It began with an email.
One that Ezra didn't tell Talia about right away.
He didn't mean to keep it from her—not at first. He'd just read it between cases, standing beside the nurses' station with a half-eaten granola bar in his hand and a resident asking him about post-op labs in his ear.
"Congratulations, Dr. Ezra. You've been accepted into the Global Cardiology Fellowship Initiative, Geneva cohort, 1-year placement, beginning July 1st…"
He didn't breathe for a second. The words swam on the screen like they belonged to someone else.
Geneva.
His dream. His application submitted on a whim months ago, long before he and Talia had started stitching the frayed seams of their lives back together.
He closed the email. Said nothing.
Three days passed before Talia found the tab still open on his laptop.
She wasn't snooping. She was just looking for the playlist they'd made together for surgeries. Something to distract her after a particularly brutal 36-hour call.
She stared at the subject line for a full minute before her stomach sank.
When Ezra came home, she was waiting.
In silence.
"Hey," he said, hanging his coat. "You look like you're—"
"Geneva?"
He froze.
The air crackled. "I didn't… I was going to tell you."
"When?"
Ezra rubbed a hand down his face. "I don't know. I guess I didn't know how."
Talia's jaw tightened. "You got into a year-long fellowship overseas and you didn't know how to tell the person you live with? Sleep with? Love?"
Ezra winced. "I didn't want to hurt you."
Talia stood slowly, arms crossed. "So you lied by omission instead?"
"I didn't lie—"
"You didn't trust me."
Her voice broke on that last part. And that was what did it.
Ezra closed the distance between them, voice low, eyes searching hers. "I didn't trust myself," he whispered. "Because the moment I got that email, the first thing I thought about wasn't the program. It was you."
Talia's breath caught. But she didn't step back.
"You should have told me."
"I know."
"I don't want to be the reason you say no."
"I don't want to go if it means losing us."
The tension between them thickened—not anger anymore, but longing. Unspoken fear. Love laced with uncertainty.
And then, something broke.
Or maybe it unraveled.
Talia stepped forward. Ezra met her halfway.
They kissed like people who'd been arguing with themselves longer than they had each other.
Clothes weren't flung—they were peeled away, slowly, reverently, as if rediscovering a language they once knew by heart. The floor was cold beneath them, the couch too far, the bed forgotten.
His mouth found the curve of her collarbone. Her fingers slipped beneath the hem of his shirt, anchoring herself in the warmth of his skin, the steadiness of his heartbeat.
They made love on the living room rug, surrounded by the echoes of everything unsaid—futures they hadn't planned for, paths that no longer looked the same. But in that moment, none of it mattered except the closeness. The promise hidden in the press of bodies, the gasp of breath, the murmur of names.
It wasn't perfect. It wasn't even pretty.
But it was honest.
After, tangled beneath the blanket they'd pulled from the couch, Talia rested her head on Ezra's chest.
"Maybe we don't need the map," she murmured. "Maybe we just… keep choosing each other. One day at a time."
Ezra's hand drifted over her back. "Even if the road changes?"
"Especially then."
He looked down at her, touched the edge of her cheek with his thumb.
"Come with me," he said softly. "To Geneva."
Talia lifted her head.
"You want me to uproot everything and follow you across the world?"
"I want us to build something that doesn't require one of us to shrink."
She smiled slowly, heart hammering. "I don't speak French."
"I'll teach you."
That night, they didn't sleep much.
Between kisses and whispered dreams, they planned what came next.
Not with certainty.
But with courage.