An Omegaverse romance exploring themes of trauma, with both physical and sexual abuse, and mature intimacy. The abuse is implied but Reader Discretion is advised.

“Ah, there you are.” 

Alta grinned as he let the door close behind him, smiling at the woman on the bed. The beta looked peaceful and relaxed for someone who had spent the last two weeks in the hospital, but if there was one thing Alta knew about Rosa, it was that she hated being coddled. 

“Sorry I’m late. You didn’t call for me like normal,” Alta sighed, moving the chair closer to the bed as Rosa scoffed. She tilted her head to look at him more fully, a wry half-smile tugging at her cracked lips as she took in his casual sweater and pants. Alta had work later, so his long red hair was already up, neatly pinned to his head with a clip.

“I’m dying, not helpless,” Rosa rasped. Her voice had thinned out like mist on cold glass, and Alta took a deep breath as he leaned closer. “Besides. I thought I’d let you have a day to yourself. Figured you’d appreciate that.”

Alta chuckled, but it was hollow. He folded his arms over the back of the chair and rested his chin there, watching the shallow rise and fall of her chest. The monitors behind her made no secret of how hard her body was working to stay stitched together.

“You think I care about a day off?” He murmured. “I'd rather be here with you, old gal.”

Rosa didn’t answer right away. Her gaze drifted toward the window, where the late afternoon sun splintered across the blinds. Dust hung in the light, suspended like everything in that room had been paused. Like time was holding its breath, waiting for her to let go.

“I think,” she said finally, “you’ve gotten too used to being owned.”

Alta did a little more than shrug, not having anything to say to that. After all, he had explained everything to Rosa before asking her to be his master more than sixty years ago and now… well now, that was nearly over.

Rosa’s fingers twitched against the worn hospital blanket. Alta reached for them before he could think better of it, letting her dry palm settle against his own. Her skin was like parchment, warm only in places, thin enough to feel every delicate tremor of effort she spent to hold on. She didn’t grip back, like she’d decided her hand belonged there more than anywhere else.

“I’m not sorry,” she whispered.

Alta blinked. “About what?”

“About saying yes. About binding you.” Her eyes flicked toward him again, not quite sharp anymore, but not soft either. “I’m not sorry I took your name. You needed a place to rest, after what that vile woman put you through.”

Alta felt his heart ache in his chest, but he did his best to not let it show. “Let’s not bring her in here. I still have time before she’ll bother me again.”

“If I had anything to say about it, she would never touch you again,” Rosa murmured. Her voice caught and for a long moment, she just watched him. Her gaze wavered in and out of focus, the effort to stay present dragging across her face like a storm cloud skimming the horizon. “You deserve peace.”

“I deserve a lot of things, but I think it was you who told me that God doesn’t give fuck about what I deserve,” Alta repeated, enjoy the crooked smile it brought to the old woman’s face. He shifted a little closer, his fingers tightening subtly around hers as he leaned forward, lowering his voice as if the moment might scatter if spoken too loud. “You said it right after I torched that sheriff’s barn.”

Rosa gave a wheezing chuckle, thin and papery, but still full of the dry humor that had gotten her through more than half a century with him. “He was a bastard. Deserved it more than you deserved prison.”

“That’s not how the law saw it.”

“Damn the law.”

Alta smiled faintly. Rosa was definitely not Alta’s usual choice in masters, but she had definitely made an unforgettable impression on both him and Beth when they met her. It only made sense for her to be the one who carried him through this stretch of silence, this brief illusion of safety, even if it had always been borrowed. 

“How ‘bout Beth? She dying too?” Rosa’s breath was getting more strained and Alta shook his head. 

“Nah, she’s got a few more years in her.”

“Ya tell her yet?”

“I can’t until my name is mine again,” Alta smiled, but it lacked any joy. He was going to miss both of them. “You and her both know that.”

“Ain’t fair how that she-devil got you all bound up in this,” Rosa rasped, her voice slipping into a hiss between syllables. Her fingers twitched again, no longer with purpose, just nerves firing through a body winding down. “What she did… what she made you into…”

Alta didn't flinch, but something tightened in his chest. The shape of it was old, worn from decades of suppression, but Rosa’s voice, frail as it was, unearthed it all the same.

“It wasn’t your doing,” he said, quiet but firm. “You just borrowed the leash already around my neck.”

Rosa gave a faint grunt of disapproval. Her eyes were nearly closed now, lashes trembling with the slow march of sleep or death, it was impossible to tell. “Still. Wish I could’ve given you back more than… what little I had. You gave me years. Real years. I should’ve… should’ve set you free.”

“You gave me a roof,” Alta said, brushing his thumb along the back of her hand. “Gave me laughter. Let me rest. You didn’t cage me, Rosa. You and Beth made it liveable, like all good friends and lovers do.”

She exhaled, something wet and shaky clinging to the sound. Her face turned into the pillow, not away from him but toward the window again. The light had shifted, pooling gold now instead of white. The sun had started to dip beneath the buildings outside, casting the room in a quiet that felt more solemn than serene.

“Can’t feel my legs,” Rosa whispered.

“You can wish for a quiet end,” Alta reminded her, but the old woman scoffed. 

“I ain’t never made use of your damn magic and I ain’t gonna start now,” she huffed, her voice more a ragged breath than words, but stubborn all the same. “I’d rather go honest.”

Alta’s smile twitched at the corners. “You always were the most contrary of them all.”

“Damn right I was.” She tried to smile, but it looked more like a grimace this time. Her eyelids fluttered and didn’t quite open again. “No shortcuts, no spells. I’ll go out like I came in. Screaming and covered in blood, probably.”

“Thanks for that image,” Alta muttered, but he didn’t argue. A silence settled between them then, heavy and sacred. The kind of silence that only ever came at the edge of something final. The machines still beeped behind her, but Alta wasn’t listening to those anymore. He watched Rosa instead; watched her face soften, the tension bleeding from her brow. Her lips parted around a breath she couldn’t quite catch. Her hand in his twitched once, twice, then stilled.

He knew before the machines did. Knew in the hollow that cracked open in his chest, in the deep drop of magic snapping free like a leash gone slack. The curse’s hold on him cracked like old plaster. Heat lanced through his ribs, spiraling up his spine and bursting like sunfire behind his eyes. All the scents faded as his NPP once again went dormant, his stomach ached as the reproductive organs that were never his faded away. 

He was himself again.

Alta stood up slowly, smiling as the machines finally announced her passing. It was a simple trick to make himself invisible as the nurses arrived, pushing past the curtain with urgent steps that no longer mattered. He stepped back as they bustled around her, lifting her arms, checking her pupils, doing all the right things in all the wrong order. Rosa’s mouth had parted slightly, and someone gently pressed it closed. One nurse whispered condolences to the empty bed as if Rosa might still be listening. Alta doubted she was. If anyone had earned the right to vanish cleanly from this world, it was Rosa.

He waited until they covered her body, until the last hand was removed from her and the nurses stepped away. Then, with practiced ease, he slipped from the room like a shadow unmoored, cloaked in his own magic again. The hallway outside was as sterile and impersonal as ever. Pale green linoleum, muted overhead lights, the distant sound of rolling carts and someone softly crying two rooms down. Alta walked unnoticed, his gait unhurried, but inside, something cracked wide open.

Mourning was always a quiet thing for Alta, never something loud and performative. After so long alive, he had watched countless lovers and friends pass, holding their hands as mortality took its due. He knew Rosa wouldn’t have wanted him to waste tears on her anyway. She had died the way she wanted to: on her terms, without ceremony, without magic. That was worth honoring.

Besides, he still wasn’t done. Alta looked down at his hand, where Beth’s mark had once been. It had been fading ever since her cyphora stopped working, but it was still a sad thing to see it completely gone. To know, without a doubt, that the bond that had once tethered him to Beth was gone.

He clenched his fingers into a fist, then loosened them again, letting the air pass through. His name throbbed at the edges of his thoughts, no longer suppressed, no longer a chain. It whispered through him, threaded through every vein like blood long-caged and suddenly free. It was never fair that he couldn’t share his name with his lovers, not without risking what might happen to them, until after he could no longer be theirs.

Alta took a deep breath, stepping outside of the hospital. He only had a few minutes to get to the bakery in order to meet Beth, and knowing the old gal, she was likely already there. It would be a long conversation, one he had promised to have the night she paired with him, and he wasn’t going to keep her waiting. Not now, not when he finally had the right to speak freely again.

Alta started his walk.