MMORPG : Ancient WORLD

Chapter 691: Father is Alive

The front door opened with the noise of bags rustling, voices overlapping, Sophia saying something that made Saahira laugh before they had even fully stepped inside.

Two hours had passed since the brothers had been left alone, and to anyone walking in now, it would have looked very much like nothing had happened in that time at all. The three of them were exactly where they had been left, settled into the sofa with the comfortable stillness of men who had nowhere better to be.

"Big Brothers. You are all just... sitting here?" Sophia’s voice carried the specific disbelief of someone who had expected to find no one. "For two hours?"

"We were waiting for you," Venedikt said simply.

Kathleen set her bags down and gave them the look, narrowed eyes that scanned the surroundings, expecting something. "Waiting for us to do what, exactly?"

"We were thinking of giving a proper welcome home surprise," Venedikt said, perfectly composed.

Andrei let the silence sit for exactly one beat too long before adding, "The surprise was us. Sitting here. Looking this good. You are welcome."

Saahira pressed her lips together. Sophia just pouted, all her excitement washing away.

The bags found their way to the kitchen, coats came off, and the room rearranged itself back into the shape of an afternoon together. Kathleen and Lady Irina gravitated toward the larger sofa, Sophia dropping herself into her usual spot on the couch, Saahira settling beside Andrei with a worry in her eyes that was all too clear.

It was Andrei who spoke first, his voice carrying the careful lightness of someone who had been building toward something and had decided, finally, to simply say it.

"Actually," he said, glancing sideways at Saahira, "There was something we wanted to tell you."

The room shifted without anyone moving. Lady Irina’s eyes went to her son’s face immediately, reading it the way she always had.

"Saahira and I," Andrei said, and then paused not for effect, but because the words, when they actually arrived, carried more weight than he had anticipated. "We have decided to stop putting it off. We are going to get married as quickly as possible."

The silence lasted approximately one second.

Lady Irina’s hand came up to cover her mouth, and her eyes, steady and warm, filled immediately. The tears came before she could do anything about them, quiet and complete.

Kathleen made a sound that was somewhere between a gasp and a laugh and reached for her friend’s hand without looking.

Sophia shot upright with an open mouth, her small eyes turning between the couple.

Saahira’s smile was soft and a little overwhelmed, her eyes bright, caught between the warmth of the moment and the emotion she tried to hold back.

Andrei watched his mother’s tears begin to fall and felt something shift in his chest, something warm and enormous and, beneath it, something he had not entirely prepared for. He turned to Saahira with an expression that was doing its best to remain composed and failing in the most transparent way possible.

"Plan’s cancelled," he said, his voice completely serious. "Mother doesn’t like it. We are calling it off."

"Andrei..." Saahira laughed despite herself.

"Those are happy tears, you big softie," Sophia shrieked, almost in agitation.

Lady Irina left her seat, stopped before Andrei, pulled his face up toward her with both hands, and kissed his forehead, and whatever composure Andrei had been performing quietly dissolved around the edges.

The room found its warmth again, conversation breaking open, Kathleen already asking questions, Sophia demanding to know everything about when the marriage was decided, Saahira fielding it all with the graceful patience that had always made her so well received by their family.

When the laughter had settled into something softer, Andrei leaned back and looked at his mother with the expression he reserved for moments when he was about to say something that mattered but wanted it to land gently.

"Mother," he said, "on a celebratory moment like this, if you could ask for something, anything, what would it be?"

Lady Irina considered this with the seriousness it deserved. Then a small smile moved across her face.

"Two things, actually," she said, looking at her eldest, "Venedikt finding a beautiful wife. Someone as wonderful as our Saahira." Her eyes moved back to Andrei. "And you two making me a grandmother, quickly."

"The two of you live inside that Ancient World and come out to show me your faces for a single day before vanishing back into it." Her slender hand found Saahira’s cheek, cupping it gently. "You two are as sweet together as anything I’ve ever seen. So give me a grandchild to keep me company."

She glanced sideways at Kathleen.

"Keep us company," she corrected.

"Alex," Kathleen said, turning toward him with an icy look, "You can’t let the youngest of the three beat you to it. You need to find yourself a wife."

Something moved behind Alex’s eyes, clear, unmistakable, gone again before it had fully arrived. He smiled, easy and unhurried.

He said nothing.

Andrei watched him for just a moment, then looked back at his mother.

"I thought..." he started, his voice carrying the careful ease of someone navigating ground they had measured in advance, "that you might ask for something else. Something like..." He paused, as if the thought had only just occurred to him. "I don’t know. Something along the lines of wishing Father could have been here for this."

What none of the ladies knew was that the conversation that had filled the last thirty minutes before the door opened had been anything but quiet.

Venedikt had wanted to go directly to his mother. Sit her down, tell her the truth plainly that their father was alive, that his life could be restored, that the choice of what came next belonged, in part, to her. That was Venedikt’s way. Clean, direct, and unburdened by the fear of how the truth would land.

Andrei had refused.

He didn’t want to hand their mother the full weight of it and then stand there while she decided under pressure. He wanted to know first, quietly, carefully, through a door she didn’t know she was walking through, whether she even had room for that future.

Whether she wanted it, because if she didn’t, the rest didn’t matter, and he refused to put her through the grief of knowing and choosing and perhaps losing something she had already made peace with losing.

They had argued about it for the better part of half an hour.

Alex, who could see the merit in both positions and the flaw in neither, had eventually taken Andrei’s side, not because he believed it was more right, but because someone had to, and because he understood, perhaps better than either of them, that Venedikt wanted the same thing Andrei did.

He just had a different idea of how to get there. Someone had to play the difficult angle. Alex had quietly volunteered.

And so here they were. Andrei, halfway through a plan that had sounded considerably more elegant inside his own head, was watching his mother’s expression shift at his question.

Lady Irina was quiet for a moment.

Then she smiled, not the bright, warm smile of the celebration still sitting in the room, but something older and quieter. The smile of a woman who had spent a long time with a particular grief and had learned, eventually, how to wear it without being worn by it.

"He is not with us anymore," she said simply. "And wishing for impossible things only leads to grief."

Andrei held her gaze.

"If Father..." he stopped. Adjusted. "If he could come back... hypothetically... would you... I mean, it’s been more than fifteen years, and you never remarried. Would you welcome him back into your life?" The shift in the room was immediate and total.

Saahira went still beside him. Sophia looked confused. Kathleen’s expression moved into something careful and attentive, her eyes moving between Andrei and Lady Irina with the quiet alertness of a woman who had just understood that this conversation had more to it than was being said openly.

"Why are you asking me this?" Lady Irina said. Her voice was not sharp, but it had changed, something underneath it tightening, her eyes reading her son’s face with the focus of a woman who had always known when her children were circling something they didn’t know how to say. "And what is this strange behavior today... all three of you have been acting strange."

"Is there something I need to know?" She questioned, now firmly, her eyes leaving Andrei and settling on Alex.

Andrei looked at Venedikt.

Venedikt looked back at him with the expression of a man who had suggested a different plan and was content to let this one reach its natural conclusion.

Andrei looked at Alex, who raised an eyebrow, almost imperceptible, in a way that said very clearly, this was your idea.

Andrei laughed, a short, slightly helpless sound.

"In my head," he said, "I had a plan. It made complete sense in my head." He exhaled. "It only seems to have worked there."

The tension in the room held for one more breath. Then Lady Irina’s expression softened, and she looked at her son for a long moment, realizing she had gotten the wrong impression.

"It doesn’t matter now," she said quietly. "But since you’re asking." She folded her hands in her lap.

"By grace of God, all his dignity has returned to us, and the same way, if Slavik could come back to us," her voice was steady, careful, each word chosen, "I would welcome him back with open arms." A pause. "I only ever loved your father, and I promised to stay true to him for my entire life, and I meant it."

No one spoke.

"When he left, you two were all I had," she continued, her eyes on Andrei, "and that was my life. And now, that I no longer carry the worry of your futures, I did think, sometimes, of moving on. A companion in life matters. But I realized," a small breath, "I am content. I don’t need anything more than what I have."

Her eyes brightened again, the warmth returning to them, refusing to let the moment stay heavy.

"A few grandchildren are still part of that future happiness, of course," She added, the brightness returning to her eyes as she leaned into his side and wrapped both hands around his. "So perhaps work on that for your next surprise."

Andrei was quiet for a moment, the warmth of the room still sitting in the air around them.

Then, he drew a deep breath, calmly placed his hand atop his mother’s hand as gently as he could, and then, almost to himself, so soft it barely carried any volume, he spoke.

"Father is alive."