Chapter Text
He’s dying. He can feel it.
Ethan falls to his knees, resisting the urge to fully collapse. The four statues of the Altar look down on him in silence.
Rose, cradled in his one good arm, babbles at him softly.
He can barely make out her face as his eyesight begins to blur and fade, but he can just recognize the way her babbles turn to cries as the looming being that was Miranda grows tens of stories tall before him.
“I’ve got you,” Ethan manages to whisper as he draws Rose closer to his chest. His voice catches in his throat as his right hand calcifies.
He buries his face in Rose’s swaddle. He wishes for her a good life, a life better than his own. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” he whispers again and again and again into her ear, a mantra he hopes she’ll never forget.
He allows his eyes to shut. He’s done all he could.
And then, somewhere behind him-
-a voice.
“Ethan!”
Strong hands curl around his shoulders and all of a sudden Ethan is getting pulled back up to his feet. Icy wind whips through his hair. His phantom hand sends jolts of pain up his arm. Rose cries even louder.
“I’ve got you,” the voice assures him.
Chris.
“I have a helicopter waiting not too far from here. Let’s move,” urges Chris, throwing Ethan’s arm around his shoulder
Ethan can’t gather the energy to protest, so he allows himself to lean into Chris and wills his legs to move. On the bridge, when he feels like he's about to give out, Ethan stumbles.
“I can’t-,” he begins and pushes Rose in Chris’ direction. Chris steadies a hand on the wide of his back to keep him upright. Chris grabs Rose in his one free arm and holds Ethan up with the other.
“It’s not that much further,” Chris assures him. “Let’s go, one foot in front of the other. You’ve made it this far. Might as well go all the way.”
Ethan focuses on his voice, allowing Chris to guide him. They’re 500 feet away, then they’re 400, 300, 200, 100. He musters the energy to cross the bridge. He has to. For Rose. He falls as soon as the helicopter opens its hatch, the last of his energy spent, and Chris sprints to get Rose safely inside before coming back out to carry Ethan in.
The aircraft is better suited for heavy-duty action than a swift escape. Chris lays Ethan across seats welded against the wall and throws his coat over him as it takes its time gaining the momentum to lift off the ground. Ethan can hear Rose still crying nearby, but can’t move his head to see exactly where.
The shadow of the root makes the entire sky grow dark as they lift off and go airborne. Chris stands stoically at the pilot’s window, detonator gripped firm in his hand. After a long moment, the pilot nods at him, indicating that they’ve traveled far enough to be out of the range of the blast.
“Ready?” Chris says aloud to nobody in particular.
He squeezes the detonator.
That’s all it takes. They've made it out of hell.
“It’s over now,” Chris announces.
Ethan tries to smile. He really does. He thought the relief would make him feel better, but there’s a new pain in his arm now, starting at his wrist and travelling up to his neck. The adrenaline is wearing off. His whole body feels stiff. The mold that’d been keeping him alive is now dying with Miranda, and it seems she’s taking him with her.
“Chris,” he manages through grit teeth. His mind is going. He can’t think straight, can barely recall how they even got here.
His consciousness slips like sand through his fingers.
=====
Ethan dreams.
He dreams about family, about Rose and Mia.
They’re living in Texas again, months spent in Romania forgotten. Mia reads aloud from her book of too-scary bedtime stories as Rose giggles and Ethan gripes.
For a moment it all feels ordinary, feels real . He can smell the smoke pouring from the burning logs in the fireplace and his cheeks are warm from whatever wine Mia’s poured out for the two of them. Rose laughs and gazes up from his lap with wide, green eyes, and Ethan is content to stay like this forever, with their lives finally normal again.
=====
For a few minutes in March, Ethan regains consciousness in a sterile white room smelling of bitter antiseptic. The paper gown he’s wearing is scratchy and stiff. The air is thick in his lungs.
He stares up at the tiled ceiling. His body doesn’t respond when he tries to move it. He begins to panic.
Heavy footsteps nearing his room cause his eyes to widen.
Several frantic doctors enter, one after the other. Ethan’s vision isn’t clear enough to read their expressions, but they murmur to each other, surrounding his bed. One of them thumbs his right eye open, shining a light directly into it. They murmur some more. -shouldn’t be awake yet, he hears one of them say.
Another doctor adjusts the sensor patches stuck to his chest and the monitor reading his vital signs goes nuts.
“I feel-” Ethan starts as his head begins to spin, and his eyelids go heavy.
The doctors rush out as Ethan’s consciousness fades away once again. He thinks he can sense them returning later on, but he isn’t too sure. They talk in whispers, never loud enough for him to pick up on where he is or what is happening.
Like everyone else in his life, they seem to be keeping secrets.