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Kiza opens her eyes, nearly overwhelmed by the lack of crackling weight on her lungs. For the first time in a long time, she takes deep, sweet breaths without fear of shuddering, chest-convulsing coughs.
She sits up and smiles at the open window in her attic bedroom, at the crisp cool air and the bumblebees buzzing worriedly around her head. One flies off—to tell its colony or her father or both, she isn’t sure. The remaining bees hover about contentedly.
“I’m glad you’re alright,” Kiza says softly, as one bee rests itself on her wrist. She pets it lightly with a finger until it has enough of her attention and buzzes away.
Judging by the position of the sun and the beaten-up clock made out of license-plate numbers, it’s around four in the afternoon—almost the same time as when her father left. Who knows, maybe Stinger’s been gone for only a moment, thanks to space-travel. Maybe he never left. Maybe he let Queen Jupiter and Caine get killed.
Thanks to her unobstructed breathing, she doubts that.
She hears a familiar rumbling snore. She turns her head to see her father next to her bedroom door, sitting on the creaky pile of wood that has ambitions of being a chair. Even though he hates the "chair", Kiza convinced him to keep it. (He made it himself, in his early attempts at carpentry. He improved. The chair didn't.) The half-empty vial of necter she needed is held loosely in his hands, and its clear he’s kept watch over her all this time. Your back's going to kill you when you wake up, Dad...not that you'd care.
She climbs out of bed—a little more unsteady than she'd like—and walks over to him on quiet, bare feet. The dark, varnished wood floor is cool to the touch and gently worn from the two of them walking across it. It feels a little strange, to be the one going to check on him instead of the other way around.
“…Dad?” she says softly, and his eyes flicker open in an instant.
“Are you feeling better, Kiza?” Stinger asks, searching her face, brows furrowed intently as he listens to her breathing.
Kiza smiles and shows him a big inhale and a long exhale, hands outstretched, her back warmed by the sun streaming in through the window. It's easier than blinking.
Stinger’s eyes shine a little brighter than usual, and the almost-disbelieving smile that appears on his face is a small treasure unto itself.
The hug that envelopes her a moment later, carrying with it the scent of freshly-mowed grass and the metallic odor of spaceships, is even more precious.
It’s been a long time since you smiled like that, is what she wants to say aloud. But words might ruin the moment, so she simply breathes again.