The house was quiet again—but this time, it wasn't about absence.
Lyra was asleep, curled against her little stuffed owl, the baby monitor on low beside the bed. Will had checked the volume three times. Eliza had kissed her forehead twice. The hallway light was left on with its warm glow dimmed, a silent promise that they weren't far.
And now—after everything—they were back in their bedroom, not as the people they'd been before the baby, but as the people who'd survived the in-between.
Eliza sat cross-legged on the bed in one of Will's old button-downs, her hair still damp from a second, slow shower. Will was in a soft cotton tee and sweatpants, barefoot, holding two mugs of chamomile tea. He passed one to her wordlessly, then sat at the edge of the bed, watching her with eyes full of something gentler than lust, but heavier than comfort.
"Strange," she murmured after a moment, "being alone with you again."
Will set his tea down and leaned closer. "Strange in a bad way?"
"No." She smiled, then tucked her knees against his thigh. "Strange in the best possible way. Like... like remembering a song you haven't heard in a long time."
Will looked at her like he was still falling. "Eliza," he said softly, "I missed you."
Her breath caught. She didn't know how much she'd needed to hear that. Not You look beautiful. Not You're doing great. But this. I missed you.
"I missed me too," she whispered. "But mostly—I missed us."
Will reached for her hand, pulling her slowly toward him, careful and reverent. Like he was touching a flame he wanted to warm himself by—not one he feared might burn him.
When she slid into his lap, it wasn't rushed. Her legs folded around him naturally, like they'd done this forever. Her forehead rested against his, and for a long time they didn't kiss. They just breathed.
"You look tired," he murmured into her temple.
"I am."
"You also look... proud."
Eliza chuckled. "Is it that obvious?"
"Only to someone who knows every part of you."
She tilted her head back and looked at him. "Do you?"
Will's hands tightened on her hips. "Yes. And I love all of them."
Her answer was not words, but the slow press of her lips to his—soft, aching, full of quiet hunger. Not the desperate kind, not the hurried kind. Just a return.
His arms wrapped around her as if he could shelter her from everything—even the parts of herself she still doubted.
When he laid her back against the sheets, they moved slowly, reverently—rediscovering each other not just as lovers, but as parents, as partners, as people who had changed and still chosen each other again.
There was no need to fill the space with clever words or teasing smiles. They just were—like breath, like tide, like time. They kissed like memory and need. They held each other like home.
And when they lay together afterward, Eliza's head tucked into Will's chest, she whispered into the quiet:
"She's so much like you already."
Will smiled into her hair. "Terrifyingly charming?"
"Unfairly adored."
He laughed, then kissed the top of her head. "She's her own person, Liz. But yeah... maybe she has a little of me in her."
Eliza sighed. "I hope she has your calm."
"And your fire."
"She's going to break hearts."
"Just like her mother," Will said softly, brushing a knuckle down her cheek.
They fell asleep like that—legs tangled, the soft echo of their laughter still in the walls, the quiet around them no longer strange.
Just sacred.