Words that emerge as whisper, barely audible, carrying everything that official statements can't convey.
"I'm home..."
My voice cracks on the word.
Emotion breaking through whatever composure I managed to construct.
"...Mom and Dad."
The silence that follows is brief but infinite—a moment that contains everything and nothing, past and future colliding in a present that redefines what any of those concepts mean.
Then my mother—Professor Isolde, who I can call Mom now—makes a sound that might be sob or might be laugh or might be some combination that human language hasn't invented words for yet.
She steps forward.
Her arms open with the particular gesture of someone who has been waiting for this moment for longer than I can comprehend—waiting through years of watching from whatever distance the circumstances required, waiting through trials they couldn't intervene in, waiting through revelations they couldn't expedite.
I move into her embrace without conscious decision.
My body simply responds to need that has existed since before I knew what I was missing—the particular ache of growing up without parents finally finding relief in contact that should have happened years ago.
She holds me.
The sensation is overwhelming in ways I wasn't prepared for—warmth and softness and the particular scent that apparently identifiesmotherin some primal part of my consciousness that recognizes her despite never having known her. Her arms carry strength that speaks to power she possesses, but her embrace is entirely gentle.
Tears fall.
Mine, hers, probably my father's too though I can't see him through the moisture blurring my vision.
"We're so proud of you," she whispers against my hair. "So incredibly proud of everything you've become."
My father's hand finds my shoulder.
The touch is hesitant—the particular uncertainty of someone who wants to comfort but isn't sure of their right to do so after so many years of absence that wasn't their choice.
I reach for him without leaving my mother's embrace.
Pull him into the contact that apparently extends to include all of us.
"You found us," he says, voice rough with emotion he's no longer trying to hide. "You found the truth when everyone wanted you to believe the lies."
The lies.
Eleanor's corruption.
The trials that were never meant to exist.
Everything that stood between me and this moment.
"I had help," I manage to say, voice barely working around the emotion clogging my throat.
Cassius's presence at my back is solid and warm and exactly what I need while I process emotions that threaten to overwhelm whatever composure I'm clinging to.
"You have remarkable bond mates," my mother agrees, pulling back just enough to meet my gaze with eyes that carry my own reflection. "We've been watching. When we could. When the barriers Eleanor created allowed glimpses through."
They watched.
Saw what we went through.
