89
89
It was one of those rare evenings when the world felt untouched.
The fire was low, casting soft gold across the wooden floor of our cottage. Outside, the crickets had started their song, and the wind rustled through the high trees, steady and unbothered. Kade had dragged two old blankets onto the rug, and we were sprawled across them now, limbs tangled, bodies warm from the bath we’d taken just before dusk.
I traced lazy shapes across his bare chest, watching how his skin reacted beneath my fingertips—tense, then soft again, like even now he was learning to relax.
“You’re staring,” he murmured without opening his eyes.
“You make it easy,” I whispered back.
He cracked one eye open, a smirk tugging at his mouth. “Flatterer.”
I leaned in and kissed the smirk away, slow and lingering. “You like it.”
“Mm-hmm.”
I rested my head on his shoulder and let the silence stretch, let it grow heavy in the way that meant it was safe.
Then I said, “Have you ever thought about… what comes next?”
He blinked, then turned slightly so we were facing each other more fully. “Next?”
I nodded. “After all of this. The running. The fighting. The rebuilding. What does forever look like… for you?”
He looked at me for a long moment.
Then, softly, “I didn’t used to believe I got to have a forever.”
“I know,” I whispered.
“But now…” He brushed a thumb across my cheek. “Now, I think I’d want it to look like this. Quiet mornings. Work that means something. Nights like this.”
“And?”
His brow furrowed.
I hesitated, heart thudding. “And… maybe one day, a family.”
Kade went still.
Not tense.
Not cold.
Just quiet.
“You mean—children?” he asked.
I swallowed. “Maybe. If we wanted. If it felt right.”
He sat up slightly, propping himself on one elbow. “I never thought about that. I mean, not seriously.”
“I have,” I admitted. “Not always. But lately. Now that we’re not looking over our shoulders every hour… I think about what we might leave behind.”
His eyes softened. “You think we could be good at it? Raising someone?”
“I think we’d try,” I said. “I think we’d do it with so much love they wouldn’t know a day without it.”
Kade exhaled. “Gods. That scares me more than any fight I’ve ever been in.”
“Me too.”
He chuckled.
“But maybe that’s why it matters,” I added. “Because we’re scared. And we’d still do it anyway.”
He lay back down, pulling me with him until I was tucked against his side.
“Names,” he murmured.
“What?”
“If we ever did it… names. I wonder what we’d choose.”
I smiled. “You thinking about baby names, Kade Varian?”
He smirked again. “Just hypothetically.”
I snuggled closer. “I like the name Eira.”
He blinked. “That’s beautiful.”
“It means snow,” I said. “A reminder that even the coldest seasons can bring beauty.”
He was quiet.
Then, “I think I’d name a son after my father.”
I tilted my head up to look at him. “You never talk about him.”
“I don’t remember much. Just his voice. And the way he used to hold my mother’s hand when he thought no one was looking.” Kade’s voice cracked a little. “He died before the worst of it. Before Ronan.”
“And you’d honor him?”
“I think I’d want my son to know he came from strength,” Kade said. “Not just mine. But something older. Something whole.”
We fell into silence again, but this one was different.
This one was full of something I’d never felt with him before.
Hope.
Real, quiet, rooted hope.
And then I asked, “What do you think our legacy will be?”
He rolled onto his side to face me. “I used to think mine was death.”
I didn’t interrupt.
“But now… I think it might be you.”
My breath caught.
“And maybe,” he added, brushing hair from my cheek, “what we build. This place. The way we love. The way we stayed soft when the world tried to harden us.”
Tears pricked the corners of my eyes.
I kissed him—slow, aching, full of every promise we hadn’t yet spoken.
“You are my home,” I whispered against his lips.
“And you are mine,” he whispered back.
Whatever the future looked like—whatever names it held, whatever paths it carved—
We would walk it together.
Hand in hand.
Heart in heart.
His to keep.
Mine to hold.
Forever.