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As the donated marroas hooked up to the central venous line’s feed, Ivie shook her head and glanced at her cousin "The donor was such a good guy So generous I told him…you know, it was really important to me that he knew in his heart it wasn’t his fault if this fails I told hi and Silas and I are grateful to him nothe harvesting because she had wanted to support him and participate in the process soht now

"Your father called reat Did you tell theht

"I did I lied"

As her cousin looked over with that sad sain, Ivie put her arm around the female Funny, for all their lives, since they were kids, Ivie had…well, not exactly written Rubes off for being a little scattered and falsely optimistic, but she had certainly viewed her cousin as not as strong as herself

Wrong Rubes had proven to be equally ranite

Just because her outside was as bouncy as her red curly hair did not mean the core wasn’t solid

"I love you, Rubes"

"I love you, too, Ivie"

As Ivie’s eyes went to the tubing that ran fros, through the dispensing computer, and out the other side to Silas’s port, she prayed this was going to work

And that if it did, the results were so he wouldn’t blame her for

--

Ti a bed directly outside the isolation roolass so that when Ivie laid her head on the pillow, all she had to do was open her eyes and there was Silas

People brought food Her parents visited her So did other members of her faer Brotherhood’s physicians visited and consulted Nurses in those white protective suits went in and out of the annex and the room itself Havers was always around

To keep her own body fro and bathing and sleeping, literally setting her iPhone alarms to make sure she stayed focused on basic needs Clothes froht in, and she was pretty sure the entire staff washer hot dishes on a rotation schedule, but it was so hard to track anything

It was kind of like having a high fever, an essential disconnection putting her on a deserted island in thefrom her environ to travel a great distance to get to her

She cared about one and only one thing: son of hope

A twitch of his hand or foot that seemed intentional A blood test that said his i up in its new ho back to life

The stress and suffering were uninized that however much she had assumed she’d sympathized with her patients’ fah, could put herself in their shoes…all that had been bullshit

Until you walked this path and tried toscale of Hell, you had no clue what it was like The brain co between hope and loss constantly bottoht you couldn’t do it for one ot up and you ate soritty red eyes…and plugged right back into it

On that note, Ivie checked her iPhone Tuesday It was Tuesday

So it had been three days since the transplant

Seventy-two hours

"I brought you some coffee"

Ivie turned and looked up It was Havers, and he seemed as exhausted as she felt "Oh, thank you"

She didn’t want it, but she took theand drank froodsend, and ht to bring her soesture

They both refocused on Silas

"What do you think?" she asked

"I don’t know I’er?"

"It’s hard to say In humans, it takes a couple of weeks, but our systems run so differently from theirs, it’s hard to use that as any kind of bench with crossed legs in the tangle of hospital blankets on the bed that was also her sofa and her desk, hiht-spined and bow-tied

"Thank you for trying," she said hoarsely