27. Cassia #3
I mark time by his vitals rather than by hours.
The arrhythmia gradually smooths out while the temperature drops degree by degree toward the normal range, allowing the blistering on his forearms to fade as the Kraaj cellular repair mechanism does the work my medicine can only support.
Junia brings updates from the surface detailing how the broadcast has reached the sectors and Nysera has filed formal evidence with three separate oversight bodies.
Furthermore, the civilian population demands accountability in terms loud enough that even the officers at Kor-Viir must acknowledge.
The district is rebuilding itself around the truth.
It is messy, complicated, and far from complete, but it exists now in a way it never did before we went underground.
Wen runs the clinic through all of it—she tells me in short updates delivered from the doorway, humans and Kraaj coming through the doors in roughly equal numbers—an unprecedented shift in her time there—the broadcast having apparently dissolved old habits alongside old assumptions.
Elias visits daily. He sits on the supply crate across from Rhykor's table and works on his relay projects in silence, as if proximity is its own form of vigil.
On the third day he falls asleep there, comm equipment in his lap, blond curls falling across his forehead, and I put a blanket over him and go back to work.
Varrik comes in the evenings. He says little while sitting and drinking whatever he's carrying, though he occasionally aims a dry comment at the state of the med bay that comes off closer to you need to sleep than anything he'll say directly. Even as I ignore it, he keeps coming back.
On the fourth day, Rhykor's pulse steadies.
Although the arrhythmia leaves a trace—a slight irregularity at the top of each cycle that I’ll need to monitor for weeks—the labored quality has burned itself out.
His rhythm settles into a consistent, confident beat.
With his temperature dropping to within two degrees of normal, the blistering has closed entirely.
New skin already forms across his forearms in pale, tender patches; this Kraaj regeneration is lighter than the surrounding crimson, leaving him unmarked by the violence of the ceremony, as if healed tissue always prefers to grow back a little cleaner than what came before.
I'm changing the dressings on his wing membrane when he moves.
His hand lifts from the table and travels with slow but steadfast purpose toward where I'm standing. His fingers find my wrist and wrap around it. The grip is loose, a fraction of his usual strength, but unwavering in its direction.
His eyes, open and ember-red, glassy with the residue of four days of unconsciousness, focus on my face with an immediacy that tells me wherever he's been, his focus remained entirely on me.
The professional wall crumbles; "Hey," I rasp, and I seal my other hand over his where it circles my wrist. "Hey, I've got you."
His mouth moves. It takes two tries.
"You stayed."
"I told you I would." I squeeze his hand carefully, mindful of the new skin across his knuckles. "Don't make it weird."
The corner of his mouth pulls, and the sound that emerges from his chest is rough and exhausted and the most beautiful thing I've heard in four days.
"You're insulting me," he rasps, "while I'm lying down."
"I've been insulting you while you were unconscious.
This is an improvement." I reach for my wrist scanner with my free hand and start running vitals because some reflexes are too deep to override.
"Pulse is steadier. Temperature is almost normal.
Your wing membrane is going to need another week before I'll clear you for flight, and you will absolutely wait the full week, Rhykor. I’ll personally sit on you if I have to. "
As he watches me work, his hand stays on my wrist throughout, thumb resting against my pulse point, and I let it—let him feel the answer to whatever question that touch is asking.
My marrow is buzzing with a newfound solidity, the frantic, thin frequency of the last few days smoothing out into a warm, reliable alignment that mirrors the steady, synchronized cadence of our pulses.
"The district," he says.
"It’s still standing. Junia broadcast everything.
Legion's confessions, Daxos's authorization chain, the full evidence package.
Nysera's filed it with oversight. It's loud out there, but it's a different kind of loud than before.
" I set the scanner down and meet his eyes.
"People are angry at the right targets for the first time in a long time. "
He's quiet as his gaze moves across the med bay.
He takes in Elias's abandoned blanket on the supply crate and the extra chair Varrik dragged in, noting the organized chaos of four days of intensive treatment arranged across the surfaces as he notes what it all tells him about what happened while he was gone.
"You didn't leave." His tone is softer this time, sounding less like an observation and more like a plea.
I lace my fingers through his, being careful of the new skin but sure of everything else. "I told you I'd pull you out. I meant the whole thing, Rhykor. All the way out."
His hand tightens on mine. His eyes close briefly—exhaustion rather than unconsciousness, a man finally allowing his body to stop bracing. When they open again, they find my face with the same immediacy as before, the same unhesitating direction.
"Come here," he murmurs.
I lean forward and sink my forehead against his. His breath warms my face, and the mate bond settles into a deep, immovable quiet in my chest as it does when the distance between us vanishes.
Outside, District Seventeen continues its complicated, painful, yet necessary work of becoming new.
Inside this room, in the compound we built from sheer stubborn salvage and months of choosing each other despite the resistance, we stay exactly where we are.
The war is over, and the healing has just begun.