“Hey, sleepy-head,” Lauren cooed sweetly to her waking fiancé as she leaned over his precious form.  Careful not to nudge him too hard, the young woman couldn’t help but stroke the tip of her index finger along the Beta’s cheek as he reclined rather comfortably in a hospital bed, his broken arm elevated and fitted with a few temporary prosthetics while the regenerative salve worked its medical magic.  As usual, she was in control enough that his head was barely moved by the gesture.

            “Mmm… hi, beautiful,” he mumbled with a relieved smile, hearing a carol being crooned quietly over the ceiling speakers.  “Where… where are your-”

            “Daddy and Millie went to check on Britney in the other wing.  They said they’d be back in a little bit,” Lauren said, trying not to visibly cringe as she glanced at his tiny left arm.  “How do you feel?”

            “Perfect.  Good as new.  In fact, we could probably head outside and toss a ball around later today,” Ian chuckled, coughing again from his own enthusiasm as he glanced along the balcony he was situated on that allowed Alphas access to Beta patients.

            “Hey now, you need to calm down, even with the jokes.  That Dr. Randolph said as long as we give this stuff a full day to work on the first treatment without exciting anything, it’ll only take a few more applications for it to be just fine again,” Lauren scolded gently. She caressed Ian’s cheek again with a different fingertip.

            “I guess it’s been a few hours, huh?”

            “Well, more than that.  You were pretty out of it until they got you warmed up again, and then they knocked you out to work on the arm.  But that’s still no excuse.  You’re getting your rest,” she, waggling a finger at him.  Her eyes darted to a nearby digital clock that read 12:04.  “Actually, that reminds me of something.”

            “What?”

            “Merry Christmas,” she said with a weary smirk.

            “Same to you.”

            “It’s kind of a shame.  You probably won’t be able to use your present until you’re all healed up again,” she sighed.

            “Aw, damn it,” he said with a snap, feigning intense irritation.  “So what is it?”

            Lauren batted her eyelashes coyly and brushed her messy brown locks away from her forehead.  “Really?  You think I’d just tell you before you can open it yourself?  You’re like a kid.”

            “C’mon, give me a break here, they’re not letting me out of this place for another two days.”

            “That’s if things are looking good, but I’m gonna push for longer anyway,” Lauren insisted with resolve.  “And since I’ll be nursing you back to health at home, you’ll be on a strict regime of lying still and letting the medicine do its job.  Got it?”

            “Oh, you spoil-sport, you,” Ian snickered with another awkward cough, and he could see his fiancé flinch again.  “Sorry.  Trying to cut back on the laughing thing.”

            “No, please do.  I’m… glad to see you happy.  I want to be able to keep looking at you like this,” she said.  “I think in some weird way, it’ll… you know, help when we look back on this Christmas a few years from now.”

            “Yeah…” Ian droned, his eyes falling to his lap and away from the comforting gaze he’d shared with the woman of his dreams ever since he’d woken up again.  Of course, she noticed it immediately.

            “What is it?” she demanded in a whisper as she leaned in closer, the fingertip returning to his cheek and sending goose bumps down his spine.  Her long chocolate locks unfurled around him in a swooping canopy.  “What’s wrong?”

            “I… I’m just…”

            “Ian, please.”

            “I’m so sorry,” he uttered, his voice cracking with a sudden depth of pain that Lauren so rarely heard him afflicted with.

            “No.  No, no, no, no,” she rambled in a desperate lullaby, instantly realizing what his grievance was.  She laid her pinky finger atop his good arm, pleading with him to withdraw.  “Don’t you dare do this to yourself.”

            “No, I… I am,” he sighed.  “I was the one who tried to talk you into taking me with you to meet them.  If… if we’d just done it like you wanted-”

            “They’d have still let me know how they felt, and things would’ve turned out the same way, except you wouldn’t have been put in any danger,” Lauren consoled.  She sniffled.  “That much, at least, you have to realize.”

            “Do I?” the Beta croaked.  “Your… mom wouldn’t be going to an Omega for one of their…”

            “Stop it,” Lauren said firmly without raising her voice.  Her warm breath washed gently over the bed, and her eyes began to glisten.  “I’m not going to let you talk like that.  None of this was your fault.  Do you understand me?  None of it.”

            “But-”

            “Do you understand?” she repeated.  “Everything that happened today involving my family was brought on by themselves, and Mom especially.  If anyone’s to blame, it’s me.  If… I hadn’t left you up there, alone, maybe I could’ve-”

            “You couldn’t know what they were going to do,” Ian corrected.  “You did everything you possibly could to get me out of there.  It’s not on you.”

            “Then for God’s sake, don’t put it on yourself, either,” Lauren pleaded as her voice quavered too.  She clasped a hand to the side of her face in distress.  “It’s hard enough already to see you like this without having to worry about what you’re thinking, too.”

            “I… know,” he groaned, his eyes darting to his arm dejectedly.  “I’m working on it.”

            “And Britney.  You know she got off easy,” Lauren said, trying not to snarl for fear of appearing too sour in this loving mood, and she glanced down at her knuckle.  It was still bruised a light purple from earlier; after the redheaded Omega who’d stopped the disaster had lowered her hand so Britney and Ian could be retrieved by the Meyers, once Lauren was safely cradling her fiancé again in her palm, she’d wasted no time in slugging her sister in the face hard enough that Britney’s nose broke.

            “She’ll… be all right,” Ian insisted, knowing Lauren was still confused with his refusal to pursue disciplinary action against the eldest Meyers sister.

            “Ian, please, just… just one more time, I need you to look me in the eye and swear that this isn’t because she forced you to say something to protect herself.  I need you to believe that I’ll never let anything happen to you ever again, and that you’re safe to tell the truth,” Lauren begged, moving in even closer to study the Beta’s face.

            “I swear, it wasn’t like that,” Ian vowed, and he could tell that though she still felt sickened with rage toward her sister, at last Lauren was able to release some of the emotional baggage.  “And that’s the truth.”

            “Okay,” the Alpha sighed with reluctant acceptance.  “Just… tell me, though what happened in there?  The Omega that pulled you out, she said… she said Britney had you in her-”

            “In her mouth, yeah.  We both knew I wouldn’t make it in the water on my own for long, even if she hung onto me.”

            “So she was…” Lauren continued with an uncomfortable swallow, obviously having difficulty processing such a paradox.  “…saving you?”

            “Yes.”

            The Alpha’s lips contorted into a soft “o,” as if she wanted to ask why, but couldn’t get the syllable out.  Finally, she managed: “H-How?”

            A knowing look crossed Ian’s tiny countenance that befuddled his fiancé even further.  “Like I said, she’ll be all right,” he said truthfully.  “I don’t think it’s my place to try to explain it.”

            “I don’t know if I’ll ever find out, then,” Lauren responded dryly.  “Because I’m not sure I’ll even be able to look her in the eye again.”

            “I know,” he said.  “Please, just… give it some time.  Somewhere in there, she wants to try to make it up.  I know she does.  I saw it.”

            “I believe you,” she uttered, shutting her eyes meditatively and pursing her lips.  “Thank you.”

            “Not sure how you can say that.  Look, still, even if it wasn’t all my fault-”

            “-wasn’t at all your fault,” Lauren cut in abruptly.  Her hand scooped underneath the bed and its attached stabilizers and lifted her lover off the balcony closer to her face, as if the proximity would drive her point home more effectively.

            “…r-right,” Ian said with a lumpy swallow.  “But even then, I’m just realizing… I mean, your family kind of got split apart today.  Your home.  Not even this fancy healing goop can fix that.”

            Lauren bit the corner of her mouth and nodded, then leaned in closer until her lips were poised over Ian’s head.  She dipped an inch lower and planted a kiss on the side of his face, and it made him feel far warmer than anything medical science was capable of inflicting on him.

            “I know it won’t be fixed overnight.  There’ll still be tough times ahead.  But that’s okay,” she admitted.

            “How?”

            “Because you’re my home now,” she whispered tenderly as her fingertip returned to his hand.  It was as though an electric current was running through both of them in tandem, allowing them to see things through the same eyes.  Her engagement ring gem glistened under the dim fluorescence of the cozy room.

            “You’re mine, too,” Ian said with a gentle smile, soothed for the time being and confident that he was safer than he’d ever been in his entire life.  “The only one I’ve ever had.”

            “And the only one you’ll ever need,” Lauren promised.