Blake's mouth softens. "You fixed it."
James nods once, proud but quiet. "It needed patience."
Something flickers over Blake's face. He lowers his phone without seeming to realize he's done it.
Luther sees. I see Luther seeing. His hand moves to the small of Blake's back, not pushing, not taking the phone, just anchoring him there while the hallway continues around us.
Maceo lifts Rosalie onto his hip as if she's always belonged there, crown, tutu, dish towel cape and all. She settles against him without question, one sticky hand landing on his shoulder. He adjusts her weight, then looks at me.
"Coffee," he says. "Then car."
I remember, suddenly, that I put my mug in the microwave ten minutes ago. Maybe twenty. It's probably cold by now, another casualty of the morning. I start toward the kitchen with the next twelve tasks stacking themselves in my head: shoes, bags, Ember House folders, milk, Blake's meds, spare clothes, the intake schedule, the donor notes I didn't finish last night.
The doorbell rings before I make it three steps.
The sound cuts cleanly through the hallway noise, steady and purposeful rather than rushed. Luca's head lifts at once. His whole expression changes.
I know that change. It's not alarm. It's recognition.
He moves toward the door before anyone else can. I follow a step behind him, close enough to see the way his shoulders soften even before he turns the lock.
Wilson Ashford stands on the porch with a thick folder tucked under one arm. The morning light catches in his curls, and the scar at his neck's mostly hidden beneath the collar of his coat. He looks more settled than the last time I saw him, not unguarded exactly, because I'm not sure Wilson will ever be that, but there's a steadiness to him now that doesn't feel like survival alone. His eyes move over Luca first, then the hallway behind him, the children, Luther with his hand still near Blake's back, Maceo holding Rosalie, me in the wreckage of the morning.
Then Luca reaches for him.
"Wilson," Luca says, and there's so much warmth in the name that it makes the whole doorway feel different.
Wilson shifts the folder to one hand and lets Luca pull him into a hug. Not a polite one. Not quick. Luca holds him hard, and Wilson's free arm comes around his back after only the smallest hesitation. His chin dips toward Luca's curls, and for a second the folder, the documents, the reason he came here all become secondary to the simple fact of them standing there together.
"I'm happy to see you," Luca murmurs.
Wilson's mouth softens. "I'm happy to see you too."
Luca pulls back enough to look at his face, hands still on Wilson's arms. "How's everyone? Oliver? Lorenzo? Nicholas?"
Wilson's gaze drops for a second, and the smile that follows is small, private, and real. "Good. Tired. Loud."
Luca laughs softly. "That sounds like Oliver."
"It's Bartholomew more than Oliver lately," Wilson says, stepping inside when Luca draws him in from the cold. "He's a chaos magnet. Yesterday he climbed onto the coffee table with no visible path up and no witness willing to admit they saw it happen."
Luca's face lights with the kind of joy that isn't performative. "He's climbing already?"
"Walking, climbing, throwing anything that makes noise. Lorenzo's started moving furniture by risk level." Wilson glances toward Samuel, who's standing proudly in his dinosaur socks. "I understand the instinct more every month."
Samuel looks down at his socks, then up at Wilson, apparently deciding this is a compliment.
"And Oliver?" Luca asks.
Wilson's expression changes again, warmer and quieter at the edges. "Amazing. He says he's exhausted every morning and then somehow has more energy than the rest of us by noon. He sings while he makes breakfast. He lets Bartholomew put stickers on his face and forgets they're there before he goes downstairs. Nicholas keeps buying toys we don't need, and Lorenzo pretends not to notice until the living room becomes impossible to cross."
There's affection in every word. Not dramatic. Not polished. Just lived in, the kind of love that's become ordinary enough to speak plainly.
"I'm glad," Luca says, and his voice catches just slightly. "You deserve that."
Wilson looks at him for a beat, something old passing between them without either one giving it a name. "So do you."
For a moment, the hall quiets around them. Blake's stopped answering whatever message was on his screen. Luther's face has gone still in the way it does when he's filing away something that matters. Maceo stands behind Rosalie, silver eyes watchful, his hand steady across her back as if he's been part of this picture forever.
