EZ knew the look on his brother's face when he and Katie came slowly out of the hospital and inched closer to the bench where Angel and Charlotte were waiting. He was in serious trouble.
"What are you doing?" Angel said, rushing to her. "You need to go back, now."
"I wanted to see Charlotte...and you," she pointed to his side. "How is it?"
"I"m fine," he said with a dismissive scoff. "How are you?" Gently he touched her face, taking in the sight of her conscious and talking, before kissing her. "You scared me."
"I scared myself," she admitted. "But I'm okay." Katie covered her face to hide her overwhelming emotions. "I need to stop crying. This is getting to be embarrassing."
"Mommy!" Charlotte squealed, seeing her mother and Angel, and bolted toward her.
The girl wrapped her arms around her hips and squeezed, far enough away from the injury not to do damage but close enough to cause extreme pain. Katie yelped but did not pull away, she bent over and kissed Charlotte's head while gritting her teeth.
"Hey," Angel gave them a few seconds before interrupting. "Let your mom sit, she's still really...uhh..tired," he said to Charlotte, giving Katie a shrug over his odd choice. He helped Katie back to the bench and glared at his brother. "I gotta talk to the prospect, I'll be right back."
He stomped off and Katie looked at her daughter.
"I'm sorry. I looked for you, I swear, I'm so sorry it took us so long to find you. I'm sorry I sent you away that night, I was just trying to protect you."
Charlotte didn't say a word, she buried her face in her mother's chest and continued to hug her, afraid if she stopped for too long they're be separated yet again.
"Did Angel take good care of you?" Katie asked quietly as she ran her fingers through the child's knotted hair. Charlotte just nodded. "I'm glad. He's a good guy, you can trust him and EZ and Coco. Okay?"
"Okay," she mumbled into her mother's shirt. "Are we going home?"
"I don't know, baby," Katie sighed. "I don't know yet."
While Katie dealt with the harder aspects of her reunion with Charlotte, Angel was laying into his brothers. "Why didn't you keep her there? Why'd you let her leave?"
"I didn't let her," EZ said defensively. "You know Katie, she wanted to be discharged so she got discharged. Nothing was keeping her in that bed. All I did was grab her a clean shirt from the gift shop."
Angel relented, knowing EZ was right and dropped the argument despite still being furious. "What did they say?"
"Told her not to pull the stitches and watch for signs in infection or blood clots," EZ said with a frown.
"Oh, that's it?" Angel huffed. "Imma give her a goddamn blood clot myself." Fully intent on trying to accomplish the impossible, he took his spot on the bench again.
"Kate," he said firmly.
She turned to look at him, Charlotte still in her arms and began to cry again. "Thank you. You found her, you found my girl, and you saved my life, Angel. I can never thank you enough."
His anger and concern washed away as she smiled at him. "You don't have to thank me," he told her.
"I love you," she said, grabbing his hand and intertwining her fingers with his.
Angel's lips turned into a goofy smile. "Love you too, mi dulce" he said as he kissed her lips. "Let's get outta here girls, we got some shit to handle back home."
