Jesus. It was times like these I stupidly wished I'd taken up smoking. I rubbed my forehead, staring past the trees in the distance, eyes heading up to see white clouds slowly dispersing and hints of blue-sky peeking through.

It was going to be another beautiful day. But not for me, today I'd woken up with with a coldness in my bones that I couldn't shift. Would today be her last day? Was today the day my world plunged into perpetual misery?

"Hey, Adam."

I didn't shift my attention from the view, just slid my hands into my pockets. I had left the room quick sharp, needing a minute to breathe when Dr Chris Chambers had come in to check on Emma's stats.

"Hematocrit 16, SMA 20... some levels are as we expected—" Chris paused. His voice was professional, but he didn't fool me. The defeat spoke volumes with every word uttered.

They'd all given up. "We're entering borrowed time now." He stood with me for a moment, shoulder to shoulder, both quiet in our thoughts. "The best we can do is keep her comfortable, Adam."

Shifting a clipboard chart to his other hand, he rested his free one on my shoulder, giving it a tight squeeze.

Chris had been my best friend since college and a colleague at Mercy Heights along side me for the last six years. He was fully aware this was killing me one slow day at a time. As Emma grew weaker. I grew tired. And the words he was repeating to me now, came second nature in our job, but I couldn't listen to them today. They were too damn close to home—too real.

And I wasn't ready for reality.

Loosening his grip, his hand shifted down, expelling air as he patted my back, twice. "Just be with her, Adam."

As if I would be anywhere else.

"Is Danny on his way?"

Danny was Emma's son from her first marriage. "Yeah, due any minute." I'd spoken to him earlier, catching him before he left for work.

"How's he coping?"

How was anyone supposed to handle it? "He's not. He won't talk to me about it." I'd tried, but like me he'd shut down, swallowing his pain, his anger at being little to no use in stopping what was coming.

"Emma's proud of him."

She was. She loved Danny. But I knew his way of dealing with this was to throw himself into his residency already in year three of five of anaesthesiology.

I heard Chris's pager beep as he fished it out of his pocket. "I'm needed. If you need anything, you know where I am."

Turning my head, I watched him walk away. I'd done that too, delivered the inevitable news to a heartbroken family and then walked away... on to the next patient.

Sighing, forcing my feet to move, I turned and crept back inside Emma's room. It was quiet apart from the monitors, but thankfully, she was only wired up to two monitors now, although that still drove her nuts.

This was even harder for her to handle. She, too, was used to being on this side of the bed, looking after someone else.

A book, her favourite, was lying face down, open. She struggled to hold it for too long and it had been forty-eight hours since she last stepped foot from her bed. The shortness of breath and dependent oedema prevented it. And my proud girl refused to use a wheelchair.

Stubborn as always.... stubborn and beautiful.

But today... today she looked so pale and frail, and I missed the natural pink rosiness to her cheeks and her blue eyes that had held some much life were now dull and looked almost vacant and I was sure inside her head she was anywhere but here as she barely responded to my presence.

But nothing lessened my love for that woman.

"How about I read to you, sweetheart?"

As if the light switched back on, her eyes brightened a little when she saw me. It punched a hole right through the heart of me.

"Come." She briefly smiled, moving her hand with some effort to pat the bed. "Sit with me Adam."

I swallowed the lump in my throat. It dropped to land with the boulder of bricks sitting in my gut. I was careful not to knock the IV stand or the monitors.

Sitting, I lifted her pale hand in mine. The frailness was a stark reminder that we didn't have long left, but it didn't make it feel any less right. I brought it to my lips and kissed it.

Emma inhaled slowly. "I'd rather blow this joint?"

That's my girl, always trying to lighten the situation. "Are you sure you don't want dessert, Ma'am?"

She played along. "Why, no thank you, Sir."

"Just the cheque then, Ma'am?"

"Ah-hu."

"And where might you be heading today?"

We both knew she wasn't going anywhere... not unless a miracle happened. Sadly for that miracle someone had to die, so my beautiful girl could live.

The usual guilt gnawed my insides, the idea of someone dying to save another was cruel. I was a doctor... a surgeon. It was my job to save lives.

However, I would live with the guilt if it would let me keep my Emma. But my hope left with my sense of fairness about three months ago.

"The mountains," pause. "—My cabin," she uttered breathlessly, as her eyes drifted off again and I knew where her mind had taken her.

The mountains. She loved the mountains. Up high, free.

I'd met Emma when I was twenty-three, she was thirty-one and head of the Cardiothoracic Department. The youngest department head to ever walk the corridors of Mercy Heights.

She was an out of this world genius and so full of life. Beautiful with a quiet grace about her. Not an ounce of arrogance, which was practically unheard of in our profession.

Whenever she entered a room, everyone would stop and gravitate toward her. I hadn't even spoken a word to feel a connection, the need to know her, to make her mine was a pull as strong as gravity.

Chris had tried to talk me out it, said it was career suicide wanting to hit on a woman in her position of authority.

I charged ahead, it didn't feel wrong, and I fell hard. But Emma had already suffered loss, losing her husband in a car accident, leaving her alone to raise Danny.

Except I knew from that first smile; she was the other half of me. Although it took a year for her to come around to my way of thinking and agree to a date. Three months later, I'd gone down on one knee, armed with the biggest diamond I could afford and asked her to marry me.

My friends thought I was crazy to marry a woman with a kid at twenty-five—but nothing had ever felt so right.

"Cabin? You want company? I've been told I'm good with my hands."

Her lips lifted into a full smile this time. "I'm sure I could use a man like you," she teased.

I winked as we held eye contact, but the smile from my face dropped. It was becoming so hard to hold on to the fine line of despair I walked every day.

"Hey—" she caught her breath. "No frowns today." Another breath. "Danny will be here soon." She tried to squeeze my hand. "Help me look pretty."

"You don't need any help, sweetheart. You put the word beautiful to shame." I leant over and kissed her forehead before reaching for her hairbrush and gently combing the auburn hair I adored.

"You're pretty good with your mouth too." She coughed as my shoulders tensed.

"Okay?"

She nodded and I relaxed, returning my attention to her hair."

"Promise me—Adam."

I stilled. "Anything, sweetheart."

"Don't... don't stop living, when I'm gone."

Hairbrush in hand, my heart stopped. Just died right in my ribcage. "Please, Emma, don't talk, it takes too much out of you, and Danny will be here any minute." I couldn't do this. I couldn't have this conversation. I didn't want this conversation. Ever!

"Find love again."

An electric charge ran the length of me, forcing my heart to kickstart, beating so fast, like a caged bird.

If only I could give her mine—I would in a heartbeat.

"Promise me Adam." I pulled back as she tilted her head up to meet mine. Her eyes pleading.

I was bleeding with emotion. She didn't have a clue what she was asking of me. Why didn't she understand you don't find love like ours every day?

I bit back my honest answer. "Okay Emma," I mumbled.

"No... I need—" she swallowed, sucking in short, sharp breaths. "Say it."

I squeezed the brush's handle, knowing speaking increased her tiredness. "Okay. Okay. I promise. I'll keep living." I'd promise anything to selfishly keep her here, just a little longer.

Finishing her hair, dying a little more inside, I helped her sit up and adjusted the bed and fluffed her pillows. "Do you need anything, sweetheart?"

"Water."

I reached for the paper cup of water and bent the straw into Emma's mouth. Her lips looked dry. She sucked a little, but every movement took such great effort.

A few moments later, she relaxed her head back on the pillow and I put the cup down.

"Now you stay there, whilst I read."

She didn't argue.

Not fifteen minutes later, Danny arrived with an enormous bouquet of flowers. I was so sick of seeing flowers. It already looked like a florist had thrown up in here. But I forced a smile.

He looked at me, and I gave a little shake of my head. He already knew it was any time now.

Although I wasn't ready—I'd never be ready.

And I knew the second her heart stopped beating—mine would too, and any promise would be buried with her and my heart.