The hospital walls were too bright. Too sterile. Too clean.
Andrew stepped through the doors first, his usually steady gait faltering as he scanned the waiting room. He saw them immediately—Jaxon, sitting stiffly in a chair, his hands clasped so tightly together that his knuckles had gone white. Rina, who had given up on pretending to be strong, silently crying into her hands. And Christy, standing near the wall, arms wrapped around herself, staring blankly at the ground.
But Rea…
Rea wasn't there.
Andrew's chest tightened as he looked at his daughter's empty seat. He didn't have to ask where she had gone. He already knew.
Eric was the last to enter, his face hard, unreadable. But when he saw Rina's tears, the harsh lines of his face cracked for just a second. Just long enough for the grief to sink in.
No one spoke at first.
Because saying it out loud would make it real.
Christy was the one who finally broke the silence.
"Where is she?" Her voice was quiet, but there was an edge to it.
Jaxon exhaled sharply. "She left."
Andrew clenched his jaw.
Of course, she did.
Of course, Rea had run.
She always did when things got too heavy—when the pain threatened to crush her. And losing Aster? That wasn't just pain. That was devastation.
Aster had been her best friend, her rival, the only person who could make her laugh when she didn't want to, who understood her in a way no one else did. And now, he was gone.
Andrew let out a slow breath and turned to the doctor. "Where is he?"
The doctor hesitated.
And that hesitation was enough.
Andrew knew what it meant.
Aster was no longer a patient. He was a body.
A cold, lifeless body lying under a sheet in a hospital morgue.
Christy inhaled sharply, turning away like she couldn't bear to hear it.
Jaxon slammed his fist against the armrest of his chair. "It wasn't supposed to be like this." His voice was low, strained. "He was supposed to make it."
Andrew wished he could tell him otherwise.
But there were no words for this kind of loss.
Rina wiped at her face and looked at Eric, her voice barely above a whisper. "We should've done more."
Eric, who had been silent this entire time, finally spoke.
"You did everything you could."
It wasn't comforting. It wasn't meant to be.
It was just the truth.
And the truth was a cruel, merciless thing.
---
The morgue was cold.
Andrew had been in places like this before—staring down at bodies of people he'd lost. Friends. Allies. Innocent lives taken too soon.
But this was different.
This was a boy he had watched grow up.
A boy who had thrown himself into danger too many times, who had always somehow managed to come back with a smirk on his face, a sarcastic comment ready to be thrown at whoever dared to be worried about him.
Except this time, he wasn't coming back.
Andrew's hands curled into fists as he stepped closer to the metal table.
The sheet covered Aster's face, but it didn't matter.
He was still there.
Still gone.
He reached out, hesitated for just a second, then pulled the sheet down.
Aster's face was too still.
Too pale.
Too wrong.
He looked younger like this. Almost peaceful. As if he had just fallen asleep and was about to wake up with some smart remark about how dramatic they were all being.
But he wouldn't wake up.
Not this time.
Andrew swallowed the lump in his throat.
"I should've been there," he murmured.
Beside him, Eric exhaled shakily.
"You would've just gotten yourself killed too," he said, but there was no sharpness to his words. No teasing. Just grief. "And what good would that have done?"
Christy stood a few steps behind them, her arms wrapped around herself like she was trying to hold herself together.
"He was an idiot," she muttered.
Andrew glanced at her.
She was staring at Aster's face, her expression unreadable. But then her hands clenched at her sleeves, and her shoulders shook just slightly.
"He was a reckless, loud, annoying idiot."
Eric looked down. "Yeah."
Silence.
Then Christy let out a weak laugh—one that barely made it past her lips.
"I'm gonna miss that idiot."
Andrew closed his eyes for a second.
Yeah.
So would he.
---
They found Rea an hour later.
She was sitting on the hospital roof, her back against the ledge, staring at the city below.
She didn't look up when Andrew approached.
Didn't flinch when he sat down beside her.
Didn't move at all.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Then, finally, she whispered, "I keep thinking he's going to walk through that door."
Andrew looked at her.
Her eyes were empty. Hollow.
Like she had been carved out from the inside.
"I keep waiting to hear him say something stupid. To see him roll his eyes at me. To hear him complain about how much of a pain I am."
Her fingers dug into her sleeves.
"But he's not coming back."
Her voice cracked.
Andrew exhaled slowly. "No. He's not."
Rea let out a shaky breath.
And then, finally, she broke.
She turned to him, burying her face into his shoulder as sobs wracked her body.
Andrew wrapped an arm around her, holding her tight.
She wasn't the type to cry.
She always bottled everything up, kept it locked away where no one could see.
But this?
This was too much.
And there was nothing he could say to make it better.
So he just held her.
And let her grieve.
---
It rained that night.
A quiet, steady drizzle that pattered against the hospital windows, filling the silence with something soft, something distant.
And somewhere, in the back of their minds, they all wondered if Aster would've made some dumb joke about it.
But he wasn't here.
And he never would be again.