Chapter 20: The Mascot

The common room had never felt like a place Cerys needed courage to enter. That alone annoyed her.

She paused at the threshold anyway, long enough to see that the tables were nearly full and that nobody was going to pretend not to notice her. A few conversations dipped. Someone smiled too brightly. Another person lifted a hand in greeting, the expression on his face carrying the careful relief people usually reserved for survivors.

Cerys stepped inside before she could turn the moment into a test she had to pass. Elis was already at a table near the middle of the room.

He did not stand when he saw her. The choice was so ordinary that she almost smiled. There was an empty seat across from him. Cerys took it.

“You came,” he said.

“You sound surprised.”

“I was trying not to.”

“That needs work,” Cerys said.

“I’ll practice.”

The exchange settled something in her. No bed between them. No check to finish. No reason for either of them to be here except that they had agreed to share a meal.

Cerys had barely started eating when a woman from the next table leaned over.

“Oh, sweetheart, you should have said you were coming in. Someone could have brought this to you.”

Cerys looked at her. The woman meant it kindly. That was almost worse.

“I can carry a tray.”

“Of course you can.” She lowered her voice as though offering a confidence. “But you don’t have to prove anything. Not after what happened.”

Cerys felt several people nearby listening without looking like they were listening. Across from her, Elis kept eating.

He did not answer for her. He did not even glance toward the woman as if preparing to rescue the conversation.

Cerys appreciated him for that more than she wanted to admit.

“I’m not proving anything,” she said. “I wanted dinner.”

The woman gave her a soft, sympathetic smile. “You always were stubborn.”

There it was. Not cruelty. Not contempt. Affection arranged so neatly around the assumption that Cerys could not be trusted to know her own limits.

“I’m also sitting down,” Cerys said. “So I think we’re safe.”

A few people laughed. The woman laughed too, apparently relieved that Cerys had made the exchange harmless. Cerys took another bite.

For perhaps thirty seconds, the room returned to normal.

Then a man two seats away said, “It’s good you’re taking it well.”

Cerys looked over. “Taking what well?”

He hesitated. That should have warned him to stop. It did not.

“Everything. Rhys. The injuries. All of it.”

The room seemed to tighten around the name.

Cerys did not look for Rhys. She knew he was in the common room; she had heard people greeting him when she came in. Knowing exactly where he stood suddenly felt like information she did not want.

“I’m eating dinner,” she said. “I don’t know that I’d call it a philosophy.”

The man shifted, but someone beside him spoke before the subject could die.

“He made the hard choice.”

Cerys went still. The speaker sounded almost apologetic.

“That’s all people mean,” the woman from the other table said quickly. “Nobody wanted you hurt.”

“I’m aware.”

“And Rhys has the whole silo to think about now,” someone said.

Cerys finally turned her head. Rhys stood near the far end of the room with two people beside him. His attention was fixed on her.

He had heard. He did not move. Good. Cerys faced the table again.

“What exactly was the hard choice?” she asked.

Silence answered first.

The man who had started it rubbed a thumb along the edge of his cup. “You know.”

“No. I know what Rhys chose. I’m asking what you think made it reasonable.”

Nobody looked comfortable now. Cerys was surprised by how little that bothered her.

The woman exhaled. “Cerys, you come back half-dead every month.”

There was no malice in it. Only certainty.

“You scare everyone,” she continued. “You’ve scared him for years. And now he’s Alpha. He can’t—”

“He can’t what?”

The woman stopped. Cerys waited.

She had spent years accepting these looks because they came wrapped in care. She had accepted the jokes, the hovering, the quiet assumption that survival was something that happened to her by accident. She had even helped them do it, apologizing for the worry whenever she returned hurt.

But Rhys had made his choice. The rest of the silo did not get to turn that choice into proof that she had been too fragile to love.

“He was allowed to leave me,” Cerys said. Her voice carried farther than she intended, but she did not lower it. “He was allowed to decide he couldn’t live with being afraid every month. I don’t have to agree with him for that to be true.”

No one interrupted.

“But if you’re going to call it reasonable because I’m weak, say that part too.”

The woman’s face changed. “I didn’t mean—”

“I know.”

Cerys did know. That was the problem.

“You care about me. You think I’m going to break. Both things can be true.”

Across the table, Elis had gone completely still. Not protective. Not pleased. Just listening. Cerys looked from one person to another.

“I don’t need you to decide whether Rhys was right about me,” she said. “He made a decision about what he could handle. That doesn’t make me the reason it had to happen.”

The man with the cup looked down. Someone farther away shifted a chair. Cerys felt heat climb her neck, but the shame did not arrive with it. She had expected shame. Instead there was only anger and a strange, clean relief.

The woman said quietly, “We worry because we love you.”

“I know.”

Cerys picked up her fork.

“And you can love me without making me your tragedy.”

Nobody laughed this time. That was fine. She ate. Conversation restarted in pieces around them. Not the same conversation. Not yet. But the room moved again.

Elis waited until the nearest voices had risen before he said, “Still want the common room?”

“You didn’t defend me.”

“No.”

“Thank you,” someone said.

His expression softened. “You seemed busy.”

That made her smile despite herself. She did not look toward Rhys until the meal was almost over.

He was still there. He had not crossed the room when people spoke about her. He had not used his new authority to silence them. He had not claimed the right to explain his decision for her.

But guilt sat plainly in his face. Cerys stood. Elis gathered his own things and, without asking whether she needed help, let her leave the table under her own power.

At the doorway, Rhys stepped into her path. Not close enough to trap her.

“Cerys.”

She stopped.

His voice was low. “Can we talk?”

The old answer rose first. Yes, because he was Rhys. Yes, because once she would have followed him anywhere in the silo without asking why.

Cerys glanced back at the room. People were talking again, but the words she had said remained between the tables whether anyone wanted them there or not.

Rhys had heard every one of them. She looked at him.

“Privately?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Cerys considered refusing. Then she considered what refusing would protect, and what accepting would cost.

“One conversation,” she said.

Rhys nodded.

Cerys did not follow him yet.