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Her eyes meet mine, glassy and guarded, and for a second, I think she might pull back.

But instead, she inches closer until her forehead rests against mine, and all the air between us feels like a prayer.

“I want,” she whispers.

It’s two syllables. That’s it. But they carry more weight than any anthem or apology ever could.

She blinks up at me, eyes glassy, like she’s still halfway between the world she woke up to and the one she left behind.

“I just… I need a little time. To get used to everything again.”

My heart clenches around the spaces her words don’t fill. And maybe that’s the most important part—what she doesn’t say. Because I hear it anyway. The ache beneath the breath. The fear threaded into the pause. The quiet question buried between the lines: Will you still be here once I do?

“There’s no rush,” I murmur, brushing my thumb across her cheek. “I’ll wait forever if that’s what it takes.”

And I mean it.

I’d wait through another hundred days in a too-bright hospital room, whispering to silence and praying to gods I stopped believing in. I’d wait through the kind of aching loneliness that gnaws at your ribcage like it wants to wear your bones. I’d wait through anything. Everything. For her.

She exhales, voice thinner now, a ghost of thought wrapped in warmth. “I wish the boys were home.”

I swallow the lump that wedges in my throat. “Me too.”

Her hand curls over my chest, fingers splaying over my heartbeat like she’s trying to catch it mid-thud. “I keep thinking about what it’ll feel like… bringing them here.”

“It’ll happen,” I promise. “As soon as they’re ready, we’ll bring them home.”

Home.

Not just this house with its creaky floorboards and quiet corners. Our home. The one we’ve fought for, bled for, waited for.

I lean in, press a kiss to her temple, and let it linger like a vow. “Until then, they’ve got the best nurses in the world and a dad who’s gonna visit them every single day.”

“And a mom who dreams about them every time she closes her eyes,” she murmurs, barely audible.

I pull the blanket up to her chin, tucking her in like she’s something sacred. Which she is.

“You should sleep,” I say gently. “Doctor’s orders.”

She makes a face. “Bossy.”

“Only when I care.”

She yawns—one of those sleepy, kitten-like yawns that pulls at something primitive in my chest—and blinks up at me again, softer now. Exposed. “You’ll stay?”

“Of course I’ll stay.” I shift beside her, adjusting the pillow behind her back. “For as long as you need.”

Forever, if she lets me.

I reach over and turn off the lamp, bathing us in the hush of twilight and old memories. The silence is full but not empty. Heavy, but not suffocating. It’s the kind of quiet that comes after the storm—when the rain’s stopped falling and the world hasn’t quite figured out what to do with the sun.

She shifts closer, her forehead brushing my shoulder, and I swear I can feel her ribs finally loosen with sleep.

And me?

I just lie there.

Watching the rise and fall of her breathing like it’s the only proof I need that miracles are real.