The N95 Decompression

The silence in the elevator of the Skyline Apartments was a lie. It was supposed to be peaceful—a luxury amenity of the forty-story glass needle piercing the Chicago winter sky. But to Dr. Elena Rosetti, silence was just the breath a lung took before it collapsed.

She leaned her forehead against the cool, mirrored wall of the elevator car, staring at her reflection. The bridge of her nose was raw, a bruised purple divot carved by the N95 mask she had worn for thirty-six of the last forty hours. Her eyes were dark hollows, glazed over with a specific kind of exhaustion that sleep couldn’t fix.

*Beep. 40th Floor.*

The doors slid open. Elena adjusted the strap of her tote bag, which weighed fifty pounds despite containing only a change of scrubs and a granola bar wrapper.

Chicago, December 2020. The second wave. The numbers were climbing vertical walls on every graph. The ICU at St. Luke’s was a war zone of negative pressure rooms and the rhythmic, terrifying hiss of ventilators. Elena walked out of that war zone every morning and into this silent hallway, feeling like a ghost haunting her own life.

She just wanted a shower. She wanted to scrub the smell of bleach and isopropyl alcohol from her skin until she hurt.

She reached for her keys.

*YIP. YIP. WOOF!*

A cacophony of high-pitched squealing and frantic scrabbling erupted from the door to her left. Apartment 4002.

Elena froze. The neighbor. She didn’t know him, only that he moved in three months ago, received a lot of packages, and apparently had decided that a global pandemic was the perfect time to start a kennel.

"Help! Someone! Oh god, no, stay there!"

A man’s voice. Deep, baritone, and laced with genuine panic.

Elena’s adrenaline, usually reserved for Code Blues, spiked. She dropped her keys.

"Hello?" she called out, stepping toward 4002. "Is everything okay?"

"I need help!" the voice roared. "She's dying! I think she's dying!"

Elena didn't think. The protocol override kicked in. She tried the handle—unlocked—and pushed the door open.

"I'm a doctor," she announced, stepping into the entryway. "Where are you—"

She stopped.

The apartment was massive, a sprawling open-concept space with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the frozen lake. But the luxury was ruined by the chaos in the center of the living room.

A man was on the floor. He was huge—broad shoulders spanning the width of a loveseat, thighs the size of tree trunks. He was wearing basketball shorts and a compression brace that ran from his ankle to his hip on his left leg. A pair of crutches lay discarded a few feet away.

And he was surrounded by towels. Bloody, wet towels.

In the center of the towels lay a Golden Retriever, panting heavily, her eyes wide and rolling.

"She's dying," the man gasped, looking up at Elena. His face was pale, sweat beading on his forehead. "She's making this noise... and there's blood..."

Elena blinked, her brain shifting gears from *human triage* to *veterinary emergency*. She walked forward, keeping her distance, her mask still firmly in place.

"She's not dying," Elena said, her voice dropping into its professional register. "She's whelping."

"Whelping?"

"Birthing," Elena corrected. She knelt down, keeping a safe six feet from the man but getting a clear view of the dog. "You didn't know she was pregnant?"

"I'm fostering her!" the man yelled, gesturing wildly. "The shelter said she might be 'expecting.' They didn't say she was going to explode on my Persian rug on a Tuesday!"

Elena looked at the man. She recognized him now. The jawline that had graced a dozen *Gillette* billboards. The arm that had thrown the winning touchdown in the playoffs last year.

Jax Carter. The Quarterback. The Cannon.

Currently, he looked like a terrified child.

"My knee," Jax gritted out, pointing to the brace. "I can't... I can't get up quickly. I tried to get water and I slipped and... I don't know what to do."

The dog gave a low, straining grunt. A small, wet sac emerged.

"Oh god," Jax gagged, turning green. "Is that an alien?"

"It's a puppy," Elena said. She sighed, the exhaustion in her bones protesting as she dropped her bag. "Do you have hand sanitizer?"

"On the table."

Elena grabbed the bottle, slathered her hands and forearms, and pulled a fresh pair of nitrile gloves from her pocket—she always carried spares.

"Okay, Mr. Carter," she said, moving into the splash zone. "I'm a pulmonologist, not a vet, but mammalian birth is pretty standard. Sit back. Give her space."

"You know who I am?" Jax asked, wincing as he shifted his leg.

"Hard to miss the jersey framed on the wall," Elena muttered, nodding to the massive display case above the fireplace. "Now, hush. She's doing the work."

For the next two hours, the pandemic didn't exist. The death counts didn't exist. There was only the rhythmic panting of the mother dog—who Jax said was named "Goldie"—and the miraculous, slippery arrival of life.

One. Two. Three.

Elena cleared airways with a suction bulb she found in Jax’s emergency kit. She rubbed the pups vigorously with clean towels to stimulate breathing.

Four. Five. Six.

"Seven," Elena announced, holding up the final puppy. It was the smallest, a little scrap of damp fur that let out a high-pitched squeak. "Lucky number seven."

She placed the pup against Goldie’s belly, where it immediately rooted for milk.

The room fell silent, save for the nursing sounds and the wind howling against the glass.

Elena sat back on her heels, peeling off her bloody gloves. She looked at Jax.

He was staring at the puppies with an expression of pure, unadulterated wonder. The fear was gone, replaced by a softness that made him look five years younger.

"Seven," he whispered. "We made seven dogs."

"Goldie made seven dogs," Elena corrected, standing up and stretching her aching back. "We just provided the towels."

Jax looked up at her. His eyes were a startling shade of hazel, warm and clear.

"You saved us," he said. "I was... I was drowning over here."

Elena felt a crack in her armor. "You were doing fine. Panic is a normal response to unexpected bodily fluids."

She picked up her bag. "I should go. You need to call the shelter in the morning."

"Wait," Jax struggled to sit up straighter. "I can't... I can't do this alone. Look at me. I can't even walk to the kitchen without the crutches. How am I going to clean up after seven puppies?"

Elena looked at the door. Her apartment was quiet. Empty. Cold.

Then she looked at the pile of warm, golden fur. She felt a phantom warmth in her chest, a tiny spark of dopamine she hadn't felt in months.

"I get off shift at 6:00 PM tomorrow," Elena said.

Jax’s face lit up. "I order really good takeout. And I have an insane coffee machine."

Elena hesitated. It was risky. The bubble. The exposure.

"I wear a mask," she said sternly. "And I don't touch you. Only the dogs."

"Deal," Jax smiled. "I'm clean. I haven't left this apartment in three weeks since the surgery."

"Okay," Elena nodded. "I'll see you at six."

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