0001:One Month Left

ALICE’S POV

I hadn't slept. I'd counted his breaths instead.

It had been four hours since Lucian collapsed at breakfast. Four hours since I’d screamed loud enough to wake every wolf on our floor of the western wing. Now the monitors did the counting for me — soft, steady, mechanical as my son slept under sheets too white against his pale face.

He’d been talking about cake. About his coming birthday. About whether his father might come this year. Then he was on the kitchen floor.

I had made his eggs that morning. He never got to finish them.

I sat in the chair they’d placed me in when we arrived, my hand wrapped tightly around his small fingers. Bread in the oven at home. Laundry still on the line. The healer’s number I should have called sooner. The thoughts circled endlessly while I watched his chest rise and fall.

The door opened.

Dr. Morrison stepped in wearing the careful, guarded expression doctors perfect over time. He didn’t meet my eyes for a beat too long, and my body knew the answer before he spoke.

“Luna Alice. May I speak with you outside?”

“No.” The word came out flat. “Whatever it is, you say it here. With him.”

He paused, then nodded and pulled a tablet from his coat. His fingers trembled slightly against the screen.

“I won’t sugarcoat this, Luna. Your son has Velmir’s Disease.”

“What is that?”

“A rare genetic condition. It primarily targets children under five. It attacks the immune system first, then the organs. It’s extremely aggressive.”

I stood up. My legs nearly gave out.

“He’s only four. He turns five next month. How is this possible?”

“We don’t fully understand why it manifests in some children. What we do know is that it progresses very quickly.”

I gripped the bed rail until my knuckles turned white.

“How much time does he have left?”

He didn’t answer.

“Doctor. How much time does my son have?”

“Approximately one month.”

The room tilted.

One month. That was the birthday he’d been planning for half a year — the cake, the candles, the father who never came. The birthday where he would turn five. And now… he wouldn’t.

Hot, silent tears spilled down my cheeks. I let them fall. Crying ugly was the least of my worries. My son was dying, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

“Is there anything? Any treatment? Any trial? Anything at all we can do?”

He hesitated. That hesitation cut deeper than any words.

“There’s no established cure. The best we can do is keep him comfortable. Make his remaining time as happy as possible.”

“So we just wait for him to die?”

“Luna, please—”

“No. I refuse.”

I looked at Lucian. He had Benjamin’s jaw, already visible beneath the baby fat. His hair was Benjamin’s too — dark and thick. But the eyes that opened every morning were mine. Ocean blue. Full of a trust I had never earned.

Dr. Morrison shifted uncomfortably. “There is… one possibility.”

My head snapped up.

“I won’t give you false hope, Luna. It’s experimental. Still in the very early stages.”

“Tell me.”

“There’s a research project specifically targeting Velmir’s Disease. A team of specialists believes they’ve identified a promising treatment pathway. No successful treatments have been documented yet, and progress has been slow.”

A small, fragile spark ignited in my chest.

“Where is it? How do I get him in?”

“That’s the complication.” His expression darkened. “The research was originally funded by the Blue Moon Pack. Alpha Benjamin approved the initial funding two years ago.”

Two years ago. When Lucian was two. When Benjamin still occasionally pretended he had a son.

“And?”

“Six months later, Alpha Benjamin terminated the funding. He called the research — and I quote — ‘a waste of pack resources on false hope and fabricated promises.’ Without the pack’s money, the project had to scale back significantly.”

My hand remained on the rail. The cold metal grounded me.

The Alpha of the Blue Moon Pack had defunded the only treatment that might save one of their own children. He’d dismissed it as a fabrication. All while Lucian was learning to ride his little wooden horse in the courtyard, and I sat at the kitchen counter pretending the empty chair across from me didn’t matter.

He’d done it for Lisa. I knew it in my bones, even without proof. I’d known a hundred small truths without proof for four years.

“The team relocated,” Dr. Morrison continued. “I can give you their contact information. But even if they accept him, the chances—”

“Are small,” I finished. “Understood. Small is better than nothing.”

He nodded. At the door, he paused.

“Luna Alice… for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

Then I was alone with my dying son again.

I don’t know how long I stood there. Long enough that Lucian eventually stirred. His eyes fluttered open, and despite the IV in his hand, the sterile white walls, and the word “terminal” hanging heavy in the air, he smiled.

“Mommy? Why are you crying?”

I turned away, quickly wiping my face on my sleeve, then turned back with the smile I had perfected over four years of standing at that lonely kitchen counter.

“Mommy isn’t crying, baby. I just got something in my eye.”

He looked at me with those too-old eyes — the ones that always saw what I tried to hide.

“Is it because I fell down? I’m sorry, Mommy. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” I gathered him up carefully, mindful of the line in his arm, and pressed my lips to his forehead. “You did nothing wrong. Nothing at all.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then—

“Mommy? My birthday is soon. Do you think Daddy will come this year?”

The question hit harder than the diagnosis. Every year, the same question. Every year, the same lies. Daddy is busy with pack business. Daddy has meetings. Daddy wanted to come.

Every year, Benjamin broke his son’s heart without ever realizing it.

“I’ll be good, Mommy.” Lucian’s voice was filled with the kind of hope only children can still possess. “I’ll be really, really good. So good that Daddy will want to stay. Do you think if I’m good enough, he’ll come?”

I held him tighter and buried my face in his soft hair so he wouldn’t see my expression.

“Your daddy loves you very much,” I whispered. The lie burned my throat. “He’ll be there. I promise you, Lucian. I’ll make sure your daddy is there.”

I had no idea how I would keep that promise. But I would. Even if I had to beg on my knees.

When Lucian fell asleep again, I slipped into the corridor and pulled out my phone.

My hands were steady. Whatever fear I’d felt had burned away, leaving only ice behind.

Three things to do: Find the research team. Make the birthday happen. Get my son out of this bed alive.

Benjamin answered on the fourth ring.

“What.”

I could hear voices in the background. Laughter. Lisa’s laughter — that high, familiar pitch I knew too well.

“We need to talk. It’s important.”

“I’m busy, Alice. Whatever it is can wait.”

“When was the last time you came home, Benjamin? When was the last time you saw your son?”

A pause. Then his voice turned even colder.

“I don’t have time for your games. Lisa needs me. Lily has a dental appointment. She’s terrified. Unlike you, Lisa actually needs me.”

I closed my eyes.

“And your son doesn’t?”

“If this is about the divorce papers — my position hasn’t changed. Sign them. Until then, we have nothing to discuss.”

“Benjamin. Listen to me. I need to tell you—”

“What could possibly be that important, Alice?”

I opened my eyes and looked through the small window in the door at my son’s tiny body in the big white bed.

When I spoke, my voice was quiet. It didn’t shake.

“Lucian has Velmir’s Disease. The doctors say he has one month left to live.”

There was complete silence.

“What?”

“Velmir’s Disease, Benjamin. It’s terminal. They can’t cure it. They can only keep him comfortable until… the end. Our son has only one month left.”

The line stayed silent for so long I thought he’d hung up. Then Benjamin finally spoke, his tone dripping with suspicion, “Is this a stunt to keep me from signing the divorce papers?”