It's patient, whatever it is. It has been waiting for a very long time.
But tonight, here, in the dark of the quarters I inherited from a man who vanished into that patience, I have this.
Talia's warmth curled into the curve of my body. Her heartbeat steady under my hand. The rhythm of her breathing and the twin pulse of our marks cycling in sync, blue light rising and falling like a tide on an ocean neither of us has ever seen. Her contentment seeping through the bond and filling the hollow spaces I've carried since I was nineteen and alone and building a kingdom from blood and fear because I didn't know any other architecture.
It's not enough. I know that with the same certainty I know the station's structural tolerances, the precise amount of pressure each bulkhead can withstand before it buckles. This peace, this warmth, this woman in my arms who breathes like the universe forgot to hurt her. None of it will save us from what's coming. The 7 Protocol moves. The tear waits. My sister walks toward a cliff edge in the dark, and I'm standing here watching the surveillance feed in my memory instead of catching her arm.
It's not enough. It won't hold against the weight of what's bearing down on us from every direction, the threats I can see and the ones I can't, the enemies who know my name and the ones who know something worse.
But it's mine.
And I'm keeping it.
END
