The light above Haru's cot flickered with the heartbeat of the power grid — never quite steady, never quite gone. Like him.
Ash stood in the doorway, her body still aching from the blast. Her boots were caked in soot. Her palms, wrapped in gauze. Blood crusted beneath her fingernails like ink she hadn't washed off.
But it was her heart that weighed the most.
Jin had tried to stop her when she returned — said Haru needed rest, that she needed rest. But rest wasn't what she came back for.
She came back because she couldn't breathe without knowing he was still here.
Ash stepped into the room. Quiet. Careful.
Haru stirred before she even spoke. His eyes opened, slow and sluggish — but they found her instantly.
"Hey," he rasped.
That single word nearly broke her.
She moved to the edge of the bed and sat down without a word. Her hand found his without looking.
He didn't pull away.
"Thought you'd be gone longer," he whispered.
"I was."
"Did it work?"
She looked at the bandage across his ribs. "Define 'work.'"
He chuckled — then winced. "Still hurts to laugh."
"Then stop trying to be funny."
"No promises."
Ash sighed. "We got what we needed. Barely. Lost people. Nearly lost me. And it wasn't even a DaeCorp base — it was something else."
"Phoenix?"
"No. Not them either. Another group. Their symbol was… wrong. Twisted."
His brow furrowed. "Another enemy?"
She shook her head. "Maybe. Maybe just another version of us."
A beat passed. Then another.
Ash turned toward him, really looked at him — the pale skin, the sunken cheeks, the fading bruises beneath his collarbone. And beneath it all, the man who stood between her and death without hesitation.
"Why did you do it?" she asked softly.
He didn't pretend not to understand. "Because it was you."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I have."
She looked down at their hands, fingers curled but not fully locked.
"When I kissed your scars," she whispered, "I thought maybe that would be the hardest thing. To see your pain and not flinch."
He was quiet.
"But it's not," she continued. "This is."
"This?"
"Letting you stay."
Haru swallowed hard.
She continued, her voice cracking. "I don't know how to let someone stay. Everyone leaves. Or lies. Or turns me into something I don't recognize."
"I won't."
"You might."
He looked her in the eye. "Then let me prove you wrong."
The silence between them wasn't empty. It was full — of everything they hadn't said, of every near-death, every held breath, every ache.
Ash leaned forward.
This time, there was no armor.
She cupped his cheek — careful, reverent — and kissed him.
Not like the first kiss in the bunker, when the world had been on fire.
This kiss was quiet. Slow. Unhurried.
It tasted like ash and memory. Like the pain they'd earned and the peace they didn't trust yet.
When she pulled back, her forehead rested against his.
"I don't know how to love," she admitted.
"Neither do I," Haru whispered.
"Then we'll figure it out."
They lay together for hours, saying little. Touching less.
But everything between them spoke.
Ash traced the edge of his bandage with gentle fingers, memorizing the shape of him — not as a soldier, not as a survivor, but as something else.
Something real.
He watched her with a softness that frightened her more than any weapon ever had.
Because it meant she wasn't alone anymore.
Because it meant she had something to lose.
And still, she stayed.
That night, Ash sat beside his bed until the power grid hummed into silence and the world was just the sound of breath and the slow rebuild of trust.
No explosions.
No screams.
Just the softness under armor — the kind of quiet only the broken learn to keep safe.