Then he'd watched Mei sink into the chair beside their daughter's bed and completely shatter, and every carefully constructed distance he'd built over twenty-five years developed a crack straight through its center.
He crossed the room.
Damien stepped back without being asked, Alexander stopped beside Mei's chair and crouched down until they were eye level.
"Look at me," he said quietly.
She turned her face toward him, her eyes red, her expression stripped of every guard she normally kept between herself and the world. Between herself and him.
"You did not fail her," he said. "You got sick. That is not the same thing. You didn't choose illness any more than you chose the circumstances that forced Aria to make the choices she made."
"I should have been stronger...."
"You survived terminal illness." His voice was firm. "You survived it and you're standing here. That is not weakness, Mei. That is extraordinary."
She shook her head, fresh tears spilling.
