Chapter 278: Visiting Jace
Miller
"The hospital smells so clean," I complained the moment Leo and I stepped out of the elevator and entered the private recovery wing where Jace had been transferred after surgery.
Leo chuckled beside me. "Of course it smells clean. This is a hospital," he replied calmly. "Hospitals are designed to maintain controlled sterile environments in order to reduce airborne contamination, bacterial exposure, and postoperative infections. If it smelled bad in here, that would be significantly more concerning."
I rolled my eyes immediately.
He was finally back to being himself again.
After what happened between us in the car earlier, I found myself noticing things about him more carefully. I caught the slight tension lingering in his shoulders, the way his jaw tightened whenever another nurse walked past discussing emergency cases, and the way his eyes instinctively scanned every medical monitor nearby without even trying.
Honestly, I did not think Leo ever truly stopped being a doctor even outside work.
"You are staring again," he muttered quietly without looking at me.
I blinked immediately, caught off guard.
I genuinely did not realize I had been staring at him for that long.
"How do you even know when somebody is staring at you?" I asked.
"Because you become unusually silent afterward."
That made me snort softly beneath my breath.
"Fair enough," I admitted. "I am just glad we are back to talking again."
He smiled softly at me before holding my hand briefly.
When we finally stopped outside Jace’s room, Leo pushed the door open slowly before stepping aside to let me enter first.
Jace looked terrible.
Not dying terrible, but exhausted enough that my chest tightened slightly the second I saw him lying against the hospital bed.
The dark circles beneath his eyes had become more obvious beneath the bright hospital lights, and the usual mischievous energy he carried so naturally back in college looked almost nonexistent now.
Bandages were wrapped tightly around his waist beneath the thin hospital blanket, and an IV remained connected to his arm.
Still, despite everything, the moment he saw us walk in, he smiled weakly.
"There is my favorite hockey player," he muttered hoarsely.
I immediately rolled my eyes while walking closer to the bed.
"Hey," I greeted while waving at him lightly.
Leo pulled a chair beside the bed before sitting down calmly.
"How are you feeling?" he asked, his voice immediately slipping into a professional tone.
"Like somebody stabbed me," Jace replied dryly.
Even in this situation, he was still joking around like usual.
Normally, I would have laughed.
But I did not because Leo looked completely unimpressed, and laughing too hard might create more problems.
The last thing I wanted right now was a grumpy, sleep-deprived doctor.
"Well, that tends to happen after severe abdominal trauma," Leo replied flatly. "You lost a significant amount of blood, suffered muscular tissue damage, and nearly progressed into hemorrhagic instability. Most patients in your condition usually describe the sensation as feeling like they are simultaneously dying and being stitched back together."
I snorted quietly while Jace groaned dramatically and sank lower into his pillows.
"Oh God, there are two of you now."
Leo ignored him completely while reaching for the medical chart hanging near the bed.
"Your blood pressure stabilized overnight," he murmured while scanning through the information carefully. "There are no postoperative hemorrhages, no signs of septic progression, and your body responded well to the antibiotics."
Jace blinked slowly at him.
"Oh goodness, Miller, you really bagged yourself an annoying doctor. He somehow makes everything sound deeply unattractive."
"It is not supposed to sound attractive," Leo responded calmly while still scanning the chart.
Honestly, I did not want to involve myself when this particular version of Leo appeared.
"You say that," Jace muttered weakly while glancing toward me, "but for some reason, your terrifying personality seems to work on Miller."
I immediately felt my ears burn.
Meanwhile, Leo looked entirely unaffected by the implication.
"That sounds unfortunate for him," he replied dryly.
"Leo," I groaned quietly while wishing the hospital floor would open up and swallow me alive.
Jace suddenly laughed, but he immediately winced afterward.
"Okay," he hissed while pressing a hand tightly against his side. "Never mind. Laughing feels medically illegal right now, especially with Doctor Leo sitting here judging my existence."
"That has nothing to do with me," Leo replied calmly. "Your abdominal muscles were literally cut open."
I could not help it.
I burst into laughter immediately.
Jace glared at me while I shrugged innocently.
Honestly, everybody needed to experience Doctor Leo at least once in their lifetime.
The room slowly became quiet afterward.
It was not awkward.
Just silent in a softer way while all of us sat there letting the atmosphere settle naturally around us.
Honestly, seeing Jace like this after years apart felt strangely surreal.
Back in college, he had always been loud and chaotic, always laughing too hard or flirting with people for absolutely no reason beyond his own entertainment.
Seeing him lying weakly inside a hospital bed almost felt wrong somehow.
Then suddenly, Jace’s expression shifted, and the playful facade disappeared completely.
"What happened to him?" he asked quietly.
The question immediately changed the atmosphere inside the room, turning the clean hospital air into something heavier.
I exchanged a brief look with Leo before looking back toward Jace again.
"You mean your boyfriend?" I asked carefully.
Jace swallowed hard before nodding slowly.
Leo was the one who answered.
"He was taken into federal custody where Enigmas like him are usually sent."
There was a noticeable change in Leo’s tone while saying that, and hearing him speak like that almost felt as though he was talking about himself instead.
"They are going to erase him," Jace whispered weakly while his face slowly turned pale.
Neither Leo nor I answered immediately because honestly?
We all knew he was probably right.
Jace looked down toward the blanket covering him while his fingers tightened shakily against the fabric.
"I... he was not supposed to lose control like that," he muttered quietly. "Everything that happened is my fault too because this could have been avoided if I tried harder to stop him."
Leo exchanged a brief look with me.
I already knew exactly what he was silently asking.
I gave him a small nod to continue.