"You did," she said, not missing the twist of his mouth at Apollo's name. In her aching arms (which she'd barely used for anything for nearly two weeks, and were struggling after a day of tense driving and cradling ten pounds of baby) Telos was asleep. One eye was still a little open, but he was otherwise very much asleep.
She could have stayed with him in her arms for hours, just watching him sleep, but there was something she needed to say to Ares first and it would go better without a baby in her arms. She tucked him into the portable cot she'd bought with her, taking another long moment to brush his hair with her fingers and stare at him. There was a great clawing need to pick him up again, to never let go again, to protect him from everything, and the pain she felt as she stepped away was almost physical.
The pain she'd been feeling for day upon day, night upon night when he'd been missing had been physical. She'd felt herself rotting from the inside, felt the endless despair like a wound inside her that stretched from gut to throat. The smaller echo of it she felt now as she turned away from him was just another reminder about how dire her life had become.
"I'll never forget what you did for us, Ares," she said, sinking to her knees between his feet as though he were the great statue that towered over the foyer of his gym, or she a supplicant at his alter. "You brought our son back to me, and for that, you have my undying gratitude, and my dedication, and my love. Ask anything of me that is in my power to give, and it is yours."