THE TRUTH COSTS
Los Angeles, California — May 1983
Sidney Greene had been awake for thirty-six hours when Tobin Elias walked through the hospital's main entrance.
He had been waiting. Not in the lobby. He'd been moving, as he always did when he couldn't afford to stop, but he'd kept one eye on the doors since Tobin's call two days earlier. That call had come from the reservation, minutes after Jace had climbed onto his motorcycle and headed north, and Tobin's voice had carried the tone of a man who knew what was coming and couldn't do anything to stop it.
Sidney had told him everything he could over the phone. He would tell him the rest now, in person, before Tobin saw his brother.
Tobin came through the doors with Christina beside him. He was broad like Jace, shorter by five inches, with the same dark hair and his mother's green eyes, a contrast to Jace, who had carried their father's amber-gold. He spotted Sidney immediately and crossed the lobby without breaking stride, Christina keeping pace with him, her hand tight in his.
They stopped in front of Sidney.
Tobin's jaw was set. His eyes were dry. He'd been holding himself together for two days of not knowing, and he was still holding. "How bad?"
He knew Tobin. Sidney didn't soften it. "Bad," he said. "But he's stable now. He's alive."
Something moved through Tobin's face. Not relief, not yet, but the first loosening of a grip that had been held for forty-eight hours.
Sidney walked them to a quieter stretch of corridor, away from the ER flow, and told them. Not everything, that would come later, in the meeting, but enough. Pincher Creek. The tavern. What they'd found behind it. The ride to the hospital, the surgery, the coding, the amulet bringing him back. Connor in the coma. The others banged up but alive.
Christina had her hand pressed to her mouth before he finished. Tobin stood very still, as he always did when processing something that cost him.
"He left because he found out," Sidney said. "About what he is. It hit him hard and he needed to move. You know how he is."
"I know how he is," Tobin said quietly.
"I'm sorry I couldn't stop it," Sidney said. "After your call I knew he was on the road and there was no way to reach him."
Tobin shook his head once. Not dismissing the apology, just filing it away as a conversation for later. "Take me to him."
Sidney took them up.
Nancy met them at the ICU doorway. She gave Tobin a quiet word, critical but stable, he could likely hear, then stepped aside.
Tobin walked in first.
He stopped three feet from the bed.
Jace lay still against the pillows, bruised and pale, the opal faintly lit at his throat, tubes and monitors surrounding him in their soft mechanical chorus. He looked like he had been taken apart and reassembled by hands that had done their best but couldn't hide what it had cost.
Tobin was a stoic man by nature, steadier than Jace in most things, less given to showing it. But this was not most things. His face crumpled. His jaw worked. His eyes filled fast, and a sound left him that wasn't quite a word, the raw exhale of a brother who had driven all night not knowing what he was going to find.
Christina came to Jace's left side and took his hand in both of hers, leaning down to press a gentle kiss to his cheek. Her tears fell quietly, without apology.
The touch stirred him. Jace surfaced slowly, the familiar weight of a hand around his pulling him up from the drug-soft dark.
"Tobin...?"
Tobin moved to the right side of the bed and took his brother's other hand, gripping it with the kind of steadiness that cost him something to maintain. "Hey," he said, voice roughed down to almost nothing. "Hey. Wanga'a. I'm here."
Jace blinked at him, taking time to focus. When he did, something in his face softened: relief and old love and exhaustion all at once.
"You drove all night," Jace said.
"Of course I drove all night," Tobin said, and his voice broke on the last word despite everything.
Christina squeezed Jace's hand. "We both did," she said softly. "We weren't waiting."
Jace let his eyes close, just feeling them there, both of them, warm and real and present.
After a while, Tobin drew in a long breath. His thumb moved slowly over the back of Jace's hand.
"I need to say something," he said. "From me. And from the tribe."
Jace opened his eyes.
Tobin met them steadily, though the effort showed. "We're sorry," he said. "For keeping it from you. All of it: what you are, where you come from, what was always going to be asked of you. Even after Mom passed. We thought we were protecting you." His jaw tightened. "We thought if you didn't know, it couldn't find you as fast. We told ourselves it was the right thing."
He shook his head.
"We were wrong to keep it so long. And I'm sorry you had to find out the way you did."
Jace was quiet. The monitors kept their soft rhythm. Outside, the hospital went on around them, indifferent and steady.
"I know why you did it," Jace said at last, voice low and certain. "I understand it now. All of it."
Tobin looked at him.
"Tell the tribe..." Jace paused, steadying himself against the pull of exhaustion. "Tell them I understand. And tell them I still love every single one of them. I... understand now."
Tobin's breath caught. He couldn't speak at all at first. Christina's grip on Jace's hand tightened.
"Yeah," Tobin managed finally, voice rough and quiet. "Yeah, Wanga'a. I'll tell them."
They stayed like that for a long time, all three of them, hands linked, the room hushed around them, until Jace drifted back into sleep with both of them still beside him.
Sidney waited outside the room. When Tobin emerged, his face had steadied. The grief was still there, it wasn't going anywhere, but the worst of the not-knowing had been replaced by something he could carry. He and Christina would not leave for Nevada until Jace was home and settled.
"The others?" Tobin said.
"Alive," Sidney said. "All of them. There's a meeting this morning: management, crew, the other families. I need you in that room."
Tobin looked back through the glass at his brother, then nodded. "Let's go."
******
The hospital conference room was plain and painfully ordinary: white walls, buzzing fluorescent lights, a long table with a few leftover notepads and old hospital memos pushed to one end. Nothing about the room said crisis. But everything about the people inside did.
John Kavanaugh stood with both hands braced against the edge of the table, shoulders tight, face pale. He looked less like a manager tonight and more like a father waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Linda Kramer sat beside him, twisting a paper cup until the rim bent. Leo Finnerty rubbed his forehead in slow circles. Morgan Jones and Felix Rease sat stiff-backed in their chairs. Rondo Morganstein leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, eyes sharp and unsettled. Mongo Grayson remained near the door, silent, unreadable, but with that expression Sidney recognized: suspicion finally confirmed.
Sidney stood opposite John, hands in the pockets of his jacket, posture tense but steady.
They had been waiting for almost ten minutes when the door opened.
Tobin came in first, Christina beside him. He'd come down from Jace's floor, and the management team could see it on both of them: the stillness of people who have just seen something that cost them, and are carrying it quietly.
He moved to the far side of the table and sat without being directed to it. Christina took the chair beside him.
The management team exchanged glances. The arrival of family said more than any words yet spoken.
A few minutes later, Jabril and Patricia Braydee appeared in the doorway.
Jabril Braydee held the door for Patricia as they entered --- Connor's jawline, Connor's bearing, the quiet authority of a man accustomed to keeping difficult things together.
Patricia came in with her hand pressed lightly to her sternum, and when she sat down across from Linda, who instinctively reached over and touched her hand, she did not try to hide the fear entirely.
Jabril sat beside his wife and placed his hand over hers without looking at her. His eyes moved to Sidney and stayed there.
Darren and Amanda Strathan arrived slightly out of breath from the parking structure, Darren spotting Tobin immediately with a short nod before pulling out a chair for Amanda, who folded her coat in her lap and fixed her gaze on Sidney: tell me everything, and don't spare me.
Ivar and Britta Hahn came last. Ivar chose a chair at the end of the table without being told, the same economy of movement Erik had. Britta pressed her hands flat against the table, steadying them, something passing across her face she did not try to name.
The door clicked shut.
The room was full now.
John looked around the table, management, crew, and the parents of four of the five boys he considered his own, and something in his face tightened with the weight of it.
"All right," he said quietly. "We're here. Everyone who needs to be is here. So, Sidney... what happened? What happened to our boys?"
The word "our" landed in that room like it had weight. Darren Strathan looked up. Jabril's breath left him in a controlled exhale. He closed his eyes briefly, jaw tight, then opened them again and fixed his gaze on Sidney with an intensity that it made clear he was not unaffected. Only a man refusing to come apart in a room full of strangers. Ivar Hahn gave the smallest nod.
Sidney nodded once, drawing in a breath.
"Okay," he said. "Before I tell you anything, I need you to understand that what happened was not caused by drugs, or a fight, or anything you would call normal. And I know you're not going to believe it at first."
Felix muttered, "Fantastic. Always a good sign."
Linda elbowed him, but didn't take her eyes off Sidney.
John's jaw flexed. "Sid. Talk. What happened to them?"
Sidney finally stepped closer.
"Jason isn't just a drummer," he said.
Confusion rippled through the room. Leo frowned. Morgan blinked. Felix's expression went flat with skepticism.
"Then what is he?" Leo asked.
"A Guardian," Sidney said. "The Guardian of a cloaked kingdom called Aelin."
Linda said the word like it was foreign. "A-lin...? Where is that?"
"It's cloaked and protected," Sidney said, steady. "An island hidden from the outside world. And Jason is its rightful leader. Chosen at birth."
Felix leaned back sharply. "No. Come on, Sidney. This is insane."
Morgan shook his head. "Sid... you don't joke. Ever. But this is... this is..."
Rondo cut in from the wall. "How would Jason... how would any of them..."
"They didn't choose it," Sidney said quietly. "And they didn't know it. Not until three days ago, when the amulets awakened."
That startled Leo. "Wait. The band didn't know?"
"No," Sidney said. "Not until it happened."
Felix exhaled hard through his nose. "So, we're supposed to believe that Jason, that all five of them, are the rulers of some hidden kingdom nobody's ever heard of. And none of them knew." He spread his hands on the table. "Sidney. Come on."
The room shifted toward agreement. Morgan looked uncertain. Leo stared at his hands. Even John's expression had pulled into the tightness of a man who wanted to believe and couldn't get there.
Tobin Elias spoke.
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to.
"It's real," he said.
Every head in the room turned to him.
He sat forward, elbows on the table, green eyes moving across the faces of the management team with the patient clarity of a man who had been carrying this truth for a long time.
"My brother is the Guardian of Aelin. Our tribe has known what he was since his infancy, when our father brought Jace and I from Aelin after he was born. I was born there, too, and it is real. I remember it. We kept it from him because we were directed to, by people older and wiser than us, people who understood the risks. We honored that directive." His jaw tightened. "And every word of it is true. So, I need you to stop arguing about whether it's possible and start listening to what happened to my brother."
The skepticism in the room didn't evaporate entirely. But it stepped back.
Felix stared at Tobin. Something in the man's face, the steadiness of it, the grief underneath the steadiness, made the argument die in his throat.
Patricia Braydee's hand tightened under Jabril's.
Tobin drew in a slow breath. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter, directed less at the skeptics and more at the parents around the table.
"I want the families here to understand something. Your boys, Connor, Ricky, Erik, they didn't know what they were walking into. None of them did. They didn't know they would become what they are. That was kept from Jason, and because it was kept from Jason, it was kept from all of them." He stopped. "If the tribe had been honest... if I had found a way to tell Jace what was coming before it hit him like this..."
He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't have to.
Christina put her hand on his arm.
Sidney stepped in immediately, his voice firm but not unkind.
"Tobin. Stop."
Tobin looked at him.
"This was not your failure," Sidney said. "The directive to keep Jason's identity from him came from Seamus Greene, the Guardian before Jason. My own father. I am from Aelin. I was placed here to watch over Jason until the time came. Your tribe was honoring a directive that passed through my father from Aelin itself. You were not wrong to follow it. And you could not have stopped this. Neither could I."
The room had gone very still. John stared at Sidney as though seeing him clearly for the first time. Linda's mouth opened slightly. Leo's pen stopped moving. Rondo straightened off the wall. Whatever small remaining skepticism had lingered in the room was gone now.
He let that settle. Nancy had appeared quietly in the doorway.
Nancy stepped fully into the room, chart in hand, and added without preamble: "In the entire recorded history of Aelin, nothing essential has ever come about easily. Not one Guardianship. Not one Brotherhood. Not one succession. If there is a pattern to any of it, it is that the hardest path is always the one that was always going to be taken."
She looked directly at Tobin. "You did not cause this. Neither did your tribe."
Tobin held her gaze. Then he sat back, jaw working, and nodded once, the short, tight nod of a man who had accepted something intellectually that would take considerably longer to settle in his chest. Christina kept her hand on his arm.
"What happened that night wasn't random," Sidney continued. "Jason was beaten and killed by a group of men at a tavern in Pincher Creek, Alberta. The amulet brought him back. We found him behind the tavern, about to be killed again. We got there in time to stop that. We did not get there in time to stop the damage that had already been done."
The room didn't need a moment to absorb it. It hit everyone at once. Linda's breath left her in a single sharp sound. John dropped into a chair. The room was silent, with the exception of sniffles and occasional sobs. Patricia Braydee's face crumpled and Jabril's breath left him in a controlled exhale. Amanda Strathan pressed her fingers to her mouth, Darren rigid beside her, the restless energy in him suddenly and completely arrested.
Britta Hahn's breath caught audibly and she leaned into Ivar, who stared at the table, his jaw tight.
Felix looked up. "How many times has Jason died...I mean in total?"
"Five," Sidney said quietly. "Within three days."
Silence. The kind that had weight. Felix closed his eyes tightly, expelling a long sigh.
John's voice came out rough and low. "The boys... Sid. They're just kids."
"And the others?" Linda asked through tears.
"Connor felt the moment it happened, through the bond, the connection the amulets forge between them. The emerald reacted in a way none of us have seen before. He was in the waiting room when Jason coded on the operating table. He went into full convulsions. It hit him like something detonating behind his sternum."
Patricia made a sound she immediately suppressed. Jabril's expression remained controlled, but his hand tightened visibly over hers.
"Erik collapsed from the impact of the amulet surge. He sustained a concussion, a hairline fracture of the collarbone, cracked ribs. Ricky was thrown: cracked ribs, a lung contusion, a concussion of his own. Nathan nearly drained himself holding everyone together at the hospital."
Amanda's composure had thinned. She was holding it, but the effort was visible now. Darren had brought her hand up and was holding it in both of his.
"They're alive," Sidney said. "All of them. And this is the reality now. The Brotherhood. The Guardian. The amulets. Everything. So, now you know."
John lifted his face, grief and fear tangled in equal measure. "Yes...now we know," he said grimly.
"Yes," Sidney said. "And with that knowledge comes a choice. Whether you stay with them, knowing the truth, knowing the danger, or whether you walk away."
The room went tense.
Felix was the first to react. He pushed back from the table, not standing, just creating distance, and stared at his own hands.
"I know these boys," he said. "I've been out there with them for years. I know their families." He looked around the table, at Darren and Amanda, at Jabril and Patricia, at the Hahns, at Tobin, and his voice dropped. "And I believe you, Sidney. That's the problem."
"Five times," he said. "Five times in three days. And this is going to happen again. And I... I can't. I can't be standing there every time and be any good to them. I love them. But I can't do this. I can't watch Jason die...I can't..."
He looked at John, then Linda, then back at his hands. Tears streamed down his face as he finished with, "I'm sorry."
John said nothing. Linda reached across but didn't stop him.
Two other crew members sitting near the far wall exchanged a glance. A younger man named Garrett raised his hand slightly. The man beside him nodded once without a word.
Sidney didn't judge any of them. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small silver vial. He stepped to the counter, filled three paper cups with water, and added two drops from the vial to each.
"This will remove tonight," he said quietly. "Only tonight. You'll remember the tour, the travel, the accident in general terms. Nothing supernatural. Nothing that will follow you."
Felix took the cup. He held it, staring down at it. Then he drank.
Garrett and the other man drank in silence. Sidney walked all three of them to the door. It clicked shut.
Dr. Oksana moved to the head of the table, opened her chart, and began without ceremony.
"Good evening. I've been overseeing all five of the boys since they arrived. Sidney has explained the broader context. I'm here to give you the medical reality: what we observed, what we documented, and what is beyond anything in standard human physiology."
John swallowed hard. "Please, Doctor."
"Jason Elias arrived with catastrophic injuries," Nancy began. "Multiple broken ribs requiring surgical repair. Severe blunt-force trauma. Concussion. Rope abrasions consistent with being bound. The pattern is consistent with a sustained, deliberate beating."
Linda pressed her hand to her mouth. John had gone rigid in his chair.
"He died on the table. Standard resuscitation had no effect. What brought him back was an electrical surge from the amulet. We recorded it. It restarted his heart, and we watched torn tissue begin to regenerate in real time. That's never been documented in a surgical theatre before, and it never will be again outside of Aelin."
"So, Jason is unable to die?" Linda asked, her voice breaking, "That's so unfair. He doesn't deserve that. He's a gentle man, good and loving."
"They are all such great guys," Rondo added, "It just guts me about Jace. About all of them."
"I understand," Nancy replied, "I wish this all could have been avoided, too. For Connor Braydee..."
Patricia Braydee's breath shortened. Jabril's head came up quickly; his eyes trained on Nancy.
"Connor experienced a severe neurological crisis simultaneous with Jason's cardiac event on the operating table." Nancy said, "The bond between them transmitted the shock directly. He was in the waiting room when it happened. He froze, collapsed, and went into violent convulsions. We reached him immediately."
"His EEG readings were unlike anything I have documented in a human patient. Sensory flooding, emotional trauma response, neurological firing on a scale that suggested his mind was receiving and processing information far beyond its capacity to contain."
She looked directly at Jabril and Patricia. Her voice did not soften, but it slowed.
"To protect his brain and stop the seizures, we placed Connor into a medically induced coma. He is stable. But he is fragile. He will be brought out of it carefully, and only when we are certain it is safe to do so."
Patricia's tears fell quietly. She made no sound. Jabril sat very still beside her, his expression composed with visible and absolute effort, his thumb moving steadily across her hand.
"Erik Hahn...."
Britta Hahn straightened. Ivar's eyes slowly looked up from the table.
"Erik sustained a significant concussion from the amulet surge after Connor's amulet expelled strong energy. He also had a scalp laceration requiring staples, heavy rib bruising, and a hairline fracture of the collarbone. He is concussed but stable and resting."
Britta exhaled slowly, a controlled release of something she had been holding since she walked in. Ivar gave no visible reaction, but the set of his jaw had changed.
"Ricky Strathan..."
Amanda Strathan's composure thinned further. Darren's hand tightened around hers.
"Ricky has a concussion, cracked ribs, and a lung contusion. He is on oxygen. He is also, I should note, not following instructions to remain in bed."
Darren made a sound that was recognizably a Strathan reaction, half exasperation, half helpless affection. Amanda pressed her lips together, and despite everything, something in her face almost softened.
"Nathan Dallenger sustained the least physical injury: a bruised shoulder, minor contusions. But he was profoundly drained. No sleep, no food, and the emotional and psychic weight of holding the others together through the night nearly collapsed him entirely. He was the last of the band still standing, but wouldn't have been had I not sent him home to rest."
The room was silent. Nancy closed the chart.
"These are your sons," she said simply, to the parents, to John, to all of them. "They are extraordinary. They are also hurt. And they are going to need everyone in this room."
Nobody spoke.
Then Jabril Braydee said, quietly and precisely, "When can we see them?"
Nancy looked at him. "Soon," she said. "Let's talk about how."
She outlined it plainly: Jason first, for those closest to him, given his critical state. Connor's parents could come to his room, but Connor was in a coma and could not receive them the way they needed. Jabril and Patricia could sit with him. That was what was available for now, and she said it without apology, because apology would not help them.
The room shifted into motion. John rose. Linda was already on her feet. The parents stood, gathering themselves with the composure of people who have just been handed the worst news of their lives and have chosen, in the next breath, to walk toward it rather than away.
Leo, Morgan, and Rondo stayed. None of them spoke. None of them left.
Jabril and Patricia went to Connor's room.
None of that preparation was sufficient.
Jabril Braydee was not a man who lost his composure easily. He was composed by nature, precise, controlled, qualities Connor had inherited along with his jaw and his bearing. But when the door opened and he saw his son lying still beneath the machines, the ventilator breathing for him, wires tracing every vital sign across screens that beeped their indifferent rhythms, something in Jabril's face simply gave way.
He stopped in the doorway. His throat worked. His eyes went bright and fierce, and he stood very still, deciding whether he would hold or not.
He did not hold.
A sound left him, short, sharp, pressed back almost immediately, and he crossed to Connor's side and took his son's hand in both of his own. He bowed his head over it. His shoulders shook once, then were still again, jaw set, but the tears on his face remained, and he made no effort to remove them.
Patricia was already at Connor's other side. She took his other hand and leaned close, brushing his hair back from his forehead the way she had when he was small.
"Connor," she said softly. "It's Mom. We're here. Dad's here. We're right here with you, baby."
Nancy had said he could likely hear. Patricia chose to believe it completely, and she talked, quietly, steadily, about small things first. Home. The garden. The last time they'd spoken on the phone. Things that were safe and warm and ordinary. Things that sounded like before.
Jabril listened. His thumb moved slowly across the back of Connor's hand, and then he said, low and firm, "پسرم. برگرد پیش ما. صدامو میشنوی." (My son. You come back to us. You hear me.)
They stayed until Nancy gently told them he needed rest, and even then, Jabril was the last to let go of his son's hand.
Nancy led Linda, John, and Mongo toward the ICU.
Jason lay pale beneath the blankets, bruises stark against his skin, the opal glowing faintly at his throat. His breathing was shallow but steady. None of them moved at first.
Linda's hand found her mouth. A sound left her that wasn't quite a word, something broken and maternal and devastated all at once. John stood beside her, jaw working, his eyes moving over every bruise, every line, the tubes, the monitors, the terrible stillness of the boy he'd watched grow from a raw-talented kid into something extraordinary.
His throat moved. His eyes went bright. John Kavanaugh did not cry easily. But he was crying now. Mongo, behind them both, lowered his head. When he lifted it again, his eyes were wet at the corners and his expression was the quiet kind of grief that didn't need words.
Linda moved first. She crossed to the bed and took Jason's hand in both of hers, her tears falling freely. John came around the other side and took the other hand, gripping it with the careful steadiness of a man who was holding himself together by sheer will.
Linda leaned down and pressed her lips gently to his bruised temple.
Jason stirred. A slow pull back toward the surface: sensation before sound, warmth before awareness. His eyelids fluttered.
"Linda...?"
"I'm right here," she whispered, brushing the hair from his forehead with trembling fingers. "I'm right here, honey."
His eyes found John next, and something in Jace's face changed when he saw the tears on the older man's face. John had always been unshakeable. Seeing him broken open was its own kind of blow.
"John..." Jace whispered. "Don't... I'm okay..."
John squeezed his hand and said nothing at first. He just looked at him, took in every bruise, every line, the slow rise and fall of his chest, and let what he felt show on his face without trying to shape it into words. Finally, roughly: "I'm just glad you're here, kid."
Jason's lips moved into the smallest, most exhausted smile. "Me too..."
Mongo stepped forward then, steady and quiet as he always was. He looked down at Jace, taking him in like a man who'd been bracing for the worst and has to recalibrate to something better.
"I always knew there was something special about you," he said softly. "Just didn't know it was this."
Jason gave a faint, exhausted breath that might have been a laugh. "Me neither..."
Linda stroked his cheek. "Just rest, sweetheart. You're in good hands here."
Jason's eyes drifted closed again, both his hands still held, comfort settling over him like a blanket as Linda, John, and Mongo kept quiet vigil beside him.
The hours that followed passed in the slow, uneven rhythm of hospital time. Lights dimmed in some halls, nurses' shoes whispered against polished floors, and machines hummed in soft, steady pulses. Jace improved little by little, his breathing more even, his color less ashen. He still slept more than he woke.
Dr. Oksana moved steadily among the four young men, considering treatment decisions for each of them. But before she made any decision, she had to deal with a problem on the third floor.
******
Ricky Strathan. She caught him trying to get out of bed again, oxygen cannula half tangled in his hospital gown, ribs protesting loudly enough that she could practically hear them grinding.
"Mr. Strathan," she said sharply, "you are supposed to be in bed."
Ricky shot her a sideways glance, already annoyed. "Yeah, well, bed sucks."
"You have a concussion, cracked ribs, and a lung contusion," she snapped. "If you don't stay put, I will strap you to that bed myself."
Ricky crossed his arms, winced, then uncrossed them again. "I'll teleport out."
Nancy stopped, closed her eyes, counted silently to three, then leaned in just enough for him to know she was not playing.
"Do not test me tonight, Sentinel. You want to see Jason. I know. But the only way you are going up there is in a wheelchair, with me, slowly, and only for a few minutes."
Ricky blinked.
"A... wheelchair?"
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes."
"That's humiliating."
"Your alternatives are far worse," she said calmly. "Because if you refuse, I will sedate you with something strong enough that even teleportation won't be an option. And then you will stay in this bed until morning."
Ricky stared at her, betrayed, indignant, and painfully aware that she meant every single word. He deflated.
"Fine," he muttered. "Wheelchair."
"Good choice."
The door opened behind Nancy. Amanda and Darren Strathan stood in the doorway. They had clearly heard at least part of it. Darren's mouth was already pressed together, giving his son a hard look for giving the doctor grief. Amanda's eyes moved from Nancy to her son to the oxygen cannula that was, in fact, no longer tangled in his gown because he was now, in fact, sitting correctly.
"Dr. Oksana," Amanda said, "Has my son decided to be respectful and agreeable today?"
"Mrs. Strathan," Nancy replied. Her composure did not flicker. "Your son has agreed to use the wheelchair. It was a difficult decision, but he made a wise one."
Ricky shot a look at Nancy that communicated several things simultaneously, none of them dignified. Amanda sat beside her son and took his face in her hands, studying him, the bruising, the pallor, the oxygen line, with the thorough and unsentimental inventory of a mother who needed to account for every piece of him before she could let herself feel anything else. Then she pressed her forehead to his.
"You need to try harder to behave," she said quietly.
"I know," Ricky said. "I'm working on it, Mom."
Darren came forward then, dropping into the chair on the other side of the bed. He gripped his son's shoulder. His eyes were still red at the rims from the meeting, and he didn't pretend otherwise.
"You look like me when I was your age," Darren said gruffly.
"Handsome and irresistible?"
"Banged up and impossible," Darren told his son, chuckling as Ricky tried to laugh with him and winced.
Nancy returned with a wheelchair. His parents kissed him goodbye --- they'd stop by his place to feed Fender and settle in before coming back. Ricky hugged them both carefully, kissed his mom on the cheek, and then it was just him and the chair. He grumbled getting into it. Nancy ignored him. The wheels clicked softly over the tile.
At the ICU doorway, she stopped. "Go on," she said quietly. "I'll be right outside."
Ricky swallowed hard, reached for the wheels himself, and pushed forward into the room.
As soon as he saw Jason, he froze.
Jace lay pale and bruised in the dimmed light, hair spread over the pillow, the opal glow at his throat flickering faintly. Tubes and monitors surrounded him in a quiet forest of beeping and pulsing.
Ricky's breath caught.
He dragged his hand over his mouth, turning his head sharply away as the memory of Pincher Creek slammed into him. He shut his eyes. His fist pressed hard against his lips, a useless shield against everything he was feeling. He was not going to cry. He was Ricky Strathan. He did not cry.
He was crying.
Silent, jaw set, shoulders rigid, but the tears came anyway, because this weight was simply too large for stubbornness to hold. Finding Jace behind the tavern. The drive. The SUV. Watching Jace die in Connor's arms. Every second of the worst night of his life played behind his eyes whether he wanted it to or not.
He didn't hear Jace stir.
"...Rick?"
Ricky spun back, scrubbing his face hard with the back of his wrist. "Yeah. Yeah, man. I'm right here."
Jace blinked at him through the haze. Took him in slowly: the red-rimmed eyes, the wrist still pressed to his cheekbone, the rigid set of a man trying very hard to look like nothing had happened.
"You're crying," Jace said quietly.
"I'm not," Ricky said.
"Rick."
"...Shut up."
Jace's expression softened. With visible effort, he moved his hand along the blanket until it reached Ricky's. His grip was faint, but it was there, slow and deliberate and unmistakable.
"I'm alive," Jace whispered. "Because of you. Because of all of you."
Ricky's throat worked. He looked down at their hands.
"There's no more reason to cry," Jace said. "We all survived. Every one of us. You hear me?"
Something in Ricky's face broke and steadied at the same time. He gave a short, tight nod. Drew in a long breath. Let it out slow. Ran both hands over his face and pulled himself together with grim efficiency.
******
Ivar and Britta came to Erik's room before Nancy brought the wheelchair.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed, neck brace in place, left arm in the sling, staring at the wall with the expression of a man deciding how annoyed he was going to be about the next several weeks. He looked up when the door opened.
Ivar filled the doorway. He stood there, taking in his son, the brace, the sling, the bandage at his hairline, and recalibrating.
"Hey, Dad," Erik said.
Ivar crossed the room and gripped Erik's uninjured shoulder, then pulled him in carefully, aware of every injury, and held him there without a word. His jaw was set. His eyes were wet.
Britta sat beside her son and took his free hand in both of hers and held it the way mothers hold the hands of grown sons who have been badly hurt, as if contact itself was the point.
"Tell us," she said simply.
He told them what he could. Not everything, but enough --- enough that Ivar's jaw set harder with each sentence, enough that Britta's hand tightened around his and did not let go. When Erik finished, Ivar was quiet.
"You held," Ivar said, "You all held strongly for Jason when he needed you most."
"We all held," Erik said, "We had to. He's, our brother."
Ivar nodded once. That was enough.
Britta kissed her son's temple and stayed where she was, her hand still in his, while Ivar settled into the chair beside the bed. They didn't need to fill the silence. They had never been a family that did.
Nancy walked in pushing a wheelchair for Erik. She looked at Ivar and Britta and said, "Your son made a request to see his drummer, but he doesn't get to walk up there because he's still dizzy."
"So, I get to take the company car," Erik joked, bringing a little chuckle from his mother.
"Then we will let you see Jason," Ivar told his son, "I know you have been anxious about him, son."
"We'll come back once we get settled at your apartment and get dinner," Britta said.
Erik hugged his mother and held his father's hand strongly.
"We have much to discuss when you are back home," Ivar said, "There is much to understand that I think only you can tell us now."
"I'll tell you everything, Dad," Erik insisted, "I promise."
Ivar nodded, a small smile on his face.
When Ivar and Britta left, Nancy took Erik up to Jace's room, where Ricky was already sitting with him. She rolled Erik in and left to fetch him later. Ricky looked up. Neck brace. Bandage at his hairline. Left arm in a sling. Another storm cloud with wheels.
"Heard the idiot parade was happening in here," Erik grumbled.
"Welcome to the circus," Ricky said.
Then he looked at Jace. Really looked. The grumbling died. The restless fury at the chair and the brace and the indignity of all of it. It left him in a single exhale, like a tide going out. What replaced it was something Erik Hahn rarely let anyone see.
The last time he had laid eyes on Jace, the man was dead in the arms of their lead singer in the back of an SUV. He had braced for a world without Jace in it. Five deaths in three days the drummer had gone through. Each one a hollow carved into his chest that hadn't filled back in yet.
His jaw worked. His eyes went bright. He didn't look away. Didn't try to hide it.
A tear tracked down his face, slow and quiet, and he let it fall.
"Hey, man," he said, voice low and rough. "You look better than the last time I saw ya."
Ricky, watching from the other side of the bed, felt his own composure slip again, because seeing Erik break, even this quietly, undid whatever wall he had just rebuilt. He pressed his mouth into a hard line.
Jace looked between them both. Two of the most formidable men he had ever known, sitting in hospital wheelchairs with wet eyes, holding themselves together for his sake. The ache in his chest had nothing to do with broken ribs.
"I'd cry with you both," he said, voice a cracked rasp, "but everyone else around here is already soggy enough without me adding to it."
Ricky made a sound that was half laugh, half something he refused to name. Erik's expression cracked into something that wasn't quite a smile but was close enough.
Jace breathed out slowly, carefully. "I'm sorry..."
"Yeah, we know," Ricky said quietly. "You kept telling Connor that all the way from Calgary."
The three of them stayed like that, not speaking, not needing to. A guardian, a warrior, and a shapeshifter, all three of them hurt, all three of them still here.
Time blurred after that. Hours turned into a day. A day turned into two.
Erik improved quickly. His headaches eased. His balance returned. He hated the neck brace, but he tolerated it. When Dr. Oksana finally told him he could be discharged, he nearly wept with joy. He returned to visit walking instead of rolling, still stiff, still sore, still complaining, but upright again.
Ricky was discharged the day after. He moved slowly, holding his ribs, but he kept coming back to Jace's room, grounding himself by seeing with his own eyes that their Guardian was still alive.
******
While the hospital settled into its rhythms, something was happening forty minutes north in Nathan's apartment.
Betty and Alan Dallenger had driven down from Reno the moment Sidney reached them by phone. They had been warned: Nathan was home, physically all right, but ordered to sleep and almost certainly already doing so. Don't be alarmed if he's difficult to wake.
They let themselves in with the spare key they kept for when he was on tour. The apartment was dark and quiet. A glass of water sat on the kitchen counter, half-finished. His jacket was on the floor just inside the door, which told Betty everything she needed to know about how he'd walked in.
They found him in his bed, deeply and completely unconscious, still in his clothes.
Betty sat on the edge of the bed and put her hand on his arm. "Nathan," she said softly. "Honey. We're here."
He didn't stir.
Alan tried from the doorway. "Nathan." Nothing. Louder: still nothing.
Alan looked at Betty. Betty looked at Alan.
"Sidney said to let him sleep," Betty said.
"Sidney was right," Alan said.
They made themselves at home as they always did, Alan finding what was edible in the kitchen, Betty tidying the things dropped on the way to the bed, both of them moving quietly through the apartment as parents do when they've come a long way to take care of someone who is currently unconscious.
Betty noticed the scorch marks while she was straightening the living room. There were three of them: one on the wall above the radiator, one low on the carpet near the bookshelf, one scorched into the edge of the kitchen doorframe. She stood and looked at them, then looked at Alan, who had paused in the middle of assessing the refrigerator contents.
He had seen them too.
Neither of them said anything. They filed it away as parents do when the full story is clearly not yet available, and went back to what they were doing.
Nathan woke nine hours later.
He came out of his room blinking, hair catastrophic, and found them at the kitchen table with coffee. He stopped in the doorway.
"I figured Sidney called you," he said.
"He did," Alan said. "Sit down. Your mother made eggs and we got bacon and hashbrowns. We made a grocery trip."
Nathan sat down. He was starving, and something about his mother’s cooking was almost like medication for his soul. Betty sat a plate full of eggs, bacon, and some hashbrowns with cheese, onions, and sweet peppers in them in front of him and he immediately began to devour the meal. As he chowed down, he looked at both parents carefully. His father's calm, good-natured face, his mother's steady and concerned eyes, and something in him that had been held very tight for three days quietly loosened.
Between bites and sips of coffee, Nathan told them everything. Including the scorch marks. Alan listened as Alan always listened, attentively, with interjections of "wait, back up" and "how does that work, exactly," asking exactly the kind of methodical, curious questions Nathan had always privately recognized as the origin of his own mind. Betty listened without interrupting, her coffee going cold, her expression moving from concern to wonder to the acceptance of a woman who loves her son completely and has always suspected he was not entirely ordinary. When Nathan finished, the kitchen was quiet.
"So, the amulet," Alan said. "The garnet one. It's... attached to you."
"Permanently," Nathan confirmed.
Alan considered this. "Does it come in other colors?"
Nathan looked at him.
"I'm asking for your mother."
Betty pressed her lips together in a way that meant she found this funnier than she was going to admit. Nathan only chuckled and hugged his father. Not because it was funny, which it was, but mostly because he just needed the contact.
Nathan drove them to the hospital that afternoon. Alan shook hands with everyone. Betty brought food, because Betty always brought food, and Jace, pale and bruised in his hospital bed, ate two of her cookies and told her they were the best thing he'd had in a week, which was true. She patted his cheek and told him he needed to trim his hair to get rid of split ends.
******
Jace gained strength each day. The bruising faded, his voice steadied, and something in his face that had been braced for the worst slowly began to let go.
And eventually, inevitably, he asked, "Can... can I see Connor?"
Nancy hesitated. "Jason, you're still healing."
"I know. But he needs me."
She paused, weighing risk against truth. "He's being brought out of the coma. Slowly. He's reacting, but it's scattered. His mind is... struggling."
"Then I need to be there," Jace whispered. "Please."
Nancy exhaled. "All right. But you go in a wheelchair, and I don't want you speaking loudly or touching anything without my approval. Understood?"
"Yes," Jace said immediately.
She wheeled him down the hall, every foot of the journey a silent current pulling him forward. The closer they got, the tighter his chest felt, not from injury but from the bond itself tugging toward its missing piece. Nurses and other doctors along the way smiled at him, one or two stopping them to comment on how much better he was looking, and asking how he was feeling.
"I'm hanging in there," Jace said, "I still feel like I'm missing a few parts."
He meant his brothers. Specifically, Connor.
Connor's room was dim. Machines buzzed softly. His body lay still, but his brow was creased, breath too quick, fingers trembling faintly. They'd reduced the sedation. His eyes fluttered without focus; lost somewhere between waking and the dark place he'd been kept for safety.
Nancy positioned Jace near the bed.
He reached slightly toward Connor, voice barely above a whisper. "Connor... I'm here. I'm right here."
Connor's breathing slowed. His fingers twitched more deliberately. Jace leaned just a little closer, ignoring the pain in his ribs.
"Hey, brother. Come back to me. I'm okay. I made it, Connor."
Connor's eyes were only half-open, unfocused, drifting. His breath shook on the way in, steadied on the way out as though Jace's presence was something his body recognized even before his mind did.
Connor's eyes shifted again, searching blindly until they found a shape that made sense. His brow pinched as though the effort hurt.
"Jace...?"
"Yeah," Jace whispered. "I made it. I'm okay."
Connor's face crumpled. His eyes filled fast, the kind of tears that didn't ask permission, that had been held back too long and found the first crack of certainty to pour through. A ragged sound escaped him, half breath, half sob, the sound of someone who had been bracing for the worst for so long that relief itself became unbearable.
Jace felt it move through the bond before he thought about it. Instinct, not decision, the Guardian's power reaching through the connection between them, not a wave but something gentler, steadier. A hand pressed flat against the inside of the panic. A low warmth that said: I'm here. The worst is over. You can stop bracing now.
Connor's breath hitched, then slowly, slowly evened out. The tears kept falling, he couldn't stop those, but the shaking quieted. The desperate urgency in his face softened into something that was still grief, still relief, still overwhelmed, but no longer fraying at the seams.
Connor swallowed hard. His throat worked against dryness and sedation. "Thought you... were gone..."
"I know." Jace's voice cracked. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have scared everyone like that."
Connor closed his eyes, a quiet tremor running down his arm. Jace hesitated, then reached out and let the back of his fingers touch Connor's wrist, barely, just enough contact to let the bond settle.
Immediately Connor's breath smoothed. Nancy, watching from the doorway with her arms crossed, didn't miss the effect. She didn't comment either. Connor forced his eyes open again.
"Couldn't... stop it... everything in my head... too loud..."
"I know," Jace said. "But you're not alone. I'm right here."
Connor's lip trembled. "I felt it. When you... when you died." The word slipped out in a whisper that barely existed.
Jace's jaw tightened. He didn't lie. "I know. I'm sorry you had to go through that."
Connor shook his head slightly. "Didn't want to leave you... couldn't hold... anything steady..."
"You did more than you think," Jace whispered. "You held on long enough for me to come back."
"Don't run away again," Connor said. A request, delivered with the quiet certainty of someone who had felt what the running cost them all.
"Whatever it is. Whatever happens. There's nothing we can't figure out together. All five of us."
Jace held his gaze.
"I know," he said. "I know that now."
Then Connor's focus sharpened just a little, the kind of sharpening that came not from clarity but from noticing something wrong. His eyes moved slowly over Jace's face.
"You..." Connor's voice was still paper-thin. "You look different."
"They shaved me," Jace said. "Ventilator. Wasn't a choice."
Connor's hand moved slowly to his own jaw, checking for stubble that wasn't there. He went still.
"They got you too," Jace said. "Same reason, dude."
"Damn it," Connor muttered.
"For what it's worth, you look about twelve," Jace said.
"You look twelve and someone's sister," Connor shot back.
Jace laughed, quietly, carefully, ribs protesting, but he laughed. And for that one moment, it was like the weight of the whole terrible week lifted an inch off both of them.
Connor's hand dropped back to the bed. The ghost of the smile stayed a little longer than it should have, given everything.
Nancy stepped in finally, voice soft but firm. "He needs rest. Both of you do."
Jace nodded, but Connor reached out just slightly, fingers curling like he didn't want that connection to break.
Nancy saw it. She hesitated, sighed through her nose, and said, "Okay, you can stay. But quietly. An hour. No more."
Jace nodded immediately. "Thank you."
Connor drifted in and out of sleep during that hour, but every time he stirred, his eyes went toward Jace as though checking that he was still there. Jace spoke to him softly, sometimes just nonsense words meant to keep him anchored, sometimes recounting nothing more dramatic than what the sunrise looked like out the window earlier that morning.
Nancy pretended to be busy with charts, though every few minutes she looked over and saw Connor's monitors gradually settling, his breathing evening out, his body relaxing in a way it hadn't since the seizures.
By the time she finally said, "All right, Jason, that's enough for today," Connor's color had improved, and the tremors had almost completely stopped.
Jace squeezed Connor's arm lightly. "I'll come back tomorrow."
Connor's eyelids fluttered. "Okay..."
Nancy wheeled Jace out carefully and returned him to his own room upstairs. As soon as she did, Connor's vitals continued to tick upward, steady, steady, steady, as though Jace's presence had rewired something back into place.
******
Connor's improvement came faster than anyone expected. By late morning on the third day, his color had returned, the tremors were gone, and he was answering questions with full clarity. Nathan was already visiting that day. He'd been splitting his time between Jace's ICU room and Connor's recovery room, checking on both of them the way only Nathan could, quiet but deeply protective. He was sitting in one of the chairs flipping through a magazine when Dr. Oksana stepped in with Connor's chart.
"Well, Mr. Braydee," she said with a small smile, "I think you're ready to go home."
Connor blinked. "Home? Really?"
"You're stable. Your EEG looks excellent. Your neurological response is normalizing. There's no medical reason to keep you here another night."
Connor breathed out in relief... and then immediately looked toward the hallway that led upstairs to Jace.
Nathan caught the look instantly. "Nope."
"I didn't say anything," Connor protested weakly.
"You didn't have to," Nathan said. "You're not going up there today."
Connor looked away. "I just want to check on him..."
"I know," Nathan said gently. "But you nearly passed out yesterday just walking to the bathroom. You need real rest. Jace needs it too." He gave Connor a steady look. "Promise me you won't get in your car and drive back here the moment we walk out."
Connor sighed, defeated. "Fine. I promise."
"Good," Nathan said. "Let's get you home."
Nathan handled the paperwork and helped Connor out to his car. He drove him to his house, the quiet ranch-style home in an L.A. cul-de-sac with the art-lined walls and greenhouse in the backyard. Neighbors waved when they saw the car pull into the driveway; Connor waved back weakly, trying to look normal.
Once inside, Nathan helped him to the couch, tucked a blanket around him, set water on the coffee table, and gave him a stern look.
"You need sleep," Nathan said. "If you get up and go anywhere, even to check the mail, I'll make every drink in your fridge boil."
Connor let out a tired laugh. "You're terrifying."
"Good." Nathan squeezed his shoulder. "Rest. I'll check in later."
When he left, the house grew quiet, Connor's first true stillness since the entire ordeal began.
About an hour later, Sidney arrived.
Connor was sitting on the couch with the blanket pulled around him, looking worn out but far calmer than before. Sidney stepped in, taking a silent assessment of him: posture, eyes, breathing.
"You look steadier," Sidney said.
Connor nodded. "Still tired. But better."
"Good," Sidney said as he sat down across from him. "You scared the hell out of all of us."
Connor managed a small smile. "I scared myself."
Sidney leaned in slightly. "Listen, no pushing yourself. No driving back to Cedars-Sinai today. Jace is improving. He'll still be improving tomorrow. Rest."
"I promised Nathan I'd stay put," Connor said, pulling the blanket tighter.
Sidney nodded, satisfied. "Good. I'll check on you later."
He left Connor to rest.
Ricky's house was next on Sidney’s tour of the battered Brotherhood.
It looked peaceful from the outside, a modern two-story home with clean lines and a backyard pool. Inside, it was very much Ricky's domain: guitars hanging on every wall, music posters framed neatly, hardwood and Mexican tile floors, and general rock-and-roll chaos.
Ricky lay half-reclined on the couch, ribs taped, looking like the world's most irritated injured cat. Nathan had come straight from Connor's house. He sat nearby in a chair, arms folded, watching Ricky like a prison guard.
Ricky was mid-complaint when Sidney entered.
"...and if you blow up one more amp, I swear..."
"One amp per complaint," Nathan said without glancing up from the magazine in his hands. "You're down to four."
Ricky sputtered. "I am NOT down to four!"
"You will be," Nathan replied calmly.
Sidney closed the door behind him. "Oh good. Just the peaceful domestic scene I expected."
Ricky pointed dramatically at Nathan. "Tell him he can't blow up my amps!"
Sidney shook his head. "He absolutely can."
Ricky threw his head back in exasperation. "You people are abusive."
"You'll live," Nathan said dryly.
But Ricky's expression softened when Sidney asked how he was feeling.
"Hurt," he admitted quietly. "But... better. I just wanna see Jace."
"And you will," Sidney promised. "Soon."
Sidney didn't need to stay long. Nathan had Ricky pinned.
The last stop on Sidney's route that day was Cedars-Sinai, where Jace was propped up against the pillows reading a magazine with one hand and adjusting his IV line out of habit with the other. His bruises had faded; his eyes looked clearer.
"You're looking stronger," Sidney said as he walked in.
"Trying," Jace said with a faint smile. "Connor got released today."
"I know," Sidney said. "Nathan took him home."
Before Jace could reply, Dr. Oksana came in with his chart. She flipped through several pages, nodded, and looked directly at Jace.
"You're healing beautifully," she said. "Remarkably well."
Jace's brow lifted. "That good?"
"That unusual," she corrected gently. "Jason, we need to talk about your physiology from here on out."
Jace sat up a little straighter.
She continued: "I've watched your amulet restart your heart. I've watched your cellular recovery accelerate in ways humans don't. I've seen your body fight for life on its own. That means you and I will have to approach your treatment differently than any other patient."
Jace swallowed. "So what does that mean?"
"It means," she said softly, "you won't die easily. The amulet won't let you. If you're hurt in the future, your healing will be faster, deeper, and more complicated than a normal trauma case. Your bones may set faster, your heart may restart itself, but those processes can destabilize other systems. I'll have to monitor you closely every time something major happens."
Jace nodded slowly. "Okay."
Nancy closed the chart. "And Jason? Don't ever treat this like invincibility. You will survive things other people wouldn't, but pain is still pain, and recovery is still recovery."
"I won't," Jace said quietly.
She gave a small, rare smile. "Good. Now rest. Tomorrow, if you keep progressing, I'll start allowing more visitors."
Jace relaxed back into the pillows, a little overwhelmed but comforted. Sidney squeezed his arm gently before leaving.
By the seventh morning, Nancy entered with his chart tucked under her arm and a rare softness in her expression.
"Well, Jason," she said. "I think it's time to send you home."
Jace blinked. "Home? For real?"
"For real," she confirmed. "You still need rest, and plenty of it. But there's nothing happening here that can't happen in your own bed. I'll schedule daily check-ins, and Sidney will keep you from doing anything stupid."
"I never do anything stupid," Jace said automatically.
Nancy raised one eyebrow. Sidney offered a small cough.
Jace lifted his hands. "Okay. Sometimes I do stupid things."
"Better," Nancy said. "Sidney, make sure he stays put. No training for at least two weeks, and weapon training is absolutely off limits until I say otherwise."
Sidney gave a small bow of the head. "Understood."
A slow, shaky breath left Jace. He wanted to go home, desperately. But some part of him had trouble believing he was allowed to.
Nancy rested a hand on the rail of his bed. "You're healing well, Jason. And you've earned a quiet place to breathe."
That finally made the reality sink in. Tobin and Christina had brought clothing from his house to him earlier in the week, anticipating that he could be released soon. Sidney helped Jace dress out of the hospital gown and when the orderly rolled the wheelchair in, he didn't argue. The Guardian Amulet warmed faintly against his chest... not glowing, not reacting, just... present. A gentle anchor against the chaos of the week. Sidney walked beside him as they made their way down the hallway. The nursing staff had gathered along the route to give him gentle hugs, handshakes, and other well wishes. Jace felt half-embarrassed, half-grateful. He wasn't used to this much attention unless drums were involved.
As the elevator doors slid open, Sidney said quietly, "Your brothers know you're being released today."
Jace felt his heart leap. "Are they..."
"They're waiting."
When the doors opened onto the lobby, all the air left Jace's lungs.
Connor stood there first, arms crossed, eyes bright. He still looked tired, but a thousand times stronger than the last time Jace had seen him unconscious in ICU. He was even starting to regrow his trademark facial scruff. The moment he saw Jace roll out, Connor's expression shattered into relief.
"Hey..." Jace breathed.
Connor stepped forward immediately, kneeling in front of the wheelchair so he wasn't towering above him. "You made us go all the way to Canada, dude."
"I know," Jace said softly. "I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize," Connor whispered. "Just... don't ever run like that again."
Jace almost laughed. "I promise...I won't."
Before Connor could say anything else, Ricky came barreling from the waiting area, arms flung wide and decidedly not walking like someone who'd been injured recently.
Nathan grabbed the back of his shirt mid-charge. "You are not tackling the Guardian, for God's sake."
Ricky fought against the hold, his shoes sliding in futility.
"Let me hug my brother! He died! Multiple times!"
"You will break him," Nathan said with unshakable confidence, "We just came to pick him up, ya dork!"
Ricky grumbled and stopped struggling. Looking at Nathan with resignation, he moved slowly toward Jace, shuffling forward more gently and dropping to one knee opposite Connor. His eyes went glassy as he took in Jace's still-healing face. Grinning at Jace, Ricky decided that now was a good time to make an observation.
"You look like crap," he said.
Jace snorted. "Thanks."
"But I'm glad you're okay."
"Me too," Jace said.
Then came Erik. He'd been standing back, letting the others go first. His arm was out of the sling now, his collarbone not quite right yet, and he still moved like every muscle in his body protested. When he stepped forward, it was quiet, a big man carrying weight in his chest he didn't know how to say aloud.
"Hey, Warrior," Jace said softly.
Erik swallowed hard. "Hey."
And then, instead of speaking, Erik reached out and put one broad, steady hand on the back of Jace's neck. Gentle. Protective. Reverent.
Jace felt his throat tighten.
Nathan came last.
He didn't kneel. Didn't rush. Didn't say anything at first. He simply put a hand on Jace's shoulder, careful, warm, grounding.
"You made it, Guardian," Nathan murmured.
Jace nodded. "Only because all of you held me together."
Then Connor bent down toward Jace, bringing himself level. Ricky came in close on the other side. Nathan moved around, kneeling just in front, hands finding Jace's. And Erik, last, steadiest, placed one broad hand on the back of Jace's head, cradling it with the gentleness of a man who had almost lost him five times over.
They all leaned in.
Foreheads together. All five of them. A huddle... not of a team about to take the field, but of five men who had just come through the worst thing that had ever happened to any of them, and had done it together. They were still here. The amulets, as if sensing the moment of reunion, all pulsed together. Each of them felt the surge, each settling into it with profound relief. Nobody said anything. Nobody needed to.
The small gathering of medical professionals who had followed Jace down from his room watched this and then began to applaud. Most of them did not know the details of the amulets these men wore, but they accepted that they were a part of each man that could not be removed from their bodies. Many of them had seen how the members of this band had arrived at the hospital days before, and for them to witness the moment of Battle Cry's reconnection was the right ending to the whole experience. They didn't know what those amulets really meant, and none of them would detail this moment outside of the hospital.
Sidney watched from the side, arms folded loosely, a rare emotion flickering across his face, something like pride mixed with relief, with a shadow of fear that hadn't fully left him.
After a moment, he cleared his throat softly. "All right, lads. Let's get him home."
The boys straightened. Connor wiped his cheek quickly when he thought no one was looking. Ricky sniffed hard and muttered something about allergies. Erik looked ready to bodily lift the wheelchair if the elevator malfunctioned. Nathan kept one hand on the back of the chair like a silent anchor.
They escorted Jace out the doors of Cedars-Sinai, the California sunlight washing over them like a benediction.
The air felt warm. Real. Alive. Jace tipped his head back and closed his eyes for one long, steady breath. He was going home. And his brothers were still with him.