Work Text:
Rhy lets him cry.
A thousand emotions jumble together, burning like a fire in his chest. He feels light- lighter than he has in years- as the realization washes over him in waves. After nearly a decade of suffering, of grieving, it's finally over.
Kell extinguishes the tapers. Lights them again, and again, and again. He revels in the magic, in the simplicity of it. It feels like scratching an itch. Like stretching a muscle that has been stagnant for too long.
It feels like coming home.
He wants to keep going- to test every facet of his power- but it isn't as effortless as it once was, and his entire body is stiff and sore from his ordeal. As the elation wanes, exhaustion tugs at the edges of his mind.
The memory of that never-ending agony is still dizzyingly fresh. He feels at once groggy and alert. The pain is gone, and in its place is a hollow, floating sensation that settles in his bones. As if this is a blissfully painless dream and if he moves too suddenly or speaks too loudly, it will shatter.
He will shatter.
But of course it does not. And there are things he needs to do. He needs to thank Tes. He needs to see Lila.
Lila.
Kell moves to stand, but Rhy puts a hand on his shoulder.
"Rest, Kell," Rhy says gently, Kell's own emotion echoed across his features. "It can wait."
Kell wants to protest, but the pillows are soft, the blankets warm. He feels his eyelids already beginning to droop as he allows himself to fall back into the bed.
Sleep finds him almost immediately, his dreams softened by the knowledge that, for the first time in seven years, he is whole.
***
The next time Kell wakes, it's to the sound of a door slamming open, and a whirl of dark curls and ginger fur and gold eyes as Ren jumps up onto the end of his bed.
"Daddy says you're feeling better now and I can read you a story," Ren announces delightedly, holding Miros in one arm and waving one of her books in the air with the other. Behind her, Rhy gives an apologetic shrug that says I stalled as long as I could, but Kell smiles and shifts so Ren can sit next to him, Miros in her lap.
The book has words as well as pictures but despite her gift for speaking languages, Ren is still too young to read them, so she makes up her own story, pointing to the illustrations as she talks. Kell watches, listens, and occasionally, to Ren's delight, offers his own additions to the story. Esa, who seems to shadow Ren wherever she goes, leaps lithely onto the bed and settles in Kell's lap, and he strokes her fur absently as he and Ren create an increasingly outlandish story that Kell knows is nothing like the one on the page. The moment is so perfect; he is so caught up in the joy of it that he almost doesn't notice the dark-clad figure appear silently in the doorway.
She watches as Ren closes her book, declares the story over and allows Rhy to scoop her up and set her on the floor.
"Let's let Uncle Kell and Lila have some time alone, shall we?" Rhy says, prodding her towards the door, Miros and Esa at their heels.
"Hello, Delilah!" Ren says cheerfully as she passes her in the doorway, and Lila smiles grudgingly and ruffles her hair. The door shuts behind her, and Kell and Lila are alone.
"Lila, it worked," Kell says, and his voice cracks with emotion. In that moment, it hits him again, the full reality of it: his magic repaired, his family safe, at least for now, and Lila there with him. He could have laughed, or cried, but then Lila is kissing him and he doesn't have the breath for either.
"Don't you… ever... do that to me... again," Lila says breathlessly against his lips, and he twines his fingers in her hair, lets her push him back against the pillows.
A glint of metal catches his eye as her fingers find the collar of his shirt.
The ring, he realizes. No longer hidden, but worn on her right hand, a twin of his own.
"You kept it, all this time," he says, catching her hand and pressing a kiss to the cool metal.
"Of course I kept it," Lila says dismissively. "I would have been a fool to throw away something so useful."
They both know it's more than that; it hangs in the air between them, but still, a part of Kell wishes she would say it.
And maybe she sees the way his frown deepens slightly, because something like uncertainty flashes in Lila's eye.
She leans in so that her lips trace the hollow of his neck, and breathes the words against his skin, so quiet he almost doesn't hear.
"And maybe being connected to you isn't so horrible," she says quietly, as if she's voicing something dark and secretive.
Kell presses a kiss to the top of her head, smiling into her hair so she doesn't see.
"I suppose I owe you my life," Lila says after a moment. "If you hadn't come..." Kell's smile drops away as she trails off. He twines his fingers through hers.
"I will always come for you, Lila," he says soberly, humor forgotten. "Even if I had to cross the worlds to Black London itself." He tips her chin up gently so that her eyes meet his, their foreheads nearly touching, and lets emotion make him reckless.
"I love you, Lila."
The words hang in the air, and for a moment, Kell is certain that he's gone too far, that Lila will storm off.
He sees panic flash in her brown eye. Her breath catches in her throat, her shoulders stiffen. And then,
"I love you too," she whispers gruffly.
Seven years and they've hardly said those words. They both know it, of course, but to hear it said out loud makes Kell's heart race.
The words are lost instantly to time, leaving no trace, no proof, that they were ever spoken, no witnesses but the two of them. He might have thought he'd imagined them if he couldn't feel Lila's pulse beating in time with his own.
He calls his magic, and Lila rolls her eyes as a light wind tugs playfully at her hair. Even now, part of him recoils, years of conditioning bracing him for that bone-deep agony, but it doesn't come. Kell grins and Lila shoves him backward, the intimacy of the moment passed.
"I bet I can still beat you in a fight," she says, and Kell laughs.
"Not a chance," he counters.
There will be time to find out. Time to consider new worries, new threats. But for now, he is content to lie there- Lila beside him, a crushing weight lifted from his shoulders- and savor this one simple, beautiful moment.