That loud beeping in her ears was definitely not something she had heard earlier. Seulgi blinked again, eyes squinting from the harshness of the light. She groaned and decided to just keep them closed, until she heard a soft voice over the beeping and a gentle grasp on her hand. Her eyes shot open, not caring about the burning sensation the action caused, and Seulgi saw the familiar face that had brought her back to this place, back where she belonged.

“Seulgi?”

Irene’s eyes were filled with unshed tears as she stared at her girlfriend in disbelief. Seulgi frowned at Irene, pupils contracted to tiny dots, not saying a single word in response. Irene let out a shaky breath before realizing that Seulgi was conscious and jumped to action, calling for a nurse as Seulgi remained frozen on the hospital bed, trying to adjust her eyes to the beams coming down from the ceiling.

Soon afterwards, a few medical personnel rushed in and started checking Seulgi’s vitals, flashing more lights into her eyes, asking Irene some questions, and whispering hurriedly to each other. Seulgi watched observantly as nurses rushed about and the doctor nodded to something another person was saying. She took notes on a clipboard, tapping her pen every now and then and glancing at the patient on the bed.

“Ms. Kang, I’m Dr. Lim, and I’m going to check some things to see what condition you’re in. How are you feeling?”

Seulgi just stared at the doctor, blinking. The doctor nodded and wrote something on the clipboard again. Irene looked worriedly at the calm woman.

“Dr. Lim, is she okay? Why isn’t she answering?”

The doctor checked some papers. “There’s a couple reasons she may not be talking, but lack of speech occurs quite frequently in coma patients. Oftentimes they recover soon enough, because they’re just not ready to move their vocal chords after a period of unuse.” She looked at Irene. “The other concern we have is that the bullet may have damaged part of her windpipe, but given the operative reports, this is very unlikely.”

“So, how long until I can hear her voice again?”

“It depends on the individual. Seeing that she woke up from the coma much earlier than expected and has stable vitals, I would say that you needn’t worry about long term consequences in verbal communications.”

Irene nodded, biting her lip. “Okay, Doctor.”

Dr. Lim turned back to Seulgi. “Ms. Kang, I need you to answer some questions for me, but since you can’t speak right now, I’m going to ask you to blink once to answer yes and twice to answer no. Is that clear?”

Seulgi blinked once.

“Perfect. So first, are you aware of where you are?”

Seulgi blinked. She could tell it was a hospital.

“Can you recognize this woman?” She pulled Irene into view. Seulgi stared at her but eventually blinked, making the smaller woman breathe a sigh of relief.

“Amazing. And do you remember how you ended up here?”

Seulgi thought, furrowing her eyebrows slightly. She knew that she’d been in Seoul carrying out the SWAT mission, and that several gunshots had rang out when she threw herself onto Irene. However, she didn’t remember being wheeled in or anything, so she struggled to explain that to the doctor. Her eyebrow twitched in confusion.

Thankfully, Dr. Lim seemed to notice that Seulgi was having trouble communicating her thoughts. “Ms. Kang, do you happen to know Morse code?”

Irene’s eyes lit up as Seulgi blinked once. “She told me she knows it well.”

Dr. Lim nodded. “Okay, that’s good to hear.” She pulled a young man forward. “This is Nurse Jung; he is one of the few people in this hospital who thankfully had the foresight to learn Morse code, so he’ll be standing here with