And Still, I Reached For You
TW: PTSD, Hospitals, Medical, Violence Honorable Mentions: Blythe Berry ( @fikazephyr ) & Silas Berry ( @mcnstercus ) This is set on November 10th, 2025, a few days after the siren attack on the Berry siblings.
The morning light spilled thinly through the blinds, brushing soft across her face like it didn’t know what it was touching—something too fragile to name. Astrid woke with a sharp inhale, the kind that caught in her chest before it ever reached her lungs. The machines still sang their quiet, sterile lullaby around her, but this time, she wasn’t drowning in medication. Her head ached, body heavy and stitched with pain, but she was awake. Really awake. And Blythe was there—perched beside her bed, eyes rimmed red but gentle, fingers already finding hers.
“Umma,” Astrid rasped, the word half-swallowed by the lump in her throat. “I—can you take me to him? Please.”
There wasn’t hesitation. There never was, not with Blythe. Minutes later, the hallway swallowed them whole—linoleum gleaming, the air cold enough to sting. Every turn made her pulse thunder harder. Every door they passed was one that wasn’t his. Until finally, it was.
Blythe’s hands lingered on the wheelchair handles a moment too long when they stopped, and Astrid didn’t have to look up to feel her mother’s heartbreak. Astrid reached for her, touching her arm slightly to let her know it was okay. She didn’t have to stay. Blythe nodded slowly, understanding, then the door clicked shut behind her.
Astrid stared ahead. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.
Silas lay there, pale against the sheets, too still. Tubes coiled from his mouth and chest, the rhythmic hiss of the ventilator keeping time like a cruel metronome. Her hands started trembling before she even reached for him.
“Hey,” she whispered, barely holding her voice together. “You—you did your big brother thing again, huh? You protected me.”
—his voice shouting her name, the flash of Mira’s teeth, the crack of his leg breaking. The way he still looked at her through the pain, hands shaking, signing I love you. The wind carrying her away when she tried to crawl back. Her own scream ripping through the night, swallowed by the rain.
Astrid broke. She leaned forward, pressing her forehead to his hand, the coldness of his skin cutting through her like glass. “You weren’t supposed to do that. Not for me. Not again.”
Her tears hit the sheets in soundless rhythm.
“I should’ve been stronger,” she choked. “I should’ve stopped her.” Her voice cracked, desperate and low. “And now you’re here, and I don’t even know if you can hear me.”
—sirens wailing, her own blood mixing with his on the street. The paramedics’ hands pulling her back, her body feral, fighting to stay beside him. The world spinning as they loaded him into the ambulance. Someone shouting that he wasn’t breathing.
Astrid clutched his hand tighter, like she could anchor him to the world through sheer will. “You don’t get to leave me, Silas,” she whispered fiercely through the tears. “You don’t. You promised we’d make it through this—together. So you fight, okay? Please. Just… fight.”
The monitor beeped steady beside her. Unchanged.
She stayed there anyway, forehead pressed to his palm, whispering his name over and over until her voice gave out—hoping somewhere, beneath all that silence, he could still hear her.