He had been told that he wouldn't be in the medical ward long; he was noncombative, cooperative as a person could be, and the bites on his arms and hands were so old and faded, long-healed, that everyone knew he was immune. The virus hadn't taken hold when he'd been attacked all that time ago, so he seemed a safe bet to let into the general population.
Aiden was sitting on the cot, rummaging through his backpack; it was nothing too impressive in there, mostly changes of threadbare clothes, a bar of soap wrapped in Saran wrap for when he was able to find enough water to bathe, a toothbrush. Some things were easier to scavenge than others, and he had just finished brushing his teeth with the bottled water in the cell when he heard it.
Singing.
It was a sound that had caught his attention first in the mental hospital; a high, soft voice, that of a child singing, and the lyrics were slightly stilted. Even on the darkest, most chaotic period in his life, Aiden clinging to the idea of suicide as a release, a reprieve from this hellish life he'd found himself in, there was the singing, and the little bird who delivered that sound to his heart.
His hazel eyes widened and he looked up from his backpack, found himself staring.
Wren was as slim as ever, thin and knobby, delicate as a china figurine, and his lips slightly parted, eyes enormous in his slender face. He looked afraid and Aiden did the only thing he could think to do, he held up one large hand palm-out, a wait, stop gesture, the one he'd given Wren when they were sneaking through the wasted corpse of a city at night, the one he'd used to halt the boy's chatter when he heard something amiss.
"Ssh," Aiden whispered when he heard the whimper, and his own heart thundered in his chest like hoofbeats in a stampede. I told you to come to Sing Sing, that we were going to Sing Sing, and you fucking came. You actually listened to me and you came here and here you are and oh fuck I found you, Wren, I came for you and I told you it would be safe here and thank Jesus you came his brain rambled and Aiden stood up from the cot, all 6'4" of him, and took a wobbling, hesitant step forward.