KAEL
Aria was asleep.
She'd gone under about an hour ago, her breathing evening out slowly, her body finally giving up the fight to stay awake.
She was curled slightly toward me, one hand resting loosely near her stomach the way it had started doing without her seeming to notice, like some part of her was always checking, always making sure.
I watched her for a while.
I didn't mean to. I just couldn't stop.
She looked younger when she slept. Less like someone who had spent the past several days being put through the worst kind of hell and more like herself, the version of her I'd started collecting without realizing it.
The one that showed up in small moments.
The way she laughed when something caught her off guard. The way she looked at me sometimes when she thought I wasn't paying attention, like she was still trying to figure out what I was.
She was carrying our child and she had survived a bomb strapped to her chest and she was here, breathing, warm, and mine.
