Every Sokeefe Moment Ever

Legacy, Chapter 29

"...you ended up knocked out for three days..."

"Three days?" Sophie wanted time throw off her covers and leap out of bed- but the woolly mammoths weighing her down was having none of it. "How could I lose that much time?"

"It's called almost dying," Edaline said gently.

"Actually, it's called 'Fostering' now," Keefe corrected- and it took Sophie a second to find him smirking at her from her desk, where his notebooks and art supplies were scattered all around Iggy's cage.

Keefe's hair looked as rumpled as his clothes, and Sophie wondered how many hours he'd been there.

Or how many days.

"I swear I haven't been, like, creepily watching you sleep or anything," he promised, probably misunderstanding her mood shift.
[...]
"So you've been here for three days?" Sophie asked, glancing from Keefe to Edaline.

———

She still had to try to sit up- and then regretted it when prickles shot up her arms and down her legs.

Keefe snorted as he rushed over to help. "You listen almost as well as I do, you know that, Foster? Here."

He lifted her gently by the shoulders and eased her into a sitting position, propping her back and arms with extra pillows. "Better?"

She nodded, needing a second to catch her breath. "Definitely wouldn't mind if Elwin and Livvy let me take some pain medicine."

"Yeah. Me neither." He shook his arms as he backed away, and she realized his empathy was making him suffer through everything she was feeling- and she'd just made it worse for him by being stubborn.

———

"I have to be hard on myself," she told him. "I have lots of people counting on me."

"You do. And I get it. But just... don't forget what I said before. The only thing you have to be is Sophie Foster. That's more than enough."

———

"Go home, Keefe. You've been stuck here long enough."

He shook his head, studying her with sleepy eyes. "I'm never stuck with you, Foster. Someday I'm going to make you see that."