One evening, as Charles was finishing a long shift, he felt it catch up to him again. Not sharp. Just a sudden drop in energy that made everything feel heavier than it should. He steadied himself against the edge of a table, waiting for it to pass.

It didn’t.

“You’re pushing too hard,” a voice said behind him.

He didn’t have to turn to know who it was.

“I’m fine,” he replied.

“That’s getting old,” Yiannis said.

Charles let out a small breath, still facing away.

“Yeah,” he said. “It is.”

Yiannis stepped closer.

“You need to slow down.”

“I can’t.”

“You can.”

“No,” Charles said, finally turning. “I can’t.”

A pause.

“Why,” Yiannis asked.

Charles looked at him, something tired sitting just under the surface.

“Because if I stop, I think,” he said. “And I don’t want to do that right now.”

Yiannis held his gaze, not pushing, not stepping back either.

“You’re not going to think your way out of this,” he said.

“I know.”

“Then what are you doing.”

Charles shrugged slightly.

“Getting through the day,” he said. “Same as everyone else.”

“That’s not the same.”

“It is for me.”

Another pause stretched between them.

“You should tell them,” Yiannis said.

Charles frowned. “Tell who.”

“Medical leads. They’ll adjust your workload.”

“And put me where,” Charles asked. “Somewhere easier to manage.”

“That’s not a bad thing.”

“It is if it means I stop being useful.”

Yiannis’s expression tightened.

“You’re not just useful,” he said.

“That’s how they see me.”

“That’s not how I see you.”

Charles almost smiled.

“You keep saying that,” he replied. “Doesn’t change the rest of it.”

Silence settled again.

“You don’t have to carry this alone,” Yiannis said.

Charles looked away.

“I’m not asking you to carry it,” he said.

“I know,” Yiannis replied. “That’s the problem.”

That hung between them for a second.

Charles exhaled slowly, then pushed himself upright.

“I’ve got more to finish,” he said.

Yiannis didn’t move.

“Charles.”

He paused, but didn’t turn.

“Yeah.”

A beat passed.

“If something changes,” Yiannis said, voice lower now. “You tell me.”

Charles hesitated just long enough to notice.

“Maybe,” he said.

It wasn’t a promise. It was the closest he could get.

He walked off before the conversation could stretch any further.

Weeks passed like that.

The changes became harder to hide. Not obvious yet, but enough that people who paid attention started to notice. A slower pace. A hand resting briefly at his side before dropping again. The way he chose tasks that kept him closer to the ground instead of lifting or running.

No one said anything directly.

They didn’t have to.

The system adjusted around him, subtle but clear. Fewer physically demanding tasks. More time inside. It was framed as efficiency, not concern.

Charles let it happen without comment. Fighting it wouldn’t change the outcome.

One night, he found himself sitting outside the medical wing after his shift, the air cooler than it had been during the day. It was one of the few places where the noise of the camp softened enough to think, even if he tried not to.

Yiannis joined him without asking.

“You’re getting slower,” he said.

“Good observation.”

“It’s not a criticism.”

“Sounds like one.”

Yiannis leaned back against the wall beside him.

“You’re not sleeping enough,” he added.

“That’s not new.”

“No.”

A pause settled in.

“How far along,” Yiannis asked.

Charles didn’t answer right away.

“Does it matter.”

“Yes.”

Another pause.

“Not far,” Charles said finally. “Enough.”

Yiannis nodded slightly, like he was filing that away.

“We should plan,” he said.

“For what.”

“For what comes next.”

Charles let out a quiet breath.

“You keep talking like there’s a plan,” he said. “There isn’t.”

“There can be.”

“Here.”

“No.”

Charles glanced at him.

“So we’re back to that.”

“Yes.”

A faint, tired sound escaped Charles before he could stop it.

“You don’t let anything go,” he said.

“I can’t afford to.”

“And I can.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.”

They sat in silence for a moment, the space between them less tense than before, but not easy either.

“You ever think about leaving everything behind,” Charles said suddenly. “Before all this.”

Yiannis didn’t answer right away.

“Yes,” he said.

“And.”

“And I didn’t.”

“Why.”

Yiannis looked ahead, not at him.

“Because I thought what I had was enough,” he said.

Charles nodded slowly.

“Funny how that works,” he murmured.

Another pause.

“If we leave,” Yiannis said, quieter now. “It’s not just running. We can build something smaller. Away from this.”

Charles looked at him, really looked this time.

“And if it doesn’t work.”

“We adjust.”

“And if we can’t.”

Yiannis didn’t answer.

“That’s what I thought,” Charles said softly.

He leaned back, letting his head rest against the wall.

“I don’t know if I have it in me to start over again,” he admitted.

Yiannis’s voice was steady when he replied.

“You don’t have to decide that tonight.”

Charles closed his eyes for a second, then opened them again.

“Feels like I do,” he said.

The night stretched around them, quiet but not empty.

For once, neither of them tried to fill it.

And for once, that silence didn’t feel like distance.

It felt like something waiting.

The day the second war reached them didn’t start any different from the others. The camp moved in its usual rhythm, steady and contained, like the structure could hold against anything if people just kept following it. Charles stayed inside most of the morning, working through smaller cases, keeping his movements careful without making it obvious why.

By then, the pregnancy had settled into something real in a way he couldn’t ignore anymore. Not just a condition, not just something the system expected from him. It had weight now. Shape. A presence he caught himself thinking about when he didn’t mean to. He had stopped telling himself he would hand the child over when it was born. That plan had faded quietly, replaced by something he didn’t fully name.

Yiannis wasn’t there to see it. He had been sent out again before dawn, another run, another stretch of distance that felt longer now than it used to.

Charles didn’t think much about it that morning. He focused on what was in front of him. A bandage to change, a fever to monitor, a voice to keep steady when someone else couldn’t.

Then the first explosion came.

It didn’t sound like anything they had dealt with before. It wasn’t distant. It wasn’t a warning. It hit close enough that the ground shifted under their feet and the walls trembled like they might give way. For a second, everything stopped. Then everything broke at once.

Shouting replaced the quiet. People moved without direction, grabbing what they could, trying to make sense of something that wasn’t meant to be managed. Another blast followed, louder, closer. The ceiling cracked somewhere down the corridor.

Charles tried to stand.

He didn’t get far.

The force of the next impact threw him sideways. He hit the ground hard, breath knocked out of him, vision blurring at the edges. For a second, he couldn’t hear anything except a ringing that drowned everything else out.

Then the pain came.

Not sharp at first. Just wrong. Deep and spreading in a way that made his body tense without understanding why. He tried to push himself up, but something in him refused to cooperate.

There was blood.

He saw it before he felt it properly. Dark against the floor, too much of it, moving too fast.

“Hey,” someone shouted, close but not close enough. “He’s down—get someone—”

Hands reached for him, voices overlapping, but none of it settled into something clear. Charles tried to speak, but it didn’t come out right. His fingers curled weakly against the ground, searching for something to hold onto.

Another explosion shook the space, closer this time. The wall beside them cracked open, dust and debris falling in a rush that made everything harder to see.

“Move him,” someone said. “We need to move him now—”

“I can’t—he’s bleeding—”

“I said move—”

The voices blurred again.

Charles felt himself being lifted, or dragged, or both. The world tilted in a way that made no sense. He tried to focus, tried to stay with it, but everything kept slipping out of reach.

His hand moved instinctively, pressing against his abdomen, like he could hold something in place just by trying hard enough.

It didn’t work.

The last thing he registered before everything went dark was the sound of someone calling his name, too far away to reach him.

When Yiannis saw the explosion, it didn’t register as part of a larger attack. Not at first. It was just wrong. Too close to where the camp should have been, too immediate to ignore.

Then the second blast followed.

And something in him dropped.

“Turn back,” he said, already moving before anyone could respond.

“We don’t know if—”

“We turn back,” Yiannis repeated, sharper this time.

No one argued after that.

The drive back wasn’t clean. Roads that had been barely usable before were worse now. Debris blocked half their path, smoke rising in thick columns that made it harder to see where they were going. Yiannis didn’t slow unless he had to. Every second stretched longer than it should have.

He didn’t think about the camp as a whole.

He thought about Charles.

About where he would have been. About how far along he was. About how fragile that made everything now.

The thought came uninvited and stayed.

If something happened—

He didn’t finish it.

By the time they reached the outskirts, the structure of the camp was already breaking apart. Sections had collapsed. Others were burning. People moved in scattered directions, some trying to organize, most just trying to get away from whatever might come next.

Yiannis didn’t wait for instructions.

“Find survivors,” someone called.

He was already moving.

He moved through what used to be familiar paths, now twisted into something else. He called out once, twice, then stopped because it felt useless against the noise.

He found the medical wing by memory more than sight.

What was left of it.

Part of the ceiling had caved in. The entrance was blocked halfway, debris piled where people had tried to clear a path and failed.

“Help me,” Yiannis said, already pulling at the broken frame.

Someone joined him. Then another.

They worked in short bursts, clearing enough space to get through.

Inside, it was worse.

Beds overturned. Supplies scattered. People moving in uneven patterns, some helping, some too injured to do anything but wait.

Yiannis scanned the space once.

Didn’t see him.

“Charles,” he called, louder now.

No answer.

He moved deeper in, stepping over debris, pushing past what blocked his way.

Then he saw him.

Near the far wall, half-covered by fallen structure, unmoving.

For a second, Yiannis didn’t move.

Then he was there.

“Charles,” he said, dropping to his knees.

No response.

There was blood. Too much of it. Still.

Yiannis’s hands hovered for a moment, then pressed where they needed to, trying to stop what had already gone too far.

“Stay with me,” he said, voice tighter than he intended. “Hey—look at me.”

Nothing.

“Get a medic,” someone called from behind him.

“I am one,” Yiannis snapped, then forced his voice down. “I need help here.”

They worked on him there, not because it was ideal, but because there wasn’t time to move him properly. Pressure, bandaging, anything to slow the bleeding enough to get him out.

It wasn’t clean.

It wasn’t enough.

By the time they carried him out, Charles’s body had gone too still.

Yiannis stayed with him the entire way.

At some point, someone said something about the pregnancy. About the amount of blood. About what that meant.

Yiannis heard it.

He didn’t react.

He just kept his hands where they were, like he could hold something together that had already broken.

They moved him to a safer section, what remained of it, and continued trying to stabilize him.

Hours passed.

Then more.

At some point, the effort shifted. Not stopped. Just changed. Less urgency. More quiet understanding of what had already happened.

No one said it directly.

They didn’t need to.

When Charles finally woke, it wasn’t dramatic. Just a slow return to awareness that felt heavier than sleep.

The room was unfamiliar. Or maybe it was familiar in a way that didn’t matter anymore.

He didn’t move right away.

Yiannis was there.

He had been there the whole time.

“You’re awake,” Yiannis said, voice low.

Charles stared at the ceiling for a second, then turned his head slightly.

His gaze settled, then sharpened.

A pause.

“Where,” Charles started, then stopped.

Yiannis didn’t answer.

He didn’t need to.

Charles’s hand moved, slow, hesitant, finding his own body like it didn’t trust what it would feel.

Flat.

Empty.

Still.

The realization didn’t come all at once. It settled in, piece by piece, until it was too clear to ignore.

Another pause stretched between them.

“Charles,” Yiannis said.

“Leave,” Charles replied.

His voice was quiet. Not raised. Not breaking.

Just firm.

Yiannis didn’t move.

“Charles—”

“Leave,” he said again.

A beat.

“Please.”

That was the part that landed.

Yiannis hesitated, then stood.

He didn’t argue.

He stepped out, closing the door behind him with more care than the situation required.

Inside, the room stayed still for a long moment.

Then it broke.

Charles pressed his hand against his mouth, like he could hold the sound in, but it came anyway. Not loud at first. Just a low, uneven breath that turned into something sharper, something that didn’t have words attached to it.

He curled inward, body folding around a space that wasn’t there anymore.

“I’m sorry,” he said, the words barely forming. “I’m sorry—”

There was no one to hear it.

Or at least, that’s what he thought.

Outside, Yiannis didn’t move far.

He stood just beyond the door, hand still resting against it, like stepping away completely would make it final.

He heard it.

Not everything. Not clearly.

The sound of someone breaking in a way that couldn’t be fixed.

Others heard it too.

They stopped where they were, conversations fading, movement slowing until it felt wrong to continue. Someone covered their mouth. Another turned away, shoulders tightening.

No one spoke.

They just listened.

And some of them cried.

Yiannis didn’t.

He stood there, eyes fixed on nothing, the sound carrying through him without release.

If he had been an alpha, he could have done something. That thought came without warning and stayed. Something instinctive. Something biological. The ability to soothe, to ground, to take even a fraction of that pain and make it bearable.

But he wasn’t.

He never cared before.

Not when people assumed. Not when it made things easier.

Now it felt like failure.

Like there was something he should have been able to give and couldn’t.

Inside the room, Charles’s voice broke again, sharper this time, raw in a way that didn’t try to hold back anymore.

“My baby,” he said, the words tearing through what little control he had left. “My baby—”

Yiannis closed his eyes.

For the first time in a long time, he didn’t know what to do.

And for the first time, knowing what to do wouldn’t have been enough anyway.