The rain returned sometime after midnight.
Soft at first, then heavier, until the roof hummed like a heartbeat.
Adrian couldn't sleep. The fire had died down to a low ember, painting the walls in shades of gold and shadow. The others had drifted off, Mason somewhere in the workshop, Selene silent in the far room. Only Elena remained, sitting near the dying fire, her knees drawn up, her eyes lost in the flicker.
For a moment, he just watched her. The way her hair fell over her shoulder. The way the orange light turned her profile into something fragile and strong all at once.
He told himself to move, to check the perimeter, to focus, but his feet took him toward her instead.
"Can't sleep either?" she asked without looking up.
"Never could," Adrian said. "Not after nights like this."
Elena smiled faintly, a tired thing, but real.
"You mean nights where you almost die twice before sunrise?"
"Something like that." He sat beside her. Close enough to feel the warmth from the fire, and from her.
For a long moment, they said nothing. The storm outside filled the silence with rhythm.
Elena turned slightly, studying him.
"You were quiet tonight. Quieter than usual."
Adrian shrugged. "Selene's return has that effect."
"She meant something to you."
It wasn't a question.
Adrian hesitated, then nodded once. "Yeah. She did."
"And now?"
He exhaled slowly, staring into the ember's glow. "Now she's a reminder of everything I lost. Everything I did wrong."
Elena's voice softened. "You're not the man you were then."
He looked at her, really looked at her.
"You say that like you know who I am now."
Her gaze didn't waver.
"Maybe I do."
The words settled between them, fragile and powerful. He wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe there could be something left in him that wasn't built from guilt and violence.
A gust of wind pressed against the walls, and the light flickered. Elena reached forward, feeding another log into the fire. Her hand brushed his, accidental, brief, and the air changed.
It was subtle, but it was there, the quiet gravity pulling them closer. The unspoken electricity of two people who'd survived too much, felt too much, and hadn't had the chance to feel anything good in a long time.
Adrian didn't move away.
He let the warmth of her touch linger a second longer than he should have.
"When this is over," Elena whispered, not looking at him, "what happens to you?"
"If we win?"
She nodded.
He thought about it, really thought, then said, "I don't know. Maybe I find out what peace feels like."
Elena smiled faintly. "And if we lose?"
"Then at least I'll have fought for something that mattered."
She turned her head then, meeting his eyes fully. The space between them felt charged, thin.
"And what matters to you, Adrian?"
He could have said the mission. Freedom. Redemption. But the words caught in his throat, because none of those were true anymore.
"Right now?" he said, his voice barely above the storm.
"You."
For a heartbeat, she didn't breathe.
The rain outside softened, the world pausing around the sound of her pulse.
Then she reached out, her fingers brushing his cheek, tracing the bruise along his jaw. "You shouldn't say things like that."
"Why not?"
"Because I might believe you."
Her touch stayed there, gentle, trembling slightly. And when he lifted his hand to cover hers, it wasn't hunger that drove it, it was something deeper, quieter, like the first light after too long in darkness.
He didn't kiss her. Not yet. He just leaned close enough for their foreheads to meet, a moment suspended between restraint and surrender.
The fire crackled softly, throwing sparks into the air like fragments of forgotten stars.
"Get some rest," he murmured finally.
"We move at dawn."
Elena smiled, tired, sad, but warm. "Only if you do too."
He watched her curl beneath the blanket near the fire. Watched her breathing slow. Then he turned back to the window, guarding the night, but with something new inside him. Something that felt dangerously like hope.
Outside, the storm began to break.
The first hint of light touched the hills, silver and cold. And for the first time in years, Adrian Cross looked toward the dawn and didn't feel like running from it.