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His answering hum was probably sleepier than he had intended.

 

“Rhys!” Juliet repeated, and this time, she placed a hand on his cheek, too. “Where’s Mama?”

At that, Rhys forced his eyes open. He had to blink a few times before his eyes got accustomed to the dark of the room, taking in the bed—empty, indeed, save for Juliet sitting down next to him.

Her frown was deep in place, but her hand was still on his cheek—as if waiting for him to wake up before checking where Feyre had disappeared to.

 

And it was funny, Rhys thought. Because Juliet had been perfectly able to climb out of her bed and sneak in theirs all alone a little earlier that night—and yet she apparently hadn’t dared to leave the room without waking him up, this time.

 

He huffed.

 

“I don’t know where Mama is,” he replied, his voice still a little raw with sleep. He pressed his palms to his eyes to chase sleep away. “Wanna go check?”

Juliet was already nodding even before she climbed out of bed. Rhys was a little slower in his movements, mind still a little sleepy, and when he checked the time on the clock, he understood why.

“Four in the morning,” he grumbled as he finally stood, “is way too early to get up.”

Juliet’s small giggle reached his ear. She had stopped just before the closed door, waiting for him, and slid her palm against his as soon as he was beside her.

“Before,” she said matter-of-factly, finally opening the door, “you were always working at night.”

 

Rhys snorted—more at himself than at her.

 

It was true, too.

He had never been one to get many hours of sleep—and had grown quite accustomed to it in the couple of weeks since they’d left the hospital.

 

Juliet was the one to lead the way out of the room—her hand tugging at his—and into the corridor that eventually brought them to the living room. And just like Rhys had expected, they found Feyre there, sitting on the couch with her back to them and her head cocked to the side.

Entirely focused on the painting in front of her—a perfect recreation of the open view of the city she could see from the windows.

 

“Mama!”

Juliet let go of Rhys’s hand immediately as her mother came into sight, only to run toward her and envelop her arms around her from behind. If Feyre was surprised, she didn’t let it show. She huffed softly instead, leaning her head to kiss her daughter’s hand from where it was wrapped around her chest.

“What are you doing up so late?” Feyre asked Juliet, glancing over her shoulder to take in Rhys, approaching as well.

“You were not in bed,” Juliet replied, scolding. She moved her arms from around Feyre to try and climb over the back of her couch and join her, and when she didn’t manage, Rhys helped her silently until she was sitting next to Feyre.

“And little missy here thought she should wake up the whole house and organize a search party,” he finished for her with a hint of teasing. Feyre chuckled as he rounded the couch to join them.

 

The painting was, indeed, exquisite, and Rhys immediately softened, even as a tired yawn escaped him.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Feyre offered in answer, shrugging. “You should go back, though. You should—”

“No,” Juliet shook her head frantically. “We’re good here.”

 

And it probably didn’t matter, to her, that Rhys was exhausted, and that he was already lying down on the sectional couch where he would probably fall back asleep in no time.

 

“You’ll be very tired, tomorrow,” Feyre countered, brushing Juliet’s hair away from her face when really, she was probably speaking to Rhys as well. “You—”

“Please,” Juliet pouted quietly.

 

Rhys was already smiling when Feyre glanced at him—both of them knowing Juliet had already won.

 

“At least settle down,” Rhys offered quietly, motioning for Juliet to come lay beside him. He yawned again. “And let Mama paint.”

Juliet didn’t need more than that. She nestled close to him, but furrowed her brows. She moved again, reached for the blanket wrapped around the other end of the couch, and brought it back with her. Rhys helped her as she placed it on both of them.

“Here,” Juliet announced, satisfied, as she nestled against his side once more. She was turned toward Feyre, ready to observe her the moment she would start painting again.

 

Feyre was smiling, her eyes never leaving them. From where she was sitting cross-legged a few inches from them, she pushed on her knees and leaned in. She placed a kiss on Juliet’s forehead,

“Try to sleep,” she said, then leaned in to brush a kiss on Rhys’s lips. “Both of you.”

 

She was about to retreat, but Rhys stopped her with a gentle hand on her wrist.

“Where did you find that?”

 

She was confused, at first, but understood immediately when he nodded toward the hoodie she was wearing.

The dark blue, silver-printed, Prythian School of Medicine hoodie.

 

“Oh,” she huffed, glancing down at it. “In the cupboard where you keep your coats. I was uh—” she huffed again. “I was cold.”

“What is it?” Juliet was still between them, trying to understand—and to see, too, with Feyre still hovering above her.

Feyre continued, “Do you mind?”

“No,” Rhys answered with a smile tugging at his lips, sliding his hand down to gently hold hers. “Not at all.”

“What is it?” Juliet repeated—and this time, she probably had a frown on her face.

 

Rhys brushed his thumb over the back of Feyre’s hand, never taking his eyes off hers, before he answered,

“My university hoodie.”

He finally tore his eyes away to glance at Juliet beside him.

“The one I got when I was in medical school.”

Her frown deepened. “Medical in school?” she asked. “But, what for?”

“To become a doctor,” he explained. “That’s where I went to become one.”

 

Juliet paused at that, eyes slowly observing him, before turning to Feyre and the hoodie she was, indeed, wearing.

 

It was a little too big for her, but despite the years, it was still in good condition.

 

When none of them spoke, Rhys gently brought Feyre’s hand to his lips, and placed a delicate kiss on the back of her hand.

“It looks good on you, Ma’am,” he said, and absolutely meant it.

 

Feyre rolled her eyes at him, but like it usually was, it was fond.

 

“Sleep,” she said, pulling away from them. “Both of you.”

“And you won’t?”

She nodded toward her painting. “I want to finish this. Keep distracting me, and I won’t have a night sky to look at.”

 

Rhys shifted on his side so he could look at her better, bringing Juliet a little closer, too.

“Hear that, Jules?” he murmured in mock-offense. “We’re distracting her.”

“No,” Juliet disagreed. And she was very serious, too, yet Rhys was already chuckling before she continued, “Mama loves it.”

 

And they all knew she did.

 

 

Unsurprisingly, when Rhys woke up the next day, it was late. The sun was already enveloping the room and the now finished painting in front of them. It was casting a beautiful glow on Feyre’s sleeping face, too, curled up beside them on the couch.

Juliet was already awake though, playing with a stuffed animal Rhys hadn’t even noticed she had the day before.

 

“Hello there,” he greeted quietly. “Sleep well?”

Her bright grin was his only answer.

“Come on,” he murmured as he slowly straightened. “Let’s get some breakfast and let Mama sleep. She’s had a long night.”

 

Juliet followed Rhys into the open kitchen behind them, and just like every single morning, he began by making a pot of coffee, before setting everything he would need for Juliet on the kitchen island.

Medications, bandages, and sterile dressings. A thermometer, a blood pressure monitor, as well as a stethoscope.

He placed everything on the counter, and by the time he was done, Juliet was already sitting at the counter, observing him.

 

“You ready?” he asked when he noticed her eyes trained on him.

Juliet slowly cocked her head to the side, her eyes still observing him.

She hesitated, before asking,

“We still have to do this for how long?”

“For…” Rhys started, “A couple of months, Jules.”

“And then,” she asked, “It’s over?”

“Then…” he sighed, leaning on the island slowly. He was closer to her now, and had a perfect view of the hesitancy in her features—a perfect view of the hope in her eyes. “Then, we stop doing this twice a day. But we’ll have to keep going.” He paused, then added. “Every week. We’ll need to keep checking every now and then.”

 

When all Juliet did was lean her head further on the side—as if thinking, or processing the piece of information he had given her, perhaps, Rhys added,

“It’ll be less and less,” he nudged her head gently so she would straighten. “But we’ll have to keep checking for a few…” His hand lingered on her face, grazing a gentle finger on her cheek. “A few years. You’ll have regular appointments at the hospital, too. Like that one we went to last week.”

“Why?”

“Because we have to make sure your new heart doesn’t get sick.”

 

She didn’t answer. But Rhys knew she understood.

With a gentle hand, he flicked her nose—a way to draw a small smile out of her.

 

“I’m ready,” she announced, slowly straightening.

Rhys smiled proudly at her. He straightened as well, and pushed the medicine her way as he reached for the apple juice in the fridge.

“Here,” he set a glass in front of her. “Meds first, and—”

“And then, the wound,” she finished for him. “So—” she lifted a hand with each new thing she started listing, “—bandage, heart rate, blood precioure.”

 

The smile she leveled at him was one full of pride.

 

“Yes?”

“Blood pressure,” he corrected gently—a little quietly, too—as he sat down next to her. “But, yes.”

 

With both her hands, Juliet reached for the glass of apple juice in front of her, and took a sip. Rhys reached for the pills on the kitchen island to hand her, and she took them from him without a word, gulping them down.

And then, they started a set of rehearsed motions they had already done time and time again.

Removing the bandage, inspecting the wound, cleaning it. Checking her blood pressure. Taking her temperature. Listening to her heart.

 

Rhys always paused a little at that step.

Always made sure he heard everything right.

 

Always let his eyes flutter closed, and felt his heart relax, too, at the way Juliet’s heart was beating loud, and strong, and steady.

So fucking healthy.

 

He hadn’t even noticed Feyre was up until he felt a hand on his back. Rhys only then opened his eyes and removed the stethoscope from his ears.

“All good?” she murmured, brushing her hand on his back until it reached the back of his neck.

“All perfectly good,” he smiled, both to her and to Juliet.

 

Juliet grinned at him, too.

Feyre was the one who reached for the sterile dressings on the island to hand to him.

 

Rhys took them silently, and began to unwrap one. As he started covering the wound back up with a new bandage, he asked,

“Do you know what day it is, you two?”

 

His question was more for Juliet than for Feyre—he knew she knew. And he got the confirmation when he glanced at her from the side and saw the smile dancing on her lips.

She was still wearing his hoodie from the day (night?) before, and he absolutely loved the sight.

 

He loved the sight even more, though, when she removed it—setting it carelessly on the island next to them and leaving herself in only a light camisole he adored.

 

“What day?”

Juliet’s words dragged his attention back to her, and he blinked as he refocused.

“Today,” Feyre explained gently when Rhys didn’t, “is the last day you spend with a bandage on, Jules.”

At her mother’s words, Juliet blinked, glanced down at her chest and the new bandage, before turning to Rhys.

“It is?” she asked.

“It is,” he nodded. “Tonight, we’ll remove it, and you should be good to sleep without it. If nothing hurts by tomorrow morning, we’ll stop the bandages entirely.”

 

He was moving as he spoke, standing and reaching for the old bandage to throw it out.

 

“We’ll still check it every day,” he added before she could ask. “As I said, we have to check it very regularly. But—” He moved, slowly removing each of the items he had used from the kitchen island to place them away. “We can at least stop the bandages.”

Juliet was grinning when he turned to her again, her shirt in hand to slide it back on. Rhys winked at her, then nodded to both Feyre and her,

“Hungry, now?”

 

Juliet’s ecstatic yes! was what sent him laughing, but Feyre’s eye roll was what had him moving. He reached for a pan and some eggs to prepare, and was joined by Feyre after just a moment. She was pouring two cups of coffee when Rhys placed a kiss on the back of her head, and a hand on her waist over the light camisole.

“Good morning, love,” he murmured, as if they hadn’t been speaking for a few dozen minutes.

Even from where he was standing behind her, he knew she was grinning when she replied with a quiet, “Hi.”

He leaned his head into the crook of her neck to place a kiss there, then reached her cheek—and finally, when Feyre turned her head to the side, he placed one on her lips.

“You finished your painting?” he asked, slowly straightening, but not by far.

“Mh,” she confirmed. “And now I may or may not be regretting it. I feel as bad as if I’d spent my night drinking.”

 

He huffed, placing a kiss on her temple now.

“Hence the coffee,” he announced, nodding toward the pot. “And the double dose I’ve put on this morning.”

 

Feyre was still huffing when she turned around, both her hands wrapped around the cup of coffee she was already lifting to her mouth.

“I—”

She trailed off in a huff, her eyes landing somewhere behind him, and when Rhys turned to look, he laughed as well.

“See,” Feyre started teasingly. “I could have sworn we used to have a kid.”

 

She took a few steps toward the kitchen island, chuckling.

And indeed, Rhys couldn’t refrain his amusement, either.

 

Juliet was still sitting on a chair across from them. At least, they could guess. But her head was hidden from view—swallowed under the layers of fabric from the hoodie she was trying to put on. His hoodie.

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rhys teased as well, making a point of walking very quiet steps to reach the other side of the counter. “I don’t see anything.”

“Mh,” Feyre mused. “You might be right.”

They both heard the quiet chortle from under the hoodie Juliet was still trying to slide on.

“Did you hear something?”

“Nope,” Feyre shrugged.

“I could have sworn I heard a—”

Rhys stopped mid-sentence as soon as he brought both hands to Juliet’s stomach—making sure to avoid the scar and the bandage he had just replaced—and started tickling very gently.

Her excited giggles were immediate.

“Ah-ah!” he announced triumphantly. “I knew I heard something.”

 

Rhys didn’t tickle her for long—he knew not to. Not to have her moving too much, or risk touching the bandage without meaning to.

Still, when he stopped, Juliet was a little breathless.

 

He helped her pull her head out from under the hoodie, removing her hair from her face.

“You good?” he asked, just because he had to make sure.

“Yes,” she nodded, then let out another expected giggle. “You’re silly.”

Rhys chuckled as Juliet slid her arms into one of the sleeves, then the other.

“We couldn’t see you under all of—” Feyre trailed off, chuckling as well. “This. You want me to get you one of your sweaters, Jules? This one is a bit—”

“No,” Juliet frowned, wrapping her hands around herself, as if trying to make sure they wouldn’t get her out of the hoodie. “No.”

 

Rhys had reflected, earlier in the night, how the hoodie was a little too big for Feyre.

Now, it was simply gigantic for Juliet. The sleeves were hanging way too low, making her arms and hands disappear, and they would probably reach the middle of her legs, should she stand.

But she looked so proud wearing it that Rhys had to chuckle again.

 

Juliet continued,

“I like it.”

“You can keep it,” Rhys assured her. “It fits you.”

 

And it wasn’t exactly correct—but it was true all the same.

 

“What’s that smell?” Juliet wrinkled her nose in displeasure. “It’s—”

“Shit!” Rhys was moving before he knew it. “The eggs!”

 

---

 

 

The second Christmas they spent together was a far happier one than the year before.

 

Instead of alone, they spent it surrounded by family.

Instead of wishing for a new heart, they spent it grateful for the new heart.

 

And instead of the hospital room, they had spent it at Rhys’s parents house.

 

Surrounded, indeed.

They spent it with his family ; between happy laughter and delicious dishes ; between Stella’s retelling of her favorite surgeries, and Rhys leaning in to Juliet’s ear to whisper idiocies and make her giggle ; between Yelena’s happy smiles and Feyre’s grateful ones.

Between Rhys’s father’s silent treatment, too.

And Rhys ignoring him entirely.

 

So it had been a very different one, indeed.

 

But what wasn’t different was the one thing Rhys was dead set on replicating.

 

“We’re going outside,” he announced—to everyone, to no one, to anyone. “To watch the fireworks.”

 

Yelena had huffed, her smile wide and her eyes dancing with joy, “Oh.”

Stella had straightened, “Can I come, too?”

Feyre had softened—her smile brightening his whole world. “You remembered.”

 

But of course he did.

 

So they went outside, all of them. They wrapped themselves in coats (or, in Juliet’s case, in that hoodie she would not leave the loft without), and all made their way to the small garden his father always took meticulous care of.

Unsurprisingly, he was the only one who didn’t join.

Rhys couldn’t care less.

 

They settled on the wooden steps of the porch that led to the garden, Stella silently sipping her wine as Yelena leaned her head against her shoulder.

“You didn’t have to make everyone go out in the cold,” Feyre told him quietly, shifting closer to him, “Just for me to watch the fireworks.”

Juliet was sitting on the stairs below them, her head leaning on Rhys’s knee as Feyre brushed her hand up and down her daughter’s chest in a soothing motion.

“I didn’t,” Rhys countered, a smile tugging at his lips. “They all came all on their own.”

Feyre huffed, but she leaned in to kiss him anyway.

“Thank you,” she murmured against him. “And I love you.”

 

Rhys was about to answer—to tell her how much he loved her, too, truly—but Juliet standing before them had them both looking her way.

“Where are you going?”

But she was already climbing over them to walk toward the house, and merely offered over her shoulder,

“I’m coming back!”

 

Feyre rolled her eyes. Rhys, instead, could only chuckle. He dragged her closer, kissing her temple.

“She looks older,” he told her. “So much older.”

Feyre cocked her head to the side at that. She was observing him, almost absent-mindedly.

“I think,” she mused, very quietly, “she looks healthier.”

 

And Rhys could see it, too.

 

It was in her body (in the way she was slowly gaining back the weight she had lost over the last months) and in her face (in the way her smile was brightening her whole face, and in the way her eyes danced with mischief sometimes, and in the way she was laughing so violently she couldn’t stop), and in her whole demeanor (how she was making progress every single week in the physical therapy sessions they still brought her to, but not only. It was how she ran throughout the apartment sometimes, and didn’t even stop to catch her breath, or how she jumped on their bed excitedly, or how she was more energetic than she had been in a long time).

 

She was healthier, indeed.

And proving it every single day.

 

They both turned when they heard Juliet speak again from inside the house—to the only person still sitting at the table.

 

Rhys’s father’s expression was as closed off as it had been all evening, but he still turned to Juliet when she came in front of him and announced—her tone almost flat,

“You don’t speak a lot.”

Anton didn’t respond.

Juliet continued, “You’re Rhys’s papa?”

 

And she knew it already.

Still, she waited for the older man’s grumbled yes, to continue,

“You have to come see the fireworks with us.”

 

And Juliet was extending a hand now—waiting for Anton to take it.

 

Slowly, his father’s eyes found Rhys’s—in question or in puzzlement, perhaps.

Rhys didn’t offer anything—didn’t nod, didn’t smile, didn’t shrug. He merely kept his eyes on his father. Or rather, on the hand Juliet was still extending toward him.

 

And when Anton slowly—very slowly—accepted Juliet’s hand and followed after her, all Rhys could do, again, was watch.

 

Juliet was back beside them as soon as they both emerged from the house, dropping Anton’s hand to nestle against Rhys and Feyre.

 

His father sat down wordlessly beside Yelena, wrapping an arm around her shoulder, but really, his eyes were trained on Rhys.

Rhys held his gaze for a few seconds.

And when the first firework struck, Rhys kept looking at his dad for a few moments before he nodded, and finally turned his head to Feyre and Juliet.

They were both already observing the sky, equal smiles dancing on their lips and illuminating their faces.

 

Rhys brought them a little closer.

 

And he knew, without even needing to wonder, that this would count as one of his most treasured Christmases.

 

---

 

“Are you ready for today?”

Feyre glanced at him from the side. She was applying her eyeliner beside him, but her hand hung in the air at his words.

 

He, too, had paused. His razor was still in his hands and his face was covered in shaving cream, but his eyes were trained on her.

 

“Do I have a choice?” Feyre countered, an almost painful sigh leaving her.

 

Rhys offered her a half-smile.

 

“It’s a good thing, you know?” he offered gently. “Means she’s—”

“I know it’s a good thing,” Feyre cut him off. Her arms were bare, and Rhys swore he saw goosebumps rise on her skin.

Probably not from the cold, not really. Most probably from the feeling.

 

“Doesn’t mean I’m eager about it, though.”

“I know,” he sighed tiredly, and he did.

 

Quietly, Feyre resumed the movements of her hands applying the eyeliner around her eyes. She was meticulous, and careful with it—as if focusing on this could help her not focus on anything else. Still, she asked,

“Are you?”

Rhys still hadn’t moved from where he was standing. He did at her question, though—maybe for the sole purpose of doing something.

He plunged the razor in the sink he had filled with water, rinsing it, and stated slowly,

“Absolutely not.” He met her eyes in the mirror they were both facing, and added, “I know she’s ecstatic about going back to school. But I can’t imagine not having her here for the whole day.”

 

The sigh that left Feyre, this time, was painful for a whole different reason. It was no longer worried about Juliet going to school—it was worried for him.

She sat her tube of eyeliner on the bathroom countertop, and leaned in to kiss his bare shoulder.

 

“We’ve warned absolutely everyone at school,” she told him quietly—and perhaps the words were for them both. To reassure both of them. “They all know what signs to look for, all know to be careful with her. And they were all very supportive, too.”

“I know,” he half-smiled. “And yet,” Rhys shrugged, “Here I am.”

She slid both her arms around his waist. He was standing in only his underwear in front of their bathroom mirror, so it was no wonder she noticed the shiver it drew out of him.

“Her doctor,” Feyre said quietly, as if she wasn’t referring to him, “said the first three months after the surgery are the most important ones. And we’re past that. We—we’re way past that.”

“It’s been five whole months,” Rhys nodded. “I know.”

Feyre pressed another kiss to his shoulder. “And she’s doing so much better.”

 

The sigh that left him as he slowly turned around in her arms was loaded and defeated. Only when he was facing her, pressing her a little closer, did he ask teasingly,

“Since when are you the less worried parent?”

Feyre chuckled against him.

“Since you’ve learned you were to leave your little girl for seven whole hours and wouldn’t get to spend all your days with her, anymore.”

 

Rhys snorted.

And yet she had a point—it was exactly what had had him worrying so much.

 

“She’ll be okay, Rhys,” Feyre assured him after a few moments. “And we will, too.”

 

Rhys nodded, trying to believe her.

 

And just because he couldn’t resist hearing her laugh in his ears, he leaned in until he found the crook of her neck, and made a point of spreading the shaving cream still on his face all over her skin.

Her answering shriek immediately brought a smile to his lips. Feyre was trying to get away from him now, but he wouldn’t have that. He caught her wrists when she tried to pull away, and smiled wickedly at her.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“I just showered,” she tried to glare at him when really, her smile was still wide on her lips.

“And I didn’t,” he countered with a shrug, leaning in to capture her lips with his. Most of his shaving cream was on her skin now, so it didn’t get in the way of their lips colliding against one another. “So you can take another one.”

Of course, Feyre kissed him back—but she groaned against him, too, and perhaps she hadn’t meant for the sound to turn him on, but oh, it did.

“I was almost ready,” she almost moaned against him, though she was willingly following as he dragged her backwards to the shower with him.

 

And they kept kissing, and Rhys kept holding her wrists while she kept sighing contentedly against him.

 

“We were way too early anyway,” Rhys announced as he opened the water spray, and covered Feyre as best as he could when she shivered under the cold. “Can’t get ourselves too worried as we wait for Juliet to wake up now, can we?”

 

She giggled against him, but it died on his lips when she started kissing him again. And really, he couldn’t understand why all of their showers weren’t a variation of this one.

 

It certainly helped with their clouded minds and their worried hearts.

 

 

Later that day, in front of the school gate, they were both holding one of Juliet’s hands in theirs—both trying to prepare themselves for the moment they would have to let go.

“Last chance, Jules,” Feyre sighed as she crouched down in front of her. “You should really wear your own sweater and not—”

“No, Mama,” Juliet frowned, taking a step back from her mother as if Feyre was about to rip the hoodie off of her.

Feyre let out a defeated sigh.

 

It had been a lost battle. Juliet had refused to wear much of anything other than Rhys’s university hoodie for days on end—and really, neither of them should have been surprised that she had refused to wear something else today as well.

 

“Alright,” Feyre conceded, lifting both her hands in the air. “Okay. I give up.” She glanced up at Rhys, nibbling on her lower lip. “Well then,” she said quietly. “This is it.”

“This is it,” he echoed.

 

He, too crouched down to be at their level, and offered Juliet a weak smile when she turned to him.

 

“You remember what we discussed?”

“Yes,” Juliet was nodding frantically, looking back and forth between them. “I tell my teacher if something hurts, and she will tell you immediately.”

“Right,” he nodded. “And—”

“And I am careful when I play, and I take deep breaths if I feel my heart too strong.”

Rhys offered her a half-smile now. He cocked his head to the side, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

“And?”

Juliet furrowed her brows. She tried,

“And—”

 

But they hadn’t discussed any other and, so she was left uncomprehending. Rhys tugged at her hand gently, wrapping her in his arms.

“And,” he continued. “You remember that we both love you so, so much.”

He felt her arms slowly snake around his neck to press him close, too.

“We’ll be there to pick you up from school.”

 

They only lingered for a moment longer before Rhys pulled back, smiled his first real smile that day, and nudged her,

“Go give Mama the biggest hug ever.”

 

Juliet did.

And when Feyre wrapped her in her arms as well, he could swear the world was made right, somehow.

 

---

 

“Auntie!”

“Oh, come here, Juju!”

The embrace Feyre’s sister wrapped Juliet in was tight, and strong—and yet Rhys knew it was still loose.

Careful.

Still, the woman Rhys didn’t know yet shut her eyes tightly and said,

“I’ve missed you.”

 

And everything in her showed that she had.

 

Behind them, Feyre’s other sister was slowly getting out of the car, and had started walking toward them with an expression a little too alike Amren’s bored ones to Rhys’s liking.

“Let me guess,” Rhys murmured in the shell of Feyre’s ear. “That’s Nesta?”

 

She suppressed laugh, shoving gently at him.

“Behave,” she ordered with an amused eye roll.

 

Rhys shot her a mock-offended look in answer, but they both sobered up when they heard a quiet sob.

And they were both surprised to see that Nesta was the one holding Juliet, this time, and that the sob had come from her. She was crouched down to her level, her arms holding Juliet as if she hadn’t seen her in a lifetime—and perhaps it felt like that, too.

 

“I’m okay,” Juliet tried to reassure her aunt, her voice very quiet.

 

“Oh,” Feyre frowned beside Rhys, her face almost alarmed. “That—that’s not good.”

“It isn’t?”

“No,” she frowned, turning back to him. “She is not a crier.”

 

Rhys offered her a very small, very sad smile at that. He took her hand in his.

 

“She’s seeing her niece for the first time after she’s had one of the most severe surgeries. She hasn’t seen her in almost—what, two years?” He paused, squeezed Feyre’s hand gently. “Believe me, everyone’s a crier in those conditions.”

 

The look on Feyre’s face now was one of guilt. Rhys kissed her brow tenderly.

“Come on,” he tugged at her hand. “Let’s introduce me to your sisters.”

 

---

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“Mh?”

Feyre didn’t even lift her head from the newspaper she was looking—her hands wrapped around a coffee cup, but letting it go every now and then in favor of a red pen she was using to circle around something on the page.

Rhys didn’t really need her to answer—he already knew.

Still, he grabbed her braid in between two fingers, gently set it in her on her back, and repeated,

“What are you doing?”

 

At that, finally, Feyre glanced at him.

 

And the vision was almost one of déjà-vu.

 

Rhys didn’t linger on it.

 

“Oh,” she shrugged. “Just—you know—” she glanced back down at the paper. “Looking for a job.”

 

Just like that, she was focusing on the paper again—reading, and circling, whenever a job offer was probably appealing, to her.

Rhys scooted a little closer, peering over her shoulder, and started reading aloud,

“Cashier. Waitress. Barista.” He frowned, and tried to keep his tone level and neutral as he said, “You uh—thinking of applying?”

“I already did,” she mused absent-mindedly, her eyes still trained on the paper. “At least to some of those.”

“You did,” Rhys echoed, very slowly.

“Yeah,” she kept going, cocking her head to the side. “I mean I—” she trailed off when she read something, reached for her pen, circled it (baby-sitter, Rhys read), and then continued, “Juliet’s been back to school for almost two weeks. It’s about time I start working again.”

 

Rhys leaned both his arms on the table, and he observed her—taking in every single line on her face as she kept looking at the newspaper.

 

Eventually, he asked, his tone very quiet,

“As a—” his eyes flickered to the paper, then back to her again. “Baby-sitter?”

 

At that, Feyre paused.

It wasn’t clear—not exactly, because she didn’t move at first. But Rhys knew she paused, for he saw the way she stopped moving—perhaps how she stopped breathing, too.

And then slowly—so fucking slowly—she let her eyes wander up until she met his.

 

And she glared at him—a glare so dark and so deep he had never thought she could level it at him.

 

“What,” she asked, her tone clipped and her voice disgusted, “is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” he rushed to say, “I just—I’ve been thinking, and I—”

“Oh, no,” she almost huffed, but it was so sour it made a sense of dread swirl in Rhys’s stomach. “You know exactly what you meant,” she paused, a disgusted grimace tainting her features now, and added, almost like an insult, “Doctor Knight.”

“Feyre, I—”

“I’m very sorry,” she articulated slowly, already folding the paper, “that someone as distinguished and high-ranking as you are dating such a—”

“Come on,” he frowned, shaking his head. “You know this is not what I mean, you—”

 

But Feyre wasn’t really listening, was she?

 

She was already up now, and already pulling away from him—in every single way possible.

Pulling away from his outstretched hand and from his attempt at explaining, and from his apologies.

 

“What is it that you meant, then?” she almost spat. “I’m no—” she huffed. “No doctor, or—or—” she lifted her hands in the air as in surrender. “I don’t even know what you even expect me to be. I never had the chance to go to school, Rhys. So, I’m sorry,” she grimaced, almost as if she didn’t really mean it. “I’m sorry, but if waitressing, or baby-sitting is not good enough for you—”

“Feyre, I—”

“I can’t keep up with you, Rhys,” she breathed, her chest almost heaving now. “I can’t live in a palace like this, and, and—”

 

Rhys frowned but really, it was to hide the worry on his face.

 

“You don’t have to worry about that, Feyre,” he murmured, shaking his head. “You know that I—”

“You have money,” she articulated slowly. “I know. I get it. I—” she scoffed. “I got the memo.”

 

Before him, she was pressing her eyes shut tight. She was breathing deeply. She was trying very hard to contain everything she was feeling, he knew.

 

Eventually, she said—and her voice was low and almost threatening to waver, but she kept it strong.

“You paid for her treatment,” she pressed her eyes shut tighter. “And for every single thing since we got out of this hospital, Rhys. You—” she swallowed, but he guessed it was a lame attempt because it seemed difficult. “I said I’d pay you back, but you and I both know I could never—” Her voice wavered on the word, and when she opened her eyes, there was so much pain and guilt in them that Rhys felt uneasy.

“The truth that neither of us wants to voice,” she breathed, her eyes looking up at the ceiling to try and rein in her tears, “is that I would have never been able to pay for everything, if you hadn’t helped. And it—” she met his eyes again. “It fucking kills me,” she breathed, and there was no way to rein in her tears now, “to think that my daughter would have died—because—because I never got the chance to go to school and to make good money for myself.” Feyre swallowed again. Her eyes fluttered so fast they made her tears leak one by one. “Or at least pay for health insurance.”

 

Rhys slowly shook his head.

“Feyre,” he breathed—his voice pleading and desperate. “Love, it’s not—”

“I know you never asked me for anything,” she breathed. “And I know, or at least—god, I have to believe this is not what you meant because those jobs—those are jobs that I can do, and jobs that I like doing, and—and to believe that you think those are lesser jobs—”

“I don’t,” he rushed to say, taking a step toward her.

 

A small one, a careful one.

One, but no other after that because she was still shaking her head at him.

She was still refusing to listen to him.

 

“I don’t, Feyre,” he repeated slowly. “I—”

“I need some fresh air,” she announced, taking another step away.

Rhys swallowed. “Okay,” he nodded. “Alright, we could—”

“No,” she shook her head. “I need—I need some fresh air,” she repeated. “Alone.”

“Oh.”

“I—” she cleared her throat, brushing away a tear on her cheek. “I’ll pick Juliet up from school tonight,” she announced—and Rhys tried not to take this as a deep blade. As a punch to the gut. As a reminder that Juliet was hers and hers only.

 

He repeated,

“Oh.”

 

She didn’t answer.

Didn’t offer anything else.

Didn’t leave with a See you later, or We’ll be back by five.

 

She left, and Rhys had all the time in the world to curse himself and regret every single thing he had ever done.

 

 

He had thought perhaps this was it.

He had thought perhaps they wouldn’t come back.

He had thought perhaps she didn’t want him anymore.

 

He was relieved beyond reason when he was proven wrong.

 

Like clockwork, they were back around five—an excited Juliet running to him with her small backpack, and a slightly smiling Feyre a few steps behind her.

Rhys enveloped Juliet in his arms, pressed her to him as if it was the very last time—and tried to convince himself that it wasn’t.

And when she disappeared in her room (excitedly talking about how her teacher had taught her to spell her whole name), Rhys immediately took a step toward Feyre.

“I’m sorry,” he rushed to say—before she could even open her mouth. “I’m so sorry if I did anything to make you feel that way, and I—”

“Rhys,” she tried, but he shook his head. He took another step toward her.

“I would never—never, Feyre, insinuate that those are lesser jobs. That—that they’re not good enough.” He paused, and this time, Feyre was the one to take a step closer. Rhys continued in a breath, “That you are not good enough.”

She offered him a half-smile, bringing a hand to his chest.

“I know,” she said, very quietly. “I really, truly do.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, allowing himself to place his hands on her waist. When she didn’t pull away, he gripped her a little tighter—just because he needed to feel her.

“I know,” she repeated. “And I—” she took a deep breath. “I’m sorry for overreacting.

“No—”

“I just—” she shrugged. “I guess I don’t want you to think those things and so—”

“But I don’t,” he repeated, bringing his forehead against hers. “I don’t.”

 

Again, Feyre repeated, “I know.”

 

And her smile was soft on her lips.

 

They took a few steadying breaths.

A few calming inhales and echoing exhales.

 

Eventually, Rhys murmured,

“I thought you wouldn’t come back.”

 

And he hadn’t felt it ring so true until he had voiced it.

 

“I thought—” he took a deep breath. “I thought this was it. I thought I would never see you, or her again.”

 

The hand on his chest slowly rose to cup his cheek.

“I—” She furrowed her brows, shaking her head slowly. “I would never—”

“I was so scared.”

 

Feyre fell silent at that.

And in response—perhaps because she knew it would be the only thing to calm his heart, anyway—she rose on her toes and brushed her lips against his.

“I would never, Rhys,” she murmured. “I—I expect to be with you for a long time.” Rhys closed his eyes at her words. “And—” she hesitated. “If ever something happened…” she hesitated again. “I wouldn’t do it like that, either. I—” Rhys opened his eyes again to find hers. “I wouldn’t take her away from you. Not like that.”

 

Rhys took a deep breath.

He leaned in to press Feyre a little closer—burying his head in the crook of her neck.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated against her.

 

 

It was only late that night, after they ate a dinner they all cooked together and all enjoyed the story Rhys told and Feyre drew ; after they spent a few hours cuddling on the couch, too, probably for the sole attempt at reassurance ; after they were all settled into bed—after all of that, that Feyre asked, very quietly,

“Can I ask you something?”

Rhys turned on his side to face her.

“Of course.”

“You—” she hesitated. “You, uh—mentioned something, earlier today,” she said. “When we were fighting.”

“Mh?”

“You said you have been thinking about something.”

“Ah,” Rhys huffed. “I have. I don’t know that it’s a good idea to tell you about it now, though—”

“Please,” Feyre tried quietly. “I won’t get mad. Promise.”

 

Rhys chuckled softly.

Slowly, he shifted to lie on his back again, and stared at the ceiling.

 

He took his time observing, taking a few breaths.

“When we were at the hospital,” Rhys started, “you told me how—how your dream job would have been to be an illustrator.”

Feyre hummed quietly.

“And I know how you love painting, and drawing. And how… how talented you are as well.”

 

He slowly shifted to look at her—to her curious face and her listening eyes. He turned back to the ceiling as he said,

“I looked it up. How—how to become one, I mean. There’s a program at the university. It’s a certificate in… Illustration,” he said. “Only two years. To help master a few techniques, and know how to—” he shrugged. “Everything, really,” he sighed. “Everything you’d need to be one.”

 

He paused at that. He took a few deep breaths again, and when he felt like he could, he turned again to look at her.

Feyre was absolutely frozen beside him—but she was still listening, he knew.

 

“I never,” he said, “never thought any jobs are lesser.” And he meant it. He knew Feyre knew it, too. “But,” he continued quietly. “You told me this would be your dream job, and I just thought—you know,” he shrugged. “Why not?”

 

Feyre didn’t move—didn’t open her mouth to speak, didn’t even blink. Didn’t even look like she was breathing.

Rhys placed a gentle hand on her cheek.

“I know you’ll try to come up with a lot of reasons not to,” he told her, a small teasing smile on his lips. “Like, money. But you know that I have that. And time, but, you don’t have anything you really have to do at the moment. And—and maybe a thousand more reasons.” He paused. “And believe me, I’ll have a counter-argument to each and every one of them.”

 

Against him, Feyre huffed. It was small, and almost indiscernible, but it was a huff all the same.

 

“And I’ll stop,” Rhys continued quietly. “If you just tell me you don’t want to, I’ll stop. That’s the only reason I’ll accept.”

 

When she kept silent, Rhys gently dropped his hand.

“Just think about it, okay?” he murmured in the dead of night. “Just tell me you’ll think about it.”

 

Her only answer was a curt nod.

 

And then, a kiss—one that stole his breath, and his thoughts, and his heart away.

 

---

 

“Well?”

 

Stella chuckled as soon as she entered the room.

She was followed by a few interns—ones Rhys would have probably known had he not left the hospital for so many months.

 

“Easy, Mister,” she said. “Before we start, do you mind—”

She motioned to the interns behind her, but Rhys was already shaking his head.

“We don’t,” he answered for both Feyre and himself. He was brushing his thumb over her hand, but they were both holding their breaths, really. “Just tell us, Stel.”

 

Stella smiled at them.

 

And with any other patient, Rhys guessed she would have asked one of the interns to step in—to speak, to explain, to reassure them.

Stella didn’t. She was the one to say,

“The six-month tests are as good as we could hope them to be.”

 

Rhys and Feyre left out the same relieved, happy breaths.

 

“She’s doing great. All of her test results are better than I even expected. I—”

“Can I see?”

 

Rhys was already up and extending his hand to her, and for a moment, his sister hesitated. Not for long though. She conceded and handed him Juliet’s file.

 

Rhys started reading it immediately—his smile spreading on his lips with each new word he was reading.

Beside him, Feyre stepped close, holding his free hand and pressing her face to his upper arm. Rhys squeezed her hand—a reassurance that Stella was, indeed, correct.

 

“The only thing I’d like you both to monitor is her weight,” Stella continued eventually. “She’s a little under the growth curve. Maybe just—”

“We will,” Rhys nodded, handing her back the file. “We will, we—” he huffed happily, turning to Feyre and her equal relieved smile.

 

He pressed his lips to her forehead.

“Six months,” he murmured against her.

 

She was closing her eyes, he knew.

And keeping quiet, probably because she didn’t think she could speak right now.

 

“Six fucking months,” Rhys repeated—listing in his head what this really meant. How many risks had decreased now that they’d reached the six-months milestone, too.

 

Six months.

 

---

 

“Is it true you’re going to school, too?”

Feyre huffed.

And she was giddy, Rhys knew—with excitement and with worry. Or a weird mix of both.

 

“It is, Baby,” she nodded slowly. “I’m going to school. Just like you.”

“At my school?”

“No,” Feyre chuckled, nibbling on her lower lip. She pointed at the hoodie Juliet was wearing (and when wasn’t she wearing it, really), and explained, “I’m going to this school, actually.”

 

The gasp that left Juliet’s lips at that was so loud and unguarded that they both huffed in amusement. She glanced at the hoodie she was wearing, tugging at it as if it would help her understand.

“So,” Juliet asked, “You’re going to be a doctor, too?”

“I—” Feyre giggled at that—a sound so pure and beautiful, Rhys fell for her. All over again. “No, not a doctor, Jules,” she shook her head. “I uh—” she hesitated. “I’m going to try and draw stories.”

“Like the ones you draw for me?”

 

Feyre smiled. She brushed her hand over her daughter’s face.

“Yeah,” she nodded slowly. “Kind of like that.”

 

Juliet grinned at that—a beautiful smile full of teeth.

“Then,” she said—and she started moving, too. “You have to take it.” She removed the hoodie she was wearing, still too big for her, but they had all gotten accustomed to it. She placed it delicately in Feyre’s hands. “You have to wear it if you go to school.”

Feyre huffed. “I do?”

“Yes,” Juliet nodded.

She seemed to hesitate, before she added, one brow slowly furrowing. “But,” she shook her head, “You have to give it back. It’s mine.”

 

Both Feyre and Rhys burst out laughing at that. Feyre opened her arms and demanded,

“Give me a big, big hug.”

Juliet did.

But only for a second before she whispered—her voice too loud to be a whisper,

“Rhys,” she looked at him. “Come in the hug for Mama, too.”

 

He did.

 

---

 

“When are we going to talk about it?”

 

From where he was sitting beside her on the couch, Rhys frowned, but didn’t lift his head from his book. He didn’t remove his other hand from her foot, either, continuing massaging gently.

“Talk about what?”

He didn’t hear Feyre’s response right away. And it wasn’t exactly surprising, either. She was always a little slower to answer when she was studying—or rather, as she was right now, practicing.

 

The tablet Rhys had gifted her was in her lap, and her tongue was sticking out of her teeth in concentration as she was tracing and retracing lines on the software she had started using in class a few weeks ago.

 

Rhys didn’t realize right away that this wasn’t exactly the reason she was a little too slow to answer, tonight.

 

Feyre said,

“Talk about the fact that you’re ready to go back to work.”

 

At that, Rhys blinked, slowly lifting his head to her.

And indeed, she was no longer looking at the tablet on her lap but at him.

 

He scoffed, the same soft and disbelieving sound Juliet made when she had just got caught doing something she shouldn’t.

“I—” Rhys cocked an eyebrow at her. “What?”

 

All Feyre did was stare at him.

“I think you are,” she told him gently. “And I think you know it, too.”

“I uh—”

Rhys trailed off.

He debated lying. Debated offering her only a half-truth, or denying it simply.

He didn’t.

“I can’t say I haven’t thought about it.”

 

Feyre cocked her head to the side.

Her feet were still propped on his lap—and his hand was still applying pressure every now and then.

“But?” She guessed, her voice still as gentle as ever.

 

Rhys took a deep breath at that.

He turned his head back forward—and he pretended he was able to see all the way through the walls and the corridors that separated him from Juliet’s bedroom.

He pretended he could see all the way to her and how she was sleeping soundly right now.

 

“But,” he began, very slowly, “I don’t think this is the best moment for me to start working again.”

 

Again, Feyre didn’t answer right away.

And since he knew it wasn’t because she was busy doing something else, he sighed and turned back to her. She was still looking at him—of course she was. But she was also observing him with that look on her face… with that flicker in her eyes.

 

She asked,

“Do you still think you might not be able to…” she paused. “Touch a heart?”

Almost amusedly, Rhys huffed. It was soft, too. And a little mocking.

Not at her—but at himself.

At the version of him that had spoken those words.

“No,” he shook his head. “I uh—I meant it that day I told you that, but I—” he shrugged. “I’m a surgeon. I’ve touched so many hearts I’ve lost count, I—” Rhys finally closed the book on his lap and placed it on the coffee table. “I can’t say touching her heart didn’t do anything to me,” he amended quietly. “But I think I’m past the point of… not being able to operate anymore.”

 

When he turned to her again, Feyre was nodding, very slowly. As if she agreed. As if she knew. And the smallest smile was tugging at her lips, too, but Rhys knew there was more to it.

“Okay,” she enunciated. “Good. And you still love it?” She paused, then added, “The hospital, I mean. The—the surgeries, and the—”

“Yes,” Rhys chuckled softly. “Yes, I love it.”

“And you go there almost every day to watch the peds department, too,” she said—and Rhys paused at that but she kept going, “—and you could totally—”

“What?”

Feyre looked at him, a little too innocently. She echoed, “What?”

“What did you say?”

 

Perhaps it was a game, to her. Or perhaps she simply liked to leave him hanging. Because once more, she paused. And this time, it was to mimic him and place her tablet on the coffee table.

 

Only once she was done, had pulled her legs off his lap, and had folded them under herself did she repeat,

“You go to the hospital every day.” Her voice was slower now—almost as if she was trying to prove a point. Or made him understand something. “And you spend most of those days in the pediatric area.”

 

Rhys opened his mouth, then closed it. Opened again, closed again.

 

Eventually, he clamped it shut, cleared his throat—as if he had been caught, indeed—and asked,

“Who?”

 

And it was only a single word, yet he knew she knew what he meant.

Feyre offered him a bright smile.

“Cass.”

Rhys was already rolling his eyes when she added,

“He was the first to mention it, but your sister and mother weren’t so far behind.”

 

He brought a hand to run it over his face.

“Now,” Feyre continued, very slowly, “your family is worried. They think—they think it’s because you feel guilt, and—and that perhaps it is some kind of trauma about what happened with Juliet.” Feyre paused, cocking her head to the side. Rhys, on his part, could do nothing but listen to her.

Listen to her enunciating what he had perhaps not been able to voice himself.

“But,” and her voice was so fucking soft now. “That’s not it, is it?”

 

She wasn’t really waiting for him to answer.

On the couch, she pushed on her knees and slowly shifted closer to him.

Rhys tracked every single one of her movements.

 

“You’re not spending your days there because you feel bad about Juliet’s surgery,” she said—in an almost murmur, now. “You’re not having a traumatic reaction to… all of that.”

Because she probably knew him better than he even knew himself, Rhys breathed—his voice almost raw and rough.

He asked,

“I’m not?”

 

The smile that stretched Feyre’s lips then—it was everything.

It was every single certainty and every single one of his truths.

It was the very answer to his soul, too.

 

“I think,” she tried, her words as slow as his heart. “I think it’s the opposite.”

 

Rhys was almost holding his breath now.

And he couldn’t even pinpoint the reason why.

 

“You told me that night that you didn’t think you could ever operate on a child again,” Rhys nodded his confirmation. “I think you’ve realized perhaps you want to operate on children. Perhaps you—”

When Feyre cupped his cheek with her hand, Rhys’s eyes fluttered closed. All on their own.

“—You feel the need to help other kids. Just like you helped her. You want to offer them the same chance at a future as you did her.”

 

In his life, Rhys didn’t remember a time he had ever felt so…

Seen.

Understood.

Accepted and embraced.

 

Loved, perhaps.

 

He had never felt so loved.

 

Feyre breathed, “So why don’t you?”

And he hadn’t even replied yet—hadn’t even confirmed, really.

Yet he answered,

“It’s… complicated.”

“What is?”

Rhys finally opened his eyes at that. He said,

“Everything is. It—” Rhys slowly shook his head. “Even the thought of going back to work, it—” he huffed. “Feyre, what I was doing before… It’s not something I can do now that I have you.”

“Why not?”

“Because—” he tried, trailed off. Tried again, “I was working impossible hours. Would be called in the middle of the night and spend my nights in the hospital sometimes, I—” he trailed off again. Took a deep breath. “I can’t do that with a family at home.”

“You could,” she mused. “We’d understand. We’d take care of ourselves, and would be there when you’d have time off.”

“That even without talking about changing specialties,” he continued, still shaking his head. “That’d mean—that’d mean starting another fellowship. Finding a pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon who’d agree to train me—and do you know how rare they are? I can’t guarantee I’d find someone in the city. That’d be—” he ran a hand through his hair. “That’d be one year or—or two, even, where I’m traveling back and forth—where I’m in between here and Montesere. That—”

“Montesere?”

“It’s the closest hospital that has a pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon in-house. I—It’s a two-hour drive, Feyre. Two-hours. I—”

“So you did think about it,” she cut him off with a satisfied smile—leaving Rhys with an open mouth and a few blinks.

 

“I—”

“You did think about it,” she repeated, a little more gently. “The two-year fellowship and the trips to Montesere. You thought about it, because you want this.”

Again, he tried,

“I—”

He took a deep breath.

“I—yeah,” he admitted. “I guess I would love this. If only things were different. But as they are—”

 

Feyre was still observing him.

And just like before, Rhys knew she was seeing things about him that even he couldn’t tell.

 

She moved, only for a minute, before she settled on his lap. She brought both her hands to cup his face.

 

“This,” she said—and her voice was more assured than it had been all night. “Does not mean you are your dad, Rhys.”

He blinked at her.

“You, going back to work, or taking a fellowship—it doesn’t make you him. It doesn’t mean you’re putting your career before your family, and it—it certainly doesn’t mean you’re abandoning us.”

 

Rhys didn’t answer.

Of course he didn’t answer.

What could he answer that, anyway.

 

“Now,” she said, brushing his hair back. “You can keep trying to find excuses for yourself—or find a thousand reasons not to do this. And, don’t worry. This time, I’ll be the one to find a counter-argument to each of them.”

 

Rhys huffed at the words he had offered her a few months ago, and the satisfied smile on her lips made him slightly calm down.

 

“Or,” Feyre continued, “we can start trying to figure this out. Because I’m not letting you put your entire career on pause, just because you don’t think we are smart enough to make this work.”

 

He shook his head.

He chuckled in disbelief.

He brought her closer, and rolled his eyes, and fucking laughed.

 

“God, I love you,” he said—and he wasn’t sure it was enough, somehow. “I love you so much.”

 

---

 

“When I told you, almost nine months ago, that you could come back here and change specialties,” Amren’s tone was flat but almost amused, too, when he met her in her office the very next day. “I didn’t quite think you would take my word for it.” She cocked an eyebrow at him, almost as in challenge. “Doctor Knight.”

 

Just like she always was, Amren was sitting behind her desk.

And Rhys, this time, was having a hard time sitting still.

 

“I—” Rhys huffed, his tone quiet. “I can’t say I expected it,” he admitted.

“Specializing in Pediatric cardiology?”

“Yeah, I mean—” he shrugged. “I never really thought about it.”

 

For once, Amren’s office was clear of papers and documents. It was clear of mess, which meant it was clear of distractions, too.

 

“I,” she said slowly, “happened to have…” she paused. “Suspected it.”

Rhys rolled his eyes dramatically. “Of course you have.”

“Having a pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon would be an,” she hesitated, “enormous benefit for the hospital.” Rhys snorted. “So, I took a step further and I called a long-lost friend.”

Rhys cocked an eyebrow at her. And he waited—waited to hear what she was about to say, waited to see where this was going.

 

“Doctor Helion Dayton is retiring soon,” she said very slowly, “and he would love to mentor a fellow surgeon before he does.”

Rhys’s eyebrows slowly rose on his forehead.

Helion Dayton was the very best pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon he knew of. He was skilled, and had conducted so many successful experiments that Rhys had lost count.

To be under his fellowship…

“Now,” Amren continued, lifting a hand in the air. “He’s very attached to his sunny side of the country, and—”

Rhys groaned audibly.

“I’m not going there, Amren,” he rolled his eyes, shaking his head. “I’m not—”

“Listen, he—”

“It’s six fucking hours away,” Rhys interrupted her. “I’m not moving there. No fucking way.”

 

And he wouldn’t budge.

He sighed—a deep sigh. A resigned one. And then he tried,

“What about Montesere?”

 

Amren was almost glaring at him by now.

“Will you let me finish?”

Rhys pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Sure,” he articulated slowly. “Go ahead.”

“Like I said,” Amren repeated, “Doctor Dayton is very attached to his city and won’t move away.” Rhys lifted a hand in the air in exasperation. He already knew that. Amren continued, “He would be willing to make an exception though,” she said, “For a certain Doctor Knight.”

 

Rhys paused.

And just like that, he was left blinking—a little too dumbstruck to process.

 

“I—” he blinked again. “What?”

“He’s heard about you,” Amren explained. “And would be honored to have you as his fellow before he retires.” Rhys felt his eyebrows slowly rise on his forehead. “He’s just a phone call away.” Amren paused, cocking her head to the side.

And, perhaps because she knew he might need the words loud and clear, she added,

“He’ll come here, Rhys, should you decide that’s what you want.”

 

---

 

“So,” Helion started, nodding almost as if to himself, “You’ll be doing the next one.”

“I—” Rhys huffed. “What?”

 

They both took a few steps as soon as the cafeteria line moved.

 

“Yes,” the other man nodded again. “Black coffee, huh?” he asked Rhys, before turning back toward the counter, waiting for his turn. He continued, almost as if they had never been interrupted, “You’ve been shadowing me for over three months, Rhys. You can certainly perform a little—”

 

“Rhys!”

 

Rhys’s attention was lost immediately.

And—perhaps like half of the cafeteria right now—he immediately turned at the sound of that voice.

 

Juliet was running toward him so fast he could barely keep track of her, and he could have sworn every single person in her path was making a pointed effort to give her the space she needed.

He heard, from a couple of steps behind her, another voice he had been desperate to hear for a few days,

“Jules! You can’t run in the—”

Rhys caught Juliet just before she collided with anything or anyone, and she might have been almost nine by now, but he lifted her in the air anyway, wrapping her in a hug as tightly as she was holding him.

“—hospital,” Feyre finished with a deep sigh.

 

She was still walking toward them, throwing apologetic glances at everyone Juliet had almost run over.

 

Rhys couldn’t be bothered.

“Don’t listen to her,” he told Juliet, bringing her even closer. He closed his eyes, pressed a kiss to her shoulder over her dress—the only spot he could reach with her head buried so deep in his neck. He continued, “You have a strong, beautiful heart. You can run all you want, for all I care.”

 

Juliet's arms tightened around his neck, and she almost pouted in his neck, “I missed you.”

 

And he felt that all throughout his body.

 

“Oh, I missed you, too, Jules,” he murmured. “You have no idea.”

Feyre had just stepped in front of him, so Rhys immediately reached a hand to her, bringing her closer.

“One week without you is way too long,” he shook his head, sliding a hand on Feyre’s waist. The smile she offered him told him she agreed.

 

He kissed her, then.

Right there, in the middle of the cafeteria.

And he reflected on the fact that he had daydreamed about it a thousand times, back when they were both living in this hospital, and how he was only indulging in it now.

 

How wrong he had been to refrain.

 

“Hi,” he murmured against her lips, finally feeling like he could breathe again.

“Hey,” Feyre answered with a whisper of her own. She paused, placing a hand to his chest. And Rhys thought she wanted to feel his heartbeat, but instead she pulled away a little. “Maybe we should—”

 

Her sentence died on her tongue when the first and loud whistle echoed around them—followed by so many cheers and claps Juliet straightened and frowned at everyone around them.

“They’re loud,” Juliet placed both her hands on her ears, frown only deepening. “Why are they loud?”

“They’re happy for you,” Rhys explained gently, flickering her nose gently.

 

Rhys didn’t know what—of his motion or his words, made Juliet blink and lower her hands.

“Me?” she asked.

“Yeah, Jules,” he nodded. “Because you’ve had a new heart for exactly one year, today. So they’re all very happy for you.”

 

Beside them, Feyre was still smiling at him, softly, and so Rhys brushed his lips against hers again.

 

“Let’s go somewhere a little more quiet?” she offered when he pulled back. This time, Rhys nodded.

 

Long forgotten were his cup of coffee and Helion, behind him.

But he knew it didn’t matter.

Helion would understand.

 

“Yeah,” he said. “Let’s go.”

 

They nodded gratefully at every person they passed by on their way out of the cafeteria, but didn’t fail to notice the loudest cheers came from Cassian and the loudest claps came from Stella.

 

“Where are we going?” Juliet asked, turning her head to every single person who was waving at her.

“We’re going to check how strong and healthy your heart is,” Rhys answered.

 

He had been waiting for this one-year appointment for a long time.

And he already knew it would go as well as it could get.

 

“And then,” he continued as they finally stepped out of the cafeteria, leaving behind the noise and the crowd. “I want to hear all about the week you’ve spent at your aunt Nesta’s house.”

 

---

 

“I think,” Feyre half-groaned, letting her head fall backwards on the couch they had been sitting on for a few hours already, “I’m starting to hate this. This class is making hate drawing.”

She was lying on the couch opposite him, with her feet near him. From his spot on the other end of the couch, Rhys huffed amusedly. He didn’t even have to look to know he’d find a frown on her face, mixed with the determination he knew she would try to hide.

“Liar,” he accused. “You just hate that you have to practice to get it right.” He paused, cocking his head to the side as a furrow of his own appeared on his face because of the words before him. Eventually, he added, with a deep sigh, “And probably hate the fact that it’s keeping you from your little girl. Over Christmas time, of all times.”

 

The Christmas break had been one they’d all been looking forward to, indeed. Promises of long and lazy mornings full of laughter ; breakfasts eaten on the couch in front of whatever show Juliet would get to decide—because what would be a Christmas break if not for a few rules being bent. But it had already started a few days ago, and had come for both of them with more work than they had expected.

Projects to be handed in and classes to study, for Feyre ; and more papers and books to read than he could keep up with, for Rhys.

 

They had both been dead-set on keeping their promises, of course—had both promised themselves (and each other) they would not be the kind of parents to trade happy memories for work. Still, it meant sacrificing a few of those days and nights—indulging in letting Juliet sleep over at Stella’s or Rhys’s parent’s house (to everyone’s excitement, which apparently included Anton’s).

 

When he was met with silence, Rhys slowly lifted his head to find Feyre glaring at him, the frown on her now directed at him. The sight did nothing but make him chuckle softly.

“What?” he asked.

“Stop it,” she lamented. “Stop being right. I hate it.”

 

Rhys burst out laughing at that—throwing his head back and relishing in the amusement she was trying to hide. It was only when he had sobered up—Feyre nibbling on her lower lip to try and refrain from laughing, too—that she asked, nudging him,

“How about you? How’s the—” she paused, nose wrinkling in thought. “—the heart… problems?”

“Congenital Heart Defects,” he corrected, a little amused.

 

He had already told her a few times. He knew she was trying hard to remember this one—but it just wouldn’t get imprinted on her mind.

 

“Right,” Feyre sighed heavily. “Congenital Heart Defects. How’s that going?”

“It’s—” Rhys, too, sighed. “It’s a new kind of maze. To detect, and to treat, and it—” He paused again, grimacing slightly. “I’ve seen some patients with Helion, but to imagine a—a baby being born with a hole in their heart—”

 

At his words, Feyre grimaced, too. And she was still frowning, probably for a whole different reason, this time.

 

Rhys tried, a small smile on his lips as he extended the book he was holding to her,

“Want to switch?” Feyre narrowed her eyes on him when he continued, “If you still hate drawing so much, I mean, we could—”

She nudged him with her foot to make him pause, but the only effect it had was to make him laugh again.

“You’re impossible,” she accused. “You’re the worst. And not even funny, you’re—”

“Okay, okay,” he chuckled, wrapping his hand around the foot still trying to nudge him. “No switching, then.” He set his book on the side, then shifted on the couch to near Feyre. “What have you been struggling with?”

 

He was lying right next to her now, looping an arm over her waist even though she was still side-eying him with that mask of disapproval on her face. He knew it was just that, though—a mask hiding her adoration and her playfulness.

She answered, her tone a little flat,

“Hands.”

Rhys tried not to laugh aloud at that. He tried to contain his smile, too, but this was a little harder.

“Hands?”

“Yeah,” she groaned. “Hands are so fucking hard, I can’t get it right.” She huffed. “So now I hate hands.”

“You hate hands,” he echoed, an eyebrow slowly quirking up.

Feyre turned to him at that. And they were so close now that Rhys could feel her breath as she said—a glare perfectly directed at him,

“I hate them,” she confirmed. “Absolutely, entirely, fucking—”

“I seem to recall you love mine.”

 

It was a blessing, truly, that they were sitting so close. Because Rhys wasn’t sure he would have seen the beautiful collection of feelings crossing over her face—and oh what a waste it would have been.

A hint of surprise, first. Then, incomprehension—at least just for half a second, before understanding dawned on her. And finally, every single milimiters of her cheeks slowly turned a gorgeous shade of pink.

 

One of Rhys’s hands, indeed, had found its way on Feyre’s lower belly, and his pinky finger was now brushing low, finding her bare skin under her shirt—and it all was making the blush on her cheeks deepen and deepen and oh, Rhys could never get enough of that blush.

 

He continued,

“Don’t you?”

“You,” Feyre said, but her voice had lost its spite, “did not just say that.”

But Rhys’s hand was still darting a little lower, threatening to slide under her waistband, and Feyre must have felt it too, because her eyes fluttered closed, and it was almost in a pout that she managed to say,

“I have to study.”

Rhys leaned in to place a gentle kiss on her collarbone.

“I’m sure I can help with that.” He paused, leaning to kiss her lips this time. “And I’m convinced you’ll find you love hands after—”

“Shut up,” Feyre breathed the words in his mouth, tugging at him to come closer. “Just shut up.”

 

He could have sworn his answering chuckle was lost in her soft moan.

He wouldn’t have had it any other way.

 

---

 

“Hello?”

“Rhys? I just had a missed call from the school, but I—”

“They called me too,” Rhys tucked his phone between his shoulder and his ear, trying as best as he could to slide on his coat in the process. He had been moving as fast as he could ever since he’d gotten the call, but hadn’t even hesitated for a second when he’d noticed Feyre’s ID light up his phone. “I’m on my way there.”

“Is she okay?” she rushed to ask—and she was worried, he could tell. Ready to leave her class, probably.

“The headmistress said she was,” he hastily grabbed his car keys, his wallet, and his pager before he was leaving—half-running past people in the corridor. “But she was in a fight, she—”

“She what?”

“I don’t know, Feyre,” he told her as he pushed the elevator call button, once, twice, thrice. Frantically. “She didn’t really give me the details.”

“Oh, god,” Feyre was starting to breathe a little heavily now. “Oh, god, I—”

 

The elevator doors slid open at the exact moment that Rhys said,

“I’m going,” his voice was slow and assured. “And she said she was fine. I asked like, three times.”

Feyre paused at the other end of the phone, and Rhys knew she was probably still debating what to do.

He too, was worried beyond reason. But the logical part of him still managed to make him reason,

“You have an exam,” he said—as if she didn’t know herself, “in half an hour, love. Don’t worry about Juliet. I’ve got it.”

It wasn’t exactly a surprise that he was met with silence again. He continued,

“She’ll be alright. How bad can a ten-year-old punch, really?”

 

His attempt at a joke fell flat when he heard Feyre’s tone—alarm lacing her every word,

“She got punched?!”

“I—” Rhys sighed, exiting the elevator, the hospital and finally making a beeline for his car in the parking lot. “No. I don’t—Look, I have no idea.” When she was about to speak again, he added, “But, whatever happened, I got it. I’ll be there in less than ten minutes. And if she even has a scratch on her—not that she does, but if she does—then, I’ll be able to take care of it, too.”

He was finally sitting behind the steering wheel when he added, a little more quietly this time,

“Focus on your exam, Feyre. It’s important.”

“She is more.”

“I know,” he nodded. “Of course, she is more. But I’ve got her. Promise.”

 

The pause that met him was different, this time. It was resigned.

It was defeated, too.

 

For her exam was very important—one of the most important ones before her graduation a couple of months from now, actually.

Feyre knew it, too.

And she knew he was right.

 

She let out a long, worried and tired sigh over the phone.

 

“Promise me she’ll be alright?”

“She will,” he assured her—and he meant it. He started the car and was already pulling away when Feyre added,

“And you’ll wipe the floor with whoever did this to her?”

 

He chuckled at that—a soft sound as unexpected as her words.

“I—” he huffed. “They’re kids, Feyre. But I promise I’ll try to talk to whoever hurt her.”

 

Feyre took another deep breath.

 

Rhys added,

“Come on, Mama. Let me handle this. And go rock your exam. It’s the one on drawing the human anatomy, right?”

“Don’t you even try to make a joke right now.”

 

Her words were supposed to be threatening, but really, he knew she was grateful for the distraction.

 

“You’ll be the best,” he assured her. “So you worry about that, and I’ll worry about the rest.”

“Okay,” Feyre conceded quietly.

“Okay,” he repeated. “I love you.”

 

 

When he finally reached the school, Rhys was still trying to tame down his worry. He was quick in his movements to reach the headmistress’s office, but his hope slowly deflated as soon as he was let in and realized Juliet wasn’t there.

Immediately, without a greeting or a nicety, he asked,

“Where is she?”

The headmistress appraised him for a few moments, as if surprised at his words, before her gaze flickered to the other person in the room. The other parent—a woman Rhys had already seen once or twice in front of the school gate.

“Sir,” the headmistress greeted him, her chin slowly rising. “We’ve been waiting for—”

“Where is she?” he repeated, his brows furrowing and his head turning this way and that as if Juliet was hiding there and he’d somehow be able to find her. “Where’s my daughter?”

 

The headmistress paused. She cocked her head to the side, and probably solely for his worry’s sake, she answered,

“Both your children are alright,” she said, “although one of them has been left with a pretty bad bruise.”

 

Anger slowly swirled in Rhys’s stomach at those words. And a part of him—the part that was irrational, the part that was hard to contain, the part that was trying to fight with the logical one—wanted to snarl and yell and run, too.

Run to find Juliet and make sure she was, indeed, okay.

 

He managed to tame it down.

“I want to see her,” he demanded, finally turning back to the two women in the room. “I want—”

“You’ll both get to see them in a few minutes,” the headmistress assured him. “But for now, I think we have to talk.”

“I—”

“I don’t know what happened between them,” she said, and Rhys only then realized the other woman was slightly shifting in her seat.

She, too, was worried.

This, somehow, brought him back to reality.

He wasn’t the only worried parent in the room.

“But they both usually are very respectful and kind to everyone, which is why we need both of you both to investigate what happened today—and try to understand what in the world has brought little Juliet to punch Carla in the face.”

 

All of its own, the world stopped spinning.

And Rhys’s worry was still gnawing at him, but it was also blinded by everything else—his shock, his incomprehension, his fucking dread, too.

 

He blinked, and then, when it didn’t help at all, he blinked again.

“I—” he furrowed his brows this time, but it was useless. “What did you say?”

“Juliet,” the headmistress repeated very slowly, “has punched another student today, Sir. Did you not listen?”

 

But Rhys had been listening, yet he just couldn’t really understand or comprehend or realize. He was absolutely dumbstruck.

For he had not—not even for a second—thought Juliet had been the one to start the fight. The one to land a hit.

She didn’t have a violent bone in her body. And he refused to believe that she had been the one to willingly hurt another student.

 

His uneasiness kept growing inside of him all the way through the corridors the headmistress led them to—and up until they reached a small door. And it was still growing as soon as they stepped inside to find Juliet and who he guessed was Carla sitting on opposite chairs in the small school infirmary.

 

Carla was, indeed, a little bruised, and her face was puffy. But the glare she was shooting Juliet was the worst.

And right in front of her, Juliet was…

 

Oh, the sight immediately broke Rhys’s heart.

 

She was curled up on her chair—her legs drawn to her chest as if she was pointedly trying to make herself as small as possible. Her head was bent low, hidden from view by her knees, where she had buried it.

 

Rhys’s heart broke, indeed. In a million tiny pieces.

He didn’t really notice the other parent crouching down next to her daughter as he did the same.

 

He placed a careful and gentle hand on Juliet’s knee.

He murmured,

“Jules.”

 

And as soon as he did, Juliet slowly—so fucking slowly—lifted her head to him and met his gaze with her red and puffy eyes.

 

And, for perhaps the first time, she hesitated.

She looked at him, and he could see the questions all over her face—to try and choose whether she was allowed to come closer, whether he would be mad at her, whether he would provide the comfort she desperately needed.

Rhys did the only thing he thought he could, he offered her a half-smile and opened his arms for her.

 

She surged forward so fast that Rhys was almost surprised, but held her just as hard as she was squeezing him—her head pushing so hard against his chest that he thought maybe she was trying to hide in it, and looping her arms around his neck so tightly he almost had a little trouble breathing.

Still, he held her just as tight. He kept her just as close. He tried to reassure her that he was there.

 

 

 

When Feyre entered their home, later that night, her movements were frantic and quick—her worry still evident on her every move. Still, Rhys managed to intercept her before she could enter the living room.

 

“Where is she?” Feyre asked, kicking off her shoes with more force than necessary. “Is she okay? What—”

“She’s alright,” he started slowly. “She—”

“Where—”

“Feyre,” he called.

“I need to see her,” she continued, “I—”

“Feyre,” he tried again, and held her in place with a gentle hand on her hip when she tried to move again.

Her eyes snapped up to his.

“What the hell happened? Who hurt her? Who—”

“Feyre,” he repeated, once more, a little more quietly this time.

 

Feyre was finally looking at him. Finally ready to listen.

Still, she asked,

“What the hell happened?”

 

Rhys had been wondering how he would break down the news to her, in the couple of hours since they’d left school. He hadn’t found the exact words to offer her.

So he simply told her—just offered her the blatant truth.

“She was the one to punch.”

“I—” Feyre blinked. She made a face—a mix of amusement and disgust and disbelief. “No, I—”

“She was,” Rhys repeated slowly, his voice very quiet. “She punched another little girl when they were in PE. Carla, you know her?”

 

At that, Feyre paused. And her eyes were blown wide, her head slowly shaking. Not because she didn’t know who he was referring to—she probably did. But because, just like him, she couldn’t believe it.

Her voice came out in a breath,

“What?”

 

Rhys took a deep breath.

And it was painful—so fucking painful for him to offer her the words Juliet had eventually told him.

 

(The ones she had finally murmured once they were out of the school. Once they were away from the ears of that other student, and her mother, and that headmistress. Once they were in the comfort of their home, and in the comfort of Juliet’s bed. Once she had crawled out of it for the half-second it took her to reach for the hoodie she was always keeping close—his hoodie—and disappeared under its fabric. Once her sobs had slowly stopped, although her tears were still leaking.

Once Rhys could swear his worry had already started to kill him, probably, too.)

 

“She…” he paused. Closed his eyes as he leaned against the wall behind him. He tried again, “They were in PE,” he explained, “changing after class.” Disgust was lining his tone, but he couldn’t keep it at bay. “And—that little girl, Carla, she… noticed her scar.” Rhys opened his eyes again on Feyre’s teary ones. “She called it disgusting, and weird. She—she said it was ugly.”

 

The anger he read on Feyre’s face was so cold and so vivid he almost didn’t recognize her.

Then again, he felt exactly the same.

 

Still, her voice was a little gentler when she asked—almost a plea,

“Where is she?”

Rhys cocked his head to the side.

“Her bedroom. She dozed off half an hour ago.”

 

He followed after her as she made her way to Juliet’s bedroom, and when she paused in front of the closed door, clenching and unclenching her fists a couple of times, Rhys placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and squeezed.

Feyre turned to him at that, and this time, all he saw on her face was the exact same pain he felt.

He leaned in to press a gentle kiss on her temple. It gave her enough strength to enter Juliet’s room apparently, and they both joined her sleeping frame on the bed.

 

Juliet was buried under the covers, clutching a stuffed animal close to her chest, her face half-hidden in the hood of the hoodie she was still wearing. She stirred as soon as they both climbed on the bed, and when Feyre lowered her head right next to Juliet’s on the pillow, Juliet pressed her eyes shut tight, then slowly blinked one open. Closed it again. Open again.

 

Her voice was so quiet and so low when she asked—almost trembling,

“Am I in big trouble?”

 

This was what brought tears to Feyre’s eyes. She lifted a hand to Juliet’s face, her fingers barely grazing her skin as she started tracing lines.

 

It was after one, perhaps two minutes that Feyre finally said—not exactly an answer to her question,

“Your scar is far from ugly.”

Juliet’s eyes, too, turned glassy at that. Unlike Feyre, she didn’t manage to rein in her tears though, and they started leaking all on their own.

One, two, three. Falling like raindrops on her skin, and trailing down her face until they dropped on the pillow.

 

From where he was sitting on her other side, Rhys lowered himself and enveloped her in his arms as well. Juliet seemed to nestle against him even though she didn’t turn away from Feyre.

 

“You survived something Jules,” Feyre continued, her voice a murmur and her tears starting to fall as well. “Something very dangerous and scary. Something not everybody has the chance to live through.” She paused, brushed a couple of tears away from Juliet’s face. “Your scar is the living proof that you have survived, Baby.”

 

When a sob broke through Juliet’s throat, Feyre pressed her eyes shut—almost as if the sound was unbearable.

It probably was.

It surely felt unbearable, to Rhys.

 

She moved, shifting a little closer to Juliet to envelop her from the other side. She tucked Juliet’s head under her chin, cradling the back of her head with her hand.

“Don’t let anyone,” Feyre breathed, “make you believe that scar is anything other than absolutely beautiful.”

 

Rhys lifted a hand to brush some of Feyre’s tears, like she had brushed away some of Juliet’s just a few moments ago. She leaned into his touch.

 

And for a few moments, they stayed just like that.

 

Feeling, and breathing, and accepting.

Healing, too. At least a little bit.

 

Eventually, Juliet murmured, her voice so quiet and so raw,

“I’m sorry.”

Feyre was shaking her head, but it was Rhys who murmured,

“Don’t be.”

“But I—” She slowly pulled away from Feyre, turning to be able to meet his eyes with her reddened ones. “I punched her,” she said with a sniffle.

Rhys shrugged a shoulder. “I’m not…” he huffed quietly—nothing humorous. “I’m not saying you were right to. But she only got a small bruise, and I sent her home with a pack of ice.”

He had. Juliet had still been wrapped around him when he had risen to his feet and had told the other parent and her daughter that some ice would help.

“She’ll get over it.”

 

Juliet blinked at him, uncomprehending, before she turned back to Feyre.

 

“Punching is not a solution, Jules,” Feyre offered. “But no one has the right to talk about your scar and call it ugly. No one.” She took a deep breath. “And you, in turn—you don’t have to tell anyone about what happened to you if you don’t want to.”

Juliet sniffled again. And she buried her head back in Feyre’s neck, gripping Rhys’s arm in the process to make sure he wouldn’t go anywhere.

 

They took a few deep breaths, all of them.

A few steadying ones, a few deep ones. A few accepting ones.

 

---

 

It was a little more than a week after that—after long discussions in the middle of their living room, and quiet reassurances in the dead of the night ; after a lot of tight embraces and many, many questions ; after they all had the reassurance that, yes, Juliet was okay, (and that, yes, Carla had stopped), and that, yes, she knew she could come talk to them anytime—it was after all of that that Juliet came to him, one night.

 

Feyre had already been on the couch (practicing on her tablet and working hard to create the portfolio she had to give in a couple of months), and Rhys had come home just a few minutes ago (had been exhausted after the day he’d had—but had felt good, too, because he had just saved a little baby, and broken the news to their family, and he had been eager to come home to his family to tell them about it.

So he had barely been home, had just gotten himself a glass of water, when Juliet had emerged from her room.

 

And her smile was small, and her voice hesitant when she had asked, a little too quietly,

“Can I ask you something?”

Rhys had been a little surprised, but, like he always did, he had assured her,

“Of course.” And, just for the sake of it, he had added, “You know you can.”

“Would you…” she had paused, had taken a deep breath. “Will you come to school with me tomorrow?”

And she was speaking to Rhys, that much was clear. She was speaking to him, even though she wasn’t looking at him, but rather at the MedicalMes he had offered her all this time ago—the ones she was clutching in her hands very tightly.

She had continued,

“Will you explain what happened? To my class?”

 

Rhys had cocked his head to the side at that. He has observed her—and had taken his time before asking for the confirmation,

“About your heart transplant?”

Juliet had finally met his gaze. She had nodded, once.

And so, Rhys had asked,

“Would you like that? Do you want your class to know about that?”

“Yes,” Juliet had told him, a little more assured this time. She had hesitated, before adding, “I’m not ashamed of it.”

 

---

 

 

Rhys had been coming home very late, lately—and tonight was no exception. It was almost four in the morning when he opened the door, barely managing to keep his eyes open.

 

It had been like that for a few nights in a row—and he hated it.

He hated knowing that he was leaving Feyre alone, hated not being there when Juliet came home from school or before she fell asleep, hated that he was barely seeing either of them.

He knew it was because his fellowship was coming to an end, too. Because Helion was trying to fit in as many surgeries as he could, just so he would be well-prepared.

 

And he knew, too, that Feyre and Juliet understood. They had told him as much—repeatedly.

 

He just had a hard time accepting it.

 

So it had been later than late when he’d entered his house that night, which is why he was beyond surprised to see a light on in the living room. And even more surprised to see Feyre still on the couch.

 

She wasn’t awake though, as he realized after taking a few steps toward her. Instead, she was lying on her side, her tablet next to her among torn pages and pages of sketches—as if she’d hopped from one drawing to the next, trying time and time again to get it right.

 

He knew she had been working on her portfolio non-stop, now that her graduation was approaching. And he knew, too, that her final project had kept her up more nights than she’d like to admit.

 

Said project consisted of illustrating a whole book, or so he had been told. A book of her choice—one that wouldn’t have any dialogues or stories, save for the one she would be drawing.

 

Feyre had been stressed, the day she’d learned she’d have to do it. And that night, Rhys and Juliet had been bouncing ideas back and forth to help her come up with something, but she had frowned, or grimaced, or rolled her eyes at every single one of them.

When they had broached the subject again, a few days later, she had refused to tell them anything.

At least, anything other than, I did come up with something. And then, I think you’ll both love it.

 

They had tried to pry information out of her. It had been useless.

 

Back in their living room, Rhys couldn’t really erase the fond smile from his lips. With careful hands, he removed each sketch and pencil from the couch beside her, as well as her tablet. And when he was done, he crouched down next to her and gently brushed a strand of hair away from her face.

“Feyre,” he murmured. He tried again, “Love.”

She stirred, this time, but didn’t move much more than that.

And in response, Rhys huffed fondly.

 

He slid his hands underneath her—one behind her back and the other behind her knees, scooping her up and gently bringing her close to his chest as he rose to his feet.

This, apparently, drew a reaction out of her—though it was nothing more than an incomprehensible mumble in the shape of a tangle of words. Rhys chuckled softly.

“I really didn’t get that,” he murmured, bringing his lips to her forehead in a not-quite kiss as he started walking toward their bedroom.

Feyre buried her face in the crook of his neck. Her words were still blurring together, but he thought he understood her now, as she said,

“I was comfortable.”

He kissed her forehead, for real this time.

“You’ll be even more in bed,” he murmured.

 

His quiet footsteps echoed all around them as he made his way to their bedroom, and he swore he felt her relax as soon as her back met the mattress. She didn’t relax for long though, because she moaned childishly the moment Rhys pulled away, and wrapped her hand around his wrist, tugging.

“Stay,” she pleaded, almost managing to drag him into bed with her.

“I’ll be right back,” he tried, then kissed her temple. “Let me—”

“Stay,” she murmured again, a plea if he had ever heard one. “Stay with me.”

 

And oh, he was really just a weak little thing because he was ready to do just that.

Still, he pressed his lips to her temple again.

“Just five minutes,” he whispered. “I have somebody else I have to go kiss goodnight. And then I’ll be right there with you.”

 

Feyre was pouting, he knew. But her hold around him eased out. He could almost think she had already fallen back asleep, but she proved him wrong when she said,

“Quick.” She added, her voice more of a breath than a real whisper, “I need to fall asleep in your arms.”

 

 

And as soon as Rhys was back in bed, she did just that. He lulled her to sleep with his words and with his lips on her skin, pressing kisses on her until her breathing deepened.

 

---

 

“So,” Feyre announced with a deep breath as she stood in front of them. “It’s finished.”

Juliet frowned. “What is?”

“My uh—” Feyre shifted nervously on her feet. “My final project. I’m ready to hand it over but uh—” She took a deep breath. “I would like your opinion and you…” she cleared her throat. “Your approval.”

 

Rhys’s eyebrows slowly rose on his forehead.

 

“Our approvals?”

“Yes,” Feyre slowly nodded. “I uh—I want you to read it. To—uh—to look at it, actually. And then if you’re both okay with that, I’ll uh—I mean. I’ll hand it over.”

 

There was a pause—one during which neither of them knew exactly what to answer. The look Rhys exchanged with Juliet when Feyre reached for something in the box she had set on the coffee table confirmed that she was as confused as he was.

 

“I had them printed,” Feyre announced. “Cass said it might—”

“Cassian has seen this?”

 

The question had come from Juliet, but really, Rhys was as curious.

“He…” Feyre hesitated. “He has. He helped me through it all.”

“Why didn’t you want us to help?”

 

And Juliet was frowning, too, but Feyre was averting her eyes and trying hard not to acknowledge it, apparently.

She carefully retrieved two books that looked more like manuscripts than any school project he had ever had to hand in, and she was slow in her steps as she neared them.

 

She handed the first one to Juliet, before handing Rhys his copy.

 

“I—” she started, sitting down right in front of them on the coffee table. “I wanted to surprise you,” she offered quietly. “But now that I’m done I’m realizing that this is all a little…” she hesitated. “Personal. And so, if either of you have anything to say against this,” she nodded toward the two manuscripts on each of their laps. “Then, I’ll just—” she shrugged. “I’ll come up with something else.”

 

Which would mean postponing her graduation—not that any of them voiced it.

 

When he glanced down at the copy on his lap, Rhys asked gently,

“Are you happy with it?”

 

Feyre blinked at him, very slowly, as if she hadn’t even expected the question. Her eyes flickered between him, and Juliet beside him, before she nodded, very slowly.

“I am,” she said. “But I want you to be as well. Both of you.”

 

Rhys didn’t say, but he would be—no questions asked. If Feyre was happy with her work—if she was proud of herself… Then, whatever she could have drawn in that book would be enough, for him.

 

“As I said,” she continued. “I need you both to be entirely honest with me and tell me if there is anything that uh—” she shrugged. “Anything you’re not comfortable with.”

“Because it’s personal?” Juliet repeated her mother’s earlier words.

 

Feyre kept her eyes trained on her—even as she echoed, a confirmation, really,

“Because it’s personal.”

 

And personal, it was.

 

It was… everything.

All the past months, and past years—retracing their past and their journey and their story. Feyre had started with a few sketches of her and Juliet when she had been just a baby—before skipping through the years and showing drawings of medical appointments and different clinics and hospitals and doctors. Rhys only came into the story after a couple of pages—and that’s only when he realized everything they both had been through before him.

 

Juliet was sniffling back tears by one-third of the book.

Rhys’s were streaming down his cheeks by the moment he saw the representation of Feyre juggling more jobs than she could manage.

And as soon as he took in the drawing where Juliet had been put on ECMO, he reached out a hand to Feyre, and dragged her to the couch, right in between them.

He finished observing every single drawing with her hand interlaced with his, and with his tears dropping on the pages every now and then.

 

And when he turned the last page, the first thing he did was kiss her.

Kiss her sweet, kiss her slow. Kiss her tenderly and kiss her true.

“You’re amazing,” he told her. “I love you so much.”

 

Feyre answered with a weak smile—one that told him just as much—but she only lingered for a moment before she turned to Juliet, this time.

Silently waiting.

Silently asking, too. Asking if that was okay. Asking if she was alright, probably, too.

 

Juliet’s answer had come in a murmur. In a messy sniffle. In a quiet truth, too.

“This,” she said, and her voice was wavering but still determined. It wasn’t the voice of the eleven-year-old she was—at least Rhys didn’t think so. It was way older than that. “This is—” She had trailed off again, and closed her eyes, making exactly three tears fall. She had brought the manuscript to her chest—clutching it as if it was something precious, something holy. Something sacred.

“Mom,” she said with a deep breath. “This was everything.”

 

---

 

“Will you be cheering the loudest in the crowd?”

Juliet glanced at him over her shoulder, a smile already wide on her lips.

Rhys chuckled, flicking her nose.

“What’s that wicked smile, Missy?”

She rolled her eyes at him, turning back toward the still empty stage.

“How rude of you,” Rhys sighed—a deep and tired sigh, “to ignore me like that. I’m hurt, truly. I—”

“Shh,” she turned back to glare at him, and Rhys would have probably told her how much it made her look like Feyre, if only he knew it wouldn’t earn him yet another (and darker) glare.

“It hasn’t even started,” he tried instead with a small chuckle. “It—”

“I don’t want to miss her,” she countered, and somehow, the tone of her voice made Rhys want to stop teasing.

His smile turned a little softer, as he nodded toward the stage.

The ceremony hadn’t even started yet. Still, he said,

“Let’s watch, then.”

 

So they waited. They waited silently, and giddily, and fucking proudly, too.

 

They waited—and they tried not to be too surprised when they called the first names, but somehow didn’t call the name Archeron.

They waited—and Rhys placed both his hands on Juliet’s shoulders when she glanced at him, brows furrowed and frown deep in place.

They waited—and as they did, they tried not to let their worry gnaw on them.

 

They were almost at the end of the alphabet by the time Juliet turned back to him, whispering,

“Where is she? Why didn’t they call her? What—”

“I don’t know Jules,” he answered, shaking his head slowly as he squeezed her shoulders. “I don’t—”

 

But he stopped speaking, too, when the speaker announced the last graduate would now step on the stage.

 

They both froze—and as they did, they thought maybe the whole world had, too.

For she was the one stepping on the stage. She was the one who appeared—cap, gown, and everything. But mainly—

“For her talent and perseverance,” the speaker announced, “as well as the outstanding final project she submitted, we are proud to award the honors cord to Miss Feyre Archeron.”

 

Even from so far away, Rhys saw the tears welling in Feyre’s eyes as she scanned the crowd. As she found them. And as she brought a hand to her chest—almost as in silent thank you.

 

As she slowly made her way down the stage, Juliet turned back to him with her eyes so teary he thought they might be made of glass. Then again, his were equally teary.

He chuckled through his tears, and slid his arms around her, making her lean back against his chest in a not-exact hug.

“We’re gonna have to tell her how proud we are,” he told her with a deep breath as Feyre kept walking through the crowd, slowly making her way to them. Juliet was nodding against him. “Over and over again.”

 

---

 

“Have you been waiting for long?” Rhys asked, a deep sigh leaving him as he finally joined Feyre in the cafeteria of the hospital. He dropped a kiss on her head. “I’m sorry. This took way longer than I thought.”

She didn’t so much as lift her head to him as he sat down beside her. Rhys didn’t really notice, a little too eager to ask,

“How did your interview go?”

“Did you know,” she started slowly, “they changed the coffee sleeves in here?”

“Huh?”

“The coffee sleeves,” Feyre repeated—and Rhys only then saw that she was, indeed, playing with a coffee sleeve.

 

He hadn’t noticed before, but the table she was sitting at was quite… a mess. Two cups of coffee were set on the table, but the coffee sleeves had been removed and looked absolutely torn and shredded—as if Feyre had been playing with both of them for hours on end in an anxious motion. She still was.

 

“They used to be brown, remember?” She continued, her hands still fidgeting. “Now, they’re white.”

 

Rhys opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. Open again. Closed again.

He cocked his head to the side, brows slightly furrowing.

“Feyre,” he called gently. “Are you alright?”

 

She finally—finally—met his gaze. And she observed him, face unreadable for a few minutes.

 

Rhys tried,

“The interview, it—” he hesitated. “It didn’t go as you had hoped?”

“It—” she huffed. “It did, actually,” she said, very slowly.

Rhys’s frown deepened. She announced,

“I got the job.”

 

Well. If Rhys had been confused before, he sure as hell was now.

Still, he felt a smile stretch on his lips. He placed a hand to wrap over Feyre’s on the table—over her still fumbling fingers and her hand still tearing bits and pieces of what was left of the coffee sleeve. He tried,

“Feyre, that—that’s awe—”

She didn’t let him finish, instead removing her hands from under his slowly and hiding them from view on her lap. Rhys was sure she was still fumbling anxiously when she repeated,

“I got the job, Rhys.”

 

He didn’t really mind if his worry was evident on his features, now. He shook his head, slowly, asking,

“And… Are you not… happy?”

 

A chortle left her at that—unexpected and loud. Disbelieving, also.

“I—” she was shaking head now, her laugh never-ending. “No, I—I am, I—” she trailed off, nibbling on her lower lip. “I am very happy,” she confirmed. “I’ll be working in a publishing house to illustrate kid’s books, I—” she huffed. “The pay is truly not bad and the advantages are great, I—I get to do what I love and I get to be paid while doing it, Rhys, and I—” She paused, took a deep breath. “And I have health insurance.”

Rhys slowly furrowed his brows again.

He repeated, very slowly,

“You have health insurance.”

“I have health insurance—” she echoed with a chuckle. “I—I never had health insurance, Rhys, I never—”

He refrained from telling her she didn’t really need it anymore—and guessed her reaction came from something else. From something deeper. From something more meaningful.

“I never,” she repeated, “never had health insurance.” She paused. “And now—” she shrugged. “I do.”

 

Silence stretched between them for a few minutes—and Feyre was looking at him with hope, and happiness, and something in her eyes that Rhys was truly trying to understand, without really managing.

She was searching his face, asking a question he didn’t understand, waiting for an answer he didn’t know how to voice.

 

Eventually, he said,

“I don’t—” he paused. “I’m sorry, but I’m not… following.”

 

Feyre huffed at that—an almost chuckle, but it sounded a little more loaded than that, too. She glanced down at her lap for just a second before she glanced back up to him again. And when she did, her eyes were teary. Her breathing shallow. Her smile so fucking soft Rhys wanted to commit the sight to memory.

 

She took a deep breath.

A very deep one.

 

And people might have been all around them at the cafeteria, might have been rushing around and getting past them—yet Rhys swore they were alone in that moment. Entirely alone.

 

“I…” she started, the tears gathering in her eyes making them glint under the light of the cafeteria. “I’m sometimes freaking out for nothing, and can barely keep a healthy sleep schedule. I’ll steal all your clothes and will probably drive you mad with the art supplies I leave everywhere in your loft. But I—” she huffed—such a beautiful smile through the one tear that had started leaking. “But,” she continued after another deep breath. “I have a beautiful daughter, and I love you, and I—” She swallowed. “I have health insurance, now.”

 

Somewhere during her speech, she had lifted her hands back on the table—fists curled around something she didn’t want to show just yet.

 

“So,” Feyre continued, her voice slightly wavering, “Would you—I mean…” Her hands were almost trembling on the table, but Rhys couldn’t get his eyes off her face.

Especially not when she asked,

“Will you… Marry me?”

 

Rhys stared.

And he started.

And then, when he finally felt like he couldn’t do much of anything else—he started again. At her hands this time.

 

At her unclenched fists and at her outstretched hands, open on two small shapes in the curve of her palms.

Two small circles.

Two small paperboard circles—made out of coffee sleeves.

 

A white one.

And a brown one.

 

Beside him, Feyre was still waiting—her eyes trained on him and waiting for him to get past his shock, to get past his emotions, to get past his everything, really.

And her tears were still leaking, and her smile still gorgeous, and her hands still trembling. But her chest was heaving, too. Her breaths coming out in almost pants.

 

And Rhys hadn’t even felt his own tears leaking or his own heart stuttering—stuttering so violently he had trouble keeping track of it and realizing it was still healthy.

 

His movements were slow (too slow) and careful (too careful) and trembling (too fucking trembling), when he lifted a hand and reached out to her. And his hold was soft (too soft) and light (too light) and weak (too weak) when he wrapped his hand around her wrist and tugged.

Tug at her to come closer, tug at her to come find him, tug at her to reach him.

 

And then, his voice was wavering (too wavering) and quiet (too quiet) and raw (too fucking raw with emotion and feelings—and all the best ones, at that), when he murmured,

“Come here.”

She did. She sat on his lap unceremoniously.

 

Her hands were, once more, curled into fists around the shapes—the rings—she had presented him. As if they were precious and Feyre was making it her life’s mission to protect them.

He gently took her hands in his, and with gentle fingers, uncurled her fists.

He reached for the brown ring.

 

He said,

“Give me your hand.”

 

Feyre did.

And it felt like they were both holding their breaths when Rhys gently slid the ring on her finger.

 

The shape was weird. It was worn out. It was as if she’d been playing with it for a long time, and he guessed it made sense.

Because if this one was brown, he guessed it was the one he had presented her—all those days and nights ago. Right in this cafeteria.

 

Feyre had apparently kept it all along.

And he wasn’t sure the thought should bring another set of tears to his eyes.

 

Still, as soon as the ring was on her finger, he said,

“Yes.” He looked back up at her, their heads so close they could see their tears reflected in each other’s. “Yes, Feyre. I will. I—I’ll marry you with or without insurance.”

 

Feyre chuckled wetly through her tears.

And Rhys thought she would kiss him, then. He thought she would, and he wanted her to.

But she glanced back down and with her free hand, she reached for the second ring on her palm.

 

She didn’t muster much more than a weak,

“Hand.”

Rhys huffed as he presented her, indeed, with his hand.

 

She slid the ring on his finger.

 

And the material felt weird on his skin, and the shape was a bit too big, and the ring slightly too loose.

Yet, he loved it on sight.

 

“I’m not marrying you for your insurance,” she offered him, her voice so quiet he probably shouldn’t have heard it. Rhys brought his hand—the one now wearing her ring—to her cheek and brushed his thumb on her skin a couple of times. “I—” she tried, then shut her eyes. A few tears had escaped by the time she opened them again. “I’m marrying you for you, and because I love you, and because—because I can’t live without you.” She paused again, took a deep breath. “I’m marrying you for you, Rhys.”

 

Rhys didn’t think words could exactly compare to that.

And he guessed he didn’t need to answer anyway—at least not like that.

 

So instead, he leaned in—what few inches separated them anyway—and finally kissed her like he had been desperate to.

He brushed his lips against hers slowly at first, gentle and soft and tender against her lips. But then the kiss turned a little more—a little deeper, a little more desperate, a little more meaningful.

He felt as if he tried hard enough, he could imprint himself on Feyre’s skin. He could make a home of her skin, and spend the rest of his days there. He could bury himself in her neck and hide inside her heart.

He felt like he could, and perhaps he already had.

 

“I love you,” he told her, a little breathless, when they finally broke out of the kiss. And perhaps it wasn’t enough. Perhaps it wasn’t quite enough to tell her exactly what she meant to him. Still, he repeated, “I love you so, so much.”

Feyre, too, brought a hand to his face and gently brushed her fingers on his skin. She was still smiling. Still crying as well.

Still beautiful.

“I love you too,” she murmured. “And I’m very sorry for making a scene in the middle of the cafeteria.”

 

Rhys hadn’t even realized—but indeed, people were staring, and looking, and probably talking about them, too.

They had most probably seen it all.

And he couldn’t care less about any of it.

 

He simply leaned in for another kiss.

 

---

 

“Rhys?”

“Mh?”

 

Juliet quietly made her way to him, sitting down beside him on the couch.

“What are you doing?”

“I have this thing to finish reading,” he explained with a tired sigh, nodding toward the paper on his lap.

“Before you’re finally done with the fellowship?”

 

He turned his head to her, a smile soft on his lips.

“Basically, yeah,” he nodded. “Helion, you know the doctor I’ve been shadowing?” Juliet nodded. “He’ll be retiring at the end of this month.”

“And then you’ll finally be a—” she hesitated. Rhys had a hard time believing it was because she didn’t know exactly her next words. “Pediatric Cardiothoracic surgeon.” She paused. And then, “Right?”

“Right,” he nodded slowly. “Helion seems to believe this is it. I’m ready.”

 

Beside him, she paused. Rhys let her.

 

She was wearing his university hoodie—the one he should probably call hers by now.

The one that had started tearing slightly at the sleeves, and that seemed more worn out than any of them dared to say.

 

It was still too big for her, but looked a little more fitting than when she had been younger, and had tried to slide it on for the first time.

 

She was now almost twelve, and Rhys had a little trouble realizing it was still the same little girl.

 

“Can I ask you something?”

Just like he always did, Rhys assured her,

“You can. You know you can ask me anything.”

The smile Juliet offered him was small. It was almost sad, too.

She asked,

“Are you… I mean… You were a regular cardiothoracic surgeon, before,” she said.

Rhys nodded. “I was.”

“And now…” she tried, her brows furrowing. “I mean, you’ll be specialized in pediatrics, now.” Again, Rhys nodded. She breathed—brows still furrowed and eyes almost pleading, “Why?”

 

It was already late. The sun had long set, and the night long enveloped the living room they were in. Feyre had gone to bed almost an hour ago, and perhaps Rhys should have told Juliet she should go, too, but he didn’t.

The point was, it was already late. The sky was dark, and the only light around them was the small lamp he had turned on to be able to read.

And the glow it reflected on Juliet made her look more like Feyre than she had ever looked.

 

He offered her a half-smile,

“Do you want to know why I wanted to specialize,” he asked, very slowly, “or are you asking if I did it because of you?”

 

Juliet blinked at him. And he knew, even before she answered, what this was about.

She didn’t offer anything—not really. But she slowly nodded, and Rhys thought it was silly, because he had asked her two very different things, yet he also knew exactly what she was nodding to.

 

“I—” he took a deep breath.

And as he did, he turned his head forward—a part of him unable to look at her when he was sharing this piece of himself.

“I don’t know how much you remember, Jules, or—or how much you understood from all that happened by then,” he said. “But I wasn’t—”

“Supposed to operate on me,” she finished for him, very slowly.

He nodded as he confirmed,

“I wasn’t. First because I wasn’t supposed to treat a child. And then because of my relationship with your mom. And you, in the process.”

 

She tried, her voice hesitant,

“Ethical rules? And—and Hippocratic Oath, right?” Rhys turned back to her—wondered, for a moment how she knew about this. He didn’t ask.

“Yeah,” he confirmed. “Lots of rules I have to abide by and I, let’s say, avoided, because I wanted to make sure you got the best care possible.”

 

She shifted beside him, drawing her legs up to her chest and leaning her head to the back of the couch. To look at him better, probably.

 

“These rules exist for a reason,” he continued. “And I—I really understood it when I performed your heart transplant.”

When he paused, Juliet murmured,

“Stella said… She said it was the hardest surgery you have ever done.”

“It was,” he nodded, very slowly. “It still is. It—” he took a deep breath. “It was a smooth surgery,” he said, “thank god. Everything went perfectly fine with almost no complications. But it was hard because you were on the table. It kinda—” Rhys shook his head, taking a deep breath. “It changed something in me. For a while, I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to operate again.”

 

Her quiet sniffle was the first sign he heard before he turned to her and saw her eyes wet with tears.

“I’m—sorry,” she breathed. “I—”

Rhys moved immediately, wrapping an arm around her, pulling her close.

“No,” he shook his head, “You have nothing to apologize for. I would do it again and again if it meant saving your life.”

Against her, she took a shaky breath—one to which Rhys answered with a gentle kiss pressed on the top of her head.

“I just meant,” he continued, “that I didn’t think I’d want to operate again, or operate on kids again, but then—” he took a deep breath. “Then I felt like I needed to help other kids. I wanted to give them the same thing I’ve given you.”

Her sniffle was messy again.

Rhys kissed the top of her head once more.

“I would do it over and over again, Jules,” he repeated quietly, simply because he thought she might need to hear it. “I’d do it even if it cost me my life. I’d do it all over again because you are far more important to me, than anything else.”

 

She was the one to press deeper against his side. She buried her head against him, and took a few deep breaths when Rhys tightened his arm around her.

 

After a few quiet moments, she breathed,

“I hate that you and Mom had to go through it,” she said it as if she hadn’t been the one to almost die in the process. Rhys was shaking his head as she continued, “But I—I’m very very happy we met you, Rhys.”

Rhys closed his eyes.

“And I—I’m so happy you’re finally getting married, too.”

 

He took a deep breath before answering.

“I’m very happy,” he said slowly, “you’re letting me become your Mama’s husband.”

Juliet chuckled quietly through her tears.

“You think I had a say in this?”

“Oh, I know you did,” he joined her in a chuckle. She slowly pulled away to be able to look at him. “Your Mom always puts you first, Jules,” he said—and meant all of it. “As she should. Do you really think she’d marry a guy if she knew you weren’t supportive of it?”

 

The smile on Juliet’s lips was a far more genuine one than all the precious ones. She knew he was right.

 

“Well,” she announced, “You really don’t have to worry about that. Because I’ve been on your team since that day you dragged me with you through the hospital for those rounds.”

Rhys laughed at that—loud and unexpected.

He kissed her forehead once he had sobered up.

“You’re right. I’ve been missing Doctor Juliet in the hospital lately.”

 

Her only answer came to his ears in a melodic hum.

 

---

 

By age thirteen, Juliet was always in the hospital.

 

She was there on the weekends—when Rhys was working and she pleaded to go with him under the excuse of spending some time with Stella or Cassian, when really, she was spending her time walking the corridors as if she belonged there.

She was there on every holiday and vacation—when she asked them to spend her days there, and when it was frankly quite easier for them to let her instead of having her stay home alone.

 

And she was there on school days, too.

 

The moment school stopped, she would walk to the hospital and spend a few hours there—lingering in the cafeteria and speaking with every person she crossed paths with ; following doctors in the hallways and listening by the patient’s room doors ; or (when she somehow managed to bribe someone to open the doors to the restricted area for her), sneaking her way into a gallery to watch a surgery or two.

 

Rhys had tried to tell her she couldn’t—repeatedly.

She always managed to keep it up. Always managed to find a nurse or a doctor who had a soft spot for her.

 

And then, there were the times Rhys thought he saw her in the corridors even before school finished.

 

She was always very persuasive and efficient in denying it.

 

So Juliet was spending every single minute of her free time at the hospital, and although it probably shouldn’t, it never failed to make Rhys smile, every single time he saw her.

 

“What does this one have?” She asked one day, leaning against the nurse’s station beside him. “She looks cute.”

“She is,” Rhys nodded as he kept reading the file. “Four years old. She was born with a small hole in her heart.”

“Oh,” Juliet was half-frowning, but half-interested, too. “But you’re gonna save her, right? You’re gonna—”

 

Her sentence hung unfinished in the air when they both heard loud voices approaching—shouting and yelling, all coming from a corridor and getting more and more distinct. Rhys’s pager was already blaring by the time a nurse came into view, screaming over the already loud voices,

“Doctor Knight! We need you around here!”

 

And so he was moving before he could even think about it.

He turned to Juliet though, already running to the patient, half-panting on the gurney, and told her,

“Jules. Text Mom and tell her you’re here so she can pick you up.” He turned to the patient then, taking in his hard breathing and his hissing. His eyes shut closed and his slightly blue lips, too.

The nurse told him,

“Name’s Liam. Fourteen-year-old male. Diagnosed with Dilated Cardiomyopathy three months ago. Came in with chest pains and difficulty breathing. Parents are—”

 

The rest of her sentence died in Rhys’s ears the moment his eyes to flickered up again—to meet Juliet’s from afar.

She was frozen, and looking at him with wide, terrified, but hopeful eyes.

 

Rhys tried not to get too distracted by them.

He refocused on the patient instead, and placed a hand on his shoulder.

 

The boy—dark skin, even darker hair—opened his eyes with difficulty. His gaze met Rhys’s.

“I’m Doctor Knight,” he assured him as they kept walking through the doors that separated the restricted area from the patient’s. “You’re Liam, right?”

The boy didn’t nod, but kept his eyes trained on Rhys.

“I’m going to do everything I can to make it better, alright?” Rhys reassured, nodding to himself.

 

The only sign that he had heard Rhys was the grunt leaving the boy.

 

 

 

“Doctor Knight,” Cerridwen called him about an hour and a half in the surgery.

Rhys hummed.

 

The boy on the table was stable by now—that, at least, gave him a little reassurance. But he had also made the decision of admitting him permanently, once he got him stable enough to be brought up to a room, and the whole situation was reminding him a little too much of another patient, a few years ago.

He didn’t linger on the thought.

“Your fiancé is calling. Third call in a row.”

 

This made his eyes snap up to hers.

The use of the word made him smile—the whole hospital had been eager to call Feyre his fiancé as soon as the news they had gotten engaged had spread, and he suspected Cassian to be the cause. His smile dropped the moment the words registered, though.

“Can you pick up?” he asked, and just like she often did, Cerridwen took a few steps towards him as he straightened and put the phone on speaker.

“Feyre, are—”

“Is she still in the hospital?”

Rhys blinked.

“Juliet?”

“Yes, Juliet,” she answered, a little exasperated. She sounded irritated, and a little stressed, too. “It’s past ten and I—”

“She was here earlier,” he explained when she trailed off, furrowing his brows. “But I told her to text you. Didn’t—”

His sentence hung unfinished in the OR as his eyes slowly trailed up to the gallery and landed on a silhouette in the room.

 

Juliet was in a corner of the gallery—her legs drawn to her chest and her arms looped very tightly around her legs. Her eyes though, were entirely trained on Rhys.

 

He sighed softly.

“She’s here, Feyre,” he told her. “Don’t worry.”

 

There was a beat of silence at the other end of the phone—a relieved one.

 

“Thank god, I didn’t—” he couldn’t be sure, but he was quite certain she was slowly shaking her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Rhys huffed fondly. “I’ll bring her home soon,” he promised. “Bye, love.”

“Bye.”

 

He knew the staff around him was smiling at the conversation they had just heard, but truly, his eyes were still trained on Juliet in the gallery.

He cocked his head to the side, holding her gaze for a few seconds.

 

And then, he shook his head, in an attempt to clear his mind. And he got back to work.

 

 

Later, Rhys was slowly speaking to the boy’s parents as he walked them to the room he had been appointed to, when he noticed a silhouette hovering by the door—watching over the unconscious boy. Juliet left just before Rhys reached the room.

 

And it was only when they were back in his car (the night dark and the moon high in the sky), that Rhys sighed.

“Who let you in?” he asked, his hands steady on the steering wheel but gripping a little tightly.

When Juliet didn’t answer, he pushed, “Cass? Stella?” He paused. “I know Nuala wasn’t working tonight.”

 

Again, Juliet didn’t answer.

And when Rhys turned to her to look, she was looking out the window, her forehead leaning against it.

Almost as if she was avoiding him.

 

“You know you can’t watch surgeries like that, Jules,” he said quietly. “You’re really not supposed—”

“Dilated Cardiomyopathy, right?” she murmured without moving. “That’s what that guy has?”

 

Rhys fell silent at that.

He, too, had been a little troubled by it.

 

Only when Juliet slowly turned her head to him—her eyes were teary but her face fierce—did he finally answer.

 

“Yeah,” Rhys confirmed. “He’s been admitted to the hospital permanently tonight.”

“Until he gets a new heart,” she finished for him.

 

Rhys didn’t have to confirm.

She already knew.

 

So they kept driving in silence. The radio had been tuned out, and it was good, Rhys thought, because neither of them really needed to hear silly songs right now.

 

It was after a few minutes that Juliet eventually said, her voice quiet,

“Well.” She swallowed. “I’m glad he has you. So you can save him, too.”

 

---

 

Over the next days, and weeks, and months, Rhys saw Juliet at the hospital more than ever.

She was always there—somehow ever more than the usual.

 

Only, instead of the hallways and the cafeterias and the OR galleries she used to spend her days in before—now, she was always in that patient’s room.

Liam’s room.

 

Rhys didn’t know what she had told him, at first. What she could have told him, exactly, to introduce herself, until she was spending all of her days in there.

 

But now she was spending all of her time there, no matter what he or Feyre tried to tell her.

No matter how they tried to dissuade her, either.

 

---

 

“We’re invited over to my parents’ tomorrow,” Rhys announced over dinner one night, “My mom said she could help with the wedding cake, too, if you—”

“I can’t tomorrow,” Juliet announced very casually, in between mouthfuls of the salad she was eating.

Feyre met Rhys’s gaze at that.

She tried, very carefully,

“You can’t…”

“I can’t go,” Juliet repeated—eating a little too fast, too. As if she was expected somewhere. “I have something.”

 

There had been a pause at that—one filled with the sounds of Juliet’s fork on her plate as she kept eating her dinner like a starved person.

 

“And,” Feyre asked, her eyes slowly narrowing on her, “What is that something?”

Juliet paused.

Her eyes flickered to Feyre, then to Rhys, before finally, she resumed eating.

“Just a thing.” She fully turned to Rhys then, “Are you almost ready?”

 

This time, Rhys leaned back in his chair, his eyebrows so high on his forehead it almost hurt.

 

“Ready for what, Jules?” He asked, although he had a pretty good idea.

“You have a surgery,” she announced, as if she knew it better than himself. “I’m coming with you to the hospital, I—”

“No,” he countered slowly. Her eyes snapped up to his. “I don’t have a surgery tonight.”

“You do,” she nodded. “You have that baby with the—”

“It was moved,” Rhys answered, cocking his head to the side. “I’m free tonight, as well as tomorrow.”

 

He watched as her face slightly dropped, inch by inch.

As her mouth slowly parted to form a round shape, before she clamped it shut.

As she furrowed her brows slightly.

 

“Oh.”

“I’m not going to the hospital,” he said slowly, and then added, because he thought he might have to voice it, “and neither are you.”

 

Silence stretched between them—for seconds, minutes. Hours, perhaps. At least it felt like it.

 

Until eventually, Feyre started, her voice quiet,

“Jules,” Juliet slowly turned to her. “I think we have to talk.”

 

Juliet, of course, didn’t answer. It wasn’t so surprising.

 

Feyre continued,

“I know this must be… weird for you. He’s almost your age, and has the same disease you—”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” Juliet frowned.

“—used to have, and he—”

“I don’t—” Juliet snapped, pushing her chair back as she stood almost violently, “—want to talk about this.”

Her chest was almost heaving, and her eyes almost teary.

Almost.

But she was also trying damn hard to hide it.

Feyre’s voice was still gentle as ever when she said,

“Don’t want to talk about what, honey?” She cocked her head to the side. “How he’s sick, or—how you’re starting to really like him?”

 

There were one, two, three more panting breaths that left Juliet before a tear slowly leaked from her eye. And then, she stormed out of the room and made a point of shutting her bedroom door with a loud bang.

 

---

 

From Feyre : I’m guessing she’s still at the hospital?

 

Rhys frowned.

He ran a hand over his face, trying to chase away his exhaustion as he walked out of the OR.

 

The hospital halls were almost empty as he walked through them, and it made sense. It was almost three in the morning.

Which is exactly why he was still frowning when he typed back,

 

From Rhys : I don’t know. I haven’t seen her. I’ll go check.

 

It wasn’t very hard to find Juliet lately, anyway.

She was always in the same room.

Always at the same bedside.

 

Always with the same smile playing on her lips.

 

The door to Liam’s room was half-opened, and there was only a small light on, but Rhys could hear voices inside as soon as he approached it. And Juliet was laughing so hard Rhys could do nothing but smile softly, too. Despite everything.

 

“No,” Liam was laughing, too. “I can’t believe you just—punched her.”

“She was mean,” Juliet chuckled, slowly sobering up. Rhys took just a step forward, still careful to stay hidden from view.

Juliet was sitting cross-legged at the foot of Liam’s bed, looking at him with a wide grin on her face. And Liam was looking back at her with eyes full of something Rhys didn’t really dare to acknowledge.

 

“What did she do?” the boy asked, his smile still bright.

That was apparently enough for Juliet’s smile to drop—not that Rhys could see it clearly, but he could hear it in her voice anyway.

“Nothing. It was—”

“Ju,” Liam tried, a little more quietly. “Tell me? Please.”

There was a pause. And then,

“She said my scar was ugly and disgusting. She said—she said I was a freak for having that.”

 

The silence was very different then.

And it stretched for quite a long time, too.

 

Until Liam said, his voice so quiet in the night,

“For what it’s worth…” he paused, trailing off on the word. “I’m sure it’s beautiful.”

A difficult breath left him—one a little too alike what Juliet’s had been years ago.

And then,

“I would love to have a scar like that.”

 

If Rhys had to guess, he’d say Juliet was blinking back tears now. She was probably nodding, too. A little frantically. But he didn’t know—he was already taking a step back, leaning on the wall beside the open door and looking away.

 

Liam chanced—and his voice was hesitant,

“Do you uh—I mean. Do you want to lie down?”

 

Rhys heard no response.

But he heard the quiet ruffling of sheets and he guessed Juliet was, indeed, moving until she was lying down beside him.

 

That’s what finally made him move—what made him finally decide he was intruding on something a little too intimate.

 

He took a few steps away and pulled his phone out from his pocket.

 

From Rhys : She’s here. With him.

 

He hesitated, before he sent another text.

 

From Rhys : I don’t have it in me to bother them and bring her home right now, Feyre.

 

Her answer came in the shape of a call. Rhys picked up immediately, taking a couple more steps away from the room.

 

And neither of them spoke at first—as if neither of them dared to voice what they both knew.

 

That is, until Feyre asked—her voice so quiet and so soft,

“She’s…” She paused. Hesitated. “She’s falling in love,” she continued eventually. “Isn’t she?”

 

And Rhys wanted to counter,

She’s young.

She’s only thirteen.

She doesn’t really know what it’s like.

 

Instead, he murmured,

“I think she is.”

 

---

 

“You can save him, right?”

Rhys and Feyre were already lying down in bed, each with a book in hand, when Juliet barged in their room, tears gathered in her hopeful eyes.

 

“Right?” she pushed. “You can save him?”

“I—” Rhys started. “I’ll try my best, Jules.”

“No,” she shook her head, brows furrowing. She took another step toward their bed. “You will save him.”

 

At that, Rhys paused. He gently closed the book he had been reading, placing it on his nightstand as he straightened.

“Sit down for a minute.”

She shook her head.

“No, I—”

“Sit down, Juliet,” he repeated quietly, “please.”

 

At that—either at the tone of his voice or at his gentleness—Juliet did, albeit a little reluctantly.

She sat at the foot of their bed, her hands fisted. Feyre had straightened as well beside him, motioning for Juliet to come closer, but Juliet ignored her.

 

“How much,” Rhys asked slowly, “did Liam tell you about his disease?”

They both saw the hesitancy in Juliet.

When she didn’t answer, Rhys took a deep breath. He continued,

“I’m not supposed to tell you this, Jules,” he said, “but I think you need to hear it anyway.”

 

“What?” It was probably supposed to be a question—it had come out in a broken and raspy breath instead.

Rhys cocked his head to the side, eyes flickering to Feyre for a second before finding Juliet again. As if she had known, Feyre moved—leaving his side to make her way near Juliet at the foot of the bed instead.

He continued,

“Unlike yours, Liam’s Dilated Cardiomyopathy has been diagnosed… very late.” Juliet nodded a little frantically—her eyes glinting with the tears gathered there. Feyre took her hand in hers and squeezed gently.

 

Rhys had already talked about it with Feyre. He had told her all of that—first because the thought had been lingering with him and haunting his mind in a collection of what ifs and can you imagine, that he had tried hard to ignore. And then, because he had realized what it had meant—and what it would mean for Juliet, too.

 

“That means the disease has had the chance to develop over time,” Rhys’s words were slow. He was trying as hard as he could to make her understand what he was telling her. “And has started to damage other organs in the meantime.”

Juliet blinked. Once, twice, thrice.

She was breathing a little heavily, too, so Feyre slid her arm around her shoulders.

Juliet didn’t even look like she had noticed.

“But you’re gonna save him,” she all but breathed. A broken breath more than anything at all.

 

Rhys tried not to let a grimace make its way onto his face.

He tried not to show her his real feelings.

 

And he offered her the same words he had offered Liam’s parents,

“As I said, I’m going to do absolutely everything I can. But—but this means we’re not just talking about the heart failing. We’re talking…” he paused when a whimper left her. His eyes flickered to Feyre, and he found comfort in the slight nod she gave him to prompt him to continue. “Lungs. And liver, and kidneys, as well.”

Juliet’s eyes fluttered closed.

“He’s in a lot of pain, Jules,” Rhys murmured. “He probably doesn’t want you to worry, but he is.”

 

She kept her eyes closed.

She kept her eyes closed when Feyre pulled her close to her chest, kept her eyes closed through her tears and silent whimpers.

She kept her eyes closed through the difficult breaths she tried to take—over and over again.

 

When she spoke again, her voice had come out strained. But so mature Rhys had a hard time believing she was the one speaking.

“When?”

He furrowed his brows slowly, a slight lump beginning to form in his throat.

“When, what?”

 

Her eyes snapped open—blue-grey eyes deep and intense as she observed him.

 

“When are you gonna save him, then?”

 

Rhys opened his mouth to speak, then clamped it shut.

Open again.

Shut again.

 

His eyes found Feyre’s, at loss for words, before he said,

“Jules—”

 

“Because he’ll be higher on the list, right?” she asked, her voice a little steadier now. “Since his state is deteriorating,” she said, “he has a higher chance of getting a new heart.”

 

Rhys felt the lump in his throat tighten. Over and over again.

He watched as Feyre gently brushed Juliet’s hair away from her face, but Juliet couldn’t be bothered. She kept looking at him, kept wishing for him, kept hoping he would make it all alright.

 

So he told her the only thing he could manage,

“I’ll do my best.”

 

---

 

“Is it for him?”

Rhys jumped at the voice, turning toward Juliet.

 

She was looking at him in the night—standing in their living room with his hoodie, and tugging at the sleeves in an anxious motion.

“Is he getting a heart, tonight?”

Rhys finished sliding on his coat.

“The page isn’t for him,” he told her quietly. “Go back to—”

“But you’d tell me, right?” she cut him off, her brows furrowed as she took a step toward him. “If he was getting a heart, you’d tell me. Right?”

 

Because he knew she would probably not listen otherwise, Rhys sighed. He took the few steps that separated them and cupped her face—and her long hair, in the process.

“Yes,” he said, almost ceremoniously. “I promise I’ll tell you. Now,” he nodded to the corridor behind them, “go to bed. It’s very late.”

 

Juliet searched his face for a moment before she tipped her head in a nod.

Rhys pressed a kiss to her forehead before letting her go, and took another moment to watch her disappear into her bedroom before he left his loft.

 

---

 

Exactly one week after that, Rhys was standing in an OR.

And he was wishing on every star in the sky that he would be able to make wonders—all while knowing the odds were so small it was almost already lost.

 

He tried anyway.

 

He tried with all he had.

 

Juliet had been in Liam’s room—in Liam’s arms—when he had crashed.

When his heart had failed him.

When Rhys had to decide to bring him to an OR and try placing him on ECMO.

 

To make the decision to put him at risk, for the sole purpose of buying him what little time he could.

 

And now—

 

Rhys’s ears were ringing.

His hands trying to shake all on their own.

His breathing was so difficult and his heart so painful he thought it might try to crawl out of his chest.

 

The ringing in his ears wasn’t only due to his own mind buzzing, though.

It was ringing in the whole OR.

 

And he had to fight very, very hard to believe that this was a patient before him.

He had to fight very hard to understand it wasn’t a seven year-old on the table.

He had to fight really fucking hard to realize it wasn’t her.

 

“Time of death,” Cerridwen’s voice was very quiet beside him. “Four forty-eight.”

 

Rhys heard his staff starting to move around the OR, but he couldn’t bring himself to.

Not just yet.

 

He was taking deep breaths when he finally managed to open his eyes again, and it was almost an instinct that brought him to glance up.

To look at the gallery.

 

And to feel his heart break in a million tiny pieces at the sight in front of him.

At the sight of Juliet—her body shaken by her violent sobs, and her face flooded with tears as her hand rested on the glass separating the gallery from the OR.

Crumbling against it.

And alone.

 

And just like that, he felt like the worst possible person.

And he knew she felt it, too.

 

 

When Rhys reached Liam’s empty room that night, Juliet was there.

She ran away from him the moment she saw him approach.

 

 

It was late, probably three hours after that, when he finally got home.

When he had broken down the news to Liam’s parents, when he had made their lives change forever, when he had tried as hard as he could to keep it together, when he had searched the whole hospital for Juliet, only to have Feyre confirm Stella had brought her home.

 

The night was so dark he was barely able to see anything. The cold of February so freezing he was barely able to move a limb.

The hurt in his heart was so deep he could barely stand it.

 

And it was late.

So late he could barely keep his eyes open.

Then again, perhaps it was due to everything else.

 

Yet, Feyre was waiting for him by the door and she wrapped him in her arms immediately.

Her eyes, too, were lined with tears and heartbreak and grief.

 

He crumbled against her.

She tangled her hand in his hair.

She said,

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Rhys shook his head against her neck.

She whispered,

“You did everything you could.”

Rhys pressed her closer.

She murmured,

“She’s in her room. You should go see her.”

 

Rhys straightened.

He locked eyes with Feyre.

He showed her all he had been trying to hide from everyone else.

 

He rasped,

“I just killed her first love, Feyre. She doesn’t want to see me.”

 

Feyre had brushed her hand on his face.

She had shaken her head, very slowly.

She had disagreed—if not with her words at first, at least with her entire self.

And she had told him,

“You didn’t kill anyone.”

She had added,

“Go see her. She needs you right now.”

 

So Rhys had.

He had taken slow and careful steps.

He had taken a few deep breaths.

And he had braced himself for the loathing and hatred he was sure to find.

 

Instead, what he was met with after he had knocked softly and opened the door was the quiet and motionless frame of Juliet. She was lying on her bed and staring blankly ahead, as if she had already cried a little too much.

 

Rhys rasped,

“May I?”

 

Juliet had been slow in her movements. Her eyes had been slow to find him. Her mind slow to recognize him. Her breathing slow, too.

She had been slow to straighten.

Slow to walk up to him on wobbly legs.

 

And slow, too, when she had crumbled against him.

 

Rhys hadn’t realized at first. One minute, she was in front of him—his university hoodie hiding her hair and her frame, her legs trembling and shaking. And the next, she was pressing him tight.

She was looping her arms around his neck and holding him. She was sobbing against his neck and shaking against him and hugging him so close it was almost uncomfortable—but it was also reminiscent of all the times she had done exactly that.

 

Rhys held her closer.

He, too, cried alongside her.

 

“I’m so sorry,” he murmured against her. “I’m so very sorry, Jules, I—”

She whimpered against him.

She sobbed.

She wept.

She managed to say—a rasp more than anything. A broken admission more than anything. A choked sob, really,

“He knew he was going to die.” She paused. Pressed her head deeper into Rhys’s neck. “I’m glad you were the one who tried to save him.”

 

---

 

Grief was a weird thing.

 

Juliet learned it that Winter and then, she processed it that Summer—and they were all here to watch her go through it, too. To hold her hand, and hug her tight, to talk to her (or, sometimes, not talk to her), through it.

To help her untangle her feelings through it, as well.

 

She was crying one moment, huffing the next. Chuckling one hour, sobbing the next. Weeping one day, laughing the next.

 

But she was closer to Rhys and Feyre than ever.

She fell asleep in their bed a few nights in a row, and they let her.

She stayed home a few days in a row, and they let her.

She skipped a few meals in a row, and they let her.

 

And then there were the times she locked herself in her room.

They let her, too.

Always with the promise that they would be just a few feet away, should she need them.

 

She always did.

 

And they didn’t know if what they were doing was the best thing—but they guessed she probably needed it.

 

They also guessed she had quite a few things to grieve, after all.

 

Liam, for sure.

Her friend.

Her first love.

Her first real feelings.

 

But the disease as well.

The surgery.

The heart transplant.

The pain and the fear and the anxiety.

All she had been through—and all she could have gone through.

All that had happened—and all that hadn’t.

 

The realization of all of this—all tangled up in a grief more complicated than any of them could really comprehend.

 

They postponed the wedding for her.

And when she asked them about it—eyes reddened but no longer teary ; her face a weird mixture of relaxed and anxiety ; the sleeves of the hoodie she hadn’t left for days (but what felt like years) curled in her hands around her fists and enveloping her whole, Feyre and Rhys merely told her,

“The wedding’s not just for us, Jules. We’ll wait until you’re feeling a little better.”

 

And they would wait however long it would take.

However long it would take for her to be able to smile a real smile again, and for her to be able to laugh a real laugh.

For however long it would take her to fall asleep without a couple of tears trailing down her cheeks, too.

 

That night, when she slid under the covers of their bed, Feyre was the one to dry her tears.

Rhys was the one to press a kiss on the top of her head.

 

But Juliet was the one to murmur, in the quiet of the night,

“I love you.” Her eyes were already closed. “Thank you for being the amazing parents that you are.”

 

---

 

“Rhys?” Juliet called him in September, exactly a week after school had started again.

She had insisted on going—even when they had offered her to stay home for a few days.

 

Rhys gave her a soft smile. Feyre, too, shifted from where she was leaning her head on his lap, simply to be able to look at Juliet. His hand had been tangled in her hair, but he paused the movements as he said,

“Yes?”

“Tomorrow,” she started slowly, sitting down beside him, “I don’t have class after three.”

He hummed his answer—his confirmation or his acknowledgement, because he already knew that.

She continued,

“Do you mind if I—” she hesitated. “If I join you at the hospital after that?”

 

Rhys cocked his head to the side.

 

“I don’t,” he assured her. “You know I don’t mind.”

 

Yet, he was wondering if maybe she might

If she was ready for it, perhaps.

 

She continued,

“Cassian—Cassian said he’d bring me to that floor with all the new babies. And Stella said she has something very cool to show me, so I thought—I just—”

She trailed off in a shrug.

And as she did, Rhys saw on her face the truest smile, perhaps, he had seen in a long time.

 

“I thought it might be nice.”

Rhys opened his free arm for her.

“It sounds very nice,” he told her as she nestled close. “If you want that, I think that’s a very good plan.”

 

She paused. Her eyes were looking right back at Feyre, from where she was still lying down on Rhys, and they seemed to have some kind of understanding.

 

“I always loved the hospital,” Juliet offered eventually in a murmur. “Even after what happened with Liam…” she trailed off. She took a deep breath. “It kinda feels like home.”

 

---

 

When Rhys came home that night in the middle of October, the first thing he heard was giggles and laughs so loud he could do nothing but smile, too.

 

The lights in the loft were turned off, so he made his way silently towards Juliet’s room, where the sound of the voices was coming from.

The door was open when he approached, and both Juliet and Feyre were lying down, though Feyre was throwing a stuffed animal at Juliet and making her shriek in another wave of giggles.

“Mom!”

“You—” Feyre tried, still laughing, then stopped when she caught the stuffed animal Juliet had thrown back at her, “were the one to start this, you—”

Feyre trailed off when Juliet reached forward and started tickling her—probably more violently than Feyre had anticipated.

 

Rhys was still looking at them from the doorway—even as they kept laughing, even as they kept smiling. Even as they eventually sobered up.

And even as they both took a few deep breaths, looking back at each other with their eyes—one set an exact mirror of the other.

 

The hand Feyre lifted to brush her finger on Juliet’s face was gentle, and her voice even more so when she asked,

“Is my baby okay?”

Juliet was slowly nodding even before she answered, “I am.”

Her voice was quiet, yet it resonated in Rhys’s heart as if she had screamed the words.

“I really am, Mom.”

 

They both fell silent at that—they kept their eyes trained on each other, kept smiling softly at each other. Kept sharing the same breathing and the same heartbeats.

 

And the moment was so soft, Rhys almost felt like he was intruding.

 

Juliet was the one to break the silence eventually—her eyes never leaving Feyre’s even as she asked,

“Do you think he’ll ever stop spying on us?”

 

Feyre chuckled at the same moment an amused huff left Rhys’s lips.

And it didn’t take much more than both their heads turning to him to make him move and join them on the bed.

 

“Never,” he replied, as if the question had been for him. “I’ll never stop spying on my girls.” He paused when he saw Juliet’s fond eyeroll and Feyre’s smile, sitting down on the bed beside them. “Plus,” he continued, a little more quietly. A little more genuinely. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed hearing you two like that.”

 

And he wasn’t referring to them speaking.

He was referring to them laughing.

 

They all knew it.

 

---

 

“A delicious chocolate cake for the birthday girl.”

 

Juliet grinned as soon as Yelena placed the cake before her.

 

“Thank you, Yel.”

Yelena tsked at her, shaking her head.

“None of that, Jules. You know it’s my pleasure.” Still, she dropped a kiss on the top of her head. She added, “Plus, Anton wouldn’t let me leave the house before he made sure the cake was made exactly as you like it.”

 

Everyone was there. Azriel and the nurse he had started dating a few months ago, as well as Mor and the paramedic she had yet to present them. Stella, as well as Elain, and Nesta.

 

Cassian was standing right in front of Juliet, too, a camera in his hands and looking all the more professional with it. Juliet stuck her tongue out at him the moment he came to stand before her.

“Smile,” he demanded, “or all you’ll remember from your fifteenth birthday is a grimace.”

 

A few feet away, Feyre sighed heavily as she leaned back against Rhys’s chest.

She turned her head to the crook of his neck, keeping Juliet in sight but trying to come closer to Rhys as he looped his arms around her waist.

She moaned,

“Where’s my baby with her chubby face and her sparkling eyes and her beautiful bright smile?”

Rhys pressed his lips softly to the top of her head in a not-exact kiss. He smiled against her.

“Our baby,” he corrected gently, the word earning him a chuckle, “doesn’t really look like a baby anymore.”

 

And indeed, she didn’t.

She looked like a grown-up.

Like a younger version of Feyre.

Like the teenager Rhys had been desperate to see grow up.

Like a person neither of them had truly thought they would get to see.

 

“She still has sparkling eyes, though,” he continued, “and a beautiful bright smile. It can light up the whole room, haven’t you noticed?”

Feyre snorted. She wrapped her own hands around Rhys’s.

“But she has also experienced things no fifteen-year-old should,” he murmured, very quietly.

At that, Feyre shifted to meet his eyes. He offered her a soft half-smile.

“She went through it. She grew through it. And she’s still that amazing, wonderful person. Despite all of it.”

 

Feyre blinked back the tears stinging in her eyes.

She was nodding, very slowly.

 

Rhys lifted one of his hands to gently trace Feyre’s mouth, bringing a soft smile back to her lips.

“Ah,” he mimicked her smile when it appeared. “Better, love,” he praised softly, then leaned in to kiss her lips. “Way better.”

 

---

 

“I have a question for you,” Juliet announced when she sat down at the kitchen island next to Feyre.

“Mh?”

Rhys chuckled under his breath, but didn’t say anything—instead, he kept cutting the vegetables he had been busy with.

“What’s that book you’re working on?”

 

Feyre was, indeed, working on a book at the moment—at least a part of a book she had been given as a project; illustrating page after page of fae-like creatures. At Juliet’s question, though, she lifted her head from her tablet and frowned at her.

“What do you mean?”

“The book,” Juliet nodded to the tablet. “What is it?”

“Any reason why you want to know?” Feyre asked, cocking an eyebrow at her daughter before she asked, “Or is that just a diversion before you ask what you really want to ask?”

 

Beside her, Juliet paused. She only hesitated for half a second (leaving Rhys with more than one smile he had to refrain) before she conceded,

“You’re right. I don’t—” she shrugged. “I just want to know if I can go to Ethan’s birthday party on Saturday?”

“Who’s Ethan?”

“A guy from school,” Juliet leaned over the kitchen island to grab a piece of carrot Rhys had just cut. He rolled his eyes playfully.

“And where’s his birthday party?”

“I don’t know, but—” she took a bite of her carrot, chewed around it, “—everyone’s going and—” she frowned, grimaced, swallowed. “And it sounds cool. So, can I?”

Juliet reached for a cucumber, this time, as Feyre started,

“I—”

“When are you getting married, by the way?”

She chewed on her cucumber.

Feyre blinked. Rhys probably did, too.

“What?”

“You’ve been engaged, for like,” Juliet swallowed, grabbed a few other pieces of vegetables, this time. “Ever. So when are you getting married?”

 

Neither of them had talked about it. At least not recently. When Feyre turned back to him, Rhys slowly shrugged, too.

“I mean, you’re not even wearing engagement rings. I get that the cardboard thingies were cute and romantic and everything,” Juliet frowned again, popped a cherry tomato in her mouth. She articulated through it, “But I was promised a wedding and you’re taking forever.”

Feyre was already opening her mouth to speak when Juliet stood, reaching for a couple more vegetables to swallow. She asked—as if she had never even changed the subject,

“So? Ethan’s party?” Feyre furrowed her brows. “It’s on Saturday. I think Rhys can pick me back up when he leaves the hospital because,” she turned to him, “you have a surgery at one in the morning, right? So you can pick me up at three, three thirty?”

 

She left without much more than a glance back at them.

 

And both Feyre and Rhys were left blinking.

 

---

 

Juliet had been right. They hadn’t mentioned the wedding at all ever since Liam’s death.

 

That night, they spoke about it.

 

And the night Juliet went to her friend’s birthday party was the night they decided it was time. The night they decided they were ready—all of them.

 

The planning resumed the week after that.

 

---

 

The wedding finally happened in January.

 

It was a small wedding—only a few guests and only a few decorations. Homemade dishes eaten during a small reception.

They decided they didn’t want to bother with a caterer (didn’t want the stress, didn’t want the fanciness, didn’t want the rush), and so they didn’t.

They decided they didn’t want a big reception (didn’t want a ballroom, didn’t want a church, didn’t want a big party), and so they didn’t.

 

They decided they didn’t want to make vows (not like that, not in front of everyone, not when they already knew everything), and so they didn’t.

 

Just them—their closest family and friends standing in Rhys’s parents’ living room. What little people they wanted here, smiling at the sight of them.

Rhys in a dark blue suit Juliet had picked out for him, and Feyre in a beautiful dress Rhys had immediately teared up upon seeing. Rhys accompanied by Cassian as his best man, and Feyre walking down the aisle with her bridesmaid, Juliet.

Rhys holding his every breath when she joined him. And Feyre smiling so much it must have hurt as she walked to him.

 

So it had been small, and it had been quiet—a few words spoken from both of them. Truths and admissions like, I love you, and, Is that the part where I get to kiss you yet?

Murmurs and whispers like, I could tell you so many things, and, But you already know everything.

 

Nods and smiles and kisses—shared between chuckles and clasping and cheering.

 

Tears, too. There had been tears.

 

We’re finally doing this, Rhys had told her, a little breathless, the moment he slid the ring (a real one, this time) on her finger.

We’ve already committed a long time ago, Feyre had answered, tears glinting and smile shining, as she slid on his.

 

So the wedding had been small, really.

The ceremony had been quiet.

 

At least until they had both held their breaths, You are now husband and wife.

At least until they had kissed, You may now kiss the bride.

At least until they had murmured, I love you, Mrs Knight.

 

At least until the cheering had echoed all around them. And until the clasp had enveloped them. And until they had pulled away—breathings in pants but happy; and eyes teary but happy; and hearts unsteady. But happy, too, of course.

 

And until a voice had come in an echo all around them—louder than the other ones.

Until Juliet had announced,

“I know you didn’t want to make vows.” From where she was standing a few feet away from them—in the middle of the crowd, holding a microphone in her hands with her cheeks a little red. “But will you at least let your bridesmaid make a small speech?”

 

The people behind her (their families, their friends, their inner circle) answered before them in a cheer.

Feyre chuckled. Rhys was the one to nod.

The cheering settled down.

So Juliet took a deep breath.

 

It was a very deep one.

 

“My mom,” she started, her smile soft and gentle and beautiful, “has always been my favorite person in the whole world. From the moment I was born, she—she’s done absolutely everything for me. She put her life on hold, just because she wanted to make sure I got absolutely everything and I—” Her blue-grey eyes, still locked on Feyre’s exact replicas, were starting to blink fast.

And with his hand clasped in Feyre’s, Rhys could feel how emotional she was getting, too.

“Most of you,” Juliet continued for the people behind her, though her voice was very quiet, “know that I got… very sick when I was younger. Now, a lot of you probably met me and my mom at that exact moment,” she said, slowly nodding as if to herself. “But the sickness started before that. And you all have to know that—” Juliet’s hold around the microphone wrapped a little more tightly, her knuckles turning white at the exact moment her voice faltered. “That my mom has moved the entire world… to make sure I would get cared for.” Juliet’s voice paused—for all but a moment. “She never gave up,” she shook her head slowly. “She dragged me to appointment after appointment, brought me to specialists and doctors and healers and whoever the hell she thought might help in the slightest. She fought for me—and I know she’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

Feyre was nodding beside Rhys, her tears trailing down her cheeks, hard.

He let go of her hand and wrapped an arm over her shoulders.

“So,” Juliet continued, “Yeah. My mom’s my favorite person in this entire world. She has always been. And I just—” Juliet’s blue-grey eyes lingered on Feyre for a second more before they landed on his. And Rhys felt his own eyes tear up even before she said, “I just didn’t expect to find another favorite person in this world.” She paused, bringing a hand to her cheek to chase away a tear. “But then we met you, Rhys, and I—” Her tears were trailing down her face, fast. “I don’t think,” she said with a very deep breath, “that you realize how much you have done for us. How—how much you have saved us. I—”

She cleared her throat. A lame attempt.

“I was young,” she said, very slowly, “when I understood that the fear of dying was less scary than—than the fear of letting the ones you love behind.” Rhys’s eyes fluttered closed at that. And he felt it in every single bone of his body. Especially when she continued, in just a murmur, “It was less scary, when you were with us.”

Rhys finally opened his eyes again and met hers—and he knew they were thinking about the same thing.

 

He knew she was remembering that same night, and the same words she had spoken to him by then.

 

Juliet smiled weakly through her tears.

“You’ve never stopped being there for us ever since, and I—”

Juliet trailed off.

 

And she paused. For a second or for a minute.

And, as if she didn’t feel like she could continue right then, she wrapped both her hands around the microphone, tilting her head up toward the sky.

 

She paused, at least until she slowly spoke again. She had lowered the microphone by now—speaking to only them and the few people who would be able to hear her.

“A very… very dear friend of mine,” she said, her voice wavering, “Liam—he—he told me it was,” she lifted her hands to air quote, a stiff motion, “so fucking cool that my dad was such an amazing cardiothoracic surgeon.”

She huffed—almost a chuckle, though it was messy with tears.

“And all I could think about was how—” she used one of her palms to chase away a few tears. Tried to make her voice a little more steady. “—how it was so fucking cool to have you as my dad.”

“Fuck.”

 

The word that left Rhys’s lips had got caught in his throat, and it had stayed there—in between a choke and a whimper.

He was breathing fast, and perhaps that was what prompted Feyre to shift in his arms and place a hand on his chest. Right above his heart.

Juliet continued—as if she was unbothered, or perhaps afraid she wouldn’t get to finish if she stopped right then.

 

“Only I—I realized you weren’t my dad,” she shook her head. “Not really. Not—” She huffed, a quiet and breathless and happy sound. “Not officially, at least.”

She took a very deep breath.

She clenched her fists, then unclenched them. Clenched them again.

“So,” she said, “and because I know Mom already told you marrying her meant being stuck with her daughter, too, I—uh—” she huffed. “I mean—” she cocked her head to the side, this time, as she trailed off. “I got a few papers for you to sign as well.”

“Oh, fuck,” Rhys repeated, because he couldn’t get much of anything else past his throat.

Against him, Feyre huffed quietly, her palm brushing over his chest gently in a back-and-forth motion that helped him breathe, somehow.

Across from them, Juliet had stopped talking, too, and she was now making her way towards them.

 

Eyes still glassy and cheeks still wet and smile still bright.

 

“Are you going to be alright?” Feyre asked quietly, teasing.

Her voice prompted him to turn to her, just for the few seconds before Juliet joined them.

He guessed, his voice almost accusing, “You knew about this.”

“Of course I knew about this.”

Rhys slowly leaned his forehead against Feyre’s, taking a few deep breaths.

“But if this makes any difference,” she murmured, just for him, “it was all her idea. She wanted to do it, she—it meant a lot to her.”

 

And they probably both knew how much it meant to him as well.

 

When he slowly pulled away from Feyre, Juliet was already standing in front of them.

And she was handing him a pen, presenting him with papers, indeed, and looking at him with so much hope and faith that it broke something in him, a little.

 

It broke something, or it healed something, he couldn’t be quite sure.

 

He lifted a hand to take the pen she was handing him. Before he took it though, he said,

“Papers or not, Jules,” he made a point of looking at her dead in the eye, “you know you’ve always been my little girl.”

She nodded, her movements frantic.

“And,” she said, “I might have never called you that, but—you’ve always been my dad. In all the ways that matter.”

 

The smile he offered her was as frail as his breathing. As shaky as his hands. As stuttering as his heart.

 

He swallowed around the lump in his throat and turned around to bend down at a nearby table, carefully placing the papers in front of him.

The only word he read was adoption before a few other tears fell, and he was glad for Feyre’s finger pointing him to where, exactly, he was supposed to sign because he wasn’t sure he would have been able to do it otherwise.

 

The moment he had though, he straightened and opened his arms for Juliet to crash into him in a hug.

He couldn’t be sure he had voiced his quiet, come here, or if he had only thought it.

He couldn’t be sure he had managed to tell her, thank you, or if he had only repeated it in his head.

 

What he was sure of, was that he had managed to find her ear and whisper, I love you, Jules.

 

What he was sure of, was that he had opened one of his arms for Feyre to nestle close, too.

 

What he was sure of, was that he had held them so close to him that all of their hearts beat on the same rhythm.

 

 

They became Feyre and Juliet Knight that night.

And Rhys could have become Rhys Archeron—he didn’t care for a single moment.

 

But they had insisted.

 

So they had become Feyre Knight and Juliet Knight, and the thought had made Rhys a new kind of proud.

 

---

 

Life went on.

 

Life went on, and they went on, and they lived happy.

 

Feyre kept working at that same publishing house, and They’re giving me a whole book next, Rhys. Can you imagine that?

Rhys kept working at the same hospital, (and trying), and saving kids, and I don’t know why I didn’t switch specialties before.

Juliet kept going to school, or skipping school, and sneaking into the hospital instead, and, School is so boring, I swear. And I’m still top of my class. She rolled her eyes a lot. Imagine.

 

She turned sixteen and Feyre said, I can’t believe you’re getting so big.

She turned seventeen and Rhys said, Please don’t grow up too fast.

She turned eighteen and Juliet said, Will you be there for my graduation?

 

 

Juliet started university a few months before her nineteenth birthday.

 

She spent the Summer before that partying with her friends and going dancing with Stella and dragging Cassian to coffee shops she wanted to try. She spent that Summer sneaking in more surgeries than Rhys knew how to count—looking from the gallery as he worked. He gave up on telling her she shouldn’t.

She spent that Summer with a slight blush on her cheeks, too. Always when she was texting. Always when she was leaving the house with a hesitant, hum. You know. Meeting a friend.

And especially—especially—that time Rhys had seen her on a bench in front of the hospital with a red-haired, green-eyed something of a man he had never seen before.

A friend, Juliet had told him that night. He’s just… A good friend.

She had added, a little hesitant, Maybe… Could we maybe not tell Mom?

 

And, Rhys guessed, perhaps he had truly been a friend.

 

At least officially, because he had come home to find her teary-eyed one night.

He had come home to find her lying on the couch with her head on Feyre’s lap.

 

And he had come home to Feyre’s quiet explanation,

Her friend is starting university in Montesere.

 

 

So Juliet started university with a smaller smile than usual, and with what they guessed was a broken heart—or an aching one, perhaps

Because she was still attached to her phone, speaking (texting, and calling, and videocalling, too), who they had learned was named Sam.

Because she was studying Biology to become a vet, and Sam was studying psychology.

Because she was studying here in Prythian because it was the best program in the country, and Sam was studying in Montesere for the same reason.

 

During the first year of her undergraduate program, Juliet hopped between the university, the library, and the hospital.

She saw Sam exactly five times—that they knew of.

During her second year, she went from the university to the library.

She saw him four times.

During her third year, she locked herself in her room—either to study, or to call Sam.

She saw him twice.

During her fourth year, she locked herself in her room, studying.

She didn’t see him at all.

 

Is he going to be there for your graduation, Jules? Rhys had asked, a small smile playing on his lips as he opened the door of his car for her.

She had offered him a small smile.

She had shaken her head.

She had answered, I haven’t even told him it’s today.

 

 

Juliet started Veterinary school after that.

Feyre, Rhys, and all of their family barely saw her anymore.

 

The light in her room was on when Rhys woke up in the middle of the night to answer a page he had gotten in the middle of the night.

Her light was out in the middle of the day when he came home from a long shift—and she was sometimes lying half-asleep on her textbooks.

 

They didn’t hear much about Sam, or her friends, or anyone else.

 

They started to worry, too.

 

Before Yelena told them, one day, You were worse than that, Rhys, when you were in med school. It was very stressful.

 

So they let her.

 

And they made the most of the few, very precious nights when she joined them on the couch. When she was enveloped in that university hoodie of his that was now almost her size. When she fell asleep with her head on Feyre’s lap and her feet on Rhys’s.

 

They let her, and they still came to kiss her goodnight most nights, no matter that she barely lifted her head from her textbooks. They always left a plate for her on the dinner table, no matter that they never sat down to eat with them.

They always did, and they knew she noticed, too.

 

Always.

 

---

 

“You’re graduating in a week,” Feyre tried, one day.

 

 

Juliet had been writing and scribbling for weeks—trying and trying and trying to get her application letters for her internship in a veterinary clinic perfect. She had refused either of their help repeatedly.

She had refused, too, when they’d started talking about buying tickets to her graduation—telling them it wasn’t a big deal anyway, insisting the real deal would be when she got accepted to the clinic of her choice. The thought still left Rhys and Feyre with an awkward sense of something.

 

Juliet hummed her answer.

 

Feyre continued,

“Do you know when Montesere University is holding its graduation?”

 

Juliet had paused at that. From her stool at the kitchen island, her eyes had flickered to Feyre, then to Rhys.

“How I am supposed to know?” she mumbled as she bent back down to her letter, frowning at it. “Why would you want to know?”

“I was just wondering,” Feyre continued, her voice almost naive. “Thought you might know.”

“Nope.”

 

When Feyre glanced at him from the sound, Rhys leaned against the cupboard behind him. He was still drying his hands with the kitchen towel when he tried,

“We thought your friend Sam might know.” He paused when she lifted her head slowly to glare at him—at least as much of a glare as she could manage with such obvious exhaustion in her features. “And that you would have asked us to make the trip, by now.”

Juliet rolled her eyes dramatically at him.

“Could we, like,” she frowned, “not?”

 

Silence stretched between them for a few minutes. And when neither of them answered, Juliet refocused on the letters in front of her.

 

She was already starting to write again when Feyre took a few steps toward her.

“This came in the mail, Jules,” she placed something right in front of her. “Now, I know you haven’t seen each other in a while. But I’m sure he’d love for you to make the trip.”

 

Juliet didn’t lift her head back to them—she was too busy looking at the graduation invitation in front of her. Too busy blinking at it, too.

 

“And by the way,” Rhys added quietly. “We’re both free if you need a ride. Or if you need to take the car.”

 

---

 

“I hate her,” Feyre frowned, shifting to lie on her side. “She’s such a—a bad person, ugh.”

Rhys chuckled beside her. “I think you’re taking this show a little too seriously.”

“Oh no,” Feyre shook her head. “She’s exactly the kind of—”

 

“Where are your car keys?”

Juliet had appeared in front of the TV so fast they both blinked, once, before Rhys managed to ask,

“Car keys?”

“Yes,” She nodded, a little frantically. “Your car keys, where are they? Can I have them?”

“I—”

“Rhys!” she almost yelled. “Please.”

Rhys frowned. He met Feyre’s eyes for a second before he answered, “Sure. Of course.”

 

He barely registered the backpack she was holding or the hoodie she was wearing—barely registered the messy bun on the top of her head or the fact that she looked tired and almost frantic.

Didn’t register any of it. Instead, he made his way to the small console table in the hall to grab his keys.

 

Feyre and Juliet were not far behind.

“Where are you going?” Feyre asked, though there was a hint of something in her voice that made Rhys think she might already have an idea.

Juliet extended a hand to him, waiting.

When she didn’t answer, Rhys quirked an eyebrow at her without giving her the key. So she rolled her eyes, and finally said,

“Montesere.”

Rhys frowned. “It’s a two-hour drive, Jules.”

“So?”

“It’s late.”

“Yeah,” she sighed, tapping her foot incessantly against the floor. “Can I get the keys now?”

 

Rhys hesitated. For half a second, really, but it must have been a little more because he heard Feyre say,

“His graduation is over by now, Jules.”

“I know,” she sighed, glancing at Feyre over her shoulder. “But I know from a friend that he’s at a party right now, and he’s leaving for a one-month trip to Europe tomorrow, so I really need to go. Now.”

 

But Rhys was still hesitating. Still had a hard time letting her go, really.

When he met Feyre’s eyes, he knew she was, too. Yet she shrugged, giving him the choice.

“Just—” Rhys clenched his jaw, unclenched it. “Be careful, okay? Just—”

He handed Juliet his car keys, defeated. “Just be careful, Jules.”

“I will,” she threw over her shoulder, already half-running toward the door. “You’re the best!”

 

Rhys merely had the time to sigh before the door shut behind her. And he was already turning to Feyre when the door opened again on a still-running Juliet. She rose on her toes to place a kiss on his cheek, then one on Feyre’s.

“I love you,” she grinned, “I’ll be back tomorrow!”

 

And then, she was out of the door. For real this time.

 

Rhys was left sighing again.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he shook his head. “I’m happy she decided on going. But—”

“But your baby is a little too grown up?” Feyre finished for him with a soft smile. She brushed a hand on his face (on the lines that had started to appear), then tangled it in his hair (on the strands of grey he was noticing more and more each day).

“I’m afraid,” he huffed, “our baby is truly not a baby anymore.”

 

Feyre nestled against his chest.

“I think you’re right,” she mused. “But I also think…” she paused, craned her head up to look at him, “that she’ll always be our baby.”

“Mh,” Rhys leaned in for a soft kiss. “I love how you think.”

 

---

 

“As the Heads of every department in this hospital,” Amren continued her speech with as much assurance as she had always displayed. Her chin was held high in front of the interns who were joining the hospital today, and Rhys would have probably laughed with Cassian and Azriel beside him, if only she wasn’t so damn serious.

If only she hadn’t made it very clear she wouldn’t take well to it, too.

“They will be the best teachers you can ask for,” she finished. “As of next week, you will be assigned to shadow a different one of them each week as part of your surgical training. Don’t make them waste their time.”

 

A quiet hush of whispers grew in the crowd of young surgeons-wannabes in front of them, but Rhys didn’t really acknowledge it.

And as soon as Amren started calling the names of every single intern in the crowd to assign them to one of them, he tuned her out. He didn’t really need to hear a collection of names he wouldn’t remember, anyway.

 

He checked his phone instead.

 

From Feyre : Did you hear Juliet come home last night?

From Feyre : Her suitcase is in her room but she won’t return my calls.

 

Rhys furrowed his brows.

 

After her impromptu trip to Montesere, she had, indeed, come home the next day—though it was only to tell them she was leaving for Europe with Sam.

And really, perhaps one of them should have argued, but she was an adult and had been working so hard for the last couple of years that they didn’t find it in themselves to disagree.

 

She had left with a big hug to both of them, and a promise to be back only two weeks after that—just in time for her internship in the veterinary clinic to start.

 

So, in truth, it wasn’t really surprising that she had come home the night before. Although he hadn’t heard a single thing.

 

From Rhys : She wasn’t there when I left around 6. Did you try Sam’s phone?

 

From Feyre : He’s still in Europe. And I don’t even know what they are right now.

From Feyre : I’m not playing the freaking-out-mom card.

From Feyre : Yet.

 

Rhys chuckled—perhaps a little more audibly than he had thought, because a soft nudge from Azriel had him sober up. He glanced at his friend, then back at the phone in his hands.

 

From Rhys : I’ll try to call her as soon as I can.

From Rhys : I’m sure she’ll answer me

From Rhys : You know, as her preferred parent.

 

From Feyre : Funny. So, so funny.

From Feyre : She’s never hearing the end of it if she answers you first though.

 

Rhys was about to text back—either a variation of, Don’t worry love, she loves her Mama, or, You should prepare yourself because she’s gonna break your heart—but he stopped dead in his tracks when he heard the next name Amren called.

 

And he could have heard her wrong.

He could have made it up.

 

“Archeron,”

Or it could be a coincidence, too.

“Juliet.”

 

Rhys whipped his head so fast it hurt, a little.

 

“You will be assisting Doctor Cassian Lordson next week.”

 

And then he saw her.

Right there.

In the middle of the surgical interns—all giddy with excitement and fear for what’s to come.

In the same set of blue scrubs he was wearing every single day.

 

All twenty-six years of her, eyes as blue-grey as Feyre’s and hair made of golden locks around her face.

 

Looking back at him with a mixture of guilt and pride and happiness.

 

Juliet had never looked so grown up.

 

She slowly lifted her chin up—as in defiance.

 

Defiance for him to say something.

Defiance for him to counter.

Defiance for him to ask.

 

He didn’t.

He was still a little too dumbstruck to move.

 

And from the look on Cassian’s, and Azriel’s, and Mor’s face—they all were, too.

 

Amren apparently didn’t mind at all—she was already reading another name. Assigning another person to whoever would come next.

 

Rhys only mustered the courage to text Feyre back when he was out of the room where the interns would spend their entire first day in.

 

From Rhys : Don’t bother. I know where she is.

 

He barely had the time to read her answering, Are you kidding me? She answered you?!, before he was rushed from one surgery to the next.

 

---

 

“Is she home?”

Rhys was scanning the living room and kitchen as soon as he came home that night.

 

His stomach had been forming knots in a weird mixture of feelings all day—and he truly hadn’t had even a second to process the information yet.

 

“You’re the one she texted back,” Feyre answered in mock-offense from her spot on the couch. “You tell me.”

 

Rhys didn’t linger on her mockery, and instead made a beeline for Juliet’s room, only to find it empty. He checked the bathroom next, before checking her bedroom again—just in case.

He was scanning his own bedroom when he heard Feyre from the living room,

“You’re home! I was—”

“Where’s Rhys?”

 

Juliet’s voice had come in a slow and hesitant question.

 

Rhys’s steps were just as much when he reached the living room, too.

 

They paused, both of them.

Their gazes locked, their bodies froze, their hearts probably did, too.

 

Feyre was frowning, looking back and forth between them. She tried,

“What—”

But Juliet cut her off quietly, her eyes entirely trained on him,

“Are you mad at me?”

 

Rhys took a deep breath.

He swallowed.

“You lied.”

 

But it wasn’t an accusation, not exactly.

More of a fact, really.

The simple truth.

 

Juliet took a deep breath—one that mimicked the one he had just taken.

She nodded.

“I didn’t study to become a vet.”

Her hands were clenched at her sides, and her breathing deep.

Feyre, between them, was still as clueless as ever.

 

“Why?” Rhys asked, very slowly.

“Because,” Juliet swallowed, “because I wanted to do this, and I wanted to do this on my own. I wanted—”

“No,” he shook his head slowly. And his voice was still soft. His words still quiet. His tone still a mixture of disbelief and something. He repeated, “Why?”

Juliet lifted her chin. She took another deep breath. She blinked once, too, but Rhys didn’t see any tear escape her glassy eyes.

 

And as if they hadn’t all been there to witness it, she said,

“Because,” her eyes were still trained entirely on him, “when I was a kid, I was diagnosed with Dilated Cardiomyopathy.”

Rhys wanted to close his eyes at those words.

All those years later, and he still felt a little something in his chest at the reminder.

“And I met a lot of medical professionals,” she continued, “but one of them showed me what it is to be a real doctor. To be a surgeon. To be someone who saves lives and fights for the ones he loves, too.” She blinked, but strangely, the movement made Rhys’s tears slowly trail down his cheeks, not hers. Juliet took a step forward. “Because the hospital has always felt like a home to me, and I knew I wanted to become a surgeon the minute my doctor dragged me around in a wheelchair for rounds—calling me Doctor Juliet, all while pretending I could read a patient’s chart.”

Feyre’s eyes, too, were teary. At least Rhys guessed.

He couldn’t look at anything other than Juliet right now.

Juliet and the adult she was.

 

She took another step toward him.

 

And she continued, her words so quiet but so true, too,

“Because I spent my life watching my dad do something he loved, and—and I couldn’t picture myself doing anything else.”

 

Rhys’s eyes fluttered closed, all on their own.

And so many tears were flowing, but he didn’t really care.

He opened his arms for her, and it was only a half-second after that he felt her body nestle against him, pulling him as close as he was pulling her.

 

And all of a sudden, she was six again, and blinking at him with those big bright eyes full of hope.

All of a sudden, she was seven again, and whispering things to him in the dark of the hospital room that had been their home, once.

All of a sudden, she was ten again, and holding him so tight in the school room he had picked her up from.

All of a sudden, she was fourteen again, and trying to get through her very first, yet very real heartbreak. Her very first grief.

All of a sudden, she was fifteen again. And asking him to become her dad for real.

 

Rhys held her close.

He took a few deep breaths and tried to calm his thundering heart.

 

He said—his voice slow and his words careful,

“I am so… so proud of you, Jules.”

Juliet whimpered quietly against him. The happy kind.

“I have always been,” he continued, “and I will always be. No matter what you do or what you choose. But—” he slowly shook his head, pulling away from her to be able to look at her.

He knew Feyre was slowly approaching next to them. He didn’t refrain from the urge—he opened one arm for her to come close, too.

“But today,” he continued, as Feyre, indeed, took her rightful place tucked to his side, “I was just so fucking proud.”

 

Juliet huffed quietly through the tears welling in her eyes.

“You were?”

“Yes,” he told her without an ounce of hesitation. “So, so proud.” He paused, taking a deep breath. “You’re gonna make an extraordinary surgeon.”

 

The half-smile she offered him was as proud as he felt. She tugged at the sleeves of the hoodie she was wearing—and truly, Rhys guessed it made perfect sense that she had never left it, all her life—and brushed a couple of tears away from her cheeks.

“I—” she tried, eyes flickering between him and Feyre. “I’m sorry for lying. I didn’t—”

She trailed off in a quiet sniffle, shaking her head.

“You’re a surgeon?” Feyre asked, a hint of disbelief in her tone and a quiet happiness in her words.

Juliet’s nod was quick.

“Yeah,” she breathed, drying more of her tears. “I’m becoming a surgeon and I—I’ve just started my internship at Prythian Hospital.”

“Meet Doctor Juliet Archeron,” Rhys murmured for Feyre, bringing his lips to her temple. “Best intern of the year.”

 

Juliet was rolling her eyes at him amusedly. Feyre though, turned back to him, a frown on her face.

“Archeron?”

“Yeah, I—” Juliet huffed. She was a little embarrassed, too, or so it seemed. “People gossip so hard in this hospital, I uh—” she shrugged a shoulder. “I thought I could at least have a few days or weeks of peace before everyone connected the dots amongst the interns. Plus,” She paused, her smile a little more genuine, “there’s already a little too many Knights in there.”

 

They all chuckled.

 

---

 

It wasn’t even a joke.

Juliet was the best intern of her year.

 

And she kept being the best, in the days, and months, and years that came and went—in between surgeries they co-handled in the hospital and family dinners they shared with Juliet and Sam ; in between quiet afternoons in the park near Juliet’s newly-bought apartment and frantic laughter over a long-forgotten memory.

In between a disbelieving, Mom. I can’t believe you’re publishing your own book!

And a proud, You’re getting an award, Rhys! Of course, Sam and I will be there.

 

In between a few tears shed, too. Right in front of the hospital nursery. Where Juliet had asked Rhys to meet her with teary eyes but a fucking happy smile. Where she had told him she’d perhaps take some time off work, and where all Rhys could answer, at first, was that she’d miss the medical experiment they were conducting. Only to finally understand—eyes flickering to the babies behind them and her, eyebrows rising and heartbeat thundering. Smile growing and tears welling.

You’re going to be a grandpa, she had confirmed when he’d pulled her in his arms.

And you, he had murmured as he’d pressed her close, but a little carefully, too, are going to be the best Mama.

 

Juliet had answered,

I’ve had the best example in the world.

 

Rhys had agreed.

 

And he had agreed, too, eight months and some later, when Feyre had placed on his arms a little bundle of love and warmth. When they had both looked so fucking proudly at Juliet, exhausted but peaceful in her hospital bed. When she had turned to Sam, who had brushed a delicate kiss on her forehead.

When Sam had told them,

“He’s the most beautiful baby in the world.”

And when Juliet had continued,

“Meet, Liam Rhysand Knight.”

 

 

Rhys had been right, relatively.

Every single time he touched a heart, he was thinking about her.

 

Every single time a six-year-old was admitted to the hospital, he was reminded of her.

 

And every time he performed a heart transplant, somehow, it was her on the table.

 

One thing had never changed, though.

Every single time he left for surgery—and every single time he crossed Juliet’s path in the hospital before a surgery—he would say,

To the stars who listen.

 

And Juliet always answered,

And the dreams that are answered.

 

 

The end