Not because I’m afraid.
But because—for the first time since the pod launched—I feel something besides emptiness.
I feelhope.
Twisted, burning, raw hope.
Because maybe Garokk isn’t gone.
Not completely.
Maybe the universe didn’t take everything.
Not this time.
Not yet.
I don’t need a week to decide.
Hell, I don’t need a day.
The moment the truth lands—hard and hot and so impossiblyreal—I already know.
I’m keeping him.
Not because I’m brave. Not because I’ve suddenly turned maternal overnight or unlocked some hidden domestic fantasy I didn’t know I had.
No.
Because this isn’t just a baby.
He’s a tether.
A lifeline thrown across the endless black between me and the man I lost. A piece of him the universe didn’t manage to burn. The onlythingthat made it out of the Hulk besides me and a half-broken AI with a loyalty complex.
I sit on the floor of the mirror room for a long time after Reflector leaves, my back against the cold paneling, legs drawn up, hands pressed flat to my belly. My skin feels no different. My breath still tastes like recycled air and half-swallowed grief. But something underneath the surfaceshifts.
I feel it.
Tiny.
Distant.
Butreal.
Garokk would’ve lost his damn mind.
Would’ve snarled something about genetic fortitude and declared the child a conqueror before he could walk. Would’ve insisted on training drills by the age of three, and storytime filled with war legends and claw fights and ancient songs only the elders remember.
But he would’ve loved him.
Gods, he would’ve loved him like fire.
And now—he never gets to.
So I will.
Ihaveto.
