Mei looked past Damien then. Looked across the bed to where Alexander was sitting, his face carefully arranged into something neutral.
The room went very still.
Aria watched her mother look at Alexander Wei for the first time in twenty-five years.
She'd thought about this moment, had wondered how it would feel, how her mother would react, whether the old fear would surface or the old grief or something she hadn't anticipated. She'd imagined it happening in a controlled setting.
Not a hospital room. Not like this.
But there was Mei, and there was Alexander, and the twenty-five years between them sat in the space like something with weight.
Alexander met Mei's eyes.
He didn't speak. Didn't try to. Just looked at her with an expression that was so stripped of everything defensive or strategic that Aria barely recognized it as his face.
Mei looked at him for a long moment.
"You came," she said finally. Simple. The same words Aria had said to him.
