Ampere's eyes widened slightly when Grusha confessed she'd followed Ampere. "Why?" she said at nearly as whisper, her breath hitched in her throat, wondering if the child saw the pathetic unraveling between her and Mesec, the catalyst that spurred her into shameful departure. "You should have stayed here, it wasn't safe!" she didn't mean to lecture, didn't mean to smother her like anything but a mother, but she couldn't help the heart that beat faster in her chest, the worry that wound and unwound around it. Because, no, Ampere hadn't noticed, and the new idea that her actions not only hurt her children emotionally, but may have put them in harm's way was another knife in her chest.

She safe, Kygo attempted to soothe, concerned the pair would just continue to erupt with outrage at each other. Ampere didn't heed him however, distracted then by the arrival of Tae, who appeared barely held within this realm as her body ghosted away. "Tae," Ampere went to say gently, but her throat closed around the word and choked it out as a whisper that would have been hard to hear. The stance Tae took beside Grusha was clear, and Ampere bit on her lower lip as she wondered if she'd ever have these girls again.

Grusha continued, her words cruel daggers that Ampere's ears wished to hide from. Her flesh rippled as she stood, quivering with regret. "I DIDN'T MEAN TO!" she shouted suddenly, unable to take the barrage any longer. "I didn't mean to," she said quieter after a breath, her lashes blinking against tears that had begun to trail dark lines against her cheeks. "I didn't say goodbye... because it wasn't. I was coming back, I never wanted to leave." There was truth in that, she hoped they would at least recognize it.

"You had Gaucho, and Zero..." she tried to say, as if that somehow could justify her absence, even though she knew it didn't. But you weren't really alone, was the meaning instead. You don't actually need me, or care about me, some nasty part of her wanted to include, bur Grusha extinguished that with her final cry. When Ampere glanced back at her then, having averted her gaze throughout the rising storm of her child's wrath, she gasped to see the skeleton present. She broke, finally realizing that it wasn't just anger that her children carried.
They had been afraid to, they had grieved as well. She had to be stronger than her own emotions, if not for herself, then for their sakes.

Without thinking she moved forward, a slow build up of momentum until she was cantering, closing the physical gap between them as she reached out to drag them beneath her wings and against her chest, resistance or not.
"I'm sorry," she whispered forcefully, "It's not okay, and I;m sorry. I love you both, it won't happen again. We're family, we have to stick together."
Would it be enough? She meant what she said, but was it too little too late? A wound like this, she was sure, only time could help heal, so maybe it wouldn't be enough today, but she hoped someday.