Aria’s POV
Day nine, the doctor ca in with a folder and a borderline cheerful expression that ant good news.
"Everything is looking excellent," she said, running through the list. "The leg is healing cleanly. No sign of infection. The fever is completely resolved." She glanced down at her notes. "And the baby—" She looked up, and her expression ward. "Developing beautifully. Strong heartbeat. Exactly where we want to be at this stage."
I put my hand flat on my stomach. A habit I’d developed over the past week. I did it without thinking now.
"So I can go ho," I said.
"Tomorrow morning," she confird. "With conditions. Rest. Proper als. No excessive physical activity for the next two weeks."
"Define excessive."
She gave the look. The one that said she’d heard that exact question before and knew exactly what it ant. "Nothing that would make regret discharging you early."
"Fine." I smiled. "Tomorrow morning."
---
I texted Kael.
*They’re releasing tomorrow.*
Three dots appeared almost imdiately.
*I know. I talked to your doctor this morning.*
I stared at that for a second.
*You called my doctor?*
*She called . I’m listed as your ergency contact.*
I had not done that. Soone had done it on my behalf, apparently, at so point during the days I’d been unconscious and not in a position to have opinions about things.
*I would have found out eventually,* I typed back.
*Tomorrow at ten,* he replied. *Be ready.*
---
Sophie arrived at nine forty-five with Lina’s hand in hers and Lilith walking alongside. Both girls had been inford of discharge day with great ceremony — Lina had made a card. It had a drawing of what I believed was ant to be a wolf, though it looked more like a very enthusiastic potato with legs.
I kept it.
I was going to keep it forever.
I was dressed and sitting on the edge of the bed when Kael arrived. He walked in and imdiately looked at my leg. Then at my face. Then seed to determine sothing satisfactory from that assessnt.
"Ready?" he said.
"I’ve been ready for nine days."
"You’ve been *recovering* for nine days."
"I can do both."
He had a wheelchair with him.
I looked at it.
"Kael."
"Doctor’s orders."
"My leg is *fine.*"
"Your leg has a healing wound and you’ve been horizontal for over a week." He gestured at the chair. "Sit."
I sat. Not because he told to. Because Lina imdiately climbed onto my lap the mont I was in it, and arguing from under a four-year-old was structurally difficult.
"This is undignified," I said.
"You look great," Sophie said, very sincerely.
"You’re lying."
"I’m being supportive."
Kael took the handles. Lina settled herself more firmly on my lap, apparently deciding that if I was getting a chariot, she was coming along. Lilith walked beside us, one hand resting lightly on the arm of the wheelchair — not holding on exactly. Just present. Just close.
We made it to the elevator.
The doors opened.
And standing in the hospital lobby, near the entrance, with a wrapped bouquet of pale flowers and matching expressions of carefully controlled emotion — were Selene and Lucian.
I stopped breathing for half a second.
Selene looked like herself. Elegant, silver-haired, that composed warmth she carried like a second skin. But her eyes were bright, and she was holding those flowers with both hands like she’d been gripping them for a while.
Lucian.
Lucian looked better than the last ti I’d seen him — which had been unconscious on a sitting room floor, a fact I was choosing not to dwell on. He was upright. He was here. There were shadows under his eyes that probably weren’t going away anyti soon, and he was standing slightly apart from his mother in the way of soone who wasn’t entirely sure of their welco in a given space.
But he was *here.*
Selene stepped forward first.
"Aria." She offered the flowers. Her voice was steady, but just barely. "We wanted to co."
I took them. The scent hit — sothing soft, sothing that slled like the kind of garden where good things happen. My throat tightened imdiately.
"You didn’t have to," I said. And then, because that sounded wrong: "I’m really glad you did."
Selene’s composure held for about three more seconds. Then she reached out and cupped my face in both hands the way a mother does, and her eyes went bright, and she said: "You co ho soon and let cook for you. That is not negotiable."
I laughed. It ca out slightly unsteady. "Okay."
She released . Straightened up. Found her composure again with the efficiency of soone who’d been doing it for decades.
Then Lucian moved.
He ca forward slowly. His hands were in his jacket pockets. His eyes — grey now, where they’d once been dark gold, and I wondered sotis if that was sothing he’d gotten used to seeing in mirrors yet — were on the floor first, then ca up to find my face.
He stopped a foot away.
Opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Tried again.
"I’m—" He stopped. His jaw worked. "I don’t know how to do this well," he said. Very quietly. Very honestly. "I don’t have a lot of practice with it."
"Neither do I," I said.
Sothing in his face shifted. Loosened.
"You ca," he said. "To the house. When you didn’t have to. When nobody would have blad you for staying away." He exhaled. "And whatever you did — I don’t know exactly what it was, I don’t rember much, but I know—" He stopped again. Pressed his lips together. "I know it was you. I know you’re the reason I woke up."
The lobby had gone very quiet.
"Lucian—"
"Just let say it." His voice cracked slightly on the edges. "Please."
I waited.
"Thank you," he said. Simple. Unadorned. The kind of thank you that took everything soone had left. "Thank you for coming. Thank you for—" He made a gesture that took in everything, the whole impossible tangle of it, and gave up trying to put it in words.
Then he held out his arms.
Awkward. Uncertain. Like soone who had been told that this was the correct gesture for this mont and was sincerely trying to execute it correctly but had not done it enough to be sure.
I stood up from the wheelchair.
Lina slid off my lap with a small protest. Kael’s hand found my elbow, steadying.
I stepped forward.
And Lucian hugged .
It was stiff at first — both arms around , careful, like he was afraid of breaking sothing. Like he’d forgotten what it felt like to hold soone without it being about force or desperation.
Then sothing in him eased.
His grip settled. His shoulders dropped. He took one slow breath.
And for just a mont, he was just a person. Not a broken Alpha. Not a warning story. Not the ghost of the man he used to be. Just a person, standing in a hospital lobby, arms around soone who had shown up when it mattered.
It only lasted a few seconds.
He pulled back. Cleared his throat. Looked sowhere past my shoulder.
"Right," he said. His voice was back to even. Almost. "Good. That’s—" He nodded once. "Good."
He was not, as Selene had once told in quieter circumstances, accustod to displays like this.
He was trying anyway.
The flowers were still in my hands. The lobby slled like antiseptic and those pale blooms both at once. Lina had migrated to Kael’s side and was examining Lucian with the unfiltered curiosity of soone who had absolutely no social filters. Lilith was watching with that expression — the one that said she’d noticed everything and was filing it away.
Kael’s hand was still at my elbow. Warm. Steady.
I looked at Lucian’s face. At the awkward angle of his shoulders, the slightly too-bright eyes, the rigid line of soone who had just done sothing vulnerable in public and was now very loudly pretending he hadn’t.
I was overwheld. That was the honest word for it.
I hadn’t expected this. Either of them. The flowers, the words, the arms that had held like I was sothing worth holding.
It was clumsy and imperfect and a little awkward, the way all genuinely felt things tend to be.
But it was real.
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