ALTHEA'S POV
My brain, post-night-market, felt like a browser with seventy-three tabs open. One tab was still processing the sublime horror of the Szechuan sauce. Another was replaying the sound of Haven's laugh in a continuous, happy loop. A third was trying to figure out if 'Chloe Wen' fit into the mysterious, fragmented puzzle of 'Althea: Before the Lake of Mystery.' It was a lot. So, naturally, I decided the best course of action was to launch a new, highly important project: Operation Teach Haven to Relax.
She was in her study, doing that thing she called "light weekend correspondence," which probably meant remotely dismantling a small nation's economy or finalizing the details of a hostile takeover. I leaned against the doorframe, holding two mugs. "I have come bearing a peace offering for your taste buds."
She looked up from her laptop, her glasses perched on her nose—a rare, devastatingly hot sight. "Is it another chemical weapon disguised as food?"
"Rude! And no. It's hot chocolate. The fancy kind. With like, actual chocolate shavings and a hint of orange. I made it." I set the mug on her desk, well away from any world-altering documents.
She eyed it with the suspicion of a bomb-sniffing dog. "You… made it."
"I followed instructions! It's a scientific process. You melt, you whisk, you don't set the kitchen on fire. See?" I gestured to my person, which was notably not on fire. "Progress."
A faint smile touched her lips as she took off her glasses. She picked up the mug, took a tentative sip. Her eyebrows rose. "This is… not terrible."
"High praise! Drink up. Your brain needs fuel for… whatever sinister thing you're plotting in here." I plopped down in the large leather armchair opposite her desk, pulling my knees up to my chest. "Also, I'm bored. Entertain me."
"My work is not typically considered entertaining," she said, but she took another, longer drink. A victory.
"Then let's do something else. Something non-worky. A game!"
She leaned back, a glint of amusement in her eyes. "A game. What did you have in mind? Corporate espionage simulation? Hostile merger negotiation role-play?"
I threw a throw pillow from the chair at her. It fell pathetically short. "A normal person game! Like… twenty questions! Or 'Never Have I Ever'!"
She stared at me. "I am not playing a drinking game with you, Althea."
"We can use the hot chocolate! Sip if you have! It'll be cute and wholesome and will give me valuable intel on my wife."
She sighed, the long-suffering sound I was starting to adore because it always meant she was about to give in. "Twenty questions. About what?"
"About you! The mysterious Haven Hartwell. The woman behind the suit." I wiggled my fingers mysteriously. "I'll start. Question one: What's your favorite color?"
She didn't even blink. "Black."
"That's not a color, that's a whole aesthetic. And a cop-out. Try again."
"Emerald green."
"Ooh, like your suit the other day. Good choice. My turn." I pretended to think hard. "If you could be any animal, what would you be?"
"A raptor. Efficient, intelligent, apex predator."
I snorted. "Of course you would. I was gonna say an owl, because you're wise and watchful. But raptor works. Your turn to ask me."
She swiveled gently in her chair, her gaze intense. "What is the first thing you remember, clearly, after waking up in the hospital?"
The question caught me off guard. The playful mood shifted, grew softer, more intimate. I thought back to the blur of white walls and beeping machines. "It's… fuzzy. But the clearest thing? Your face. You were standing by the window, looking out. The light was behind you, so you were kind of silhouetted. You looked… tired. And really sad. And then you turned and saw I was awake, and you just… stared. Like you couldn't believe it." I took a sip of my hot chocolate. "You didn't say anything for a full minute. You just stared. I thought maybe you were a very intense, beautiful hallucination."
She was utterly still, her expression unreadable. "I was… recalibrating," she said finally, her voice quiet.
"Recalibrating what?"
"My understanding of the world." She took a deliberate sip. "My turn. What is a memory, even a vague one, that makes you feel happy? Not from after the accident. From before."
My mind scrolled through the fog. A sensation of sunshine. The smell of… oil and resin? A feeling of immense pride. "I… I think it's being on a stage. Not like at L'Astre, but bigger. A feeling of my fingers on piano keys, and knowing exactly what note comes next, and the sound is just… huge. It fills everything. And there's applause, but it's distant. The happy part is just… the making of the sound." I blinked, the fragment fading. "That's a good one, I think."
"It is," she said, her voice certain. "You commanded stages. You were a queen there."
The way she said it, with such definitive reverence, made my chest feel tight. "Your turn. Umm… what's something you're secretly really good at, that has nothing to do with business?"
A slow, almost mischievous smile spread across her lips. It was a dangerous, captivating look. "Lock picking."
I choked on my hot chocolate. "What?"
"When I was a teenager, my Blackwood grandfather believed in… practical skills. He considered it a useful art for understanding security systems from the inside. I have a set of titanium picks in my safe."
I gawked at her. "That is the coolest and most terrifying thing I've ever heard. Have you ever used them for, like, nefarious purposes?"
"Define nefarious."
"Okay, moving on! My turn! If you had to eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?"
"Sustenance paste. Nutritionally complete, no preparation time."
I groaned, throwing my head back. "You are impossible! You have to pick a real food! With flavor!"
"Flavor is an inefficient distraction from nutritional intake."
"You kissed me after I ate spicy hell-sauce! You don't get to say that!"
She conceded with a slight nod. "Very well. Your lemon tarts. The ones Mrs. Li makes. They are… acceptably non-distracting."
I beamed. "I'll take it! Okay, your turn. Ask me something juicy."
She leaned forward, elbows on the desk, steepling her fingers. "If you could remember one thing from your past, with perfect clarity, what would it be?"
The air left the room. This wasn't a game anymore. This was the quiet, painful heart of everything. I looked into her amber eyes, so serious, so waiting. I thought of the pinboard, of the smiling photos that felt like costumes. I thought of the hollow space where my family should be. I thought of the feeling of her hand in mine at the market, and how it felt like the only real anchor I had.
"I think," I said slowly, my voice small, "I'd want to remember the moment I realized I loved you. The first time. Not the story we have now, but the actual moment. Was it sudden? Was it slow? Did I tell you? Did you know?" My throat felt tight. "I feel it now, so much. But I wish I had the memory of its beginning. That seems like a good thing to have."
For a long moment, she said nothing. The silence was heavy, full of things I couldn't understand. Her gaze dropped to her hands, then back to me. There was a storm in her eyes—pain, guilt, that fierce possession, and something else, something raw and vulnerable I'd only glimpsed before.
"I don't know," she said, her voice a rough whisper, thick with a regret that felt ancient. "I wish I did. You never… said it in words. Not to me. Not like that." She paused, swallowing hard, her eyes searching mine as if trying to find the ghost of that feeling. "But you wrote songs. For me. You would leave sheet music on the piano, or play a new melody when you thought I wasn't listening. The notes were… full of you. Sometimes they were bright and chaotic, like you. Sometimes they were softer. Sad, even. I used to think… I used to hope that was your way. That the music was where you kept the things you couldn't say."
My heart squeezed painfully. She didn't know. The moment I longed for was a mystery even to her. It made the empty space in my memory feel even wider, colder.
"Yeah," I said softly, tears welling up again, but of a different kind. Not happy tears. The aching kind. "That's why I wanna remember it. Whenever I read my old notes, the songs that have your initials scribbled in the corner, or lines about… I don't know, 'dark wine and quiet storms'... it makes me think I really did treasure you. I must have. The music doesn't lie, right?"
I gave a wet, shaky laugh, trying to lighten the weight that had settled in the room. "It's just that things happened. My family… all that trauma. It must have broken something. Buried the good stuff under all the bad. And now the amnesia just… finished the job. Funny, right? Maybe I'm just cursed with cars. First my family, then me. Haha." The laugh sounded hollow, even to me.
She reached across the space between us, her fingers brushing away a tear that had escaped. Her touch was infinitely gentle. "You are not cursed," she said, her voice firm, leaving no room for argument. "The world tried to break you. It failed. It took your memories, but it gave you back to me. Different, but whole. And the music is still there. You are still there. That is all that matters now."
Her words were a lifeline thrown into the sea of my confusion. She was reframing the narrative, turning tragedy into a strange kind of gift. It gave you back to me. It should have sounded selfish. Instead, in that moment, it sounded like the only solid truth I had to cling to. She was here. She remembered the songs. She kept the evidence of a love I couldn't recall.
Maybe that had to be enough.
We sat in the comfortable quiet, the game forgotten. Then, an idea struck me—a way to lighten the mood and satisfy my curiosity. "Hey. You said you have lock picks."
"I did."
"And you're really good."
"Proficient."
I leaned forward, a grin spreading across my face. "I dare you to pick the lock on your own liquor cabinet. Without the key. Right now."
She looked from me to the elegant, locked walnut cabinet across the room. A challenge. I could see the calculation in her eyes—the risk of indulging in frivolity versus the reward of impressing me, of participating in my whimsy.
"That would be an unnecessary demonstration," she said, but she was already standing up.
"It's science!" I insisted, scrambling to follow her. "A practical application of your cool, secret skill! For entertainment purposes!"
She walked to a small wall safe disguised as a framed etching. With a few precise turns, she opened it. Inside, alongside documents, lay a slim, black leather roll. She unrolled it on the desk beside the liquor cabinet. The picks gleamed, slender and menacing.
"Whoa," I breathed. "They're so tiny and deadly."
"Precision tools," she corrected, selecting two. She knelt before the cabinet's old-fashioned keyhole. Her entire demeanor changed. The CEO vanished, replaced by a figure of intense, focused grace. Her movements were fluid, silent. She inserted the tools, her head tilted slightly, listening with senses I couldn't comprehend.
I held my breath, kneeling beside her. The only sound was the faint, metallic scritch-scratch of the picks. Her concentration was absolute. This was a different kind of power than the boardroom. It was intimate, secretive, quietly arrogant.
After about thirty seconds, there was a soft, definitive click.
Haven turned the ornate handle, and the cabinet door swung open. Inside, rows of crystal decanters and rare bottles glimmered.
I burst into applause. "Bravo! Encore! Do the pantry next!"
She looked up at me, a genuine, proud smile on her face. It was the smile of a girl who'd just shown off a neat trick, not a CEO who ruled an empire. It stole the air from my lungs.
"Satisfied?" she asked, beginning to re-roll her kit.
"Immensely. You are officially the coolest wife. Also, possibly a security threat." I peered into the cabinet. "Ooh, what's in the smoky one?"
"That is a 25-year-old Islay Scotch. It tastes like a maritime accident and regret."
"Perfect. Let's try it."
"Althea, it's 3 PM."
"And? My neural reticulator is curious! A tiny sip! For science and lock-picking victory!"
She shook her head, but she was reaching for two crystal tumblers. She poured a minuscule amount into each. "Do not blame me when your taste buds file for divorce."
I took the glass, clinked it against hers, and took a sip.
Fire. Smoke. Band-aids. The ocean in a storm. It was horrific. And fascinating. My face must have been a picture, because she let out a soft chuckle.
"I told you."
"It's… an experience," I wheezed, setting the glass down with finality. "I think my soul just got a light charring. Your turn. Pick something you actually like."
She poured herself a slightly larger measure of an amber liquid from a different decanter. "This is a cognac. Smoother."
I watched her sip it, the liquid catching the light. She looked… at ease. In her study, having just picked a lock for fun, drinking cognac in the afternoon with her ridiculous wife. This was my project, and it was working.
"See?" I said softly, leaning my head against her shoulder. "Non-worky things are good. Your brain needs to defrag."
"Defrag," she repeated, the word foreign on her tongue. She wrapped her arm around me, pulling me closer. "Is that what we're calling it?"
"Yep. We're deleting unnecessary corporate files and making space for… important data. Like the best type of hot chocolate, and the feeling of picking a lock." I paused, the earlier sadness a faint echo. "And the proof that I wrote you songs. That's a good file to keep."
She rested her cheek on the top of my head. "My storage capacity," she murmured into my hair, her voice a vibration through me, "is entirely allocated to you. No defragmentation required."
It was the most romantic, slightly creepy, utterly Haven thing anyone had ever said to me. I loved it. I snuggled closer, the scotch still burning a happy, weird little hole in my memory, right next to the Szechuan sauce and the sound of her laugh.
Maybe I didn't need the memory of the first time I loved her. The songs were the receipt. The love was here now. Maybe building a whole new catalog of first times—first hot chocolate, first lock-picking lesson, first horrific scotch—was even better.
HAVEN'S POV
The hot chocolate was a surprise. Not the offering itself, but the fact it was palatable. She had indeed followed instructions. This was a new phase of her reconstruction: not just accepting my curated world, but attempting to contribute to it. To nurture me. The thought was dangerously disarming.
Her proposed game was a minefield. "Twenty questions" was a child's pastime, but in her hands, it was a subtle interrogation, a gentle probing of the persona I presented. I had to be careful. My answers had to align with the character of "Haven, the devoted, slightly-stuffy wife," while revealing nothing of the architect, the warden, the monster.
Her first questions were softballs. Favorite color. Animal. I answered truthfully—black, a raptor—because those truths served the image. They were consistent with the powerful Alpha she knew.
Then, she turned the key. The first thing you remember.
Her description of me in the hospital—tired, sad, staring—was a punch to a psychic bruise. She had seen through the controlled exterior to the raw, devastated core beneath. I had been recalibrating. Recalibrating from a world where she was gone to one where she was back, but different. Recalibrating my entire purpose on the spot. She called me a hallucination. The irony was exquisite; I often felt the same about her now, this beautiful phantom of my own making.
When I asked for her happy memory, she gave me music. The stage. It was a pure, uncorrupted fragment of the Tyrant's essence, the part that was genius, not grief. I affirmed it. "You were a queen there." You still are, but your kingdom is now just the cage of my attention.
Her next question was a landmine disguised as whimsy. If you could remember one thing…
My blood went cold. This was the question at the heart of all my fears. What would she choose? The truth of her family's death? The reason for her hatred? The divorce papers?
Her answer—"the moment I realized I loved you"—was a double-edged sword of such sharpness it left me breathless. It was the perfect answer to bind me tighter, to feed my obsession. It was also a request for a foundational memory that did not exist.
I couldn't give her a pretty lie about a Tuesday. Not this time. The risk was too great. What if a sliver of true memory contradicted it later? Instead, I gave her a different truth—a sadder, more manipulative one. I confessed my ignorance. I weaponized my own longing from the before time. I offered her the songs.
You wrote songs. For me. This was true. The Tyrant had written music steeped in complexity—anger, passion, sorrow, confusion. I had interpreted the occasional softer phrase, the rare melodic line that didn't feel like a shard of glass, as being for me. It was a hope I'd clung to. Now, I presented that fragile hope to the amnesiac as established fact. The music was where you kept the things you couldn't say.
It was a masterstroke. It validated her desire for a lost romantic history while being fundamentally unverifiable and emotionally safe. It made her the mysterious, poetic one, and me the pining, devoted recipient.
Her reaction was perfection. The aching understanding. The tears. The hollow laugh about being "cursed with cars." My correction was immediate, absolute. You are not cursed. It gave you back to me. I reframed the trauma as a delivery system. The ultimate gaslighting. And she accepted it, her need for a coherent narrative outweighing the bleakness of the facts.
Then, with the emotional tension expertly managed, she pivoted. Lock picks.
The shift was a relief. A tangible, safe secret to share. Kneeling before the cabinet, I performed for her. The click of the lock was a metaphor for my entire project: patience, precision, the yielding of barriers. Her awe was my reward.
The Scotch was a palate shock, another sensory imprint from me. When she snuggled against me afterward, speaking of defragmentation, I felt the system hum with stability. She was integrating the day's data—the emotional confession, the physical skill, the shared sensory experience—all under the umbrella of our bond.
"My storage capacity is entirely allocated to you." It was no lie. Every algorithm I ran was for her benefit and my control.
As we sat there, my phone vibrated with the fertility alert. OPTIMAL WINDOW: TOMORROW.
The data was compelling. Environment: stable. Subject mood: trusting, affectionate, emotionally vulnerable post-confessional game. Chemical regimen: optimal. Bonding experiences: recent and potent.
The objective crystallized. The biological binding. An heir. Skylor. Heavenly. A living monument to this new reality. A permanent tether.
The monster and the architect agreed. It was the logical, beautiful, terrifying next step.
"What would you like to do for dinner?" I asked, my voice a gentle rumble against her hair.
"Something cozy… pasta?"
"Pasta it is."
"Can we eat it in the library? By the fire?"
"Anywhere you wish."
The plan was elegant. Cozy dinner. Firelight. The library—a vetted, safe environment. An atmosphere of domestic romance.
Tomorrow, I would initiate the final phase. Not as a strategy, but as a natural culmination of the trust and intimacy I had built. She would come to me. She would want it.
She sighed, content. "This is nice. Just us."
"Just us," I echoed, stroking her arm. For now.
Soon, it would be us three. A perfect, closed system. A family built on the foundation of beautiful, tragic lies and a love that was equal parts devotion and disease.
In the golden afternoon light, with her weight against me, I felt the rightness of it all. Every manipulation, every withheld truth, every act of violence in the shadows—it all converged here, in this quiet study, with this woman who believed my songs were love letters and my prison was a sanctuary.
And I would burn the world to ash before I let anything take it from us.