(THO) CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Amy hated hospitals. She hated the sterile smell. She hated the lighting, too bright in some corridors and too dim in others, but always mak

Amy hated hospitals.

She hated the sterile smell. She hated the lighting, too bright in some corridors and too dim in others, but always making that bzzt sound. She hated the muted sobs behind curtains, the hiss of ventilators, the steady beeping of machines keeping people alive just long enough to be handed over to her. She hated the way it itched under her skin every time someone asked her to just check on one more patient, Panacea, and the sick, lurching guilt that followed when she wanted to scream no.

But more than anything, she hated how no matter how much she healed, nothing ever got better.

The shift had stretched past midnight. She hadn’t meant to stay this late. Again. But someone coded two floors down, and the ER was short-staffed, and she was here, wasn’t she? Even if she wanted to, it wasn’t like she could leave, not when she could fix a ruptured organ with a touch and some minutes of concentration. And so she stayed, like always.

She hadn’t slept in two days, and hadn’t eaten anything solid in one. The headaches came and went in half-remembered fits. And though caffeine purged the worst of the exhaustion from her body, it left behind something worse: clarity.

She didn’t want to be here.

But the guilt was louder than hate. Louder than exhaustion. Louder than the tiny, shrieking voice inside her head that said leave, run, stop doing this.

So she stayed, like she always did. Like she always would. One more burn victim, she promised herself. One more trauma case to deal with, and one more miracle to perform for a child with too much pain in too small a body.

Then she’d leave. Maybe for good, this time.

But it never ended and she never left.

The hallway was quiet when she turned the corner from the bathroom, rubbing the raw skin of her hands after washing them for the fifth time in the last hour. The clock on the wall read 1:06 AM. 

And he was there.

White hair.

He was wearing a blindfold, a light casual shirt, olive pants, and sneakers. He was also standing by the vending machine, reading the label on a packet of biscuits like it had offended him personally.

Gojo Satoru.

Amy stopped walking, though her feet threatened to take a slight step back, and her eyebrows knitted in thought.

What the hell is he doing here?

She knew who he was. Everyone did.

A walking, untouchable headache. The PRT didn’t know whether to register him as a rogue or a hero or a disaster waiting to happen. And even Vicky was fascinated by him. If Amy didn’t know how much her sister loved Dean, she might have thought Vicky had a crush.

Amy blinked twice, then sighed.

“They taste like cardboard,” she said.

Gojo turned his head, almost catlike.

“Yeah,” he said. “But the machine took my dollar and I don’t like being robbed.”

He turned to face her fully. Amy expected… something more. Arrogance. Power. A presence like that of the Triumvirate, or at least Armsmaster.

Instead?

She got nothing.

He was admittedly beautiful, but that was all. And in a purely clinical sense too. 

Was this really the same Gojo Satoru that had irrevocably changed Brockton Bay’s gang dynamics? 

Her stomach twisted.

“You don't seem like much,” she blurted out before she could stop herself.

Gojo smiled faintly. “Neither do you.”

Her jaw twitched. “What?”

He didn’t explain, just let the crackers drop into the machine tray and left them there.

“Late shift?” he asked.

She shrugged. “They always are.”

“You don’t like it.”

“I don’t like a lot of things.”

He nodded once, leaning back against the vending machine like he had all the time in the world.

He didn’t press. That was the weird part. Everyone else always asked, pushed, and tried to dig into her head, crack the surface, pull out the mess and name it something fixable.

Gojo didn't. 

“You’re Panacea.”

It wasn’t a question.

But still she replied with “Yeah,” because it was easier than saying he name was Amy.

“Healer.” His voice was mild. “Do you ever get tired of fixing what breaks?”

She froze.

He didn’t say it accusingly, or like a moral question. The question wasn't even laced with judgment or sympathy. He simply said it like someone asking whether she preferred her coffee bitter. A passing curiosity, as if her answer wouldn’t change anything either way.

Amy opened her mouth, then closed it and swallowed back her words. When she finally spoke, it came out flatter than she intended. A line she’d repeated, and heard repeated back at her, so many times it had lost meaning. Her mantra at this point.

“I don’t get to be tired,” she said automatically.

“No one else can do what I do,” she added.

“So?” he asked.

Amy looked at him because that one word landed harder than anything else he could’ve said.

People never said that to her. Not doctors. Not capes. Not even Vicky. They said thank you, or we need you, or you’re a hero. Some, in the wake of a life-saving intervention, had even prostrated before her and proclaimed her a god. 

Not: So?

It wasn’t dismissive, though her initial reaction was to call it that. And it wasn’t cruel either. It was just… unconvinced.

Like he wasn’t impressed by the weight of her burden. Like it didn’t matter to him that she’d felt like falling for a very long time and the only thing that kept stopping her was her duty.

“People rely on me,” she said.

“People rely on vending machines,” he replied, shrugging. “Doesn’t mean the vending machine wants to be there.”

Amy stared at his smile. It was not kind, but not mocking either. It toed that careful line between them. 

“You sound like you’re apologizing,” he continued, “for not enjoying a life someone else gave you.”

Amy didn’t answer because it wasn’t an answerable thing. Because what could she even say?

No one had ever looked at her power, at her duty, and asked why she stayed. Only told that she must.

Until now.

So she didn’t have an answer. Just the slow, creeping realization that maybe she didn’t want to be Panacea anymore. Maybe she just wanted to be Amy. Maybe she wanted to do more than healing. And that terrified her more than anything because every fiber of her being agreed with that assertion. 

Gojo pushed off the machine.

“If you keep bleeding for people who’ll never stop asking, you will eventually run out.”

“I can’t run out,” she muttered.

Gojo’s smile was soft this time.

“Not of power.”

And then he walked past her, the hall colder somehow in his wake.

He didn’t shake her hand, didn't ask for anything, and didn't even offer comfort as she had come to expect from those who tried to talk to her. But just before he disappeared around the corner, he paused, and made one final comment:

“You’re allowed to want something else, Amy.”

Then he was gone.

Leaving her standing alone in the hallway, the truth she’d never dared to voice resounding behind her ears like white noise.