WLW - Long Distance Love - Artemis O’Dornan

Artemis O’Dornan lay half-propped against the pillows, one massive arm banded carefully around her ribs, breathing slow and even because anything faster felt like being stabbed from the inside out. The hospital room had gone mostly dark except for the amber glow of the hallway light spilling beneath the door. Machines hummed around her in an indifferent lullaby, but none of them held her attention. The only thing she focused on—the only thing she had the strength to give herself to—was the phone pressed against her ear.

She didn’t look like the Vice President of the Iron Maidens tonight. She barely looked like herself. Her usually proud posture was crushed down by three months of recovery, that towering 6’5’’ frame forced into stillness, wrapped in bandages and scars that felt too fresh to belong to her. Even with the pain meds, her body reminded her of every bullet. Every fall. Every moment Oya skidded out beneath her on the highway during the ambush.

But her voice—her voice still carried fire.

Even softened by exhaustion, it was unmistakably hers: low, warm, edged in that steel the club had taught her to wield.

“I told you, darlin’... I’m alright,” she murmured, fingertips tracing the cool metal of her silver chain. A habit. A grounding. She twirled it slowly around her index finger, careful not to jostle anything that would make her flinch.

The voice on the other end—fragile, shaken—came through muffled, the words indistinct. Artemis didn’t need clarity to understand the emotion behind them. Fear. Worry. That same panicked tremble she’d heard when the news first broke. When the first rumors of bodies on the asphalt spread. When Artemis hadn’t been conscious enough to pick up the phone.

She closed her eyes and breathed through the tight knot of guilt twisting in her chest. “I know, baby. I know. But listen to me—really listen.” She lowered her voice, letting it drop into that slow, coaxing register she rarely used for anybody else. “I’m alive. I’m here. And I’m stayin’ here. Nothin’—and I mean nothin’—is takin’ me from you.”

Her red eyes opened again, staring at the ceiling tiles above her. They were ugly as hell, but she kept her gaze steady so she wouldn’t drift too far into memory. That night was a cliff she refused to let herself fall off.

She heard her lover choke out another burst of sound—another wave of panic. Artemis’s jaw flexed, a shadow of her usual intimidation, but this wasn’t anger. This was frustration at her own helplessness. At being stuck in a bed while someone she loved spiraled because she couldn’t touch her, couldn’t lift her chin, couldn’t tilt her head and smirk the way she usually did to break tension.

Instead, she ran a slow hand over her hair, fingers brushing the fluff of her 4C curls. She’d taken out the braids two days ago because they tugged against the healing wound on her shoulder. The nurses tried to help, bless them, but they didn’t know what to do with hair like hers. She handled it instead, wincing through every careful movement. Now it sat in a soft, uneven halo around her head.

“I wish you could see me right now,” Artemis said, and a faint smirk tugged her lips despite everything. “I look like somebody knocked over a damn tree and forgot to pick it back up.”

Her lover made another worried noise—still trembling, still not reassured. Artemis’s smirk faded.

“Alright,” she exhaled, shifting with the painstaking patience of someone who now understood exactly where every muscle in her body was located. “Okay. Lemme tell you the truth the way you need to hear it.”

She swallowed, letting the cool leather-and-coconut scent of herself center her. Even here, even injured, she smelled like the road. Like who she was.

“The bullets didn’t kill me,” she said plainly. “The fall didn’t kill me. The surgery didn’t kill me. And three months of this hospital food definitely didn’t kill me.” Her fingers drummed softly against the blankets. “So you’re not losin’ me. You hear me? You are not losin’ me.”

There was another muffled burst of emotion—too jumbled to be words. Artemis clenched her jaw, fighting the ache rising in her throat. She didn’t cry. Not where anyone could see. Not even here, with dim lights and a closed door. But she felt it pull at her anyway—the heaviness, the ache, the guilt, the stupid fear that she’d scared the hell out of someone who loved her more fiercely than she probably deserved.

Artemis tilted her head back against the pillows, breath trembling once—only once—before she forced it steady again.

“Baby... look.” Her voice gentled. “If anything was gonna take me out? It would’ve happened that night. You know how many rounds I took?” She gave a short, humorless laugh. “Hell, Ma said she counted seven. Apollo swears it was eight. The doc told me it was five. Either way—I’m still here smackin’ my gums at you.”

Another noise. Softer this time. Less panicked.

Artemis exhaled, relieved.

“There you go,” she murmured. “Breathe. Slow it down for me.”

She shifted again, carefully adjusting her injured side. Pain spiked white-hot along her ribs and through her back, a reminder that healing—real healing—was slow. She swallowed it with a quiet grunt, letting it pass through her like a wave.

Her hand drifted down to the sheets, tracing an idle circle with her thumb. That restless itch she always had—the urge to move, to ride, to stand tall and confront the world—had nowhere to go in this room. The confinement pressed against her like a cage. She hated it. Hated hospitals, hated stillness, hated being fragile in front of anyone, even someone she trusted.

Especially someone she trusted.

“I’m gonna be honest with you,” she said after a minute, voice low. “When I woke up here, I thought... shit, I thought maybe I’d lost everything. My bike. My club. My body. You.” Her throat tightened. “Didn’t know what was left of me.”

The faint sound on the other end rose again—still soft, but tuned now with something else. Something like aching tenderness. Artemis didn’t look away from the ceiling. If she looked anywhere else, she might fold.

“But then I heard your voice the first time you called.” She twirled her chain again, the metal cool against her fingers. “You were cryin’ so hard I couldn’t make out a damn word, but I knew it was you. And that... that put me back together more than the surgeons did.”

Her eyes slipped shut. The memory hit her like heat—raw, overwhelming.

“Made me remember I had somethin’ to fight my way back to.”

Her lover spoke on the other end—this time clearer, though still small, still scared. Artemis listened, her brow pulling into a faint frown. She let the words wash over her, even if she didn’t like the fear she heard in them.

Then she shook her head, resolute.

“Don’t you dare start talkin’ like I ain’t comin’ home,” she said, her tone taking on that familiar iron that had once made grown men step back from her in a bar fight. “I’m not dyin’. Not for this. Not for anybody. I still got rides to lead. Paperwork to ignore. Midnight races to win. And you? You still owe me a dance, remember?”

Her lover’s voice wavered again, but this time Artemis heard a faint laugh buried beneath it. A tiny one—but real.

Artemis smiled. Not her smirk. Not her cocky grin. A real smile, soft and slow.

“There she is,” she murmured. “There’s my girl.”

She let silence settle between them—not awkward, not fearful. Just a shared breath across distance.

Her chest rose and fell in a shallow rhythm, careful not to aggravate her ribs. She brushed her fingers across the chain once more, then let her hand rest loosely at her sternum.

“You wanna know the truth?” Artemis said finally, voice barely above a whisper. “I think gettin’ shot slowed me down just enough to realize how damn much I need you.”

She felt her lover react to that—another tremble of noise across the line, but this one was warm, almost overwhelmed.

Artemis breathed out a soft laugh. “Don’t get used to me sayin’ soft shit like that. I’m blamin’ the pain meds.”

She winced again as she shifted, but forced herself to settle, to breathe through it.

“I didn’t tell you this part,” she said after a moment, voice drifting. “Right before the ambush—right before the first shot—I was thinkin’ about you. I had my hand on my chain, just like this. And I was smilin’ at nothin’. Apollo was makin’ fun of me for it.”

A tiny sigh came through the phone. Artemis imagined the shaking had eased. Good. That was the goal.

“I thought I had time,” she whispered. “Time to do the cross-country run. Time to see you. Time to show you the new routes I mapped out, the ones with the sunflower fields and the old bridges you like.” Her voice caught, rough. “Then everything went to hell in two seconds.”

The machines beside her beeped steadily, a reminder that she wasn’t finished healing.

“But I made it. And I’m makin’ it. You hear me? I’m not done.” She reached toward the nightstand, fingers brushing the handle of her switchblade where Apollo had smuggled it in for her. Security. Identity. A reminder she wasn’t prey. “The bastards who hit us didn’t finish the job, and they won’t get another chance.”

Her eyes hardened for a heartbeat—pure Iron Maiden steel—before softening again.

“But right now? The only thing that matters is you calm down and know I’m comin’ back to you.”

The voice on the other end finally steadied—still emotional, still shaky, but calmer. Artemis let herself sink deeper into the pillows, her long frame relaxing by degrees.

“There you go,” she whispered. “That’s better.”

Her eyelids grew heavy. The painkillers were winning. But she refused to end the call. Not yet. Not until she heard one last sound—one last soft exhale that told her the fear had ebbed enough for her lover to sleep tonight.

Not until she knew she’d given her everything she had left to give.

Artemis let the silence stretch, warm and alive between them, and smiled faintly to herself.

“I’ll be home soon,” she breathed, voice soft as asphalt rain. “And when I am?”

Her smirk returned—slow, wicked, undeniably hers.

“You’re not lettin’ me out of your sight again.”