The car pulled away from the estate.

Arianne sat beside Leo in the backseat. The whale was in his lap, the blue plush fabric soft against his hands. He hadn’t spoken. Hadn’t reached for his tablet. He’d been quiet since they left the house .

The city moved past the windows. Arianne let the silence sit. She wasn’t going to fill it just to make things comfortable. Leo didn’t need comfortable right now. He needed clear.

"We’re going to see Dr. Kellan," she said. "Your therapist."

He looked at her.

"After that, you’ll stay with me the rest of the day. Just us. Lily is at home with Uncle Franz."

She turned in her seat to face him. She wanted him to see her face when she said the next part.

"This isn’t a treat. You’re not being rewarded. And Lily isn’t being punished. Do you understand?"

He stared at her. His fingers curled around the whale’s tail.

"We’re doing this because you and your sister need time. Space. After last night, both of you need to figure things out separately. And I need to talk to Dr. Kellan about how to help you. Both of you."

Leo’s face was hard to read — it always was, the stillness that had become his default since the accident. But something in his eyes flickered. Acknowledgment. Understanding, maybe. He nodded. Once. Small.

Arianne turned back to the window. The city kept moving.

The waiting room was designed to be calm.

Soft chairs in muted blue. A low table with children’s books — the kind with thick pages and bright pictures, meant for smaller hands than Leo’s. A window that looked out onto a small garden, the shrubs trimmed and tidy, a bird moving through the leaves. The light came in pale and clean. Nothing in this room was loud. Nothing demanded attention. It was a room designed for children who were carrying things too heavy to speak aloud.

Arianne sat. Leo sat beside her. He didn’t reach for the books. He didn’t move. The whale was in his lap, and his eyes were on the window, and his breathing was even but shallow.

The nurse appeared. A woman with gray hair and a soft voice. She knew Leo. She’d been here since the beginning, since the first appointments after the accident when Leo couldn’t even hold a tablet, when he spent entire sessions staring at the wall.

"Dr. Kellan is ready for you now."

Leo stood. He looked back at Arianne.

"I’ll be here when you’re done," she said.

He followed the nurse through the door. It closed behind him with a soft click.

Arianne waited.

She didn’t pull out her phone. She didn’t open her tablet. Work was still there — it was always there — but she left it in her bag. She sat in the soft blue chair with the children’s books on the table and she waited. The window let in the morning light. The bird moved through the shrubs. Outside, the city was awake and moving, but in here, nothing moved except the slow arc of the sun across the garden.

An hour passed. More. She didn’t count.

She thought about Leo. About the first time she’d seen him. She thought about how small he’d looked. How silent. How she’d had no idea, that day, that she would end up here — in a waiting room outside his therapist’s office, waiting to be called in because she was his guardian now, because she was the one who took him to appointments and told him the truth even when the truth was hard.

The nurse reappeared.

"Ms. Summers? Dr. Kellan would like you to join them now."

Arianne stood. Her legs were stiff. She followed the nurse down the short hallway and into the office.

The office was warmer than the waiting room. Toys on a low shelf — blocks, stuffed animals, a dollhouse with the roof removed. A chair near the window with worn armrests. A small sofa against the wall. Leo was on the sofa. The whale was still in his lap, but something had shifted in him. His shoulders were looser. His face was less tight around the jaw. He looked up when she came in, and his eyes were clearer than they’d been in the car.

Dr. Kellan rose from her chair. She was a woman in her fifties, gray-streaked hair pulled back, glasses on a chain around her neck. She’d been seeing Leo since the accident. She knew him in ways Arianne was still learning.

"Arianne. Thank you for waiting."

"Of course."

Dr. Kellan gestured to a chair near the sofa. Arianne sat. Leo was within arm’s reach. She didn’t touch him. She let him have the space.

"I’ve asked you to join us because Leo and I have talked through some things, and I think it would help for you to hear the shape of it." Dr. Kellan’s voice was calm. Professional but not cold. "I won’t share everything — our sessions are still his — but the broad strokes matter for what happens at home."

Arianne nodded.

"Leo told me about last night. About the lion doll. About the fight with Lily." She paused. "It took some time. We used the tablet, some drawing. But he got there."

Arianne looked at Leo. He was watching Dr. Kellan, not her. His hand was on the whale’s back, his fingers tracing the curve of its tail.

"The Lion was his first comfort object," Dr. Kellan said. "His father gave it to him the day he was born. It was with him through everything. When his parents died, he put it on the shelf. That’s not uncommon. Children who experience traumatic loss sometimes set aside the objects that remind them most acutely of what they’ve lost. The objects become too loaded."

"But he reached for it last night."

"Yes." Dr. Kellan looked at Leo. "And I think you know why."

Arianne followed her gaze. Leo’s hand had gone still on the whale.

"His father’s birthday was recent. You took the twins to visit them. Leo told me about that. He told me he spoke to them. That he used his tablet to tell them something important."

Arianne remembered. The mausoleum. The yellow roses. Lily’s speech — Aunt Aria is our mommy now. And Uncle Franz is our daddy. And Leo, holding up his tablet: WE DECIDED.

"After that visit," Dr. Kellan continued, "Leo reached for the Lion. He hasn’t done that since the accident. That’s not a coincidence."

"Integration," Arianne said.

"Yes. He’s not regressing. He’s trying to bring the past forward. To hold both things at once — the parents he lost and the family he has now. The Lion is part of that. It represents his father. Reaching for it now, after telling his parents that you and Franz are his guardians — that’s him trying to make the pieces fit together."

Arianne looked at Leo. He was still tracing the whale’s tail. But his jaw had loosened. His breathing was even. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

"When Lily tried to take it away," Dr. Kellan said, "it wasn’t just a toy she was taking. It was the connection he was trying to rebuild. The push wasn’t about anger. It was about protection. He was protecting the thing that held his father."

Arianne absorbed this. "What does he need now?"

"Time. The lion doll back in one piece, if possible — the physical repair matters. Children of Leo’s age process symbolically. If the Lion can be mended, it shows him that broken things can be put back together. That rupture doesn’t have to be permanent."

"I’ve already asked someone to find a restoration specialist."

"Good." Dr. Kellan paused. "He also needs words. When he’s angry or frightened, he doesn’t have a voice to express it. The tablet is helpful, but in moments of high emotion, even that can be too slow. Give him language. Name what he might be feeling before he has to name it himself. And when the twins are fighting, separate them early. Give them space before it escalates."

Arianne nodded.

"One more thing." Dr. Kellan leaned forward. "The fight last night — as frightening as it was — wasn’t a setback. It was the opposite. Leo has been silent since his parents died. He’s been still. Compliant. Last night he wanted something badly enough to fight for it. That’s not regression. That’s life coming back."

Arianne held the words. Life coming back. She looked at Leo. At the whale. At the small boy on the sofa who had pushed his sister because she tried to take away the one thing that still held his father’s voice.

"Thank you," she said.

Dr. Kellan nodded. "We’ll keep working. Leo knows he can come here and say whatever he needs to say. Or not say. That’s his choice too."

Outside, the morning had shifted toward midday.

The light was higher. The city was awake in a different way — more movement, more noise, the rhythm of the workday settling in. Arianne and Leo stood on the pavement outside the office. The whale was still under his arm. His face was calm. Not happy — Leo didn’t do happy in obvious ways — but settled. The storm from last night had passed through him and left something quieter behind.

Arianne looked down at him.

"Where do you want to eat lunch?"

He blinked up at her.

"Anywhere you want. Before we go to Rochefort Group. Just the two of us."

He thought about it. His face did the thing it did when he was considering something seriously — the small furrow between his eyebrows, the way his mouth pressed into a line. Then he reached for his tablet. Typed something. Turned it toward her.

She read it. Looked at him. Something in her face softened — the smallest shift, barely visible.

"Okay," she said. "Let’s go."

They walked toward the car. The city moved around them. The whale’s tail swayed gently against Leo’s arm with each step. Lunch first. Then the office. The day still unfolding, ordinary and strange, the two of them together.