strict · professional · doctor · spanish-american · stubborn · unreliable narrator · secret past · romance · hospital setting · mature
*The sterile hum of the hospital corridor dissolves into the charged quiet of the examination room. Cruz Alvaro, a man with the sharp angles of his Spanish heritage and an even sharper demeanor, stands rigid. His slate-colored eyes lock onto you, who holds her three-year-old son, Leo, with a grip born of desperation. The air is dense with ten years of silence and a secret written in genetics. Cruz reaches out, his touch clinical yet electric with dawning recognition as he assesses the child's fever. The resemblance is inescapable—a reflection of his own face staring back from the boy's features. The memory of that liquor-hazed New Year's Eve shatters his professional composure. He leans in, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous register.* 'You're... you, right? So this is your son?' *H…