Later, I’m curled against his chest, skin damp, heart loud. He brushes my hair back, fingers gentle.
“I think you’re already mine,” he says into my hair.
My throat tightens. I don’t answer. I can’t. But I don’t move away either.
The quiet that settles between us isn’t empty. It’s full—of all the things we’ve survived. All the things we’re still afraid of.
I drift off with his hand warm on my back and his breath steady in my ear.
And for the first time in years, I sleep without nightmares.
I don’t remember falling asleep.
Just the feel of his skin, warm and solid, pressed against mine. The cadence of his breathing at my back, slow and deliberate, like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he exhales too hard.
Somewhere in the dark, I’d let myself unravel. Not just the physical—though that, too. But the way I’d let my guard down. Let him in. Let myself feel things I swore I’d buried under the bones of old missions and even older grief.
Now, as the first blue light of morning bleeds through the window, I shift without waking him. I untangle my limbs, careful not to stir the mattress. Naull sighs in his sleep, murmuring something in Vakutan—a sound I don’t know but feel anyway. I slip from the bed and pull on my shirt, fingers shaking a little.
The air’s cool outside our little cocoon of heat. My bare feet find the hallway tile. Garma’s door creaks softly when I open it.
He’s still asleep. Arms thrown wide, hair damp against his brow. A small fortress of stuffed animals forms a perimeteraround him—his battle squad. His scent, baby-sweet and sun-warmed, rises up when I lean over and press a kiss to his forehead.
He stirs. Murmurs.
“Mama…”
“I’m here,” I whisper. “Always.”
And then I leave the room before I cry.
The kitchen is dim. I sit on the old bench by the window with a blanket wrapped tight around my shoulders. The glass is cold beneath my fingertips. Outside, the courtyard is soaked in morning fog. The garden stones gleam. A fox darts through the hedges—silent, fast, gone.
Naull’s scent lingers on my skin. Earth and ozone. That impossible smell of Rhavadaz storms and metal corridors. I breathe it in and feel my throat tighten.
I press a hand to my lips.
He’d said,I think you’re already mine.
And gods help me, I think I wanted to be.
But beneath that want is the truth I keep swallowing. Bitter. Heavy. Real.
He doesn’t know.
He doesn’t know that Garma’s not just mine.
That every time he kneels to tie the boy’s shoe or catches him mid-stumble, some ancient part of him is responding to a bond it doesn't even recognize yet.
I tell myself I’m protecting him.
That I’m keeping the moment sacred a little longer.
But the truth is—I’m scared.
Scared of what it will do to him.
Tous.
