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There’s something about hospitals that Pang can never quite reconcile with Nam’s personality.
In every hospital he’s ever been in, death hangs in the air, thick and musky like it’s trying to suffocate you too, rip out your soul while you’re half-dead. While Nam is—well, she’s Nam. Bright and resolute and eyes always full of wonder, like she couldn’t wait to breathe life into everything she touched. She’s the most alive person he knows and she has a chronic heart disease.
Maybe it’s why he never allowed himself to see her after she became a renowned doctor, had allowed her to become a ghost to reconcile her in his thoughts—though, mostly that’s just a lie he likes to tell himself, one he keeps to comfort himself with. He’s taken to telling lies since going underground. After all, it’s much harder to be found when everything about you is fabricated, or so Wave had told him.
It’s late when they slip into Nam’s hospital ward through the window. She’s lying down reading a book she’s holding in one hand, flipping through the pages with the other.
“I’m pretty sure that’s against doctor’s orders,” Pang chides her as his foot lands on the linoleum flooring.
“Not when you’re a doctor too, it’s not,” she says without missing a beat, while carefully placing a bookmark in between the pages as she closes the book and places it face down on her bedside. Exhausted circles under her eyes aside, she meets his gate, all calm and nonchalant, as if she'd known they were coming, as if she expected it.
“I guess becoming a doctor didn’t cure your stubbornness,” Wave says behind him as he hops into the room with the flowers in tow.
“And I guess becoming a vigilante hasn’t changed your insufferable demeanor either,” Nam remarks with raised brows, then her gaze flits from the flowers to Wave’s face as if to say well, are you giving those to me or what?
Wave immediately shoves the flowers into Pang’s hands and looks away.
Pang shakes his head and clucks his tongue exaggeratedly as he walks up to Nam’s bedside, “The flowers were your idea, remember?” He can hear Nam stifle a chuckle and it makes warmth blossom in his core, flush reaching up to the apples of his cheeks. The sensation has him smiling at Nam, who graciously smiles back at him.
“Been a while, hasn’t it?” He hands her the flowers, voice soft as he speaks.
“Eight years, eleven months, and six days to be exact, but who’s counting,” she corrects him as she takes the flowers into her arms, cradling the bouquet like one would a newborn.
“You cut your hair,” Pang says, a little sheepish, fingers playing with the hem of the blanket spilling over the side of the bed.
“You’re treating me like a stranger,” she’s looking at him with an expression that’s somewhere between pained and disappointed, and he’s finding it hard to hold her gaze, so he turns his head to the side to look at Wave who’s still standing in the far left corner of the room by the window. Pang meets his eyes and cocks his head towards Nam, signaling for help. Wave rolls his eyes in response.
Pang knows calling Wave to come to his side is just him trying to beat around the bush, or maybe the elephant in the room, whichever metaphor better fits them leaving her behind without so much as a goodbye nearly nine years ago.
“Are you here to say sorry?” Nam lets out an exasperated sigh as she rises from the bed to place the flowers in a vase on the bedside table. “‘I’m sorry we didn’t even tell you we were leaving’, or ‘I’m sorry we didn’t contact you once while we were away’?”
“I don’t think apologies would be enough for what we did,” Pang says honestly, head hanging low.
“So that’s it? You’re just not going to try at all?” She says, strain palpable in her tone as she ruffles the petals softly with her fingers. “The injured people you wordlessly instructed to turn up at my doorstep for me to fix were all I had to go by regarding your status, and even then I had no idea if you were actually okay or barely breathing because your people never said shit about you two.”
“And then the injured bodies stopped coming and I had to seek you two out on my own. Do you know how frustrating it was to be asked about you by everyone and come up with a blank? How heartbreaking it was to think I’ve finally found a link to where you two were only for it to come to a dead end every damn time? It felt like you were running away from me.”
“We were running away for you,” Wave finally speaks up. “You know they would’ve targeted you if they found out that you knew anything about our whereabouts.”
Nam's head whips in their direction, shooting a glare at Wave strong enough to make Pang shrink back, even if it wasn’t for him. Wave narrows his eyes and glares back at her, and it would be amusing if the air wasn't thick enough to choke Pang. “We were all aware of that when we started this. You act like we—like I wouldn't have wanted to see this through.”
Pang clears his throat. “You know that’s not what Wave means, Nam,” he cuts in, trying to break up the tension between them. He’s used to their banter, to toothless comebacks—but this is different. They’re all different. Somehow, even though they had spent the past 8 years apart, they’ve all grown rough edges in similar places. “We just didn’t want to bring harm to anyone else anymore, especially not after what happened that time.”
“Did it not even cross your mind that we wanted to keep you safe too? Wave really must’ve rubbed off on you for you to only think about yourself,” she said, tone rising to a familiar naggy tone he recognizes from way back. He’d missed this. He and Wave have grown together, have been familiar partners through the years, but Nam brings them both back to a better time, like a time capsule.
Nam sighs, closing her eyes to calm herself down. She has to or all those years improving her health, waiting for them to call her for help again will have gone to waste. If Pang’s being honest, he wants her to yell at them, get angrier and lash out at them like she used to. Make him feel like nothing much has really changed during their time apart. After all, it’s only right after they abandoned her like that. But that’s just selfish, wishful thinking.
He knows she can’t lose her cool because her condition’s gotten worse over the years. He knows because they kept track of everyone, but Wave had kept a close eye on her, especially after the first time she had to be sent away for treatment. Of course, Wave would never tell her that.
But above all, he knows they don't deserve to go back to the way it was. He knows he can't laugh and reminisce about old times because he's soured them over the years. He's used and abandoned them and whatever pain he keeps, he deserves to feel tenfold.
He knows all this, but when Nam turns to look back at them with tears welling up in her eyes, the selfish part of him that he keeps trying to bury rears its ugly head and has him rushing to wrap his arms around her, thinking he still has the right to comfort her after all he's put her through.
"I'm sorry for everything," he starts, guilt taking over. Nam bursts into tears in his embrace, chest rising and falling in quick succession as her breathing becomes increasingly erratic. He tightens his hold around her and to his right, he can see Wave walking over to the heart rate monitor.
Wave looks back at him and shakes his head.
He caresses the back of her head, running his fingers through her hair, before pulling back to look her in the eyes and say, "And I'm sorry for this too."
"No," she says, then she feels Pang's gift take over and start to frantically repeat it, thrashing in his arms as best as her frail body will allow until her consciousness is taken away from her slowly, then all at once.
Wave helps Pang lay her down on the bed, tucking her in while checking the heart rate monitor to ensure that her heart rate is back to normal. Wave takes her left hand in his own and clutches it for a moment before placing a note in her palm and gently closing her fist.
Pang takes Wave's hand and gives it a squeeze before they turn to leave her all alone one last time.