When Kiara said she wanted to go to her mother's house first, Donato didn't argue. It hurt--there was no pretending it didn't, some part of him having quietly hoped that finding her would mean bringing her straight home, back into the Romano mansion, back to the family that had been aching for her for five years.

But he understood, too, that her family in India had their own five years of grief to close, their own right to see her again before anything else happened. And more than the hurt, there was relief simply in the fact that she wanted to go at all that she'd chosen to move forward instead of staying frozen in Scanno.

Kiara had told him he didn't need to come with her, that she could manage the trip to her parents' house alone if he just gave her the details. Donato refused outright. Wherever she was going, he was going too. He wasn't about to let five years of searching end with her walking away from him again, even briefly, even for good reason.

So today was the day. Kiara was finally leaving Scanno.

She'd told Aria the news the evening before, and to everyone's relief, Aria had taken it well better than well, actually. The idea of going somewhere new, somewhere with lots of people and a big house, had her practically vibrating with questions, most of them aimed squarely at her father, who patiently answered every single one about the house, the family, whether there'd be other kids to play with.

She'd gone around the village the day before saying her goodbyes properly, informing everyone that her dad had come back and was taking her and her mama to live somewhere bigger, further away, but that she'd come back to visit everyone, because that's what her mama had told her, and she repeated it to anyone who'd listen.

That morning, Donato and Kiara had walked her to school one last time so she could say goodbye to her teacher and her new friends, Aria proudly introducing her father to Miss Carla and to Theo and Mira, making sure everyone understood exactly who this man was.

Back at the house, they spent the rest of the morning packing. Aria had reassured the old couple several times over the past day that she would miss them terribly, at one point seriously suggesting they just come along too, since her dad apparently had a very big house with plenty of room. The old woman had laughed and hugged her, telling her gently that they'd visit whenever they could, that this wasn't a real goodbye.

Enzo had already left the day before, headed back to handle things at home. This evening, Kiara, Donato, and Aria had a flight booked for India. That morning, for the first time in five years, Donato called Ayush.

To his surprise, Ayush picked up on the very first ring, almost like he'd been holding the phone, waiting for something. Donato told him everything that he'd found Kiara, that she was alive, that they were coming to India.

Ayush didn't say anything for a long moment. Then his voice broke completely on the other end. He'd never fully believed Kiara was dead, not the way everyone else had settled into believing it. He knew, somewhere, that Donato had never stopped searching either, though nobody in either family had said as much out loud in years.

Both the Rajputs and the Romanos had quietly accepted her death as fact, and nobody had tried to stop Donato from his search not because they believed in it, but because none of them had the heart to take that hope away from him if it was all he had left.

Hearing it confirmed now, after everything, broke something open in Ayush that he hadn't expected. He cried on the phone, unable to hold it together, and through it he told Donato to come as soon as possible that the Rajputs were waiting, that nothing else mattered right now except getting her home.

Donato called the Romanos next. Elana already knew, of course Enzo had told her. But when Donato told Aravi, his own mother, that Kiara was found, alive, and that she was going to India first before coming to Italy, Aravi broke down completely on the call. She was overjoyed that Kiara was alive, and devastated in the same breath that her daughter-in-law wouldn't be coming home to them first, that there'd be more waiting before she could hold her again.

Aravi promised she'd visit India soon, unable to wait much longer than she already had. Once Donato ended the call, he saw Aria bouncing toward him across the room, already talking before she'd fully arrived.

"Daddy." She reached up, and he scooped her onto his hip.

"Yes, baby?"

"Will there be a grandma and grandpa there too?"

"Yes, baby. There you have grandpa and granny your mama's grandparents. And then you also have another grandma and grandpa, back in the city where Daddy lives. They'll come to meet you soon too."

Her eyes went round. "Wow. Aria has a lot of grandmas and grandpas."

"You do." He smiled, tapping her nose lightly. "And two cousins. One of them's a little older than you. And a lot of aunts and uncles too."

"Aria has a big family there?" she asked, delighted.

"A very big family," he confirmed.

He paused, studying her face for a second. "Are you happy, baby? About going to meet them?"

"Yes, Daddy. Aria is happy."

"That's my princess." He kissed her cheek, and she giggled and kissed him right back, sloppy and enthusiastic, before wriggling slightly like she'd suddenly remembered something.

"Is your mama ready, baby?" he asked.

Her hand flew to her forehead in a gesture she'd clearly picked up from somewhere. "Oh! I forgot why I came to find you." She composed herself. "Mama said to ask you when we're leaving. She's ready, she just went to see her friends before we go."

"Go tell your mama we'll leave in an hour. She's got time to say her goodbyes." He set her down, and she took off running, shouting "Okay, Daddy!" over her shoulder as she went, her little sandals slapping against the floor.

Donato watched her go, smiling until she disappeared around the corner, and then the smile slowly faded from his face.

He understood exactly why Kiara had chosen India over Italy first. She hadn't said it outright--she hadn't needed to. He'd seen it in her eyes while he was telling her everything on that bench in the garden, something that went past hurt into something closer to quiet anger, carefully contained but unmistakably there.

She hadn't raged at him, hadn't thrown accusations, hadn't done any of the things he might have almost preferred, because at least then there'd be somewhere for the anger to go. Instead she'd just listened, absorbed it all, and decided, without saying so directly, that she wasn't ready to walk into the house full of people who'd failed her the way his family had.

He didn't blame her for it. If anything, some part of him respected that she hadn't pretended it was easy, hadn't forced herself into forgiveness before she was ready to actually feel it.

He just hoped, quietly, selfishly, that somewhere between here and there, she'd find a way back to him. That whatever she needed to work through in India, whatever time it took, she'd eventually come home and let him spend the rest of his life making up for everything he hadn't done right the first time.

For now, all he could do was give her that time, and hold onto every small, uncomplicated moment his daughter handed him freely in the meantime the kisses, the giggles, the easy trust of a four-year-old who hadn't yet learned to withhold any of it.

Donato believed she would forgive him eventually. What he didn't fully understand yet was that the woman standing in front of him now wasn't the same Kiara from five years ago.

If she'd still been that Kiara, she might have forgiven all of them right then, on that bench, and been ready to leave for Italy with him the same evening. But this Kiara was different. She'd learned, somewhere in the years she couldn't remember living, how to love herself first. Self-respect mattered to her now in a way it hadn't before.

She didn't hand out forgiveness easily anymore. The only person whose mistakes she could forgive without hesitation was her daughter Aria was the one exception, the one person whose every fault she'd excuse without a second thought. But everyone else, whether it was her own parents or her husband, operated under a different rule entirely.

Anyone who wronged her, she simply cut away from her life. Forgetting and forgiving didn't come as naturally to her as it once had. This version of Kiara wasn't obsessed with Donato Romano the way the old one apparently had been. Yes, her memory was gone.

But she understood something clearly even without it whatever came back to her once her memory returned, it wouldn't erase who she'd become in the meantime. She wouldn't simply forget her present self the moment her past self resurfaced. She would stay exactly who she was now, because she liked this version of herself. Strong. Independent.

Not someone who needed to be weak in front of a man who hadn't even given her the chance to speak once, five years ago.

Something would change once her memory returned, she knew that much. Whatever love had lived in her heart for Donato before would come back too, and maybe it would come back even stronger than it had been. She didn't doubt that part.

But forgetting what had happened wasn't going to be simple, and this Kiara knew it. Everything that had been done to her five years ago had been wrong. She wasn't blind to her own part in it she could admit, even without remembering the details firsthand, that she'd made mistakes of her own back then.

But what her own family had done to her in return never giving her the chance to explain herself, never once asking her side before deciding what she was that was what had led her into a psychiatric hospital. That was what had led to the accident.

That was what had led her here, to Scanno, raising a daughter alone under a name that wasn't even hers. And underneath all of it sat one thought that frightened her more than any other. that somewhere in the middle of everything that had happened, her daughter could have been hurt too. Could have been lost before she'd even had the chance to exist properly in the world.

So somewhere, quietly, she placed the blame exactly where she felt it belonged. If Donato and his family had listened to her even once, if they'd given her a single chance to explain herself, none of this would have happened. She wouldn't have spent five years living as a stranger to her own life.

Her daughter wouldn't have grown up without a father, without any of the family waiting on the other side of a country she'd never known she came from. That was why forgetting all of it, forgiving all of it, wasn't going to be easy for her. Not the way it might have been for the woman she used to be.

_____

Half an hour later, Kiara returned from her rounds of goodbyes a handful of neighbors, a few of the women from the market who'd known her for years, the friends who'd hugged her a little too long and made her promise to call. Her packing was already finished. All that was left was to change Aria's dress before they left for the airport.

When she walked in, she found Donato sitting alone in the living room, and something about that struck her as odd. These past few days, wherever Donato had been, Aria had been glued to his side. Seeing him alone was almost unsettling.

"Mr. Donato." She walked over. "Where's Aria?"

He'd been on his phone, but he looked up at the sound of her voice and went instantly, helplessly still, staring at her like he'd forgotten how to do anything else. Kiara stood there in the doorway, sunlight catching the sharp brown of her eyes, and something in his chest simply gave up trying to function normally.

She waved a hand in front of his face. "Mr. Donato." A little louder this time.

He blinked back into himself. "Hm? What?"

"I asked where Aria is." She said it slower this time with red cheekh, amused despite herself .

"Oh--Aria. She's with the old couple, in the kitchen. They closed the cafe for the day and came over."

"Oh, okay." She lingered a second, watching him still smiling faintly at her like he hadn't fully returned from wherever his mind had gone, then shook her head and walked toward the kitchen. She stopped dead in the doorway.

Aria was perched on the kitchen counter, flour dusted across her cheeks, her hair, the front of her dress practically everywhere except, somehow, her hands, which were currently deep in a bowl of dough. The old woman stood beside her guiding her hands, and the old man was dusting flour off a tray nearby, equally covered.

"Oh my god." Kiara pressed a hand to her mouth, half-laughing. "What in the world are you three doing?"

All three of them turned toward her at exactly the same moment, wearing nearly identical guilty expressions and all three of them, she noticed, had flour smudged across their faces in a pattern that made it very clear who was responsible. Small, unmistakable handprints.

"We're making cookies," the old woman announced proudly, as if this explained everything, "for Aria to take with her. So she can share them with her new family."

"Grandma said mama's family should get to taste Grandma's cookies too," Aria added solemnly, both hands still buried in the dough, entirely unbothered by the flour coating half her face. "So they know Grandma makes the best cookies in the whole world."

"The whole world," the old man confirmed, deadpan, wiping flour from his glasses.

Kiara leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, fighting a smile. "And why does Aria look like she rolled around in the flour instead of using it?"

"Because Aria was helping," Aria said, like the answer was obvious. She lifted one dough-covered hand and examined it critically. "Grandma said cookies need love. So Aria put lots of love in. Maybe too much love, that's why it's everywhere."

The old woman burst out laughing, patting Aria's flour-streaked hair, which only spread more of it. "Mama." Aria looked up suddenly, entirely serious. "Do cookies have feelings?"

Kiara blinked. "What?"

"Like, if I make them with love, do they feel happy? Or is that only for people?"

"I- Kiara opened her mouth, closed it, glanced at the old woman for help. The old woman just shrugged grinning clearly enjoying watching Kiara try to navigate this one.

"I think," Kiara said slowly, "cookies probably don't have feelings. But the people eating them do. So when you make them with love, the people who eat them feel it. That's probably what Grandma means."

Aria considered this with the gravity of a philosopher. "So if I'm sad while making cookies, does everyone who eats them get sad too?"

"Let's hope you weren't sad while making these," the old man said, eyeing the tray warily.

"No, Aria's happy!" She beamed, flour falling from her eyebrows as she did. "Aria's going to meet her whole family today. That's why there's so much love in these ones."

Kiara's chest tightened at that, something warm and aching at once, and she crossed the kitchen to press a kiss to the top of her daughter's flour-dusted head, not caring that some of it transferred straight onto her lips.

"Mama, do bees like flour?" Aria asked next, apropos of absolutely nothing, watching a fly circle near the window.

"I don't think so baby."

"Then why is that one flying near it?"

"That's not a bee, sweetheart. That's a fly."

"Oh." Aria considered the fly for a moment entirely unbothered by the correction. "Does the fly have a family too?"

"I'm sure it does."

"Is his family going to India too?"

The old man snorted into the tray of cookies he was pulling out of the oven, and the old woman had to set down her spoon entirely, laughing too hard to keep working. Kiara just shook her head, smiling helplessly, and reached for a rag to start the long process of cleaning flour off her daughter before they had any hope of getting her into a fresh dress for the flight.

Donato came in just then, clearing his throat to announce himself, and every head in the kitchen turned toward him at once. Before anyone could stop her, Aria practically launched herself off the counter and ran straight at him, arms wide, and crashed into his legs with the enthusiasm of someone who hadn't seen him in days rather than minutes.

By the time Kiara opened her mouth to warn him, the damage was already done flour transferred in full from Aria's hands and dress directly onto his shirt two perfect little handprints on either side of his stomach and a general dusting everywhere else.

Aria looked down at what she'd done and slapped her own floury palm to her forehead, leaving a fresh smudge there too. "Oh no." She looked genuinely stricken. "Aria forgot she has flour on her dress. Sorry, Daddy, Aria made you dirty." Then without hesitation she reached up and grabbed his ear. Not her own. His.

Donato froze, bewildered, unsure what exactly was happening to the side of his head, and looked over at Kiara for some kind of explanation. She was already laughing, one hand pressed over her mouth clearly familiar with whatever this was.

"It's an old habit of hers," she said, still fighting a smile. "One of our neighbor aunties told her once that when you say sorry, you're supposed to hold your ear. Aria took that very literally except she holds the other person's ear, not her own. She's done it that way since she was two nobody's managed to correct it."

Donato burst out laughing, the sound loud enough that it startled a small giggle out of Aria too still gripping his ear like it was the most natural apology in the world. "Isn't that right, my little troublemaker?" He wrapped his arms around her properly this time flour and all and pressed a kiss to her floury cheek without a second thought.

"Da-Daddy, dont Aria have flour on her cheek too" she giggled, wriggling in his hold.

"Daddy doesn't care about that." He kissed the other cheek for good measure.

Kiara watched the whole exchange with something soft settling behind her eyes. Whatever else remained uncertain, whatever anger still sat coiled in her chest toward this man, one thing had already become undeniable in these past few days he loved her daughter. Completely, without hesitation, without a single trace of performance in it. That much, at least, she didn't need her memory to confirm. She already knew this man would never hurt Aria.

"Kiara." Donato's voice broke through her thoughts.

"Hm?" She blinked back into focus.

"It's getting close to time. You should get Aria dressed properly, and I'll go change too. We should leave in about fifteen minutes."

"Oh-- okay." She glanced toward the old couple a sudden heaviness pressing behind her eyes at the thought of the goodbye waiting just beyond this moment. They both smiled at her waving her off gently. "Go on, get her changed, help your husband get ready. We've got the cookies we just need to box them up."

Kiara nodded and followed the father-daughter pair out of the kitchen. In their room, she peeled the flour-dusted dress off Aria, who wriggled and giggled the whole time about how itchy the dried flour felt against her skin, and hung the dress over the back of a chair to air out rather than packing it straight into the suitcase.

"We're not taking that one?" Aria asked watching her mother smooth it out on the chair.

"No, baby. We're going to leave a few of our things here too." Kiara crouched down to her level. "That way, Grany and Grandpa won't feel like we've taken everything with us. If some of our things are still here, it means we'll definitely come back--maybe once every year to visit and spend time with them."

Aria's whole face lit up at the idea. "Ooh, Mama, Aria likes this idea!"

Before Kiara could say anything else, Aria had already scrambled off the bed and dashed toward the small shelf where her toys lived, digging through them with great purpose until she found the one she wanted the stuffed rabbit missing one ear, the very first toy the old woman had ever given her.

She carried it carefully back to the little table by the window and set it down like she was placing something sacred. "Let's leave Bunny here," she announced. "So Grany can see him every day and miss Aria a little bit, and then Aria will know Grandma's thinking about her, and it won't feel so far away."

Kiara's throat tightened at that-- the simple, unteachable logic of a child figuring out, on her own, how to make distance feel smaller. "That's a beautiful idea, baby," she said softly, and pulled her into a hug before either of them could start crying over a stuffed rabbit missing one ear.

_____

After getting ready they stepped outside with their luggage, everything finally packed and loaded into the car. Donato came out last, having changed into a fresh shirt, and set the final bag down near the trunk. The afternoon light had shifted into early evening, warm and golden across the small courtyard where the old couple stood waiting by the door.

Aria reached them first, throwing her arms around the old woman's legs before anyone else had even said a word. "Granny." Her voice already wobbled. "Aria doesn't want to go anymore."

"Oh, sweetheart." The old woman crouched down despite her knees clearly protesting the movement, and pulled Aria into a proper hug. "Yes, you do. You want to go meet your whole family, remember? All your grandmas and grandpas and cousins."

"But then who's going to help you with the coffee machine?" Aria pulled back, genuinely troubled by this logistical gap. "Grandpa can't do it alone."

The old man let out a short laugh, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand before it could turn into anything more. "I managed for many years before you came along, little one. I'll manage."

"But not as good as with Aria," she said solemnly.

"No," he agreed, voice cracking slightly. "Not as good as with you."

Kiara stepped forward next, and the old woman rose to meet her, both of them falling into a hug before either could say anything. For a long moment neither spoke, just held on, five years compressed into the silence between them.

"Thank you," Kiara finally managed, voice thick. "For everything. For finding me. For keeping me. For loving me like I was actually yours, when you had no reason to."

"You were ours," the old woman said fiercely, pulling back to hold Kiara's face in both hands. "You still are. Distance doesn't change that, do you understand me?" Kiara nodded, unable to speak past the lump in her throat.

"You will call us," the old man said, stepping in, his voice rough. "Every week. I don't care how busy the new life gets, you call, you let us hear that girl voice-- he nodded toward Aria--and yours too. And you come back. Not just for a visit here and there. You come back and stay a while, let us spoil her properly, let us see how much she's grown."

"I promise," Kiara said. "i will call you. And we'll come back every year, at least. I already told Aria some of our things are staying here, so it never feels like we really left." The old woman's eyes filled again at that, and she pulled Kiara into one more hug, shorter this time, steadying herself.

Donato stepped forward then, and the old man turned to him, extending a hand, which Donato ignored in favor of pulling him into an embrace instead.

"Take care of them," the old man said quietly, gripping his shoulder. "Both of them. I don't know everything that happened before, and it's not my place to ask. But I've watched you these past few days, and I believe you'll do right by them now. Don't make me regret trusting that."

"I won't," Donato said, and meant it with everything in him. "I promise you that. And thank you-- for keeping her safe when I couldn't. For raising Aria into someone this bright, this loved. I'll never be able to repay that."

"You can repay it," the old woman said, wiping her own eyes now, "by bringing them back to visit an old woman who's going to miss that little girl noise around this house more than she'll ever admit."

Aria, catching the tail end of that, ran back to hug her one final time. "Aria will call every single day," she declared. "Maybe even two times a day."

"Once a week is plenty, little one," the old man said, laughing despite the tears still sitting in his eyes.

"Okay, fine. Once a week. But a long call."

"A very long call," he agreed.

They lingered a few minutes more, nobody quite ready to be the one to end it, until finally Donato gently ushered them toward the car, mindful of the time. Aria waved out the back window the entire way down the road, both hands going until the house disappeared from view, the old couple standing in the doorway, waving back, until there was nothing left to see but the empty road and the quiet courtyard behind them.

_____

They all made their way to the airport, where one of Donato's men took the car back to the city. Once through security, they settled into their seats for the flight to India, the long stretch of hours ahead of them.

Aria was thrilled the moment the plane lifted off, pressed against the window on her father's lap, watching the clouds slide past with wide, delighted eyes. It was her first time flying, and she treated it accordingly with the seriousness of someone witnessing a genuine miracle. "Daddy, are we higher than the birds now?"

"Higher than most of them, yeah."

"When we go back to Scanno, will we fly like this again? Just like this, in the sky?"

"Just like this," he promised, pointing out a small bird gliding somewhere below the wing to distract her when her questions started circling back toward the goodbye she was still processing.

Beside them, Kiara sat quietly, watching the exchange with a soft tired smile though something distant sat behind her eyes the whole time nerves, sadness, the two tangled together in a way she couldn't quite separate.

An hour in, she got Aria fed, and the two of them ate as well, and eventually the excitement of the flight wore Aria down enough that she drifted off against Donato's chest, one small hand still curled into the fabric of his shirt.

That was when Kiara finally asked the question sitting in her chest since takeoff. "Did you tell them? In India. That I'm coming back."

"I did." Donato kept his voice low, careful not to wake Aria. "Everyone knows. They're all waiting for you. Are you nervous?" he asked, watching her face. She nodded, hesitant, honest about it for once.

He hesitated himself before asking, quiet. "Can I hold your hand?" She thought about it a moment then nodded and he took her hand gently turning it over and pressing a soft kiss to the back of it before she'd even registered the movement.

Her eyes went wide, a flush of crimson climbing fast up her neck. "I only said you could hold it," she muttered looking away flustered. "You don't need to be nervous" he said softly ignoring her protest with a small smile. "They're your family."

She nodded again, quieter this time, and eventually, somewhere in the hours that followed both of them drifted off too her hand still resting in his. When they woke the plane was already beginning its descent into India.

They came out through the arrivals gate, Aria wide awake now and buzzing with energy, chattering about the landing, about how her ears had popped, about wanting to know if everyone here spoke the same way she did. Then she saw them.

A small crowd waited just past the barrier her mother's father, and beside him, three men who could only be brothers, all three of them straining forward the second Kiara came into view. And before anyone could say a word, one of the younger men broke from the group entirely and ran.

He reached Kiara in seconds and pulled her into a hug so tight it nearly lifted her off her feet, and immediately, without warning, he was crying openly, loudly, gripping her like he was afraid she'd disappear the moment he let go.

Aria froze at the sight of it, startled, and ducked half behind Donato's leg, peering out with wide, uncertain eyes. She didn't understand why this stranger was crying while hugging her mama, why nobody was stopping him, why her mama wasn't pulling away.

Kiara, for her part, hugged him back just as fiercely. She didn't remember him not really, not in any way her mind could name but she'd seen his face in Donato's photos, knew instantly this was Krish, her brother, and something deeper than memory stirred awake in her chest the moment his arms closed around her. Her body seemed to know him even where her mind came up empty, some old, wordless recognition settling into her bones.

Her own eyes filled without permission, tears slipping free before she could stop them. "Why" Krish's voice broke apart against her shoulder, thick with five years of grief finally breaking loose all at once. "Why did you leave me like that. Why. Do you have any idea-He couldn't finish it, just held on tighter, and Kiara closed her eyes and let herself be held by a brother she couldn't remember loving but somehow, impossibly, already did.

Krish loosened his grip though he didn't let go entirely, keeping one hand fixed on Kiara's shoulder like he needed the physical contact to keep believing this was real. Behind him, her father had already started moving, unable to wait his turn any longer.

He reached her, and for a moment neither of them said anything at all. He just looked at her really looked, the way a man looks at something he'd spent five years believing he'd lost forever and his composure, which had clearly been holding by a thread since they'd spotted her at the gate, finally gave out.

"Kiara." Her name came out of him broken, barely more than breath. He pulled her into his arms, careful in a way Krish hadn't been, like some part of him was still afraid she might be fragile, might vanish if he held her too hard. "My girl, you're here."

Kiara held onto him, tears slipping freely now, and the second his arms closed around her, something shifted. It came without warning a flash, sudden and vivid, cutting through the dark where her memories should have been. Herself, younger, standing in a doorway, this same man in front of her, saying goodbye.

She could feel the weight of it even without understanding the context, some deep ache of leaving, of promising to come back, of a hug held a beat too long because neither of them wanted to be the one to end it first.

It was gone as fast as it came, but it left something behind a certainty, quiet and undeniable, settling into her chest. This has happened before. I've said goodbye to him before, exactly like this. Her breath caught, and her father pulled back slightly, noticing something shift in her expression.

"Kiara? What's wrong?"

"Nothing." She pressed a hand briefly to her temple, shaking her head slightly. "I just-- I think I saw something. A memory maybe. Just for a second." She looked up at him, something both frightened and hopeful in her eyes. "I think it's starting to come back."

Her father's face broke completely at that, hope and grief tangled together, and he pulled her back in, holding on like he didn't trust himself to speak just yet.

Ayush reached her next, quieter than Krish had been more restrained though his eyes were just as wet. He didn't say much just wrapped his arms around her and held on then arav come and hug her tear flwoing from his eyes he murmuring something too low for anyone else to catch some private apology or prayer only the two of them would ever know the shape of.

When he finally stepped back, his eyes moved past her, to where Donato stood a little apart, holding Aria's hand. His gaze went from Donato, to the small girl beside him, and back again.

Donato had told ayush, over the phone, that Kiara had a daughter. He'd said the words himself, days ago, tried to prepare everyone for what they'd be walking into at this airport. But hearing it and seeing her--actually seeing her, standing there in a bright yellow dress with those unmistakable green eyes landed entirely differently than the phone call had.

"This is- Ayush's voice caught. He crouched down slowly, like he was approaching something he didn't want to frighten off. "Is this my nice?" Aria, uncertain in the face of so many strangers crying and hugging her mother, pressed herself slightly against Donato's leg, watching this new man with wary curiosity.

Kiara crouched down beside her. "Baby, this is your uncle Ayush. and there is krish and arav auncle And that's your grandfather." She pointed gently. "They're my family, Aria. Your family too."

That was all it took. Aria's whole posture shifted, the wariness dissolving in an instant, replaced by the same immediate warmth she'd shown every stranger she'd introduced herself to in Scanno.

"Hi, I'm Aria," she announced, extending a hand toward Ayush with the same formal seriousness she'd offered Enzo days earlier. "I have green eyes. Like my daddy."

Ayush let out a wet laugh, taking her small hand in his. "You certainly do. It's very nice to meet you, Aria."

"Are you my mama's brother? Like a real brother?"

"I am."

"Then you're my uncle for real." She said it like she was confirming a fact for her own records. Then, glancing toward her grandfather: "And you're my grandpa? Aria already has one grandpa in Scanno, and one in the city where Daddy lives. Now Aria has three grandpas."

Her grandfather, still visibly overwhelmed, laughed despite the tears still on his face and reached out to gently touch her cheek. "Three grandpas, and every single one of them is going to spoil you rotten, I imagine."

"That's what Daddy said too," Aria said, delighted clearly considering this an excellent development.

Krish, recovering some of his usual energy now that the worst of the crying had passed, crouched down next to Ayush, grinning through the last of his tears. "And what about uncles? How many of those do you have?"

"You're my uncle too?" Aria's eyes widened.

"I'm your uncle too."

She studied him for exactly one second before deciding he was trustworthy, something in his easy grin matching whatever instinct she'd used to judge everyone else she'd met these past few days. "Okay. You seem fun."

"I am extremely fun," Krish said solemnly. "Ask anyone."

"Except me," Aarav muttered, and Krish shoved him lightly,

"Hi i am your third auncle your mama's official brother number three, and your auncle. and bleave me i am more fun then him he point towards krish. "that a pure lie baby i am the funniest guy in this family and your mama know that better then anyone.you can ask her." Krish said.

Aria look at her mama for confirmation. and kiara nodded despite having no clue still she nodded, becsue she heard about krish from donato they both talk in the flight everything about the memeber in details. aria hand shake with krish and said "okay i decided you are my favourite uncle now. but dont worry auncle arav and ayush i will give attention bot of you equally" she said. three of them laughing now, some of the heaviness in the air finally breaking loose into something lighter.

Kiara stood watching all of it her daughter, already folding herself effortlessly into a family she'd never known existed, charming every last one of them in under two minutes her father, still wiping at his eyes but smiling properly now, her brothers, teasing each other the way brothers do, like five years hadn't put a single crack in the ease between them.

Something in her chest, still raw from the flash of memory at the airport gate, settled slightly. She didn't have all of it back yet. But she had this much the feeling that she was standing exactly where she was supposed to be, surrounded by people her body remembered loving even where her mind still came up short.

They gathered the luggage and made their way out to the cars waiting at the curb, everyone talking over each other, Aria narrating the entire walk to anyone who'd listen, and together they set off toward the Rajput haveli, toward whatever the rest of this homecoming still had waiting for her.

We are getting close to end🥴🫡