The hospital ward was unusually quiet that afternoon. The steady beep of machines, the muted rustle of nurses' shoes on polished floors, and the faint hum of filtered sunlight through the blinds wrapped the room in a kind of soft cocoon.
Lily sat propped up in her bed, a thin blanket draped over her lap and a laptop perched like an old friend atop a tray table. Her fingers danced over the keys, halting and flying again in bursts, eyes narrowed with focus. A notebook sat to her side, its margins stuffed with messy outlines and character notes. A pair of earbuds dangled loosely from her neck—she never played music while she wrote, but she liked the feel of them, a tether to the outside world.
She was mid-sentence when a voice interrupted.
"Writing a letter? Or…" Ayesha trailed off, leaning in with curiosity.
Lily looked up and smiled. "Just working."
Ayesha, a young woman with short curls tucked under a pastel-blue cap, gave a conspiratorial grin. "You've been tapping away all week. I had to ask. You looked like someone with a deadline and a vengeance."
"Something like that," Lily replied, stretching her fingers.
Ayesha's eyes dropped to the open notebook. Then narrowed.
"Wait a second…" she pointed slowly, then glanced from Lily to the page again. "L. Storm?"
Lily blinked. "Yes?"
"No. No, no way—no way!" Ayesha gasped, clutching her chest like she'd been struck. "Lily Storm?! As in Lily Storm, the author of The Sound of Falling Stars, Midnight Encounter, Hearts in Hiding—that Lily Storm?!"
Lily winced, laughing a little. "Guilty."
"Oh my god, I read The Sound of Falling Stars in one night. I cried until three a.m. I made my ex-boyfriend read Hearts in Hiding just to prove men could have emotional intelligence!"
"I… appreciate that?"
"I can't believe I didn't recognize you. You're like… a literary ninja. You never show your face in your author bios!"
"I like the stories to speak for themselves."
Ayesha was already digging for her phone. "My copy of Midnight Encounter is at home. Can I bring it tomorrow? You have to sign it."
"You don't have to—"
"Oh, I do. You got me through my nursing finals. Your books are like—emotional espresso shots. I cried and passed anatomy. That's a talent."
The door clicked open behind them.
"Am I interrupting something?" came Lance's voice.
Ayesha turned; eyes gleaming. "Dr. Lance! Did you know this patient is Lily freaking Storm?!"
Lance's brows lifted, gaze settling on Lily with a quiet amusement. "Is she now?"
Lily tried to hide behind her laptop. "Don't encourage her."
"She's going to sign my book tomorrow," Ayesha beamed. "Unless you have a no-autographs-during-recovery policy, Doctor."
Lance's lips curved. "I think we can make an exception. But only if she promises not to disappear into a fictional love triangle before her next scan."
"I make no promises," Lily said, peeking up at him.
There was warmth in the way he looked at her. Something gentle and admiring that threaded deeper than friendship, but not yet spoken aloud. Lance crossed to her bedside, picked up her notebook, flipped through a page or two, then handed it back with care.
"Romance," he murmured.
"Always."
"It suits you."
"I've had a lot of practice imagining better endings."
His expression flickered—just briefly—but Lily caught it. A shadow of something older. Wiser. He only nodded, brushing it away with a smile.
Ayesha, oblivious to the undercurrent, was already backing toward the door. "I'm bringing all three of my books tomorrow. You've been warned."
Lily laughed, and for the first time in days, it wasn't tempered by hesitation or pain. It was light. Free.
As the door closed behind her, Lance took the now-empty chair by Lily's bedside.
"You never told me you were famous."
"I'm not. Just… loved, by a few. Quietly."
He looked at her. Really looked.
"You're more than loved, Lily."
For a moment, in the pale gold glow of the afternoon sun, she didn't feel like a patient. She didn't feel like someone fighting for her life.
She just felt seen.
* * *
"You know," Lance said as he adjusted the tray table, setting down a cup of chamomile tea beside Lily's bed, "for someone recovering from surgery, you've been suspiciously productive."
Lily smirked, closing her laptop. "Surgery is quieter than I expected."
"Only for patients," he teased. "I hear from the nurses you've become the literary darling of Ward C."
"I didn't mean for that to happen."
"Oh no, of course not," he said, dryly amused. "You just casually drop bestsellers while hooked to an IV."
"I like to keep things interesting."
Lance leaned back in the visitor chair; arms folded. "So, if I were to hypothetically want to read something from this very humble, definitely not famous author… what should I start with?"
Lily blinked. "You want to read one?"
"I'm curious," he said, tilting his head. "You have fans. That must mean you're good."
"You're not worried romance might be too… fluffy?"
"I deal with scalpels and tumours all day, Lily. A little fluff might do me good."
She laughed. "Alright, then. Start with The Sound of Falling Stars. It was my first published novel, and my favourite. I'll ask my dad to bring a few copies tomorrow."
"Autographed, I assume?"
She groaned. "You're as bad as Nurse Ayesha."
Lance smiled and stood, brushing his hand lightly along the foot of her bed before turning to leave. "Don't keep me waiting, bestselling author."
* * *
The books arrived the next morning. Three neatly wrapped copies, titles embossed in soft foil, the covers dreamy and romantic.
Lance received them at the front desk, reading the personal note Lily had tucked between the pages of the first one:
"For Dr. Lance – who saved my life, now see what I did with all the ones I imagined. Start with Daisy and Daniel. Let me know what you think. – L."
He brought them back to his office in the oncology centre, sat beneath the soft spill of lamplight, and opened The Sound of Falling Stars.
Excerpt from The Sound of Falling Stars, by Lily Storm:
Daisy stood beneath the old stone bridge, her hands pressed to her chest like she was holding something fragile and invisible. The wind danced with her hair, carrying with it the scent of rain and memory.
She didn't look back. She didn't have to.
She knew Daniel was there. She could always feel him before she saw him.
"You came," he said, voice soft like dusk.
"I was always going to," she replied.
He stepped closer, the gravel crunching beneath his boots, and for a moment the world seemed to hush. No cars, no clocks, just the river beneath them and the ache between them.
"I thought I lost you," Daniel said.
"You almost did," she whispered. "But then you remembered my favourite flower. You left it on the windowsill."
His laugh was breathless. "A daisy."
"Of course."
A pause. A breath. A heartbeat.
"I'm scared," she admitted.
"So am I."
"But I still want this."
He reached out, gently brushing her hair behind her ear. "Then let's stop running. From grief. From guilt. From everything we thought love wasn't allowed to be."
She met his gaze, eyes full of all the things she hadn't been brave enough to say before. "Okay," she whispered. "Let's stay."
There, beneath the bridge and the fading sun, they didn't kiss with urgency or sorrow. They simply leaned into each other, and breathed.
It wasn't dramatic. It wasn't loud.
But it was everything.
Lance's hands trembled slightly as he closed the book. The silence of his office pressed around him, as loud as any storm.
He stared at the closed cover, mind racing.
Daisy and Daniel. Their names might have been interchanged but it changed nothing.
The monastery. The battlefield. The hospital.
It wasn't fiction. Not entirely.
Not to him.
Lily had written a version of one of their past lives—except this time, it ended with hope. With love. With survival.
His eyes swept over her handwriting again on the note. "See what I did with all the ones I imagined."
But she hadn't imagined. Not entirely. Maybe she didn't even know how real it was. Maybe her stories weren't just stories.
Maybe her soul remembered too.
He leaned back in his chair, heart pounding, breath caught between wonder and disbelief. All this time, he thought he was the only one cursed with remembering.
But what if she remembered differently? In fragments. In dreams. In stories.
What if this was her way of changing the ending?
Lance looked down at the book in his lap.
For the first time since she walked into his clinic, he felt something more than hope.
He felt faith.
Lance didn't even realize he had stood up until his chair rolled back and hit the wall. The book was still warm in his hands, his thumb tucked into the last page he read. His office was quiet except for the ticking of a clock and the faint hum of the lights—but inside, his mind was a storm.
Daisy. Daniel. The way they moved through loss and still chose each other. It wasn't just fiction. It felt like… memory rewritten.
He didn't want to jump to conclusions. But he had to know. Had to see if the pattern repeated. If the other books carried pieces too. Not echoes of their lifetimes. But Soul marks. The essence of their connection.
He slipped the book into his coat pocket and left his office, walking briskly down the hallway, but trying his best not to look like a man sprinting toward destiny in full view of his medical staff.
"Dr. Davis, are you—"
"Later," he called to the nurse, waving without stopping. He nearly collided with the transport team rolling a crash cart, offered a sharp nod, and pivoted toward the elevator. No time. He took the stairs.
By the time he reached Lily's room on the third floor, he paused just long enough to calm his breath. He adjusted his collar. Smoothed his coat. Tried to reassemble the poise of a man who hadn't just emotionally combusted over a paperback.
He knocked lightly and poked his head in. "Hey."
Lily was sitting upright in bed, scribbling something in a notebook with her knees up. Her IV stand caught a flicker of sunlight, and her eyes lifted, amused, at his expression.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," she said.
He stepped inside. "Worse," he replied. "I just finished The Sound of Falling Stars."
Her brows lifted with interest. "Already?"
"I… may have read the whole thing in one sitting."
She grinned. "And?"
He walked over to the chair by her bedside, sat on the edge of it like a man about to ask a life-altering question, then leaned forward. "Lily, I need every single book you've ever written."
She blinked. "All of them?"
"All of them."
"You know they're all romance novels, right? With barely any medical subplots? No dramatic spinal procedures?"
"I'm not looking for technical reading," he said seriously, then added, "Though Daniel did have excellent emotional resilience under pressure."
Lily tilted her head. "You really are a hopeless romantic under that lab coat, aren't you?"
Lance gave her a faint smile. "I'm just… trying to understand something."
She studied him for a moment, quiet, then said gently, "Alright. I'll ask my dad to bring the rest tomorrow. I think there's still a box or two in the attic."
"Thank you," he said, standing to leave. He hesitated at the door, turned back once, and added, "I liked Daisy. And Daniel."
"I hoped you would."