Dr. Evans shifted his weight and adjusted his glasses, caught between us.

He was not a cruel man.

He was a tired one, working a rule set that had been written for good reasons by people who had never seen this particular chair.

“Sarah,” he said carefully. “Technically, Sterling isn’t wrong. The fatigue factor alone — a man that exhausted, holding an infant that fragile, for that long — the odds of a drop go up the longer this runs. We should transition her back to the isolette while everyone’s calm. It’s the safe call.”

“The safe call,” I said, “is the one that doesn’t send her back into crisis.”

But they were done listening to me.