A Love So Absolutely Clear {Crowen} ✔️

33: a love so absolutely clear

"s-she's back?" owen took his head away from cristina's abruptly once he heard those unbelievable words.

doctor patel nodded his head.

"oh, thank the Lord." cristina cried with relief, yet more tears escaped and her sobs did not slow down even a little. she held her face in her hands and cried into them, because something wonderful just happened and they couldn't believe it.

they looked into the window, their vision blurry from all the tears they'd shed. novella was still unconscious, but she was alive and that was all that mattered to them at that very moment.

cristina put a hand to her heart and looked up to owen. he was already looking at her, the alleviation present in his face though he was still as fear-stricken as ever.

he rested his forehead on hers before their lips brushed against each other's for a quick second. she closed her eyes, and opened them right back up to look at novella—her soul aligned with her body once again.

doctor patel cleared his throat. his heart might as well have been pounding as hard as theirs were. the sweat still rolled down his forehead but he'd wipe it with the fabric of his scrub top.

"we should go inside the room while i explain some things to you." he spoke, gesturing them to go into the room. a nurse was there tending to novella, but she left right after she was finished with her work.

owen opened the door and held it open so cristina and the doctor could enter first. when cristina realized he was avoiding going in, she gave him her hand and helped to guide him further into the room. when he was inside and looking down on novella, their hands remained intertwined.

novella was alive. her stats were a bit shaky but considering she was just brought back from the dead, it was understandable. the teddy bear with two heads that cristina gave her—it felt like forever ago—was lying right in the corner of her bed. it never ever left there.

doctor patel took out his little notepad from his pocket and flipped to a page he had very noticeably bookmarked.

with a pen, they could tell he circled and underlined a few things before he got to talking.

"i wasn't lying when i said our entire team was researching this case. many things were found, some very impressive, actually. but we were looking at all the wrong things. that's why we didn't find anything useful. it's also why your daughter died today, so i apologize."

they could tell he was a professional and he was good at what he does. he didn't seem nervous by the way he was talking, and he didn't seem ashamed to admit that he was the reason they almost lost their child.

he gave cristina his notepad and both her and owen examined it carefully. various numbers, proteins, medicines, possibilities, percentages, and suggestions were written on it. some were circled, others underlined, but most of it was crossed out.

owen pointed to something circled and cristina's gaze fell towards it. they looked at each other as if they understood what it meant. she nodded her head at him and gave the notepad back to doctor patel.

he put it back into his pocket. "actually, earlier today when doctor yang said that the clinical trial was a mistake, it gave me the idea to research the t-cell we've injected into novella...to see if there really was a misprint.

turns out, there was."

his head turned to look at novella, and so naturally, theirs did too. she died today. then she came back to life. there was a reason for that, wasn't there?

he pulled something else out in his pocket and showed it to them briefly.

"doctor yang came into my office while i was working on this, actually." their eyes focused on the injection in his hand and he put it back into his pocket afterwards.