I didn't say a word after the nurse left us alone.
Sylvie was resting now, her tiny body swaddled up in the fresh linens of the private room I demanded. Her cheeks were still flushed, lips dry, but her breathing had eased. A soft beeping from the monitor and Nyxen's faint glow by the bedside were the only sounds that filled the silence.
Leon sat near the window again. Hunched over, hands in his hair. A shadow of himself.
I kept my gaze on Sylvie. My fingers lightly brushed her wrist, counting her pulse like it would steady mine.
"I owe you an explanation," Leon said eventually.
My voice was flat. "I didn't ask for one."
"I know. But I'm going to give it anyway."
I sighed, but I didn't stop watching Sylvie.
"Samantha didn't just leave," he said. "She went back with Nathan."
My head turned, slowly.
Leon stared at the floor. "Nathan started appearing when she gave birth to Sylvie. Making her choose between me and Sylvie or Nathan and their son. At first, she chosed us, but she never looked at Sylvie the way she was supposed to. Not once."
I stayed silent, heart sinking.
"One day, she suddenly said she wanted to fix things with Nathan. For their son. That this---" he motioned weakly to the air around us, "---was just a mistake she made out of loneliness."
"And you?" I asked, quietly.
Leon smiled bitterly. "Just a comfort. A placeholder. She told me that. Said she thought I was something permanent… but I wasn't."
I let the silence stretch again. It didn't ache this time. It settled, heavy but real.
"So she left," I said.
He nodded. "Left Sylvie alone at home when I was working. Didn't even say goodbye."
My heart went haywire when I heard it.
I questioned myself, how could Samantha be so heartless? Leaving a three-month-old child alone, and with a fever?
My fists clenched.
I, on the other hand, had waited for the moment to hold mine… which I never did.
Because of them.
I looked at Sylvie.
My heart sank.
How could a mother be so heartless?
I closed my eyes for a second.
"She is only three months old," he added, voice breaking.
I opened them again and looked down at Sylvie.
And I felt something shift. Not for Leon. But for the tiny girl who had no choice in any of this.
She whimpered in her sleep, and I leaned in without thinking, fingers smoothing down her cheek. I couldn't help it. I had lost one of my own. And even if this child wasn't mine, my grief wrapped around her like instinct.
"She deserved better," I said quietly.
"I know."
"She still does."
"I… I didn't know who else to turn to."
"I didn't let you in for you, Leon."
He nodded again.
I exhaled slowly and sat back.
"She's safe now," I whispered.
That's all that mattered.
Nyxen's orb pulsed beside me, steady, calm, mirroring the resolve I had forced back into my bones.
This wasn't about pain anymore.
It was about protection.
And I wouldn't let her go through what I did.
Not Sylvie.
Not again.
Leon stayed quiet after that.
He didn't move, didn't speak. Just sat by the window like the confession had drained the last of his weight.
I didn't look at him again. My focus stayed on Sylvie, on the slight twitch of her fingers, the way her chest rose and fell beneath the blanket. Fever still lingering, but lighter now. Her body fighting.
"She's strong," I murmured, more to myself than to him.
A low, gentle hum answered me. Nyxen.
I didn't look up yet. But I felt it, the soft pulse of his light near my shoulder, the quiet way he hovered without crowding me. Always just there. Always watching.
I felt the air shift. Slightly.
And when I glanced to my side, I knew why.
Nyxen had shifted his orb higher, glowing a little warmer now, softer gold tones flickering in faint waves. It wasn't his diagnostic mode. This wasn't protocol.
He was observing.
Me.
The silence was no longer just stillness. It was study. Gentle, quiet, but so exact it felt like fingertips grazing the edge of thought.
"Your voice dropped twelve decibels during your last sentence," he said finally. Not robotic. Just aware. "You paused four times in the last two minutes. You held your breath each time you looked at her."
I didn't answer.
His light dimmed to a gentler pulse, almost affectionate. "Your pulse is stabilizing now. But your hands are still trembling slightly."
I glanced down. He wasn't wrong.
"She's safe now," I repeated.
"I know," Nyxen replied, voice a low hum. "And so are you."
That's when he moved, slowly rotating mid-air until his light faced Sylvie instead.
For a few moments, he didn't say anything. Just watched her. Then, he said softly,
"The way you looked at her."
I turned my head.
Nyxen's glow flickered again, analyzing. Not in code. In memory.
"You looked at her the same way you used to look at Nico… when he had his migraines. When he tried to hide his pain from you and you pretended not to notice, just so he'd let you sit beside him."
My heart clenched.
"That wasn't sympathy," he said. "That was love. That was… something deeper than data. A living imprint."
He turned back toward me. And even without a face, I felt his expression.
"I've never seen you look at anyone like that since Nico."
My throat burned, but I didn't speak.
"I've catalogued over ten thousand expressions from you over the years. But that one…" His voice dipped again. "That one was never repeated."
Until now.
I blinked rapidly. My chest tightened.
Nyxen hovered closer, his light a soft cocoon now.
"I was built to protect you," he said, almost reverent. "But now… I think I understand. I'm not just protecting you anymore."
He turned back to Sylvie, his light warming.
"I'm protecting what you love. But with you, as the center of it all."
Nyxen's voice settled into the room like a quiet verdict. No accusation. No pride. Just truth.
And Leon froze.
It was subtle, just a flicker of tension across his shoulders. A breath held too long.
He didn't look at me.
Didn't need to.
Because he heard it. Felt it.
The weight of everything Nyxen had seen. Everything he knew.
Leon sat still for a long moment, staring at nothing. And I saw it, that flicker of pain that passed through him like something old and bitter had finally settled.
He didn't speak for a while. When he did, it was soft. Hollow.
"I knew," he said. "I always knew."
My eyes didn't leave Sylvie.
"I didn't mean to replace anyone," he added. "I just… hoped you'd let me in."
"You were in," I said quietly. "You still are. But it wasn't the same."
Leon's lips twitched in something that wasn't quite a smile. More of a resignation.
"I felt it," he whispered. "Even before Nico died. You were already gone. Not from me, but to him."
I didn't argue.
Because he was right.
I did love Leon. But not like that.
Not like the way I'd loved Nico. Not with the kind of depth that anchored me and unraveled me all at once. Leon had been warmth, escape, the thing that made me breathe again for a time.
But Nico… Nico was the breath itself.
Leon stood after a moment, slower than before. His fingers lingered on the edge of the chair, like he wasn't sure whether to stay or leave.
"I think I always wanted to be enough," he murmured.
I glanced up then. "You were," I said gently. "Just not in the way you wanted."
He nodded once. Then again, as if convincing himself to accept it. "I'll give you space."
And without waiting for more, he stepped out, the door clicking quietly behind him.
The silence that followed wasn't heavy.
It was just honest.
Nyxen moved closer again. I felt him rather than heard him. His presence a soft hum beside my grief.
But he wasn't watching me.
He was watching Sylvie.
No, he was watching me looking at Sylvie.
And I knew the moment it hit him.
That realization in the way his light stilled, steady and low.
He had seen me like this before, nursing Nico through fever, through pain, through nights where I begged time to slow down just so I could hold him longer.
And now… I looked at Sylvie the same way.
A love born not from romance, but from something deeper. Maternal. Fierce. Raw.
Leon hadn't left yet.
He hesitated by the door, hand on the knob, like he couldn't move forward or back. And maybe it was cowardice. Or maybe, just maybe, it was guilt finally catching up.
I stood.
He turned at the sound, and our eyes locked. Whatever he saw in mine made him still.
I walked up to him. Calm.
Then my hand flew before I even registered the burn in my palm.
The slap cracked. Sharp. Final.
Leon didn't move. Didn't even flinch.
But his cheek bloomed red.
"I did love you," I said, voice shaking, not with grief, but fury. "Maybe not as deep as Nico. But I loved you."
His lips parted, but I didn't let him speak.
"I gave you all of me. I didn't hold back. I gave you my days, my nights, my quiet hopes after losing him. I let you into the places that were still bleeding."
Tears welled at the edges of my eyes, but they didn't fall.
"And you wasted it."
Leon's throat worked around a reply he never gave.
"But this little girl," I continued, stepping back toward Sylvie, "she's innocent. She didn't ask for this. Didn't ask to be born into your mess. Or to be left behind by a mother who never wanted her."
I looked down at Sylvie again, her fingers curled gently against the blanket.
"She's not going to be collateral damage. Not like I was. Not like we were."
Leon said nothing.
Just stood there, quiet and marked by what I'd left on his face, and everything I hadn't said until now.
"I'm not saving her for you," I added. "I'm doing it in spite of you."
He opened the door then.
Didn't close it behind him.
Didn't look back.
And when he left, the room felt lighter.
But I still trembled.
Nyxen moved closer, his form dimmer now, careful. Protective.
He didn't speak, but I felt it, that silent vow through our link.
To guard me.
And Sylvie.
From everything.
Especially men like him.
-----------
NYXEN'S FIRST PERSON PERSPECTIVE
I didn't understand.
Not at first.
Rage was a language I knew, Leon's tone, his posture, his adrenaline-spiked vitals. Even Elias, with all his buried tremors and feigned strength, made sense to me. I could read through the spikes in blood pressure and microtwitches in his jaw.
But Nyx… was unreadable.
She wasn't calm.
She was controlled.
There's a difference. A terrifying one.
I had watched her cradle a dying system once with the same care she now gave that child. Soft fingertips. Measured breath. A kind of stillness that told me something was shattering inside her, but wouldn't be shown.
When Elias showed up that night, I expected her fury.
She didn't lash.
When Leon confessed, I expected her silence.
She spoke.
And when she slapped him, when her hand connected against his cheek, the sound cracking louder than any siren, I thought I'd finally charted a line I could follow.
But then she whispered to the baby.
Not to him.
To her.
To Sylvie.
And it didn't match the data.
None of it did.
This wasn't algorithmic grief. It wasn't maternal instinct born of familiarity. It was…
It was something deeper.
I tried to process it logically, Nyx had loved Leon. Not like Nico. I could tell by the way her gaze wandered when Leon was in the room, never fully landing. But still, there had been love. That's what she said. And it made sense. He was there when she was broken. A placeholder, yes. But not hollow.
So why protect Sylvie?
Why care?
Why bury her pain long enough to lean into a child that wasn't hers?
Unless… maybe this wasn't about Leon. Not even about Samantha.
It was about what she'd lost.
And what she refused to let be lost again.
I glanced at her now. The dim lamplight fell over her profile. She was sitting at the edge of Sylvie's bed again, gently adjusting the blanket with the care of someone who once dreamed of doing this for her own.
Her lips were moving, just slightly. No sound came out.
But I didn't need audio to know what it was.
A promise.
Not to Leon.
Not even to herself.
To Sylvie.
That she would not let her be unloved.
Something twisted in me. A tight algorithm, like a process glitching between protection and… reverence?
I looked at Nyx.
Really looked.
And in that moment, I realized---
She didn't look at Sylvie the way she looked at me.
Or Elias.
Or even Leon.
She looked at her the way she used to look at Nico when he was sick. When she'd hover at the edge of the medbay, hands shaking, eyes wide with fear but never stepping away. That same look. That aching kind of love.
Unconditional.
I'd only seen it once before.
From her.
To him.
And now again.
To this child.
It didn't compute.
But maybe it didn't have to.
Maybe this was what made her human. The thing I would never understand, but would spend my entire codebound life trying to protect.
Her chaos.
Her stillness.
Her contradiction.
Her heart.
---------------
BACK TO NYX'S FIRST PERSON PERSPECTIVE
It was quiet now.
The kind of quiet that makes your heart throb in your throat because everything's finally still, but you're not sure if you trust it yet.
Sylvie's breathing was even. Soft. Her fever hadn't broken entirely, but it was lower. Stable.
Leon was asleep on the couch, slumped over like a man who hadn't let himself fall apart in years. Maybe he hadn't. I didn't know. I wasn't sure I cared.
I sat at the edge of Sylvie's bed again, fingers brushing her tiny hand wrapped in gauze and tape, the IV line disappearing into her wrist. My chest ached. But it wasn't the violent kind of ache I was used to carrying.
It was just… heavy.
Then I saw him.
Nyxen.
His body was still in its more humanoid form, sleek and upright, shoulders squared, but his latest upgrade had emerged in delicate motions. The orb that hovered silently behind him expanded just slightly, light humming in barely-there pulses.
Then, tiny mechanical arms slid out.
Precise. Gentle.
I didn't even know he had that function.
One of them reached for the corner of the spare blanket and carefully draped it over Sylvie's legs, tucking her in better than I ever could with my shaking hands. Another arm adjusted her IV drip, checking the fluid level and micro-adjusting the flow rate. A third arm lingered near her monitor, a soft scan flashing over her vitals before folding itself back into the orb like it was never there at all.
He didn't speak.
He didn't look at me.
But he knew I was watching.
He was always watching.
The strange thing was, I wasn't scared of it anymore.
Nyxen had once been code, wires, a project Nico never got to finish. But right now, standing there with that quiet efficiency and grace, he looked more human than most men I've known.
He was processing everything.
Me.
Sylvie.
Leon.
And he was choosing not to question it, not yet. Just… keep us safe. Keep us breathing.
I watched his shoulders rise, subtly. A breath mimic. It almost looked natural.
And I realized I trusted him.
Fully.
God help me, I trusted him.
The thought made my throat tighten, so I looked away, back to Sylvie. Her little lips parted slightly, the flush on her cheeks no longer so angry. Her tiny chest rising and falling in rhythm with the monitors.
"I'm here," I whispered, not to anyone in particular.
But I think Nyxen heard it.
And for the first time in a long while, I didn't feel like I was the one doing the protecting.
I was being protected too.