Weaver's attention stayed on them longer than it needed to.
Not because he was angry—
because he was trying to understand what kind of room he had walked into.
His threads hovered around his shoulders in faint, strained arcs, not flowing the way they usually did. They looked like muscle after exertion—present, tired, and still half-braced as if expecting the pull to return.
He looked at Rose.
"Please," he said quietly, voice controlled but thin at the edges, "help me understand why this was an option?"
Rose didn't answer immediately.
She stood where she had landed, posture upright only because her body remembered how to hold itself up. Her eyes were unfocused for a moment, as if the room around her still wasn't real yet—like she might blink and wake to sand, to glass, to red humming under the floor.
She wanted to confront him.
She wanted to tell Allium.
She wanted to ask Weaver if he ever planned on saying it aloud.
But she still couldn't tell if she was here.
Rose swallowed, and her voice came out quieter than she intended.
"I tried to help Allium have control," she said. "I asked for help from Raya."
Weaver's gaze didn't move, but something in his expression shifted—recognition sliding into him like a slow cut.
Allium resting.
Allium sleeping.
It hadn't been true.
Rose had said it earlier like a shield, and he had accepted it because the alternative felt too dangerous to hold.
Now the lie sat between them, not as betrayal—but as proof that fear had forced choices from everyone.
For a moment, Weaver felt it anyway.
The sting.
The instinctive pull to reclaim the wheel.
He pushed it down.
Breathed through it.
"This was very dangerous," he said, voice firm but not sharp. "We will find a way… but not like this."
Rose didn't argue.
She couldn't.
Weaver turned toward Allium.
Allium was still recovering in the bed, posture too composed—too clean—like calm had been assembled rather than earned. His eyes tracked Weaver's movement with the same cautious attentiveness he gave any variable he couldn't predict.
Allium opened his mouth like he meant to speak.
Weaver didn't let him.
He stepped in and wrapped his arms around him.
Tight.
Not gentle.
Not careful.
A hug with weight behind it—relief and fear tangled together so tightly they became the same thing.
Allium's eyes widened in immediate shock.
He froze, arms hovering for a beat as if he didn't understand what was being asked of him. A hug wasn't a technique. It wasn't a defense. It wasn't a command.
It was contact.
It was human.
Slowly, uncertainly, Allium returned it—hands closing awkwardly behind Weaver's back like someone mimicking something they'd seen but never been taught.
Weaver didn't speak.
Not a word.
He released Allium, turned, and walked out of the dorm.
Just… left.
The door closed behind him with a sound that didn't slam, but still felt like impact.
Raya watched him go.
She was still kneeling beside Elysia, one hand pressed to the girl's back where faint smoke lifted from skin that had burned itself trying to carry too much blue at once. Raya's aura threaded through her in slow lines—cooling, guiding, repairing.
But her eyes followed Weaver anyway.
She saw who he really was now.
Not the legend.
Not the creator.
A man who had just hugged someone he once would have controlled.
Raya's gaze returned to Rose.
Rose stood too still.
Too quiet.
Like a person whose mind had taken a step somewhere it couldn't return from.
It looked like she'd seen something she would never forget.
Rose moved to Allium.
Normally, she stayed close without thinking—instinctive, anchored.
Now she stopped just short of him, hand hovering for a moment before she let it rest lightly on the blanket instead.
"Are you alright?" she asked softly.
She didn't look him in the eyes when she said it.
Her gaze stayed fixed on his chest—on the faint orange beneath the skin, on the place where the core had gone quiet and come back.
Allium noticed her concern anyway.
It was in her voice.
In the way her body held itself like it didn't trust the room.
"I'm okay," he said. Then, as if logic could cut through what emotion refused to name, he added, "Did this work? Was it able to be extracted?"
Raya's answer came immediately.
"No," she said. "No it didn't. I will explain."
Allium's eyes shifted toward her, attentive.
Rose stayed still.
Like explanation wasn't the part she was afraid of.
And then the moment—whatever it might have become—was allowed to end.
Because time didn't care what they had almost said.
We moved from their moment.
From their time.
For another's time.
⸻
Cassidy had been awake for hours.
Not because she was in pain—
because she was bored.
Endless hours in the ICU turned her busy mind into a trapped animal. The room was too clean. Too white. Too quiet. Machines breathed like they were trying to be soothing, and Cassidy hated them for it.
She picked at the edge of her eye bandage with one finger, then flicked her cheek lightly as if testing whether her own face was still hers.
She hummed. Off-key. Intentionally.
Across the room, Nina scanned data with a focus sharp enough to cut through steel. Her eyes were tired. Her jaw tight. The smallest twitch at the corner of her eyelid suggested she was waiting for something to go wrong simply because that's what always happened.
Cassidy watched her for a beat.
Then smiled.
"Ninnnnnyyyyy," Cassidy sang out, voice exaggerated like a child trying to annoy a parent on purpose.
Nina didn't look up.
"Am I finally done cooking or what?"
Nina sighed slowly and finally turned her head.
"Niny?" she repeated flatly. "Nina bear? Nini? Neens?" A pause. "It's Dr. Nina. How creative can you really get with this?"
Cassidy's mouth curled.
"Creative?" she echoed. "This is all natural, kiddo."
Nina's eye roll was practiced.
Usually it was enough. An eye roll. A walk away. Silence.
But to Cassidy?
That was fuel.
She opened her mouth again—
And then a monitor gave a sharp, clean set of five beeps.
A green flash pulsed across the screen.
Cassidy went quiet instantly.
Nina moved immediately, stepping to the machine like her body ran on instinct.
She read through the scan results.
Cassidy watched her face, trying to pretend she didn't care, trying to pretend the room wasn't suddenly too small.
Nina exhaled.
Relief softened her shoulders.
"Looks like you won't be needing this cast anymore," she said. "Ready to move a little?"
Cassidy's one exposed eye opened wide.
"I've never wanted to move so badly," she said quickly. "And my side itches like crazy—yes, Neen, I'd love to move."
Nina's mouth twitched.
Her face shifted into a frown—then broke into a small smile.
"Uh oh," Nina said, shaking her head like she'd just discovered new information. "Looks like you might have to stay another day, CeCe."
Cassidy gasped like she'd been shot.
"Nina—look—it was a joke—please don't leave me in here another day," she said, voice suddenly desperate. "I want to move."
Nina chuckled, the sound soft and real.
"Thought so," she said. "Give me a second. I'll have a specialist in here cutting you out."
Cassidy's exhale spoke volumes.
Another miracle of Solara.
Constant threat. Constant danger. Constant change.
And because the world refused to slow down, they kept advancing anyway—medicine, weapons, defense—always rising to fight the good fight like standing still was its own kind of death.
The specialist arrived.
Tools clicked.
Fast hands worked the cast free.
And soon Cassidy was finally out.
She kept her eye patch on.
She didn't look at it.
She didn't want to.
Scars remained anyway.
Faint burn marks along her arms and legs.
A tightness in her breathing that didn't fully leave.
A lung that would never pull as deep as it used to.
Joints that moved—but stiffly, like everything needed warming before it could obey.
And the left eye beneath the patch—
blind.
But none of that mattered as much as the relief of movement.
As soon as she could, Cassidy stood—carefully—and lifted her shirt slightly just to itch the side that had been tormenting her for days.
"Oh my God," she whispered in bliss. "I have missed this."
Nina evaluated her with brisk professionalism, eyes scanning posture, response time, breath.
"You're clear to head to your dorm," Nina said. She handed Cassidy two pill bottles. "Take these every couple of hours."
Then she handed her a datapad.
"And do these stretches daily," Nina added. "I mean it. If you want your mobility back."
Cassidy stared at the pills.
Then at the datapad.
Then back at Nina.
"Great," she muttered. "I'm an elderly woman now."
Nina shook her head.
Then her expression softened—just for a moment, honesty breaking through clinical control.
"I'm glad you came through," Nina said quietly. "And you're back on your feet."
Cassidy didn't hesitate.
She stepped forward and hugged her—cartoonishly hard.
Nina stiffened instantly, discomfort written across her whole body.
"Aw," Cassidy said with a grin, squeezing once more. "I love you too, Nina."
"I didn't say—" Nina started, but Cassidy was already pulling away, laughing under her breath.
Cassidy left the ICU with a bag slung over her shoulder.
Chips.
Chocolate.
Allium's gifts.
She held it like it mattered more than it should.
She walked a little oddly—like her body wasn't entirely under her control yet, like her legs still needed to remember the rhythm of being free.
But she gladly accepted that compared to being stuck.
Compared to being still.
The corridor to the dorms felt too long and not long enough all at once.
And then—
she almost ran into someone heading out.
Weaver.
He slowed immediately when he saw her.
His eyes lit up in a way that startled Cassidy—not because it was dramatic, but because it was loose, like his usual rigid presence had cracked somewhere.
"Goodness…" Weaver said, voice catching slightly. "Cassidy?"
Cassidy smiled and adjusted the bag on her shoulder like she was showing off a prize.
"One and only, Grandpa."
Weaver let out a small laugh.
A real one.
Like he'd missed the jokes while she was gone and hadn't realized how much until now.
"Welcome back," he said. "The others are at Rose's dorm. They'd be…" His words faltered. His gaze shifted for half a beat like the rest of the sentence carried weight. "…they'd be very happy to see you."
Cassidy watched him.
Not just his words.
His stance.
The loosening of his shoulders.
The way his threads sat quieter than usual, as if exhaustion had made them honest.
Something had happened.
Weaver didn't give her time to ask.
He walked past her and continued down the hall.
Cassidy tilted her head slightly, frown forming in the smallest way—curiosity sharpened by instinct.
Then she turned back toward the dorms and kept walking.
Because whatever had happened…
It was waiting for her.
And she could already feel, in the way the air held itself ahead—
that this was not going to be a normal reunion.