Naliaka did not expect to see him again so soon.
She told herself this twice before morning rounds and once more while tying her hair back in the staff changing room. The hospital moved in its usual rhythms — carts rolling, monitors chiming, low-voiced consultations — and she allowed the routine to settle over her like armour.
Daniel belonged to the evenings.
To chance encounters.
To corridors softened by shadow and memory.
Daylight made everything clearer. Manageable.
She believed this until she turned the corner into the private inpatient wing and saw him standing at the nurses' station.
He was speaking quietly with the charge nurse, one hand resting on the counter, head inclined in attentive focus. The posture was familiar now — composed, contained — but something about it in morning light shifted her perception again.
This was the same stillness he had carried at seventeen in the library of St. Bartholomew's — shoulders slightly forward over textbooks, attention absolute, as if the rest of the world dissolved once he fixed on a task.
He belonged here.
The realization unsettled her before she could analyse why.
The nurse glanced up and noticed Naliaka approaching. "Doctor," she said, relief threading her voice, "Mr. Kibet was just asking about his mother's care plan."
Daniel turned.
Recognition moved through his face — subtle but immediate. Not surprise. Expectation fulfilled.
"Dr. Naliaka," he said.
There it was again. The title, always precise. Always correct.
"Daniel," she replied, and felt the space tighten.
The nurse, sensing professional continuity, gestured lightly between them. "Doctor Naliaka is covering internal medicine consults this week."
Something passed through Daniel's eyes then — swift calculation, acceptance, inevitability.
"I see," he said.
The nurse excused herself to answer a call, leaving them in the narrow corridor's centre — not alone, not public, suspended between roles they could not quite separate.
Naliaka forced her attention to clinical ground. "I reviewed your mother's chart this morning," she said. "Her labs are stabilising. We're adjusting fluids and monitoring renal function closely."
He listened with full attention, as he always had — the same intent focus she remembered from years of shared classrooms and exam halls.
"Is she improving?" he asked.
The question was simple. The concern inside it was not.
"Yes," she said gently. "It's gradual, but she's responding."
Relief flickered across his features — quickly contained, but unmistakable. For a moment the man before her overlapped with the boy who once waited outside exam rooms with quiet intensity, results mattering not for pride but for survival.
"Thank you," he said.
The words carried more than courtesy.
Professional distance should have ended the exchange there. Instead, neither moved.
The corridor hummed softly around them — footsteps, distant trolley wheels, morning light angling through high windows. He stood close enough that she could see faint fatigue beneath his eyes again, the toll of nights spent here.
"You've been here every day," she said quietly.
It was not a question.
"Yes."
"Do you go home at all?"
A pause. Then, with faint irony: "Occasionally."
The dryness of it struck her with a flash of recognition — the same restrained humour he had used in school when pressure became unbearable and words were safer edged than open.
"I didn't realise," she said, "that you were… so involved."
"With my mother?" he said.
"With everything," she answered before caution returned.
His gaze held hers. There was no defensiveness in it — only a long, searching steadiness she remembered from adolescence, when neither of them quite knew how to say what mattered.
"I am responsible for her care," he said. "That has always been clear."
Always.
The word landed differently now. In school she had seen ambition, discipline, relentless drive. She had not understood the weight beneath it — the reason he studied as if the future depended on precision.
"I'm glad she has you," she said softly.
Something shifted in his expression — recognition of meaning beneath words.
"Thank you," he said again.
A nurse passed behind them, forcing them a step closer to allow space. The movement was minor, incidental — yet awareness flared instantly. Nearness carried memory in ways speech did not. The warmth of his shoulder within reach, the old instinct of orientation toward him in crowded corridors between classes.
Both felt it.
Both ignored it.
Professional ground again.
"Would you like to see her now?" Naliaka asked. "I was about to check on her."
"Yes," he said.
They walked side by side down the corridor — not touching, not speaking. Footsteps aligned without effort, as they once had crossing the St. Bartholomew's courtyard between buildings, uniforms brushing in passing, neither acknowledging the ease.
He noticed.
She noticed that he noticed.
Neither acknowledged it.
At the room door she paused, hand on the handle. "She may be sleeping," she said. "Her medication causes fatigue."
"I understand."
Their eyes met once more before entry — a brief convergence of past and present selves standing in sterile light.
She opened the door.
His mother lay resting, breath even, monitors steady. The room held quiet — the intimate quiet of illness and vigilance. Daniel moved immediately to the bedside, instinctively gentle, adjusting the blanket at her shoulder with practised care.
Naliaka watched without intending to.
The precision of his movements.
The tenderness he concealed elsewhere.
The unwavering attention.
This, too, had always been him — the boy who carried responsibilities she had only half perceived beneath immaculate grades and composure.
He looked up and found her watching.
For a moment neither spoke.
Then he said quietly, "You take good care of her."
The words struck with unexpected force. Professional praise should have felt neutral. Instead it carried weight — acknowledgement from him, trust given back across years.
"I'm trying," she said.
"You are succeeding," he said.
Silence settled again — not empty, not cold. Something closer now, though still unspoken.
At last she stepped back toward the door. "I'll return later this afternoon," she said. "If anything changes, the nurses will contact me."
"Of course."
She turned to leave.
"Naliaka."
He had not used her name before.
She stopped.
Turned.
He stood beside the bed, one hand resting lightly near his mother's arm — anchored between past and present, between obligation and memory.
"Yes?" she said.
For a moment it seemed he might say more. The air held possibility — fragile, dangerous — like the suspended silences they once shared after school when words pressed but never crossed.
Then composure returned.
"Thank you," he said simply.
She nodded, unable to trust her voice, and stepped into the corridor again.
But as the door closed behind her, one truth settled with quiet certainty:
They were no longer the brilliant students who had hidden feeling beneath achievement.
They were adults now — and proximity was stripping away the distance they had built.