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And then she’s gone, and the door clicks, and it’s just Veda and me and an empty patient room amid everything neither of us has said.

For a long moment neither of us moves. The room is small and white and quiet. My side aches less these days, but her exhaustion is a physical thing across the space between us. I’m tired too, but because I knew she was there for Sarah, I was able to doze off a few times last night.

Veda makes everything in my life better, easier. She makes me stronger. Gives me courage. I don’t know how she does it, but she does.

And all of that shatters the moment I think of her leaving.

“She’s right,” Veda says finally. “About the cowardice. That’s the part I couldn’t forgive—not the drawer, not the war. That you decided for me. Over and over, from the airstair to the study, you kept deciding what I could survive knowing, all because you were too scared to let me make my own choices.”

“I told myself a lot of things since I met you. Told you some of them. When you asked why I didn’t just recruit you, and I said you could have said no⁠—”

She laughs, a little bitterly. “Yeah. I guess that was my first clue.”

“I told myself it was protection. That I liked guarantees. That I was ensuring Sarah’s safety, and a hundred other little lies to myself to make it okay.” When I drag my fingers through my hair to stall, the stitches don’t even pull anymore. Not much, anyway.

“Control, in that context, is really just cowardice.” I shrug. “I’ve done it my whole life to everyone, and I did it to you—the one person I’d have given anything not to do it to.”

“Yes.”

I take a step across the room. She doesn’t retreat, which she’d have done a week ago. “I love you.”

Her eyes go wide, and she doesn’t speak, but I see it connect with something inside of her.

“I built a whole framework of so-called protection so I’d never have to ask you for anything. Asking means you can say no. Telling means I get to decide. That kind of life… it isn’t a life. It’s the simulation of a rich man with no morals.”

She smirks a little. That secret smile of hers again. I fucking love that thing.

I make myself finish. “So I’m asking now, because I want a real life with you. Not a simulation. I’m done choosing for you. Whatever you want, you choose it, and I’ll stand here and take the answer.”

She’s quiet for the longest moment of my life, then crosses the room to me. “I have terms.”

“Name them. Name anything, and it’s yours.”

“One. A real marriage. Not paper, not a prop, not a cover. A real one, with a courthouse and a ring and vows we both intend to keep.”

The word strangles out of me, I’m breathing so hard. “Done.”

“You’re supposed to think about it.”

“I’ve thought about nothing else for a long time. Next term.”

Her smile grows by millimeters. “Two. Full disclosure. Whatever your world is, going forward, I know it. You do not get to protect me by keeping me ignorant, ever again. No surprises.”

“Agreed.”

“Three. Veto power over anything that touches Sarah’s world—her care, her safety, her exposure to any of it. On her, I am not consulted. I am obeyed.”

“That one was always yours—it was the first thing I gave you on the day I took everything else.”

Her shoulders drop. “I remember. It’s the one promise you never broke.”

“I intend to keep the streak. You’re the expert. Not me.”

“Four.” Her voice goes low and steady. “You never decide for me again—not to protect me, not to save me, not for my own good. You bring me the truth and you let me choose, no matter what.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She studies me a moment longer, and the ghost of the woman from the hotel bar comes back into her eyes. “If you truly agree to my terms, then ask me properly, Sartorre.”