We talked through the evening in pieces. Nothing heavy. Nothing important. Just familiar ground, circling things we already know how to hold. The centering exercises work better than I expect, easing the static in my head until sleep doesn’t feel like giving up.

  When it comes, it’s lighter than it’s been in a while.

  The next morning, I finally decide to take care of myself.

  It feels deliberate. Chosen.

  Grooming is easy enough. I’m not hairy, never have been, so there’s nothing to shave. I wash my hair properly for the first time in days, fingers scrubbing until my scalp tingles and the water runs clear. Then I scrub down everything else, working off a week’s worth of dead skin and stale sweat.

  Wow. We’ve been gross.

  To be fair, we didn’t exactly let anyone near us. Except that one day. And that wasn’t by choice.

  The memory flashes sharp and ugly, anger flaring hot in my chest before I can stop it. My hands curl into fists, breath tightening.

  Then I hear Kai humming.

  It cuts straight through the spike. I look over and see him at the sink, water dripping from his hair, eyes half-lidded, completely unbothered. He never hums. Not out loud. Not where anyone might hear.

  The sound settles me immediately.

  I pick up the tune without thinking, humming along until it grows teeth and words, because that’s what I do. The melody shifts into something familiar, something stupid and safe.

  A bird song.

  This time, Kai’s a finch.

  I start softly, half to myself.

  Little finch on the window rail, Feet too fast, heart too pale, Acts like storms don’t scare him none, Till the wind says it’s time to run.

  Kai snorts but keeps washing, shoulders loosening.

  I grin and keep going, louder now.

  Sing it sharp, sing it bright, Tiny wings, too much fight, Acts like he’s made of steel and stone, But won’t sleep unless he’s not alone.

  He glances at me, eyes narrowed, but there’s color back in his face.

  I don’t stop.

  Finch don’t fly where the sky gets wide, Likes the perch where the shadows hide, But when the weather turns real bad, He finds the one place he’s always had.

  I’m halfway through inventing another verse when the door opens.

  The nurse steps in with a small stack of papers tucked under her arm. She pauses, taking us in. Clean. Upright. Awake in a way we haven’t been.

  She smiles, just a little.

  “Well,” she says, “that’s new.”

  I trail off mid-hum, suddenly aware of how ridiculous I probably sound. Kai clears his throat, water still dripping from his hair.

  “Good timing,” she continues. “I was hoping to catch you both like this.”

  She holds up the papers. “These are your discharge forms. Provisional release, with conditions. We’ll go over them together.”

  I look at Kai. He looks back at me.

  For the first time in days, the word release doesn’t feel like a test.

  It feels like being allowed to fly home.

  The nurse sits us down on the edge of the bed with the papers spread out between her knees. While she flips through them, checking boxes and aligning pages, I glance over at Kai.

  “By the way,” I say quietly, “the song was a metaphor. You’re the finch.”

  He groans immediately. “That’s awful.”

  “It’s better than being a pigeon,” I add.

  He considers that for half a second, then nods. “Fair.”

  We both laugh, light and tentative, like we’re testing the sound to see if it’s allowed. The nurse smiles at that, just briefly, before her expression turns more serious.

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  “Before you get too excited,” she says, tapping the papers, “we need to be clear about expectations. You’re both Adepts, and yes, you’re responsible for your own training. But you need to take it easy for a while.”

  She looks between us to make sure we’re listening.

  “You’ve both lost a noticeable amount of muscle mass and endurance. That kind of loss doesn’t come back overnight. You’ll need to rebuild slowly. Eat more protein. More whole grains. Things like oatmeal.”

  Kai’s eyes snap to me the moment she says it.

  I stare very hard at the wall and pretend I don’t notice.

  The nurse pauses to switch papers, and the silence lasts just long enough for Kai to get suspicious. He turns to me slowly.

  “Cal,” he says, voice too calm to be safe, “when you said I was your oatmeal… what did you mean.”

  The nurse very deliberately presses her lips together. I’m pretty sure she’s hiding a laugh.

  My heart jumps straight into my throat.

  This was not supposed to come up. These thoughts were never meant to be shared. I can feel my ears burning as Kai pokes me lightly in the side, waiting.

  I sigh in defeat.

  “I always thought of us as oatmeal and fruit,” I admit. “You’re the oatmeal. Kind of gluey. Warm. Constant. You hold everything together. But if you don’t get enough water, you get a little… sticky.”

  I smile despite myself.

  Kai glares at me, but his eyes give him away. There’s amusement there, sharp and bright.

  “And I’m the fruit,” I continue quickly, before he can interrupt. “Sweet. Thin skin. You don’t have to dig very deep to know what you’re getting.”

  He stares at me for a long second.

  Then he laughs.

  He pokes me in the stomach. “Oh, you’re the fruit all right,” he says, poking again. “Sit too long and you get mushy. And you bruise easy.”

  Each word comes with another poke.

  “Stop,” I protest, laughing despite myself. “Stop, that tickles.”

  He keeps going, laughing now too, until I’m half curled over with tears in my eyes.

  “Stop, stop,” I beg.

  He finally relents, grinning like he’s just won something important.

  The nurse clears her throat, shaking her head in disbelief. “I’ve seen patients in worse shape physically,” she says, “but rarely ones doing this well mentally.”

  We sign the papers. She reminds us to check back in every three days, hands us copies, and then gently but firmly ushers us toward the door.

  “Go,” she says. “Before I change my mind.”

  We step out into the hall together, shoulders brushing.

  Free again.

  She pauses outside the door longer than she should.

  The papers are already in her hands. Signed. Approved. Provisional release, with conditions clearly stated and carefully worded. Everything is in order. All that’s left is to walk in, go through the motions, and send two traumatized boys back into the world.

  She should be thinking about liability. About follow-up schedules. About how unusual this case will look once it’s written up and stripped of all the parts that don’t fit cleanly into charts.

  Instead, she hears singing.

  Not loud. Not confident. Just a low, uneven melody drifting through the door, punctuated by humming and the soft sound of running water. It’s wrong enough that she stills completely, one hand half-raised, knuckles hovering an inch from the wood.

  She listens. The tune is simple. Childish, almost. There are words now, something about a small bird, a perch, weather turning bad. The lyrics are improvised, stitched together without polish, but there’s intention in them. Affection. Familiarity. The kind of nonsense people only allow themselves around someone they trust completely.

  She closes her eyes. Two weeks ago, those same voices were screaming down the hall, raw and animal like, echoing off stone until staff froze where they stood because no one knew what to do with that kind of sound. She remembers the way the pain monitors spiked in tandem. The way separation made it worse. The way proximity did what medicine couldn’t. And now this.

  The song breaks briefly as one boy laughs, breathless and surprised, then resumes with renewed confidence. There’s a snort from the other, an irritated sound that isn’t irritation at all. She hears water shut off, bare feet shifting on stone.

  They’re alive in there. Not just breathing. Living.

  She exhales slowly and opens the door.

  The room smells different now. Soap. Clean skin. Damp hair. The sharp, stale scent of fear has finally faded. Both boys look up at her, startled, then embarrassed, like children caught doing something private rather than patients being evaluated.

  She smiles before she can stop herself.

  “Well,” she says lightly, “that’s new.”

  They trail off mid-song, exchanging a look that says everything without needing to say anything at all. She’s seen that look before, though rarely in people this young. It’s the look of shared weight, of having survived the same thing and come out the other side still standing together.

  She sits them down and goes through the paperwork, her tone calm, professional, steady. She explains the conditions. The need to rebuild slowly. The importance of food and rest. She watches their faces as she speaks, the way one glances instinctively at the other when something feels uncertain, the way they settle when contact is re-established without conscious thought.

  When she mentions oatmeal, one of them snaps his head sideways so fast she nearly laughs.

  There’s teasing after that. Awkward metaphors. Embarrassment layered over relief. Laughter that escalates into something real enough to bring tears. She lets it happen. Pretends very hard not to notice how quickly the room fills with something warm and unquantifiable.

  This, she thinks, is what recovery looks like.

  Not absence of pain. Not neat resolution. But movement. Humor. A willingness to engage with the world again, even if only sideways.

  When they finally sign the papers, her hand is steady.

  She stands and gathers the copies, already knowing what she’s going to say next.

  “Every three days,” she reminds them. “Check in. No pushing yourselves. And if something feels wrong, you come back. Immediately.”

  They nod. Serious now. Capable.

  She ushers them toward the door, then stops them with a raised finger.

  “One more thing,” she says.

  They both look at her.

  She hesitates, then decides she’s earned this much honesty. “You’re being released because you’re safer out there together than you are in here being observed.”

  Neither of them responds, but something in their posture eases.

  She opens the door and steps aside. “Go. Before I change my mind.”

  They leave shoulder to shoulder, close enough that their arms brush, already leaning subtly toward one another as if gravity has been recalibrated.

  The door closes behind them. She stands there for a moment longer, listening to the echo of their footsteps fade, the faint residue of song still lingering in her ears.

  Then she turns back toward her desk to finish the reports, knowing that when she writes this up later, the charts will never capture the most important detail.

  That the moment she knew they were ready to leave wasn’t when the numbers stabilized.

  It was when the screaming stopped, and was replaced by a song.