’re going to be okay. We’re going to get through this.”
He glanced at the monitors. Your vitals were slipping—blood pressure bottoming out, heart rate climbing fast. Sepsis was setting in. Fast.
“She’s crashing!” a nurse called out.
And just like that, it was happening again. Too fast. Too much.
He was on the gurney, straddling your body, the curve of your hip digging into his thigh as he began compressions, his palms pressing down hard into the center of your chest. His wedding ring clinked against your sternum with every thrust. He didn’t stop. He couldn’t.
“Come on, baby. Stay with me. Stay.”
He could barely see. Everything blurred—tears or sweat, he couldn’t tell. All he knew was that this was you, his wife, the woman he loved more than life itself, slipping away beneath his hands.
“Not again, please, don't leave me.” he whispered, his voice ragged, haunted. “Not again. Not today.”
They wheeled the two of you into the OR, your body beneath him, your life cracking open all over again—and Rafe holding it in his blood-stained hands, determined not to lose it.
Not to lose you.
-
The ICU was quiet in the way grief is quiet—dim lights humming, machines breathing in rhythm where lungs couldn’t. Somewhere down the hall, a monitor beeped in slow intervals. A nurse whispered something behind the glass. But in room 3B, time had slowed to a crawl.
You were lying in the center of it, pale against the white sheets, your body still trembling beneath the weight of what it had survived. A nasal cannula curled into your nose, pushing oxygen through your system one soft stream at a time. Your wedding ring had been taped to your finger by the nurse after surgery, just beneath the IV port, and your sweater—now bloodstained and cut down the center—had been placed in a biohazard bag outside the room.
The surgery had gone well.
The appendix had ruptured. They’d caught it just in time.
But your body… your beautiful, bruised, stubborn body had gone into shock, and it had taken longer than expected to stabilize your heart rate again. The code Rafe called had been the third of his career—and the second on you.
He hadn’t left your bedside since.
Still in his scrubs—now stained and wrinkled, the collar stretched from where he’d yanked at it in the OR—Rafe sat in the chair beside you, hunched over your arm like a man at the altar of something holy. His head was bowed, eyes closed, fingers loosely wrapped around yours. A bag of saline dripped slowly into your arm above him, its quiet rhythm the only metronome in the room.
He hadn’t spoken in hours. He didn’t need to.
Because in the silence, he was remembering—every word you’d said before the pain took over, every look, every apology you’d never needed to make. The memory of your eyes—glassy and searching for him—burned behind his own. The way your body jerked beneath him as he’d done compressions. The way your lips had parted, trying to say something, anything, before your consciousness gave out.
And he’d been afraid. God, he’d been so afraid.
More than the night of the accident. More than the first time you coded. Because this time you had his last name. You were his. And the idea of living without you—again—was something he couldn’t survive a second time.
“Please wake up, honey,” he whispered, forehead pressing gently to your arm. “You’re okay now. You made it through. Just wake up.”
And as if your soul heard him across whatever threshold it had wandered toward—your fingers twitched.
Barely.
A tremble in the space between sleep and wake.
His eyes snapped up. Your lips parted on a dry breath, eyelashes fluttering.
“Hey,” he breathed, rising to hover over you, his hand moving to your cheek, thumb brushing a smudge of iodine from your skin. “Hey, baby. I’m here.”
You blinked at him, slow and heavy, eyes glazed with pain and confusion.
“Rafe?”
“Yeah. I’ve got you.”
Your brow creased slightly. “It hurts.”
“I know.” His voice cracked. “It’s over now. They got everything. You’re gonna be okay.”
You made a small sound, barely audible, and tears immediately welled in his eyes. He pressed a kiss to your temple, hand cradling the side of your head.
“Shh. Don’t talk yet, just rest. You’re in the ICU. They’ve got you on fluids and antibiotics. I’m staying right here.”
“Did I die?”
“No.” He swallowed, his throat burning. “No, baby. You lived. You fought through again. You’re the strongest goddamn woman I’ve ever seen.”
You smiled faintly—just a flicker of it—and he swore the sun broke through the hospital window when you did.
“I didn’t even get to finish teaching,” you rasped.
A broken laugh left his chest. “Your students can wait. I’m the one who needs you now.”
You squeezed his hand, feeble but real. And he held it like a lifeline, like a promise. Because it was.
He wasn't going anywhere. Not tonight. Not ever.
