"I'm glad you have those memories," I say finally. "Even if they hurt."
"Me too." He looks at me, and there's something vulnerable in his expression. "I want to make new ones. Good ones. With you."
"We're making one right now."
"I know." He smiles. "That's why I mentioned it."
We eat at the small table by the window, watching the stars come out over the mountains. The pasta is good, better than anything I made during my years of eating for function rather than pleasure.
"Jace?"
"Mm?"
"Do you think they'll find it? Whatever Protocol Omega really is?"
I consider the question. "Jagger doesn't give up. Neither does Jinx. And Briar has resources we're only beginning to understand."
"But do you think they'll find the truth?"
"I think the truth has been buried for twenty-three years, and it's ready to come out." I set down my fork, meet his eyes. "Whatever's in those files, whatever my father died for, whatever they did to create the Foundry and the auction system and all the rest—it's going to come to light. And when it does, everything changes."
"Are you scared?"
"Of what they might find?" I think about it. "No. I'm scared of what happens if they don't find it. If Webb's allies manage to bury it again. If the system survives and keeps doing what it's always done."
"Then we make sure that doesn't happen." Elliot reaches across the table, takes my hand. "Even if we're not on the front lines. Even if we're just... being here. Surviving. Proving that they couldn't break us."
"Is that enough?"
"It's a start." He squeezes my fingers. "And it's more than we had a month ago."
He's right. A month ago, he was strapped to a table with a collar around his neck. A month ago, I was calculating whether to kill him or keep him. A month ago, neither of us imagined we'd be here, in a cottage in the mountains, eating pasta and talkingabout the future like it was something we might actually get to have.
"I love you," I say.
"I love you too." He smiles. "Now help me with the dishes."
After the dishes are done and the fire is banked and we're lying in bed with moonlight streaming through the curtains, Elliot asks me a question.
"What do you want? If you could have anything. If the war was over and we were free. What would you want?"
I think about it. Really think, in a way I haven't allowed myself to before.
"This," I say finally. "Quiet mornings. Shared meals. Someone to come home to." I turn my head to look at him. "You. I'd want you."
"You already have me."
"I know." I reach out, trace the line of his jaw with my fingers. "It’s just… I finally have something I actually want. Not a mission. Not an objective. Something that matters because I chose it, not because I was ordered to pursue it."
"That sounds like freedom."
"Maybe it is." I pull him closer, tuck him against my chest. "I'm still learning what the word means."
“You’re doing just fine,” he says. "Like I said… a fast learner."
A chuckle rumbles through my chest and we fall silent.
Just watching the fire crackle. The snow fall.
