The decision did not arrive cleanly or all at once, and Willow understood almost immediately that this was why it worked. It did not feel like either of them had won or lost anything, and it did not require apology or concession to move forward. It grew instead from repetition, from the same conversation resurfacing in slightly altered forms, until the practical realities beneath it made resistance feel unnecessary rather than defeated.
They talked about it over two days, sometimes directly and sometimes obliquely, when neither of them seemed fully aware that the subject had returned again. It surfaced between other things, folded into routine, never announced, never dramatic. Each time it appeared, it stayed a little longer, until it stopped feeling like an intrusion and began to feel like a plan taking shape.
