A bolt slid back with a metallic whisper, then another, and finally the door swung open to reveal the woman who had haunted his thoughts and dreams for all these months of separation.
Diana stood in the doorway wearing a simple nightgown covered by a woollen wrapper, her dark hair braided loosely over one shoulder, and her face bearing the soft vulnerability of one roused from sleep.
For a moment that stretched between heartbeats, she simply stared at him as though he were an apparition conjured by her own longing.
Her face, always pale, went white as fresh parchment, and her hand flew to her throat as though to still a cry that threatened to escape unbidden.
"Jaegar?" she whispered, and the single word carried within it all the hope and fear and desperate love that had sustained her through the long months of his absence.
