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Author’s Notes — Season 22, Batch 22.6
Set within the twelve-hour jump of Episode 22×07, this batch traces endurance. Link moves from shock to function through waiting rooms, hard choices, quiet love, and borrowed strength. These unseen hours explain how he re-enters canon contained, present, and still carrying everything that the episode leaves unsaid.
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22.6.10 – Hour 11 – A Brief Moment Alone
Link retreats to the bathroom to steady himself, forcing control back into place. In the corridor, Teddy notices his exhaustion immediately. He admits he’s being pulled in every direction. She doesn’t argue or ask permission—she quietly takes responsibility for his care, then lets him return to the NICU.
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22.6.9 – Hour 10 – The Call Home
Link calls home to tell Luna and Scout about their baby sisters. He holds himself steady, offering gentle truth without promises. Their joy breaks through his fear, if only briefly.
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22.6.8 – Hour 9 – Back to the NICU
Back in the NICU, Link receives a careful update on the twins’ condition — hope tempered by uncertainty. Anchoring himself to Baby B, he chooses honesty over reassurance. With permission grounded in truth, he prepares to call his children and tell them about their baby sisters.
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22.6.7 – Hour 8 – Permission to Leave
Exhausted, Link wakes at Jo’s bedside to news from the NICU. Paralyzed by guilt, he admits his fear of leaving her. Ben stays with Jo, giving Link permission to go. With a quiet promise and a kiss, Link finally lets go — and leaves.
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22.6.6 – Hour 6 – Back to Jo
Link finally sees Jo in the ICU. Holding her hand, he tells her about their daughters and the choices he couldn’t make without her. Stripped of everything else, he admits the truth he’s been holding back: he needs her. He asks her to come back to him.
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22.6.5 – Hour 5 – The Update
Link receives a sober update on Jo’s condition: alive, supported, but not yet improving. Forced to leave the NICU, he entrusts his daughters to Bailey and Ben. As care is handed off, the support around him holds steady, allowing Link to face the next unknown.
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22.6.4 – Hour 3 – Meeting the Twins
In the NICU, Link meets his newborn daughters for the first time. Overwhelmed by their fragility, he connects through touch, love arriving instantly and without warning. Faced with uncertainty and postponed decisions, Link chooses presence and hope, staying with them until names—and answers—can wait.
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22.6.3 – Hour 2 – The Information Avalance
As doctors deliver overwhelming updates, Link learns the twins are alive and Jo has suffered cardiac arrest. Unable to process the flood of information, he freezes, torn between wife and daughters. With Bailey’s steady presence, Link accepts the next step—seeing his babies—while waiting for news that could change everything.
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22.6.2 – Hour 1 – Someone Always Stays
In the waiting room, time stretches as Link sits immobilized by shock. Colleagues come and go — Teddy, Owen, Webber — offering quiet, wordless support. Bailey returns and stays. Link doesn’t move forward, but he isn’t left alone. Presence, not action, carries him through the first hour.