Charged, yes. But not the wild, aching thing it used to be when I was all hunger and fear. This feels like… standing at the edge of something chosen.
She slips out of her boots and socks, then crosses the space between us in a few precise steps, bare feet whispering against the floor.
When she stops in front of me, we’re close enough that I can see the tiny tremor in her hands, the faint smudge of fatigue under her eyes.
“I keep thinking,” she says, voice low, “about what you said earlier. About not wasting strength on what I can’t move.”
I nod once.
“I can’t move them,” she continues. “The committee. Blackwell. The whole stupid machine.” Her hand lifts, fingers hovering near my chest without quite touching. “But I can choose this. Us. Can choose how I spend my courage when I’m not in that room.”
Heat sparks low in my belly.
“Sophia,” I murmur.
She swallows. “I’m not asking to forget everything else. Or pretend the stakes aren’t still huge. I just…” She exhales, frustrated. “I don’t want to keep my whole life on pause because academia can’t decide if I’m acceptable.”
Her gaze meets mine—clear, fierce.
“I love you,” she says. “I chose you before they even sent that stupid email. I don’t want to keep acting like I didn’t.”
The impact steals a breath from me.
My throat works.
I take a breath that feels like it starts in my soles.
“And I choose you,” I say. The words feel rough, unused in this language, but true. “Every day. When the sun rises. When the wheel turns against us. When the ground beneath us is solid, and when it shakes.” I brush my knuckles down her cheek. “If they cast you out, we build something new. If they keep you, we make them change for you. None of that changes this—” My hand finds my chest, then reaches to catch hers, pressing her palm over my heart. “You are my home.”
Her breath stutters.
Her fingers curl against my shirt, as if she’s holding onto the words.
“Flavius,” she whispers.
Something in me stops circling and lands.
“We moved the line,” I say quietly. “Again. Today. When you walked into that room and did not bow.” I step closer, until there’s barely a breath between us. “If you want to move this one too, I am ready.”
Her pupils flare.
“I don’t want to wait anymore,” she says. “Not because I’m afraid. Because I’m not.”
The old promise—after the fight—flickers between us.
I see it in her eyes. Feel it in my chest.
“That promise belonged to two people who thought they were not allowed to want things,” I say. “I do not think that anymore.”
“Me either,” she says, on a shaky laugh.
I reach out, cupping her jaw in one hand, the back of her neck with the other. I hesitate only long enough for her to lean toward me.
Then I lower my forehead to hers.
Front to front. Skull to skull. The place where, in my time, only family pressed. Equal to equal. Soul to soul.
She inhales sharply, eyes fluttering shut at the contact.
