But the fear never really leaves.
“I used to dream of this,” I admit, my voice barely above a whisper. “You coming back. Finding me. Finding her.”
His arm tightens around me.
“I dreamed it, too,” he says. “Only I never thought it would hurt this much.”
I laugh, but it’s wet and broken. “I feel like I’m made of cracks.”
He kisses the top of my head. “That’s how the light gets in.”
I lift my eyes to meet his. “You don’t know if we’ll survive this.”
“No,” he says honestly. “I don’t.”
“Then why do you keep promising me we will?”
He cups my face with both hands, rough palms against my damp cheeks.
“Because if I didn’t… I’d fall apart.”
I press a kiss to his chest, right over the scar that curves above his left heart. “I don’t want to run anymore.”
“Then don’t,” he whispers. “We fight. Together.”
We lie in silence for a while, the clock blinking down toward morning.
His fingers trace lazy circles across my back.
“Nessa said I smell like warm metal,” he murmurs.
I smile. “She’s not wrong.”
“She’s brilliant. Strong. Fierce.”
“She’s you,” I whisper. “The best parts of you.”
He kisses me again—slow, lingering. Like he’s carving the moment into memory.
Then he pulls me tighter.
And for the first time in years, I fall asleep in peace.
__________________________________________________________________________
The silence after is deeper than anything I've ever known.
Vael’s breath is slow beneath my ear, a quiet rhythm that anchors me in place. His skin is warm against mine, chest rising and falling like tides against the shore of my thoughts. I’m cocooned in his arms, my leg draped across his, sheets twistedaround our limbs like we’re trying to tangle ourselves into permanence.
But nothing is permanent.
Not in this life.
Not in ours.
Outside the window, the soft amber glow of the base spills over the cold alloyed walls. I can hear the hum of the atmospheric converters in the distance—a low, almost musical vibration that’s become background noise to my existence here on Corven-7.
I close my eyes and let the sound blend with the memory of his voice. The way he whispered my name earlier like it was something sacred. The way his fingers threaded through mine like a man clutching onto the last solid thing in the universe.
