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Red and orange bleeds into the grey overcast. Where the sun had been shining earlier, now clouds roll thick and heavy over the horizon. It darkens the room, save for the soft blue glow of the table lamp. Rain, they call it, is what Kolivan tells Krolia in quiet reverence. She doesn’t have the heart to tell him that she knows. Krolia stands and walks to the window, watching in silence as it pours from the sky; first, in a thin mist. Then, in sheets.
“It’s beautiful,” she says. Kolivan, still perched on the windowsill, tips his head in silent agreement. After fighting for so long, after everything—he’s speechless, too. For such beauty to fall from the sky—it’s like a sign from the heavens that this path is right.
As they stand there, taking in the sights and the sounds of the storm, there’s a jostling at the door. Both of them turn sharply. Both of them reach for blades at their hips; they’re soldiers, not honeymooners.
The door slams open, and there stands the captain of the Atlas himself, the shoulders of his commander coat darkened with the rain and his hair plastered over his forehead. He has a bouquet of wilted flowers in his hands—borrowed from the memorial service he himself had led earlier. Krolia purses her lips at him, willing down a grin.
Ah, yes. The disaster on legs who wooed her only son.
“I came as soon as I heard—I—“ he stammers. Krolia has to mentally restrain herself from being charmed with the way he sort of slips on his own feet and stumbles into the hospital room. His eyes, wide and hopeful, go right to the figure resting in the bed.
“You missed it. Keith was awake, but he wasn’t lucid. He didn’t even know we were here. He fell right back to sleep before we could say anything,” Krolia supplies. Shiro’s shoulders slump and he glances at his flower bouquet with regret.
“I shouldn’t have stopped. I should’ve run right over,” he laments. Regardless, he goes to the bedside and sets the flowers down with loving care on Keith’s bedside table. For a long moment, Krolia watches as he stands there and stares down at her bruised and battered son.
“He’s doing well,” Kolivan pipes in from the windowsill. He’s already moving to stand, grunting softly with the invisible pain in his limbs; hollow reminders of his time locked away in the ruins. Krolia offers him a warm smile and he returns it, albeit wearily, before returning his attention to Shiro, “He’d be happy to know you came. He woke up looking and asking for you.”
Krolia exhales in a huff at that; there’s really no need to fill this man with more ego than he already has, she thinks. Despite her best efforts, her lips quirk up into a grin at the way Shiro squirms and tries to hide his rising blush with his flesh hand. Krolia tracks the movement of the strange, floating right arm, watching it float to Keith’s belly and start to stroke it.
Krolia casually glances at the space wolf, who sits in the corner. He looks up at her, alert, and Krolia gives a jerk of her head.
The wolf disappears in a crack of blue light and reappears at Keith’s hip, headbutting Shiro’s floating arm and knocking it off of Keith before flopping down beside his owner. Shiro blinks, manages a tired smile, and instead pets the wolf’s mane. Krolia settles, smiling to herself. That’s better.
She feels Kolivan nudge her shoulder with his elbow and she peeks up at him. The way his lips purse has her laughing quietly and winking up at him. He smiles back, worn and wounded, but it still touches his eyes.
“I’m going to take a walk. I’m still stiff,” Kolivan announces. With that, he bids his farewell to Shiro, Krolia, and Keith (he pats Keith’s foot as he walks by), then sweeps out the door, quiet as a ghost. When they’re alone, Krolia expends enormous effort not to laugh at the way Shiro tenses up and sits down stiffly in a chair at the bedside. Together, he and Krolia sit and stare at Keith’s sleeping form, watching the way his chest steadily rises and falls.
“Did you both follow the rules after I was gone?” Krolia finally asks. Shiro jumps in her peripheral and a smile tickles the sides of her lips. “Did you follow curfew, Shiro?”
“Wh—curfe—I. Uh. Yes. Yes, I did. I insisted that we did,” Shiro sputters. Krolia turns, staring at him. Really stares at him. He hunches his shoulders under her gaze and picks at the threads of his dress slacks.
“Huh. Can I believe you?”
“Yes, sir!” Shiro blurts. Then, scrambling, “Yes, ma’am!”
Now, Krolia finally allows her strict expression to break and lets out a low laugh. Shiro sweats bullets in his chair and she delights in the way the lightning outside illuminates his face as the sweat shines on his forehead and rolls down the bridge of his nose. Shaking her head, she looks down at her son again and settles her hand over his.
“This is my only son,” she reminds Shiro, as if he needs it.
“I-I... I know that...”
“You know, I never got to be a proper mom for him,” she continues. Shiro doesn’t respond, so she sighs and reaches up to tenderly stroke Keith’s bangs out of his face. “I never got to be an overprotective, overbearing mom. I never sent him storming to his room. I never got to ground him, discipline him, or make him a proper breakfast. I never got to send him to school. I never got to hear a call from his instructors to tell me he’d done something wrong. I got to see glimpses during our time together in the Quantum Abyss. Just… moments. Moments I missed... where I failed.”
Krolia’s eyes turn impossibly soft as she leans forward and presses a long, warm kiss to Keith’s cheek. He doesn’t even stir in his slumber. Lightning lights up the room again, and thunder cracks across the sky.
“I never got to comfort him in a storm. Did you know he used to be afraid of these earth storms?”
“No, ma’am.”
“He was. And he was all alone. My baby came back to me a man, and I missed everything except the very tail end of motherhood.”
The room goes silent, save for Keith’s steady breathing. It grounds Krolia, and drags her back from her emotional event horizon. She keeps petting Keith’s hair and tries to remember those little blips of his life she saw in the Quantum Abyss. War, suffering, tragedy... it blurs the lines. She’s sure she’s already forgotten some of the little moments she got to watch in a broken montage, little moments she’ll never get back.
The wind blows and the windowpane shakes as rain is thrown against it in sheets. Krolia can’t help but to feel a little shaken, herself.
“With all due respect,” Shiro begins. Krolia manages to tear her eyes from Keith long enough to meet Shiro’s gaze. His eyes are soft and warm with a muted sadness as he speaks quietly, “Like the rest of us, you made the most out of a situation you couldn’t control. It’s not ideal, and it’s not what you’d do if everything was perfect. But you did your best. I think Keith knew that. Still knows that. I know I believe that.”
Krolia watches, speechless, as Shiro breaks their gaze to look down at Keith. This time, when his prosthetic arm floats over to touch Keith’s face, she doesn’t get the space wolf to stop him. Something deep in her heart pangs and she puts a hand over her sternum, rubbing the heel of her palm into the bone like she has heartburn. She watches Shiro touch her son with such adoration and love and, for a hot flash of a moment, she’s bitterly jealous of this man for being there to watch her son grow up when she couldn’t.
He’d been present in most of the memories she’d seen in the Quantum Abyss.
He’d been present in most of the glimpses of the future.
Krolia looks back down at her boy, feeling her shoulders slump, and the hole in her heart widening. She’s not... ready. She’s not ready to let him be his own man just yet.
“Sometimes I look at him, and I forget he’s not that too-tiny baby anymore,” she says. The sense of loss in her voice is palpable. Then, with a weak teasing lilt, “I wanted a chance to fend you off with a stick.”
She lives for the confused look on Shiro’s face as she reaches out and bats his hand away from Keith’s hair so she can replace it with her own. For a moment, their eyes meet and she cocks a smirk up at him. His ears turn bright red in that endearing, weirdly human sort of way as he folds his hands in his lap. He takes a small breath—
“I’m not going to stop you from seeing him,” Krolia answers his unsaid question. Shiro shuts his mouth. “But let me at least be a mom, here. Just a few more doboshes.”
She smiles down at Keith, petting his hair with all of the love she can muster. The tension in the room is thick enough to cut with a knife, and so with a little smile, she turns to Shiro again.
“So,” she begins. Her voice is light as she tempers her lips not to curl into something more devilish. “I suppose when Keith wakes up, he’ll tell me that you returned to the green lion at exactly twenty-two hundred hours? Every night?”
Shiro hesitates. Krolia pounces. She leans forward, bracing her elbow on the edge of Keith’s bed and staring into his soul with the intention of striking fear into his mortal heart. It seems to be working, because Shiro has a look on his face like something has recently been jabbed up his unmentionables.
“Captain Shirogane. Is Keith going to tell me you broke curfew?”
His eyes nearly bug out of his head. He snaps his wide-eyed stare to Keith, and Krolia struggles not to keel over in hysterics. Professional that she is, however, she manages to keep her poker face as Shiro mentally flails.
“No! I don’t—uh—“ Shiro stammers. Krolia’s lip curls, and she kicks herself for not having a camera to record all of this desperate backpedaling. “There was never—I mean, sometimes I think we could’ve—but... but it was an accident, I swear. It was only... only by—maybe an hour. No—not even. Maybe half an hour. Twenty minutes! And I—I mean, sometimes the space wolf would—“
Krolia leans her cheek on her fist. There’s just something so cathartic about Captain Shirogane Takashi, savior of the known universe, having a meltdown about his boyfriend’s mother calling him out. It’s comforting to know he can be like this. There’s humanity left in that body—a little sliver of something wholly him left even in a body that isn’t his own. As far as Krolia knows, he could do with a little humanity in his life.
So could her son.
Shiro is still babbling, practically incoherent at this point as he desperately tries to save face. Krolia watches it all with thinly veiled amusement—he doesn’t even notice the subtle changes in her expression anymore, too focused on clinging to Keith’s hand for support even though he’s out cold. Krolia can’t help herself; she leans forward again and just gives him a simple, predatory grin. When he looks at her, he shuts up immediately.
The pause is agonizing.
Krolia loves it.
“Captain Shirogane.”
“...Yes, ma’am?”
“Did you have... sexual relations... with my one and only son?”
Krolia watches Shiro short-circuit in real time.
“I would NEVER—“
This time, Krolia can’t keep a straight face no matter how much she thinks about dead yalmors. Her laughter booms, rivaling the dull roar of thunder outside. She laughs until she turns a bright shade of royal purple in the face; she laughs until she can’t breathe, until there are tears in the corners of her eyes, until there’s a stitch in her side, and her lungs feel like they’re going to collapse. Poor Shiro looks about ready to combust, his cheeks a brighter red than the scar across his nose.
When Krolia recovers, she takes one look at Shiro’s face and almost falls out of her chair again. It’s too much for her weary old heart and, convinced it’s going to give out, she clutches her hand over her chest. How long has it been since she’s laughed so...?
Surely not since she had the embodiment of warm Southern twang in her bedsheets, his voice in her ear, strong hands on her hips and stronger arms around her.
Ah.
This is why Keith loves him.
“Shiro,” Krolia wheezes. She sits up in her chair and wipes the tears of mirth from her cheeks. When she looks at him, her words are lost in her throat. Shiro is staring at her, utterly starstruck, his jaw hanging slack like he really has short-circuited. Krolia gives a mildly concerned, “What?”
“...You sound just like Keith,” Shiro says. He looks down at his hands in his lap. “When you laugh, it’s—it’s just like Keith’s laugh.”
It’s Krolia’s turn to stare in awe. Her eyelashes give a little flutter and—oh no—she falls in love with her son’s boyfriend. Just a little. She can definitely see how Keith fell for him. With a huffed sigh, Krolia puts her head in her hand and pinches the bridge of her nose.
“...Flattery will get you nowhere, Captain.”
Shiro sputters out some sort of excuse, something ridiculous, and Krolia waves dismissively at him with another laugh. This time, it’s incredulous, forced out of her with the sheer silliness of this—of Shiro.
“Stop, stop. I can’t take it,” she says between bubbly little laughs that continue to tumble from her lips. “I’m only teasing you—and you certainly don’t have to call me ma’am.”
“Yes, ma’a—Krolia.”
“Shiro.”
“Y-Yes?”
“Do you know why I separated the two of you?” Krolia asks. This makes Shiro give pause, and he blinks at her with wide, soft eyes in which Krolia could easily get lost. She smiles faintly at him. “Because I didn’t want your relationship with my son to become a race against the clock. Trying to fit everything in before the end, you know?”
She turns her smile down to Keith and scoops up his hand, careful to avoid the IV line coming out of the back of it. She strokes her thumb over his knuckles, marveling at how much smaller his are compared to hers.
“You didn’t know what you would come back to here on earth. And if it was the worst case scenario—which it very nearly was—you would’ve wanted to cram as many good memories into your short trip as you could. At least, that’s what my own flesh and blood would’ve done,” Krolia sighs. She searches Keith’s face, looking for signs of him waking again. He doesn’t. “The entire time I spent on earth, I consumed everything I could. All of the good memories, all of Keith’s father, because I knew it was too good to be true. I knew my time was limited, and...I left Keith and his father all alone for the good of the universe. My universe. Him.”
She nods to Keith.
“Love is... better experienced in full. Not the abridged version with a time limit. I wanted the two of you to have that chance. Have something to fight for. Now that the battle is over—now that there is time to recover, you will have time. You and Keith can create something beautiful together. Have what Keith’s father and I couldn’t have. Hope. Freedom. A future.”
She lifts her eyes and Shiro takes Keith’s opposite hand in his, bringing it close to his face so he can kiss the back of it. Krolia’s eyes shine; if only Keith could see Shiro right now.
“You fought for this and you won it. You have time,” Krolia repeats. Her voice lowers into a whisper, her eyes alight and locked onto Shiro’s gaze. “Savor every moment.”
As lightning flashes, something in the room shifts. Krolia and Shiro both look down in time for Keith to stir a little in his sleep. A throaty little moan escapes him and Shiro jumps to his feet, both hands still cradling Keith’s.
“Keith,” he whispers. “Keith.”
Krolia gently slips her hand out from underneath her son’s, leaning back in her chair to let them have this. Their moment. The space wolf jumps down from the bed so he can be with her, resting his head on her lap and giving a soft little whine. Krolia settles her hand on the top of his head.
She watches Keith’s eyes creak open and take Shiro in. She watches his gaze, how it lights up and how it sparkles and shines. And when she lifts her eyes to Shiro, she sees the face he makes and sees the same reverence Keith’s father held in his expression the day Keith had been born. He is a beautiful boy, after all. It’s hard for anyone to look at him with anything but stars in their eyes.
“Takashi,” she hears him whisper; so beautifully, so perfectly, that Shiro releases an explosive breath and doubles over nearly on top of Keith to kiss him, morning breath and all. Krolia looks down at the space wolf and smoothes her hand over his head. She offers him her free palm and lets him give it a little, comforting lick.
They whisper a mantra of ‘I love you’ to each other; they’ve both forgotten she’s in the room. Perhaps they don’t even see her. They’re wrapped up in each other, and it brings such a feeling of melancholic joy to Krolia’s heart that she really doesn’t know what to say. She says nothing. She lets them be young and in love, lets Shiro drink it in that Keith is alive and breathing and whispering his name like it’s the only one left on his lips.
He doesn’t need his mom. Not anymore.
Krolia shifts on the chair, moving like she’s going to stand and leave, but a sudden voice catches her off guard and stops her;
“Hey—Mom?”
Krolia turns to look and Keith lies there, his right hand held in Shiro’s, and his left hand outstretched towards her. Wanting. Krolia settles again in her chair and manages to put on a smile. She reaches out and takes Keith’s hand—a man’s hand, not a boy’s—and squeezes it as hard as she dares.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Keith whispers in a single, soft moment of vulnerability. He weakly squeezes her hand and Krolia watches in amazement as Keith’s eyes start to shine and he sucks his bottom lip into his mouth before he speaks, almost babbling, “I thought—I don’t know, I know you can do anything, but I—I feel dizzy.”
“Relax,” Shiro laughs, his eyes full of affection. “You’re still on a lot of painkillers, Keith.”
“Mom, I missed you,” Keith soldiers on. Krolia stares as he chews on his lip and valiantly tries to hold back the emotion on his face. Still, a single tear slips out of the corner of his eye; Krolia watches it settle in the shell of his ear as Keith takes a wet, shuddering breath, “All I could think about, I—“
Outside, thunder crashes and Keith jumps nearly out of his skin, his hand suddenly squeezing tight around Krolia’s. Beside her, his heart monitor spikes a little with rapid beeping. Keith is left shaking in the bed, his wide eyes going to the window.
“...Thunderstorm...?” he whispers, voice hoarse. “Wow. I forgot... they made so much noise.”
His fingers tremble in Krolia’s grasp.
“You’re not alone.” “We’re here.” Shiro and Krolia say at the same time. They snap their heads up to look at each other. Keith smothers a laugh in his pillow as he turns his head to the side.
“Stay with me.”
Krolia eagerly scoots the chair forward as the space wolf jumps into bed and curls up beside Keith’s hip. Shiro moves at the same time, also bringing his chair forward and holding Keith’s hand to his broad chest.
“Mom?”
“...Yes, Keith?” Krolia whispers. She leans closer and doesn’t care that Shiro can see the wide-eyed, adoring look on her face. Before she can stop herself, her hand is in Keith’s bangs, stroking them away from his face.
“Thanks for coming back,” Keith says. His eyes are swimming again, and Krolia latches onto this memory to keep forever, until the end of space and time. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“I will always come back for you,” Krolia promises him on a hitched breath. “Always.”
Keith smiles, and his lifted cheekbones force his eyes shut and squeeze more tears out from between his eyelashes. Shiro and Krolia both reach to wipe them away, hesitate when they look at each other, and both continue on anyway. Keith lets out a very damp laugh as two hands fuss with his cheeks, drying his tears.
Later, he won’t be delirious with painkillers and soft with too much emotion. For the sake of Keith’s sanity and dignity, Krolia and Shiro won’t tease him for it and let him think that all of it was babbled nonsense from the drugs. Krolia and Shiro will exchange fond and knowing looks, and maybe a hug or two. Krolia reminds herself that Keith needs them both—equally, but in different ways.
After that, it doesn’t take long for her to find out there’s no tearful moms or dads or cousins or grandparents to congratulate Shiro on his victory for earth.
Krolia decides she can be a mom for a little longer, after all.