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.・゜-: ✧☾ ☽✧ :-゜・.
The afternoon light had settled into a warm, golden stillness, soft and thick like honey, spilling through the window. Stella blinked against it, propped weakly against a pillow. Some color had returned to her cheeks, but it sat there tentatively. The girl was trying to keep herself occupied by counting the planks in the ceiling to keep her from fraying from boredom when the knock came, gentle and hesitant.
On the other side of the door, Stella heard Rick's voice. "Hey, sweetheart. You awake?" He asked softly.
Her throat scraped as she forced out, "Yeah."
"You up for some company?" He asked.
"Depends," she murmured, though a smile tugged at her lips as she suddenly understood that Rick wasn't alone. There was a warm hush behind the door, the kind that only came with small feet and held-back excitement. It creaked open, revealing Rick with a small figure behind him. Carl. His shoulders were awkwardly slumped as he peeked out behind his father and perched on his hip sat Judith, her fingers tangled in his hair.
Stella had imagined this reunion in the blurred haze of half-consciousness, but nothing prepared her for the real thing. It was a whirlwind of relief, comfort, and a quiet, senseless guilt that gnawed at her without mercy.
"They've been waiting all day," Rick said quietly, his gaze flickering from Stella to the kids.
Levi looked up from his chair in the corner, where he'd been quietly watching over her. He smiled faintly and gave a nod toward the door. "Go on," he murmured. "She's all yours." He slipped out quietly, the door whispering shut behind him.
Carl took a cautious step forward. Stella pushed herself upright, ignoring the ache that protested through her ribs, and offered him a small smile. Judith reached for the older girl instantly and the brother chuckled as he handed her over. Stella gathered the little girl into her arms, holding her close.
The girl had been unconscious long enough for her family to not know whether she'd take another breath. They had gone through hours stretched thin with the fear that Stella might never open her eyes again. For Carl and Judith, this room could have become the place where they learned that their sister had died.
Stella saw that truth reflected in Carl's expression. The guarded mask that so desperately tried to cling on to not reveal the slipping vulnerability. It was not outright fear. He was too practiced at hiding that. It was the remnants of it, lodged in the tightness around his eyes, in the stiff set of his jaw. Judith knew nothing of fragility or mortality; she only knew that Stella woke up, and therefore everything was okay again.
Carl was not as guarded by that innocence. He had witnessed too many graves and buried too many versions of safety for this not to have shattered at least something in him. Stella's gaze swept over his face, seeing the boy who learned how to use a gun before he learned how to shave and something in her chest twisted. The guilt rose again, the irrational but scorching guilt that she had scared him, that she had added one more weight to the mountain he already carried.
