the moment he’d awoken, he’d sensed something was off. they hardly ever received visitors, which was why the knock had been so off-putting to the titan. garth untangled his limbs from his sheets, his brows furrowing as he cautiously approached the door. nothing could ever truly prepare him for what stood on the other side.
for a moment garth felt like he’d been flung into a nightmare, had feared that he was paying the price for having stifled his memories of them. the sight her standing there with his son in her arms was like a knife to the heart, and suddenly he felt so numb, so shell shocked. but this was not a nightmare, this was not some fragment of his lost memories coming back to haunt him; this was real and it did nothing to ease that pain growing in his chest. “how?” he asked, already reaching out to grasp the small face of his son between his hands. his throat burned as his other free hand brushed against dolphin’s face. it only confirmed what he’d already figured out, and though the memory of losing them, the grief that’d hit him, it was dulled by the fact that they were okay. they were here, alive and in the flesh. his son was alive. “please,” he said, his words coated with emotion, as he reached out and very gently took cerdian from her. though garth was shaking as he held the small boy in his arms, his lips were pulling into a large smile, tears running down his cheek as he pressed a kiss against cerdian’s head. his gaze shifted to dolphin, confusion still very presently gleaming in his eyes, but he stepped back, allowing her to enter.
Her eyes water as soon as she sees him, and she has the urge to fling herself in his arms and explain everything. She knows he will probably never understand why she chose to hide but that doesn’t matter to her. What matter the most to her is that he knows that truth even if he’ll never trust her again. “Garth,” She whispers when he touches her face. She hands over Cerdian with tears in her eyes, and her guilt only grows. The look in his eyes does not help her feel any better, but she steps into the home anyways. She takes it all in, her eyes looking around before she once again finds Garth’s gaze. “Please don’t look at me like that,” She says weakly. “I thought I was protecting our son,” She explains as she looks at Cerdian. He doesn’t look scared or confused that Garth is holding him, and that at least causes her to smile. At least he has not forgotten who his father is.