Chapter 366 Final Goodbye
ADRIANA
When they returned twenty minutes later, Roy looked different.
"Adriana had an idea," Elijah announced, steering Roy back toward the sofa.
I blinked, caught off guard. "I did?"
"About the children." Elijah's eyes met mine, a silent communication passing between us. Play along, trust me. "You mentioned that it might help Roy to have his children here. With ours. So they could support each other."
Understanding dawned. I nodded, picking up the thread. "Yes. I was thinking, if our children are coming anyway, and your children are with your mother, perhaps they should come home. They shouldn't be away from their father during this time, Roy. They need to be here. With you."
Roy sank onto the sofa, his energy depleted. "I can't," he whispered. "I can't look at them and tell them that I lied. That I promised them she would beat this, that the treatments would work, that the cancer wouldn't win." His voice broke, fracturing on the last word. "Only my oldest knows. He figured it out when he didn't see her in the hospital room. He wouldn't stop asking questions until I told him the truth."
The image of a child extracting death from a father's broken promises made my throat tighten. I moved to sit beside him, close enough to offer comfort without demanding it.
"You don't have to tell them yet," I said softly. "Not until you're ready. But they should be here, Roy. They need to be near you, even if you can't find the words yet. And you need them. More than you need to protect them from this pain."
He said nothing, but a tear tracked down his cheek, followed by another.
The afternoon dissolved into a blur of arrivals and condolences. Pack members came in steady streams, bearing casseroles and sympathetic expressions, staying just long enough to acknowledge the enormity of the loss before retreating to the safety of their intact lives. I stood beside Roy, greeting them, accepting embraces and whispered words that meant nothing and everything.
Roy's children returned before mine, delivered by a grandmother who looked nearly as shattered as her son. The youngest two—seven and five, the same ages as our twins and Lorain—burst through the front door with the explosive energy of children who had been cooped up too long, who didn't yet know that their world had fundamentally changed.
"Daddy!" The girl launched herself at Roy, her small arms wrapping around his neck. "We missed you! Grandma made us eat broccoli!"
Roy's face transformed, the mask of grief sliding into place behind a facade of normalcy. He caught his daughter, lifting her high, his smile so bright it looked like it might crack his face. "Did she now? The horror. We'll have to file a formal complaint."
The boy hung back, more reserved, but allowed his father to ruffle his hair. "Can we watch the game tonight? The one we recorded?"
"Of course," Roy agreed, his voice steady despite the tremor in his hands. "Whatever you want."
I turned away, unable to witness the performance any longer, and found myself face to face with Roy's eldest. The boy—twelve, maybe thirteen—stood apart from the reunion, his eyes too knowing, too old for his face. He had been crying, I could see, the evidence tracked across his cheeks, but his expression now was blank, shuttered, protective.
He and his father looked at each other across the room, a silent conversation passing between them—the only two who knew the secret, bound together by tragedy. Then the boy broke, running across the space and crashing into his father's side, burying his face in Roy's shirt. Roy's composure finally shattered, his arms coming around his son, holding him as they both shook with silent sobs.
Elijah appeared at my elbow, his hand finding mine. "Come," he murmured, his voice rough. "Let's give them privacy."
He led me from the room, down the hallway to a guest bedroom that smelled of lavender and clean linen. He closed the door behind us, the click of the latch loud in the sudden quiet.
"What is it?" I asked, turning to face him. "What's wrong?"
He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he pulled me into his arms, holding me with a desperation that spoke of his own fears, his own recognition of mortality. I felt his heart hammering against my chest, the rapid rhythm of a man confronting his worst possibilities.
"Elijah," I whispered, my hands coming up to cradle his face. "You're frightening me. Talk to me."
He pulled back just enough to meet my eyes, and I saw the tears there, unshed but present, the sheen of emotion he rarely displayed. "I don't know what I would do," he said, his voice barely audible. "If I lost you. If I had to wake up in our bed alone, if I had to walk through rooms where your presence still lingered but you were gone." He swallowed hard, his throat working. "I don't think I would recover. I don't think I would want to."
The confession hung between us, heavy and terrifying in its honesty. I wanted to offer comfort, to promise him that such a day was decades away, that we would grow old together and die in our sleep holding hands like something from a romance novel. But I had learned long ago not to make promises the universe had no intention of keeping.
"You're going to have to recover," I said instead, my voice steady despite the ache in my chest. "If anything happens to me, you're going to have to get up the next morning. You're going to have to be King, and father, and everything else this family needs. You can't afford to fall apart, Elijah. Not for long."
His eyes narrowed, searching my face. "You've thought about this," he said, and it wasn't a question. "You've actually considered what would happen. What I should do."
I shrugged, offering a small smile that felt sad even to me. "I think about everything," I admitted. "It's my nature. And if the worst ever came, I would want you to mourn me properly, grieve completely, and then move forward. For the children. For the kingdom. For yourself."
He stared at me for a long moment, something unreadable moving behind his eyes. Then he pulled me close again, burying his face in my hair, saying nothing. I knew this silence—knew that he was filing the conversation away, refusing to engage with possibilities that hurt too much to contemplate. He would return to this eventually, when prompted by some future crisis, but for now he would let it rest, let the denial protect him.
The evening brought our children, delivered by a caravan of SUVs and security detail. The house filled with their energy, their noise, their desperate need for attention and reassurance.
Leo immediately took charge of the younger ones, organizing an impromptu movie night in the basement that kept all five children occupied and gave Roy the space to continue his performance of normalcy.
The funeral was held the next morning, exactly as Marie would have wanted. Roy had refused the traditional three-day mourning period, insisting that his wife wouldn't have wanted to linger in some refrigerated drawer while politicians made speeches about her character. She was buried beside her mother, in a cemetery on a hill that overlooked the territory she had loved.
We stood together as a family, the rain falling in sheets that matched the tears, and said goodbye to a woman who had deserved so much more time.