The room was too quiet.
Elise sat with Ayla's hand still wrapped in hers, brushing her thumb gently across her knuckles like a mother trying to smooth away a nightmare. Jean stood behind her, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the girl in the bed like he could will her awake.
Leon hadn't moved in minutes.
But now he did.
He stepped forward, the weight in his chest finally rising to his throat. His voice came out low, steady — too steady for what he was about to say.
"I want to do a DNA test."
Elise turned, blinking. "What?"
Leon didn't flinch. "I want proof. Of who she is."
"She's Celeste," Jean said, voice sharp.
"No," Leon replied, "she isn't. And you know it."
Elise's eyes widened. "Leon… this is not the time."
"There's never been a better time," he said, not unkindly, but firm. "You're sitting beside a girl who's fighting for her life. And you still don't know her name."
"She's my daughter," Elise snapped, rising now. "She may not share our blood, but she's ours."
"She's not yours," Leon said, voice tightening. "You love her. I believe that. But she had a life before you — a name, a family, a brother who probably still cries himself to sleep thinking she's dead. And you don't even want to know who she is?"
Jean stepped between them, jaw clenched. "What good will it do now? She's in a coma, and you want to tear this all open again? What exactly are you trying to prove?"
"I'm trying to give her the truth," Leon shot back. "Not the truth that makes you comfortable. The truth that belongs to her."
Elise looked like he had struck her. "We gave her everything. We stood by her when the world spat on her. When Maureen humiliated her. When strangers called her a fraud."
"And she was," Leon said, the words like fire in his throat. "Not by choice. Not to hurt you. But because she didn't know who she was. Rhea found her in ruins and gave her your daughter's name. You were never the enemy. But you were never the truth either."
The room throbbed with silence.
Elise's hands dropped to her sides, trembling. Jean's face hardened like stone.
And Ayla — still unconscious, still tethered to life by wires and machines — lay between them all like a mirror none of them wanted to look into.
"I'm doing the test," Leon said finally. "You can be angry. You can call me heartless. But this isn't about you. It never was."
And with that, he turned and walked out.
Because someone had to fight for the girl behind the lie.
Someone had to give her back her name.