126

126
Ryan's POV

I press my fingers to the glass, watching her from beside the bed they've let me stay in. “Man, I never thought she could be so happy,” I murmured.

The thought of her getting back that laughter with Thane, relishing baby Draco, striding through their home as only someone who has found where she fits in can do — it is beautiful and it breaks my heart. All those years I spent lying to myself, telling myself I was doing this for her benefit and that she needed me when, in fact, all I did was ruin the best thing that ever happened to her.

Victor, my only beta sits in a corner. The lines in his face reveal the weariness that comes when you watch your Alpha disintegrate for months due to a guilt eating and gnawing at him relentlessly, until it has literally become a physical disease.

He speaks quietly, the title Alpha more of a worn-out habit than reality; I lost any true right to authority when my pack crumbled around my mistakes. “The big lesson here for me is that all any of us can do is try to make better choices going forward.”

An answer using that precision of language that has only felt suddenly easier with the inevitable nearness of death, "But one might now have…much 'going forward' either I'm afraid. The wasting sickness that began as insolubility and no real need to eat has now turned into full body atrophy, endless tiredness and a dull ache in my chest that no doctor can cure. We know from the medics that it is quicker now. Maybe weeks instead of months."

Out the window of what was Thane and Astella's guest room, I can see what is now their vast compound - creatures from species that shouldn't be shoulder to shoulder, kids playing without the base fear their parents used to carry, gardens along with homes and training grounds that embody everything about true leadership absolutely lost on me. They instead built a community around choice and cooperation, without coercion or fear — and the proof is in the pudding.

“Deserves every bit of it,” I mumble, gazing as Astella demonstrates some magical something to a group of young supernaturals that sit up on the floor before her in rapt attention. The respect, the love, the family, and the purpose. I was so focused on what I wanted from her that I never stopped to ask, what does she want?

Marcus looks at me with cautious optimism. "It seems the confession yesterday helped. Both of you, I mean. Because you finally got a good night's sleep when you told her everything.”

“Maybe,” I say with a little honesty, “it's all in the eye of the beholder as you die from inside headed out. It felt nice to call out loud the sentiment that I have been scheming for months. And step up; to actually own the damage that I did, not making excuses or trying to explain it away.”

I am pulled from my thoughts by a light knock on the door, and I raise an eyebrow when Astella appears with a tea tray in hand and what looks to be an unreadable expression. She is different from the scared and desperate woman I have seen last… pregnant and alone on the run. Feel about her glowing bright with confidence, knowing exactly who she is as Luna and mom and wife.

She placed the tea tray on my bedside stand just under the bay window. “I thought you would be hungry,” was all she said. “Elena made your favorite cookies—the ones slathered with honey and nuts that she used to bake whenever you came to the pack territory years ago.”

"You remember my favorite cookies?" Huh, I am shocked by such a simple but kind gesture. “All of the things I did to you and you think of something that trivial?”

“You have good and bad memories here, times where you genuinely acted as a nice person and times when you were manipulative or cruel. People are complicated, Uncle Ryan. It is full of love, even for the ones that hurt us horribly.”

The family title stings more than I anticipated and it almost makes me cry but then again, I do because they were not happy tears. “You can't say this to me. I gave up the right to bring anything to your family, when I prioritized my dreams above your safety.”

“Perhaps,” she allows, honestly gently. “But you are the one who helped me learn my shaman abilities in the first place. I was nothing beforehand now don't take away what you taught me or else what am i? You are the one who first taught me what I was and what I could be. And again, that certainly does not justify the nasty shit you did turn into after all that ran out, but it also doesn't go away.”

“I mean, I only showed them to you because I had selfish reasons for doing so," I admit looking at her brown eyes. “I wanted you powerful because I believed that your power would work to my advantage. I never even questioned whether you wanted to become proficient in those areas.”

"I know," she says softly. “Knowledge was still knowledge even if the reason for having it was stupid. I've been able to take what you taught me and apply it in the name of helping others, of creating something that means. Somehow your self centered teachings were the basis to choices that actually were kind.”

General Silence, we share tea and biscuits for a few solid minutes and I just try to grok the feelings surviving in me. Not an inch of me thought that I'd be having this conversation when I decided to go. I expected her to be irate, belligerent, demanding answers that I did not have. Instead, she is being gentle with me in a way that I have never before felt.

"Can I ask you something?" … she tells me, after a moment, in that chosen careful manner of speaking about something uncomfortable.

"Of course," I answer; there's no use in mincing words anymore.

“Maybe you wonder, The baby I lost — our baby — do you ever think of how it all might have been different if you'd verified the pregnancy? If you'd been on my side rather than throwing me to the wolves to save face?”

The question drops like a punch, bringing me face-to-face with the what-if I have been avoiding for months. I whisper, my voice breaking a little. "Every single day. And I think of that child as the kind of family you should have had, and how things might have turned out totally different if only somebody would stand by you. I wonder how our lives would have been had I chosen love over fear.”

“Was that baby deserving of love from you?” she says, “and all the confusion of those years is there. Or, would you have referred to it as such a convenient means by which you hoped to gain political mileage?”

I hesitated for a brief moment; then a fleeting sense of guilt filled my stomach, "Umm…I don't know…I would like to believe I would have — but really? My thoughts were so saturated with self-regard and was so intent to turn every instance into moves toward my ends, that I probably viewed the baby merely as another pawn in my political gambits. And that scares me even more than dying.”

“You can see it, at least,” she says something that might be forgiveness in her voice. “Right by Wrong, but at least you know the option you did and knew that it was a mistake. This is more growth than a lot of people grow up to do.”

But somewhere in the middle of this impossible conversation, it feels like there is furniture moving itself around the room. No magic, really, just a feeling of ending, that wounds are acknowledged if not salved. I feel the dull pain in my chest subside ever so slightly, and for the first time in months.

“Thank you,” I state. “Thank you for allowing me to say these things, for not listening with judgement, for being kind to one so undeserving. It means more than you know."

“When they are dying, everyone deserves a little kindness, Uncle Ryan. Even to people who have made enormous mistakes. Especially by folks who now see how awful those choices really were.”

And as she gets up and leaves, leaving me alone to have a quiet moment and think about our conversation I almost come to tears of joy that this unexpected forgiveness might be the most valuable present someone has ever given me.