Several of my readers are regulars here so I will wrap this question in spoiler tags, and let that be a warning before they read out of respect.
Spoiler:
Okay so in the sci fi story I am currently writing there is a couple who we will call Sarah and Mike for sake of not dumping out any spoilers. Mike and Sarah have been growing closer together over the last few years in the story line. They both serve in the navy during a time of active military operations. While deployed they get into a fire fight with a bad guy, lets call him Jay, and Jay scores a near fatal blow to Sarah, while Mike watches just out of reach of helping. Jay gets away, but that is not important to this question. Mike carries Sarah back to the doctors and they treat her, but she is in a coma. She is in a coma for a few days (not hammered in time on that yet, but that kind of ball park) and wakes up.
Mike was not there when Sarah woke up, because he was at his post, but the doctors call him and he rushes to see her (with proper permission and all that). That is a really long setup, but the book is about 60k words so far, so its really short compared to that.
Anyways, I am trying to work out how the first moments of the reunion should be described. While do not write romance novels, but there is a romantic sub plot between these two. Sort of a forbidden love kind of one, since neither of them admits it, but others see it.
So far I have...(total extreme rough draft, so yes there are sure to be grammar/etc issues)
When I entered sickbay, Sarah was sitting up and sipping on a cup of water. That brought a huge smile to my face, due in part to the fact that I knew only Sue could get her to drink anything but that odd smelly herbal concoction she loved.
“Sarah!” I called out as I ran to her.
“Mike!” she responded with glee.
“How are you feeling?” I asked after a nice long hug.
“Oh, fine. A bit drained is all,” she said.
I do not know, it just does not seem to work. Maybe its just the "nice long hug" but it feels a bit to clinical. Any suggestions? Thanks!