I'm floating in darkness that tastes like copper and regret. It would be so easy to stay here, where nothing hurts, where the weight of being Jasmine Johnson—single mother, inappropriate match for a Dickenson, walking disaster—doesn't exist.
But Devon's voice keeps pulling at me, thin as thread but strong as steel cable.
"Mom, please."
Please.
Such a small word to carry so much weight.
The darkness shifts, becomes less comfortable. Pain starts seeping in—sharp, insistent, undeniable. My body remembering it has holes in it that shouldn't be there.
"Her eyes," someone says. Richard? "Look at her eyes."
"Jasmine?" Vlad's voice, desperate and so close. "Love, can you hear me?"
I want to answer, but my body feels disconnected, like I'm operating it remotely with significant lag. My fingers twitch first—barely, but enough.
"She moved!" Devon's voice, high with hope. "Mom moved her fingers!"
"Come on, Jas," Genesis encourages. "You've survived worse than this. Remember when you were nine months pregnant and still working doubles? This is nothing compared to that."
"Squeeze my hand if you can hear us," Vlad instructs, his fingers interlacing with mine.
It takes everything I have, but I manage the slightest pressure.
The room erupts. Devon's crying, Genesis is laughing through tears, and even Leo sounds choked up when he says, "About fucking time. Do you know how much this hospital costs per day?"
"Everyone out," Richard orders. "She needs—"
My eyes open. Just barely, just slits, but enough to see Vlad's face crumple with relief.
"No," I rasp, my voice like sandpaper. "Stay."
"Jasmine." He says my name like a prayer answered. "You scared us."
"Sorry." The word is barely audible. "Didn't mean to... ruin the rehearsal."
"You didn't ruin anything," Leo says, and his nose is definitely broken, purple bruising spreading under both eyes. "You made it memorable. Very on-brand for our family."
"Your nose—"
"Vlad needed to hit something. Better me than a wall." He tries to smile but winces. "Walls don't bruise as aesthetically."
Devon's on the bed now, careful of my injuries but needing contact. "You saved me."
"Always," I manage. "Always save you."
"The men who attacked—Thomas sent them," Vlad explains quietly. "He's been arrested. He won't hurt us again."
"Theodore?"
"Had nothing to do with it, surprisingly. He's still in Switzerland, probably furious that someone else tried to destroy us before he could."
I try to laugh but it turns into a cough that sends fire through my side. Richard's immediately there with pain medication, adjusting my IV with practiced efficiency.
"You need rest," he says firmly. "Real rest, not the half-death thing you've been doing."
"Dramatic," I whisper. "Leo's... rubbing off on me."
"I'm a terrible influence," Leo agrees cheerfully. "Ask anyone."
Helen appears in the doorway, looking haggard but relieved. "May I?"
Vlad moves aside, and my mother takes my face in her hands, studying me like she's memorizing every detail.
"If you ever," she says slowly, "do anything that stupid again, I will kill you myself. Understood?"
"Understood."
"Good." She kisses my forehead. "The wedding is postponed, obviously. Though Leo insists we keep the same date, just push it a year."
"Winter solstice is thematically important," Leo defends.
"Everything's thematic with you," Chase says, entering with coffee for everyone. "Can't we just be happy she's alive without analyzing the narrative structure?"
"Where's the fun in that?"
They bicker gently, the familiar sound washing over me like comfort. This ridiculous, complicated, damaged family that somehow became mine.
"Tired," I admit.
"Sleep," Vlad says. "We'll be here."
"Promise?"
"Forever," he says simply.
I drift, but it's different this time. Not the darkness of before, but actual sleep, with the absolute certainty that when I wake, they'll still be there. My impossible family, my accidental happily ever after that almost wasn't.
Three days later
"Absolutely not," Richard says for the tenth time. "You were stabbed. Twice. You died on the operating table. You're not getting married tomorrow."
"I didn't die," I correct from my hospital bed, which has been decorated by Leo with black roses and silver ribbons because he has no concept of appropriate hospital decor. "I had a cardiac event."
"Your heart stopped for three minutes!"
"Technically, that's not death anymore. Modern medicine has redefined—"
"Jasmine." Richard's exasperated. "You can barely walk."
"I don't need to walk. Vlad can carry me. Very romantic. Leo's already rewritten the ceremony to accommodate."
"Of course he has," Richard mutters.
Vlad enters with Devon and more ridiculous decorations—fairy lights this time.
"Tell her she's being insane," Richard appeals to Vlad.
"She's being insane," Vlad agrees, then continues stringing lights. "But she's also right. We've waited six years. I'm not waiting anymore."
"You're all insane."
"It's genetic," Devon says cheerfully, helping with the lights. "Well, except for Mom. She's insane by choice."
"The best kind of insane," Leo adds, arriving with a garment bag. "Your dress, madam. Slightly altered to accommodate bandages, but still gorgeous."
"How did you—"
"I had a seamstress on standby the moment you got stabbed. I know you, Jasmine. You're too stubborn to let a near-death experience delay your wedding."
Genesis appears with a makeup case. "If we're doing this, we're doing it right. You're not getting married looking like an extra from a medical drama."
"I am literally in a hospital bed."
"And you'll be the most beautiful patient-bride in the history of terrible ideas," she says firmly.
The hospital chapel is tiny, meant for last rites more than marriages, but Leo's transformed it with his usual dramatic flair. Candles everywhere (definitely a fire hazard), black and silver roses, and somehow he's managed to get a string quartet in here.
Patricia and William Blackwood are here, having been convinced by Devon that "real grandparents show up even for weird weddings." Cordelia sits in the front row, looking dignified despite the setting. Helen's crying before anything's even started.
I'm in a wheelchair, which Leo has decorated with ribbons and which Devon insists on pushing. My dress—the one I was supposed to wear to the rehearsal dinner—has been modified with careful precision to hide bandages and accommodate the fact that I can't fully stand.
"Ready?" Devon asks.
"Born ready," I tell him.
"That doesn't even make sense, Mom."
"Nothing about our family makes sense."
The music starts—not Pachelbel's Canon as planned, but something Leo composed specifically for this moment. "Resurrection in D Minor," he calls it, because subtlety is dead to him.
Devon pushes me slowly down the tiny aisle. Vlad waits at the altar, looking devastating in a suit that probably wasn't meant for a hospital wedding but works anyway. His eyes are wet before I even reach him.
"Dearly beloved," the hospital chaplain begins, looking slightly overwhelmed by the decorations and the intensity of emotion in the tiny space. "We are gathered here today to witness something that probably violates several hospital regulations..."
"Skip to the good part," Leo stage-whispers.
The chaplain, flustered, flips pages. "Do you, David Dickenson, take this woman—"
"Yes," Vlad interrupts. "Whatever the question is, yes."
"You're supposed to let him finish," I laugh, then wince as it pulls my stitches.
"Do you, Jasmine Johnson, take this man—"
"Yes. Absolutely yes."
"The rings?"
Devon produces them with the solemnity of someone handling nuclear codes. They're not the elaborate ones Leo designed—those are back at Blackwood. These are simple bands Richard ran out to buy this morning, perfect in their simplicity.
"I now pronounce you—"
Vlad kisses me before the chaplain finishes, careful of my injuries but thorough enough that Leo mutters "Get a room. Preferably not a hospital room."
"Husband and wife," the chaplain finishes weakly.
And just like that, after six years, one child, multiple murder attempts, and a near-death experience, I'm officially a Dickenson.
"How do you feel?" Vlad asks, his forehead against mine.
"Like I got stabbed and then married in a hospital chapel decorated by someone with questionable taste."
"So, perfect?"
"Perfect," I agree.