A/N: DON'T HATE ME! But this isn't new. Or rather, if you read Crash Into Me (and you need to if you plan to read this) this is the epilogue chapter. I thought it would be odd to begin posting with the scene immediately following without starting here. So here we go. If you didn't read Crash Into Me and your interest is piqued (there absolutely is a bit more MaryxMatthew in this fic and you'll soon find out why), please go read it! You will honestly struggle through this and that won't be fun for either of us...though it's likely I'll be amused.

I originally planned to wait until I completed A Feeling You Can't Get Back before posting this but I actually am taking time off from work this weekend and I plan to spend all of it writing so I'm definitely rethinking that.

Either way, here we go! (Again!) Enjoy!

While she waited for him, Sybil picked at the cut just below the knuckle on her left ring finger. It was a nervous habit, one she'd adopted to both pass time and avoid the glances of the family members in the nearby waiting room. She found after only a month of clinics that patients and their visitors were not too fond of seeing her or her fellow residents standing around. She was here to learn and sometimes that involved lectures from frustrated professors or the occasional conversation with a nurse who believed she was far more equipped than all of the doctors at handling most tasks. Despite the fast paced nature of the hospital, Sybil actually felt sedentary in many aspects of her life. She was always waiting - first for graduation, then for residency admission and currently for it all too somehow fall apart.

It was possible the nurses were right, evident by this very cut and the way that Sybil, at the top of her class and highly capable in all other aspects of her life, was still struggling when it came to moving patients around on their electrical beds. Nearly a week ago she'd gotten her hand crushed between the bed and a nearby wall. Her petite frame did nothing to aid in her reflex and when she pulled her hand back to avoid injury she instead found swollen, pink skin, and a rather deep cut she wasn't immediately able to tend to. The wound had since softened, but every time it reached its final healing stage, Sybil found herself dissecting the scab. It would scar eventually, she was certain, if only she'd let it get to that point.

When he entered, he did so with a heavy sigh, the large metal doors swooshing shut behind him, waiting for the next patron to request entry. He always had an excuse, one she'd undoubtedly forgive him for. The pair had been undeniably inseparable since their first year at Harvard's Medical School when William transferred in from John Hopkins. He was looking for a friend and Sybil was just beginning to realize that maybe she'd prefer not to spend the rest of her life on her own. She'd spent her formative years in Boston keeping to herself, filling her nights with studying and the occasional Skype call to Mary, Gwen, or her parents. Friends she had time for, and she was increasingly close with her family since moving away but she still believed she had finally found her one true love in life and to die married to your career was not to die alone.

Both Will (a nickname only she was given permission to use) and Sybil wanted to complete their residency in Cardiology and after many applications, the two were admitted into an elite group at London Bridge hospital. Without hesitance, Will moved back to the UK with Sybil where the two shared a cozy flat with Gwen on the other side of the river. It was a near-perfect arrangement, as ideal as something could be for two people on the precipice of success.

"Loo?" Sybil inquired. Will's elaborate tales had her always looking forward to his tardiness.

For a moment he thought that Sybil was referencing the man he'd brought home from the bar last night. "No, his name was Mark…"

Sybil scrunched her nose up in amusement and the two began to walk toward Dr. Frye's office. He was their supervisor: an initially quiet man with an overall small stature. Last week, three weeks into their residency, was the first time they had heard him laugh.

Outside a nearby exam room Dr. Frye stood. Their fellow resident was there already and Sybil gave him a smile just as she always did. Originally this program was only accepting two applicants, but he was a late addition, rumored to have been added on as a result of the donation his family made. It was also worth noting that he wished to study pediatrics but was denied the opportunity by a father who believed this was a better path for him. If anything, Sybil felt bad for him. Her family had been so supportive and she flourished in her field because of it. She couldn't imagine being him, but she certainly didn't treat him differently because of it. Actually, she did her best to treat him objectively, even after all he'd once failed to do.

"Before you say we're late—"

"You're not late," the doctor said, cutting William off. He did not look up from his file. "This is residency. I am not your professor or your babysitter. If someone dies because you had something better to do, then so be it." He paused and finally made eye contact with the paid. "But you're not late."

Sybil and Will exchanged glances, confused over whether or not there was mirth behind Dr. Frye's statement. Silence fell over all of them as William decided to leave the comment in the past.

"And so it begins," Dr. Frye started with a loud exhale. "There will be others but this is your first case and it's likely it will continue as we get others. You'll still have your scheduled shifts on the floor, but with the students being admitted soon, they can take most of those hours over while you work on this."

"And this is…?"

"A patient with a rare heart condition. I'll explain once we get inside and I ask that we're all extremely sensitive as we proceed. He's younger than any other specialist case I've ever handled so you have that in your favor. But still, this is something he's just grasping too and he's agreed to let us try an operation I've spent the past seven years studying. This is a trial and it's high risk."

Without any other word, Dr. Frye entered first, causing everyone else to trail behind. William bumped Sybil with his hip, gaining from her a genuine smile, one he'd perhaps procured for his own benefit. She was far better at remaining calm than he was and while William excelled with patients he sometimes lacked that same charisma with his advisors. His nervousness was balanced out by Sybil's composure. The first thing he'd noticed about her was how self-assured she seemed — kind and lacking pretense. William remembered questioning if this were always the case or if this were a trait she had honed. When they stepped into the room and fanned out before the patient, William was slowly given his answer.

The smile Sybil wore dwindled, the energy it carried being drained from her, taking with it the rouge in her cheeks. Where her hands were previously at her sides she now brought them to her waist, using one to grab at the other, distracting her fingers while her eyes fell to the floor. Still, she felt him —all of him—surrounding her, his crystalline orbs practically begging that she look up. While she kept her eyes trained on the floor, both William and their colleague took notice. Dr. Frye had already approached the patient to take his vitals. Meanwhile, the man on the examination table kept his focus on Sybil. It was joked upon that Sybil's silhouette was rather small but here her emotional presence took on a similar size. Even as Dr. Frye unlatched the blood pressure cuff, causing that telltale scratching noise to reverberate and pull both out of their independent, yet shared, moment the glimpses continued. It was the first time their eyes had truly met and while they took one another in, all other participants did their best to ignore their discomfort and instead examine just how intense this seemed.

The smirk he gave her was dripping with arrogance and he shared it with her before finally looking away. On a night she hadn't visited in quite some time, she hated that very smirk and then several days later she found herself loving it — loving him. It felt so familiar she wondered if that was somehow still the case.

"Before I lay all of his medical history out I think it's best we at least get to know one another. These," Dr. Frye pointed, "are your residents. They have been hand selected to help me with this very operation...though they did not know that until today," he admitted, adding with it a satisfied chuckle.

"William," Sybil's best friend began. He energetically stepped out of the semicircle and extended his hand.

"Tom," the man said simply. Like William, he was not from here and while everyone else processed this, Sybil wondered what it was he had last said to her. He had told her to take care of herself, or something of the like, and she had. Really, she had no other option but she was back to remembering, rather vividly, how extremely painful it was to believe you needed someone to breathe. With him here, she didn't know what she believed but she found herself rooted to the very spot she stood in, too afraid to figure it out.

"Ben," the other resident added, reacting much in the same way William had.

"Ben?" Tom asked. His question was directed at Sybil and only she knew why. While the dark-haired boy confirmed this fact, Sybil also nodded, her lips barely moving as if to silently repeat the name back for him.

She was so lost in the moment she did not move. Everyone else was confused too and to add to the somewhat awkward moment, Tom jumped down from the examination table and extended his hand. His arm was not outstretched though and to do so, his wrist was practically touching the leather belt he wore.

"Tom," he gave.

She waited, asking the room to do the same as if they had any other option. This moment was theirs alone to have and Sybil still couldn't manage much more than several bated exhales. After all these years his name still sounded lovely and he smelled the same and she couldn't help but to notice the added girth in his upper arms. He still dressed well and she wondered if his Range Rover was parked out in the garage or if he had taken the tube in. Did he live here?

Did she care?

Through Sybil's silence Tom found himself immediately moving his glance to her hands. Where once ringers covered each delicate finger, her skin was bare. In particular she lacked a wedding ring, or the pale band that told she wore one during the hours she was not working. How it was the world had overlooked her beauty, he was not sure, and yet it was this that brought back that smirk she found to be so insufferable, that same smirk that had her lips pursing up, avoiding a grin of her own.

She wrung out her hands, debating on what it was she'd give him. A handshake hardly seemed appropriate after all they'd been through and she was halfway between wanting to embrace him or slap him across the face. That anger was still there, and her skin tingled - electricity she hadn't felt in many years bringing the crimson color back to her cheeks. She rubbed her fingers together, performing the same nervous task from earlier. That skin on her finger was so rough, ready to harden completely.

Then, with no real explanation, she picked at it, causing the blood beneath to surface. It was such an active decision she had made; she chose not to let that scab heal just as she chose to never fully forget him. Caused by nervousness she'd accepted pain when recovery was mere steps away.

"Hi," she whispered back.

x. Elle