Chapter Text
A/N: Cheeky early update from Local Gremlin- Mind the warnings, this one's a little heavier on the Hurt/Angst side, but just remember; Everything Will Be Okay (eventually lol). No beta, we die like men, so on and so forth- I'll fix it in post!
CW/TW: Blood and on-the-page bloody injuries, Major Character Injury (major), hospitals and hospital talk, medical procedures described (NOT graphic). NO Major Character Death.
Comments, concrit and feedback always welcome! Halfway there already, what even!
Chapter 9: Only Death Can Rend Our Love Apart
The wait for Loona felt endless as Stolas helped Via into the van and quickly settled her into one of the two middle seats before leaning over into the back to help Moxxie with Millie.
The sturdy Wrathian woman was already up and talking again, most of her focus on her husband as Moxxie stoically dropped stitches into her arm in a neat, rapid little row, and Millie spoke quiet words of reassurance at him as he worked and she did her best not to flinch when her man passed over a deeper part of the wound with the needle, or pressed the seams closer together to make healing easier.
“You’re doin’ great, baby.” Millie murmured in a slur of exhausted relief. “I love you… I love you, we’re okay now sweet thang. We’re okay…”
Her free hand reached back to touch Maya’s warm little chest directly behind her, and Stolas guided Millie’s hand towards the impling with automatic care.
“Stols?” Millie asked shakily. “Where’s Via? She okay? What d’you need honey? Moxx- I can wait, let ‘im have the med kit.”
Stolas waved a desperate hand at her and made a quick check over his shoulder to make sure his daughter was stable and whole. “Via? Darling, are you hurt? Do you need help?”
Via shook her head at him, her eyes huge and full of tears as she stared straight through Stolas and out the back window of the van. Stolas winced, bit his lip, and made a quick mental note to check her over himself once Millie had been tended. Satan only knew what shock was hiding from him while Via came down from the rush of her very first active combat field.
“Alright. I’m right here if you feel anything changing.” Stolas said as gently as he was able with tension making his hands shake and his heart hammering against his ribs so hard, he felt like he might pass out at any moment. “I’m right here, my precious girl. Daddy’s never leaving you again…”
“I can take care of Millie, it’s not that bad now her arm’s been stitched up.” Moxxie piped up just as shakily. “Stay with Via. I’ll take care of Maya and Millie.”
Stolas didn’t argue, instantly climbing back up to the seat across from Via and leaning out over the aisle to wrap an arm around her shoulder in the way he knew comforted her best. She flinched badly away from him, pushing at his shoulder, saying nothing as she cried without making a sound, and Stolas bit his lip anxiously.
“Via? Love?” he tried carefully, softly. “What’s happened? Can you tell me where it hurts?”
“Leave me alone.” she choked out at him, and Stolas felt Millie sneak her hand up into his as his heart shattered and Stolas felt his entire world dropping out from under him at the simple words.
“Please, Dad…” Via forced herself to say, seeing him crumbling, wanting to reach out to fix things, but not knowing how. Everything was happening so fast, too much, too loud, too new, too, too, too…
“I love you, I want to be home with you.” she said slowly, painfully slowly, and her father’s face lit up with hope that was quickly overshadowed by fear and worry, and something that could have been pain as she watched blood trickling from his nose, the corner of his mouth, utterly unnoticed by Stolas as he focused completely on her and nothing else.
“I need time.” she pleaded desperately. “I... I just need time. I don’t understand, it’s all just so much, Dad… I…”
Octavia broke down completely then, and Stolas forced himself to squeeze Millie’s fingers laced through his instead of scooping up his child the way he wanted to and shielding her from the whole fucking world around them the way she used to think he had the power to do when she was small, and things had been simple, and easy, and-
“Start the fuckin’ van!”
The shout made Stolas jump and slam the top of his aching head right into the metal ceiling of the old van, and Moxxie whipped his head around to match the voice to a face as Loona came barreling down the sidewalk towards them with an eerily still figure held pressed to her chest.
“I said now!” Loona screamed, tears plain in her words as she never slowed and the limp body in her arms stayed still and silent. “He’s dying!”
“Moxxie! Lemme go- She means it!” Millie echoed, panic in her usually calm voice making her Wrathian accent thick and rough. “That’s Blitz she’s got with her!”
Moxxie’s eyes went huge and his face lost all colour as Loona got closer, and the blood-soaked front of her white fur and dark blue pajamas came into clearer view.
“I said start the fuckin’ van!” Loona repeated a third time, her feet pounding against the pavement as she aimed for the open side door of the van at a dead run. “My dad needs help!”
“On it!” Moxxie finally called back, scrambling to find the keys in the cupholder under the old dial radio system. He grabbed the old horse keychain, jammed the van key into the ignition, and Loona vaulted into Stolas’s lap as the owl prince scrabbled for the back seat and didn’t quite make it in time to avoid collision with her.
“Blitz!” Stolas screamed, tears blurring his vision as he saw the familiar face roll over the crook of Loona’s arm, expressionless and silent as the grave. “Lucifer’s wings- Blitz!”
“Drive!” Loona barked at Moxxie, slamming a hard fist into the back of the headrest even as Moxxie nodded resolutely and slammed the van into gear with a hard squeal of tires and pulled them out into traffic.
Stolas fumbled for a minute, mindful not to let any part of him touch Via as he clambered into the back seat and Millie directed him into the center space on the old floor. Loona carefully leaned down and lay Blitz’s head down across the prince’s long legs, head cradled in Stolas’s lap as Loona used her knees to keep Blitz’s elevated.
“He’s losing blood fast!” she called back to Millie and Stolas. “I need compression! Anything, I don’t care! He’ll die if we don’t do something!”
“I’m going to the good hospital!” Moxxie shouted into the chaos of ripping packaging, barked orders and whipping hands across Blitz’s ragdoll body. “They better fucking take our insurance!”
“They’ll take mine!” Via spoke up without warning. “I’ll kick their asses if I have to- Just get us there!”
“That’s my girl!” Stolas growled fiercely, wicked pride in his eyes despite the dire seriousness of their situation. “I’m so proud of you, Octavia! My brave, unstoppable princess!”
“Dad! Focus- Keep the pressure on!” Via snapped as she saw her father distracted by her words and Blitz beginning to pant under both of Stolas’s hands pressed around one of his arms, holding a hasty bandage over a bleeding knife wound.
“Right!” Stolas replied swiftly. “Can you count me from twenty, then start again? I need to monitor his breathing-”
“Watch it!” Loona this time, as they careened around a corner and everyone slid left with the violence of the maneuver. “He’s gonna-”
It happened before she could get the warning out, and Blitz threw up black blood all over Stolas as the prince quickly turned him to one side. Blitz blinked up at him, confused and disoriented, pain slamming into him from all sides as his head split straight down the line of his birthmark, his back sparked agony down into his spine, and his vision swam and-
“Stols… Think my leg’s broke…” Blitz managed to slur around another round of vomit. “S’so bad…”
“It feels worse than it looks. You’re okay.” Loona reassured, shaking her head at Stolas as he looked up towards her and definitely saw the foot turned a full three-hundred and sixty degrees in the wrong direction. ”It’s just a little broken, you’re okay.”
“Loona, he-” Stolas started carefully, numb with shock at just how bad things had gone, how awful this all was, how Via still hated him, how he’d sacrificed his Blitz for her and she still didn’t know if he loved her…
“Is going to be fine.” Loona repeated in a low, protective growl. “We’re bringing him to the hospital, and he’s gonna be just fine.”
“I…” Stolas felt his mind slipping away from him, felt Blitz throwing up the alarmingly dark blood against him, felt Millie reaching down over him to keep pressure on Blitz’s wounded arm.
He felt and saw and heard so many things, but nothing but the staggering reality that he’d sacrificed the love of his life without a thought in order to protect his daughter was registering anymore. The van swung wildly through traffic, all around him his family yelled things at each other, and in front of him Blitz’s eyes fluttered shut again.
Slowly, stubbornly, because his imp was anything but submissive even in the face of Death itself, but inexorably the clouded golden eyes disappeared under the heavy lids, and Blitz grabbed at the closest part of Stolas he could reach.
“Via?” he whispered faintly. “S’Via…”
“Right here darling, she’s safe.” Stolas said all in a rush. “You brought her home to me my love. She’s safe now, I swear it. You brought my daughter home to me…”
Blitz nodded so minutely Stolas mistook it for a jerk of the van pulling in hard to the emergency bay’s front doors.
“Worth it.” Was the last thing Blitz said as his eyes slid shut and stayed that way while the rest of him went utterly limp and his breathing slowed to a vague stutter.
“Moxxie!” Millie cried in alarm. “Moxxie we gotta be there now! We ain’t got time!”
“Loona- Take him and jump!” Moxxie commanded sharply, reaching back to shove the side door open as he threw the wheel all the way right and skidded the van in with the open side panel facing the glass double doors of the hospital. “Take Blitz and run!”
“Take this!” Via cried shrilly, hastily shoving her wallet towards Loona. “We’re right behind you!”
Loona nodded and gave the younger girl a quick smile of thanks as she carefully gathered up her father’s unconscious body and leapt from the still-moving van as if it were a barstool and hit the parking lot asphalt with a brief stumble and no other indication she’d jumped out of a moving vehicle at all.
“Dad- We have to follow!” Via cried as soon as the van skidded to a stop. “What if he’s dead? What if they won’t help an imp here! What if he dies because of me! I can’t do this Dad! Help me what do I do?”
“You stay with us, your highness.” Moxxie said firmly, steadily as he unbuckled his seatbelt and climbed over the seats towards his wife. “You take Stolas and Millie in there with you, and you make those doctors take Blitz.” He gave Via a hard, reckless grin that made the owl princess giggle nervously and suck in a hard, bracing breath to ground herself. “I’ll take care of the baby. You guys get Millie and Blitz the help they need, understand?”
Via nodded because she couldn’t speak around the hard knot of fear, and shock, and deep, painful raw emotions in her throat, constricting in her chest, choking her thoughts, and everything else, and reached back a hand for her father.
“Dad?” she asked shakily.
He looked up at her, his face lost and soaked with tears as one of his hands touched his thigh- The last place Blitz had been able to touch him while he was still conscious, and stared stupidly at the black vomit all over his legs and the old stained flooring of the van.
“Let’s get you inside.” he said as if by mechanism, and Via swallowed hard at how distant and broken her father sounded. “You need to be seen so I know you’re alright. No arguments, Via- Please, just this once, I promise.”
Octavia nodded because she didn’t know what to say, and she piled out of the van behind her dad, and Millie, who seemed to be dragging herself forward on one good leg and wincing hard to do it, but moved under her own power nonetheless. Stolas wordlessly slipped an arm up under one of the imp’s shoulders, leaned over into an awkward half-crouch to manage the maneuver, and Millie let him support her from her bad side as they hurried into the hospital as fast as Millie’s injuries would allow.
They got to the front desk, where Loona was already snarling and arguing with an orderly about insurance and bullshit while Blitz’s blood dripped down into a significant puddle on the white tiled floor at her feet.
“I said we’re good for it!” Loona snapped at the front desk clerk, who looked bored and exasperated as she calmly repeated ‘No papers, no service. Cash up front.’
“Do you know who I am?” Via demanded as soon as they were within earshot of the clerk. “They’re with me!”
Loona waved Via’s open wallet at the stupid clerk, her face speaking the loudest fuck you Via had ever seen anybody sporting as the orderly instantly bowed at the waist and wheeled a gurney over for her.
“Sorry, Highness!” the orderly apologized swiftly. “We thought she was lying! You know how hounds are scam artists and hustlers! Hop up here, we’ll take great care of you!”
“Him first- You treat Blitz the way you would me or my father, or I’ll have your jobs.” Via commanded imperiously, exactly the way her mother did with the imp servants at home. “You help my imp friends, then you help my dad. Then I might pay you. We’ll see how I feel about the service then.”
Via felt Stolas’s strong hand on her shoulder, his taller form drawn up to his full height, all four red eyes narrowed importantly as both royal demons stared down the intake clerk, the original orderly, and now the veritable army of doctors in plague masks that were swooping down around Blitz in the cot and beginning treatment as Via spoke.
A second set of more junior doctors collected Millie, one on either side of her as they hauled her up into a wheelchair and hurried her down one hall while the team of attendings whisked Blitz off the other way, down through a set of heavy doors clearly marked ‘HOSPITAL STAFF ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT’.
The hospital began to take them seriously then, and Via took her wallet back from Loona, who inconspicuously slipped herself up behind Via and lay a supportive hand at the small of her back as Via kept up the untouchable rich prick façade and scored Blitz a private recovery room, all the best treatments available regardless of what it took to make him well again, and Millie the best surgeons and orthopedists the hospital could offer.
“And you get her the best fuckin’ doctor you have ‘cause my girl needs a checkup.” Loona added as Via almost faltered mid-word and the desk clerk kept writing orders into her computer system. “Stat.”
“And for my father as well.” Via added swiftly, looking up at Loona to be sure she hadn’t missed anything else. “Him before me, I think his nose is broken.”
“It’s definitely broken.” Loona said with a wince. “He’s just in shock and hasn’t noticed yet.”
“Right away, Princess.” the desk clerk agreed without argument. “Anything else?”
“Make sure Millie- the lady imp they took to orthopedics?” Loona tossed back over her shoulder at the woman. “Make sure her room has an extra bassinet. Her husband’s coming in with the baby.”
“Yes ma’am.” the desk jockey intoned dutifully, and Loona smirked just like Blitz did as she led Via over to the waiting area and Stolas followed behind them without a word.
All in all, it was hours before the doctors had checked over Via (minor scrapes, backlash treated with an IV full of saline and a pill for the stomachache), Stolas (the suspected broken nose, multiple contusions, a split lip and a black eye with a single stitch above one eyebrow that traced dangerously close to his left upper eye), Loona, who was miraculously untouched, and Moxxie, who tried to argue he didn’t need help, they needed to focus on his wife instead, but had relented once the lead doctor explained that they were royals. They didn’t need to divide care between competent professionals, the hospital did whatever it took to fix them, no questions asked.
After all, the doctor told them flippantly, it wasn’t as if they were poor, even if some of them were imps. Octavia and Stolas had staked their claims on them, and that made Moxxie, Blitz and Mille royal property, which meant they got the royal treatment until Via or Stolas decided they didn’t deserve it anymore.
Moxxie had bristled hard at that, Stolas had been yanked roughly out of his own thoughts by the sheer audacity of the doctor’s remarks and almost made to tear him a new asshole right then and there, but Octavia had been wilting in her cot behind them, and Moxxie really did need stitches for the ugly gash across his stomach Stolas hadn’t even realized the little imp had been enduring this whole time.
He’d been so focused on Via, then Blitz, then Millie with all the blood all over her, and Blitz, and, well, Blitz, because he was dying, or dead, and Stolas had no way of knowing which it was, and he was absolutely sick with dread every time a doctor walked into their private rooms to report someone’s x-rays had come back normal, Moxxie was in no danger, but needed rest for at least a week. Millie’s injured leg had been a simple matter for an air cast and a few days on crutches.
Loona hadn’t had a scratch on her, but wouldn’t talk about what had happened when she’d gone back to get Blitz away from Andrealphus no matter how gently Stolas asked, or how politely Moxxie drew her aside and promised not to tell Stolas or Via what he heard. Baby Maya slept on in her borrowed crib, the nurses having wheeled a bassinet in from the maternity ward as soon as Moxxie had stumbled in with Maya in his arms.
Stolas sat at the end of Via’s hospital bed, now with a bandage taped across the bridge of his beak, his head aching in all the worst ways, watching his daughter like a hawk as she curled up against the plush pillow and focused on nothing in particular as she half-dozed in the bed. Loona was in a broad, comfortable armchair to one side of the bed, squarely between Moxxie in a hard plastic chair beside his infant daughter’s crib, and baby Maya, who was apparently Hell’s best baby as she slept peacefully and kicked her little feet under her prized green blankie.
A quiet, but efficient knock at the door startled them all, and before anyone could react beyond lifting their heads or turning to look towards the door, a nurse in pale blue surgical scrubs shouldered the door open and wheeled Millie in with her wheelchair.
The imp looked exhausted, disoriented and patched up with bandages over one cheek, wrapping her chest from shoulder to one hip, and her broken ankle casted and set. The leg of her pants on one side had been cut away, bandages wrapped firmly around her knee, but otherwise Millie was whole and untouched, and Moxxie sobbed as he rushed over to his wife as soon as the nurse had cleared the doorframe with her.
“Millie! Thank Satan, oh my gods-” he demanded of the nurse all in a rush “Are you okay? What can I do? How do I help?”
“I’m okay, baby. Really- I’m just fine, I promise.” Millie soothed as Moxxie bent down to pull her gently into his arms and cradled her to his shoulder like she was precious. Which she was to him, Millie knew, and felt her eyes sting at the thought of anyone loving her this much, so easily, without wanting anything but who she was and not what she did.
“I’m here, Moxx. I’m right here…” she whispered into the crook of his neck as Moxxie cried and ran one hand over the uninjured side of her head over and over, as if he needed to touch her to make sure she was still real and alive in front of him. “Just a broken leg and a couple good knife slashes, nothin’ I ain’t had before.”
“She’ll need a week off her feet to help the stitches heal correctly.” the nurse put in before either imp could say anything else and force her to stand there longer than she already had. “Keep the cast dry, don’t come back without the owl if you need followup. Pay the desk on your way out.”
“You could pretend to give half a shit, just this once!” Stolas barked at the nurse as Moxxie took the wheelchair from her and started wheeling Millie towards Maya still sleeping in her bassinet across the room. “Aren’t you supposed to be a professional of some type?”
The nurse shrugged. “They’re just imps, Highness. Hardly matters.”
Stolas’s eyes flashed fire, he half-rose from the end of the bed to confront the awful goat-demon, but behind him Via whimpered and he instantly forgot about everything but her.
“Let her go, Stols.” Millie said once the nurse had begun to sweep back out into the hallway. “Rather spend my time with my family anyway.”
Moxxie gently lifted Maya out of the cot, holding the impling up against his wife’s chest as Millie leaned in to kiss her daughter’s head. “Not that we don’t appreciate the support,” he added swiftly. “But I’ve had enough for one day.” He brushed his chin tenderly across Millie’s temple, and she lifted her head to ghost a kiss to her husband’s chin. “We all have.”
Stolas nodded, feeling nothing anymore as he settled back on the end of the bed and watched Millie and Moxxie sharing comfort and kisses, and tender touches that spoke everything of relief and support for one another.
He shouldn’t resent them, Stolas knew. It wasn’t their fault Millie had only come away with minor injuries, or that Blitz had been so effective a shield that Moxxie had basically gotten away without a scratch save for the gash across his stomach and a few cuts and bruises. He shouldn’t hate them for being whole and conscious, allowed to touch and kiss and reunite as if Stolas wasn’t in the room, living through a nightmare he’d feared since that fateful day at the trial.
Sitting here powerless and helpless, terrified but responsible for his daughter, and Loona, and the aftermath they all now faced, and-
“Stolas?” Moxxie’s careful voice asked, and Stolas jumped as he realized the imp was touching his elbow like it might burn him, looking up at him with wide, worried golden eyes. “A-Are you… D-Do you need us to get your meds?”
Stolas waved a hasty hand at the little imp, eyes darting back to Via quietly watching them just behind him. “I don’t know what you mean.” he tried to cover swiftly. “I’m fine.”
“I know about the pills, Dad.” Via said into the beat of silence that came next. “Blitz was trying to explain b-before…”
She trailed off, her chin trembling as she thought about Blitz, his open, earnest face begging her to listen, to understand what he was telling her. Pleading with her to trust him, follow him out of hell and back where he could keep her safe, to her dad…
Her dad who was staring at her now, his eyes huge and terrified, and Via hugged her arms around her chest.
“I… I want us to talk. T-Tonight.” she went on so softly even she had trouble hearing herself. “I want to understand. I need to know, Dad. Please?”
She looked up at him, tears dropping from her beautiful violet eyes, features afraid and nervous and so, so fucking young, and Stolas turned his resolve to iron as he nodded.
“Whatever you need, my precious girl.” he agreed. “I’ll answer whatever you ask.”
“No bullshit this time?” Via asked more pointedly than Stolas had been expecting.
He winced and nodded resolutely. “No bullshit.” he promised, all four red eyes locked on his daughter’s hesitant face. “Whatever you ask me, I’ll tell you everything I know- Nothing hidden unless it isn’t mine to tell. Is that fair?”
Via nodded and started to pull in a breath to ask her first question, but Moxxie cleared his throat delicately, and she jumped as she remembered the imps and Loona in the room with them.
“I’ll drive Millie and Maya home.” Moxxie told them all quietly. “I’m sure Millie would rather recover at home than in a hospital.”
“May needs diapers anyway.” Millie added gently, her eyes anxious but steady as she looked out at Stolas and his daughter across from her. “Been a hell of a day.”
“A fucking hell of a day.” Via agreed in a voice that trembled with emotion, exhaustion and all the confusion her teenaged heart was trying so hard to mask with almost-adult stoicism. “Call us if you need anything- I think Loona has a phone? I dunno where mine went… I think I left it back ho-” Octavia stumbled over the word ‘home’, caught herself quickly, and went on all in a rush. “I left it back in my room.”
She turned to her father. “They can call yours, right Dad?”
Stolas bit his lower lip and frowned. “I- I’m afraid I haven’t had a phone since…” He stumbled too, but recovered much more smoothly than his daughter had. “Since at least eight months ago. I’ve been sharing with Blitz, I-”
Stolas froze as the sound of his imp’s name in his own voice brought reality crashing harshly down around his ears, and Stolas sucked in a hard, bracing breath as he felt his entire body begin to tremble and he refused to let himself fall apart. Not before Via got her answers, not in front of her.
Not after everything, after all of this, and surviving the night, and needing to survive the morning in front of them, and-
“Hey. Hey, you’re okay Stols.” Loona’s voice, steady and somehow right beside him now, and he looked up sharply to find the hellhound half-kneeling on the bed beside him.
She took up most of the cramped space between Via’s slight form sitting up in the bed and Stolas curled up at the foot of it, and Stolas threw himself at her chest without thinking, desperate for anything that would stop the immediate panic Blitz’s name had triggered inside him.
“He’s okay.” Loona said steadily, firmly. “The doctors are gonna fix him and we’re right here until they do. We got him where he needs to be, okay? We’re gonna be here, like a family or whatever, understand?”
She looked over her shoulder at Via, who seemed uncomfortable and afraid, and reached a hand back towards the younger girl.
“You too, Octavia.” she said with a small, hopeful sort of smile at the princess. Via smiled back, hers hesitant and watery, but friendly and open nonetheless. “My dad would want us all to look after each other while he’s not here. He’s got this whole thing about family n’ shit, and I think we’re gonna need each other to get through a lot of really hard shit for the next little while. So you can talk to me if you don’t wanna talk to your dad yet, and you-” She passed a gentle hand over Stolas’s shaking shoulders. “Can cry, or talk, or whatever the fuck you need to do, and I’ll be here, got it?”
The barest hint of a nod from Stolas, and Loona turned to look back at Millie and Moxxie trying to make a discreet exit and leave the room whatever privacy a public hospital could provide them for such a sensitive moment.
“And you assholes- You call me if you need us.” she told the imps firmly. “I can still drive, or pick up groceries for you, or come watch the baby so you guys can get real sleep in, okay? Together or not at all, right?”
Moxxie nodded, tears in his honest eyes as he took Millie’s hand in his, and his wife smiled gratefully up at Loona.
“We’ll call if we need you.” she promised, and because it was Millie saying so, Loona believed they actually would. Millie turned stern and waved a bandaged hand at Loona. “Long as you call us the second you hear about Blitz. I don’t care if it’s three am, or the middle of May’s nap time- Call me, or I will fuckin’ end you if I gotta climb outta this chair on my bad leg to do it, y’hear me?”
Loona laughed, a few tears sneaking themselves out of the corners of her eyes as the dam she’d been so carefully keeping in check cracked a little and a few stray emotions leaked out with the tears.
“First people on the list after Stolas.” Loona promised. “He gets boyfriend privilege, can’t do you better than that.”
“I’ll be here until they let him leave!” Stolas corrected her fiercely from his place in her shoulder. “I’m not leaving him here alone!”
“You can’t help him if you’re falling apart, Bird D- Uh, Bird.” Loona said with a hasty cover of the careless ‘Bird Dad’ she’d been about to use with him. Stolas saw the gesture for the courtesy it was, out of respect for Via and how new this all must be to her, and he sucked in a huge, grounding breath, forcing himself to sit up and keep himself together.
“You’re right.” he agreed without further protest. “Of course you’re right. And Via will need somewhere to recover that isn’t full of nurses coming by every twenty minutes to see what these infernally loud machines say.”
Almost to prove his point, a nurse barged right past Mille’s wheelchair, shoving Moxxie with Maya in his arms unceremoniously out of his way as he rushed in, checked a random screen, and nodded at it without once acknowledging anyone else in the room as he swept back out with a clipboard and paper chart in one hand.
“Git his name for me, will ya?” Millie asked Loona sweetly as she checked on her daughter and husband. “I wanna make his next workplace accident personal, y’know?”
Loona grinned back at the new mother and loving wife, and Millie traded soft, devilish smirks with Moxxie as he leaned in and let Millie see Maya’s unharmed, somehow still sleeping little body nestled snugly right up against his chest.
“I’ll write it down for you.” Loona promised as she waved at the pair of imps and watched them make their slow, careful way out of the room and down the hall towards the main lobby. “Call if you need us!”
Her shout echoing down the hall after the little family was the last moment of comfortable silence in the hospital room as Stolas finally managed to get himself under some semblance of control, and turned to look at Via in the bed behind them.
“When you’re ready, my love, I’ll answer whatever you ask.”