Lazy Saturdays were Nana's favorite.
No missions. No obligations. No need to kick anything or save anyone or be the strong, capable S-class hunter that everyone expected her to be.
Just her, her bed, and a video call with her boyfriend who was somehow making even reading medical journals look unfairly attractive.
"You're staring," Zayne said without looking up from his book, but she could see the hint of a smile playing at his lips.
"I'm appreciating," Nana corrected, snuggling deeper into her pillows. "There's a difference."
"The difference being?"
"Staring is passive. Appreciating is active and involves thinking about how ridiculously handsome you are and how I'm definitely going to marry you someday."
Now he did look up, and his ears immediately turned pink. "Nana—"
"What? It's true! Look at you. Reading about cardiac procedures and drinking coffee like some kind of magazine model. It's unfair to the rest of humanity."
Zayne shook his head, but she caught the way his smile widened. "You're ridiculous."
"You love me anyway."
"Unfortunately, yes."
On the screen, she watched him close his medical journal and take a sip of his coffee. His apartment was neat as always—everything in its place, clinical and organized in a way that was so fundamentally Zayne it made her heart squeeze.
What she didn't know was that in his bedside drawer, carefully hidden beneath a stack of medical textbooks, was a small velvet box. Inside that box was a ring—white gold with a subtle blue stone that matched her aether core, elegant but not ostentatious, perfect for someone who needed their hands free to fight but would still want something beautiful.
He'd had it for three weeks now. Had gone to six different jewelers before finding exactly the right one. Had a speech prepared—well, half-prepared. He kept revising it, making sure every word was perfect because Nana deserved perfect even though she'd probably laugh and kiss him in the middle of his carefully planned proposal.
But he wanted everything to be right. The timing, the location, the moment. His hunter girlfriend deserved nothing less.
"Hey," Zayne said, pulling himself from his thoughts. "What are you doing for dinner?"
"Probably ordering takeout and eating it in bed like the sophisticated adult I am."
"What if I came over instead? We could cook together. Or..." He paused, knowing what her cooking skills were like. "I could cook and you could keep me company."
Nana's entire face lit up. "Really? You want to come over?"
"If that's okay. Your parents won't mind?"
"They're visiting my cousin outside the city for the next week! It's just me and my tragic lack of cooking skills!" She sat up excitedly. "But I want to try! I made that lunchbox last week that didn't kill you, so clearly I'm improving. You can be my food tester!"
Zayne's expression suggested he had concerns about this plan, but he said, "Alright. I'll bring ingredients. And maybe some backup options. Just in case."
"You have no faith in me."
"I have immense faith in your Wanderer-kicking abilities. Your culinary skills require more... evidence-based confidence building."
"That's doctor-speak for 'I think you'll burn the kitchen down.'"
"I would never say that."
"You're thinking it very loudly though."
He laughed—that quiet, genuine laugh she'd worked so hard to earn. "I'll be there in an hour. Don't try to cook anything before I arrive."
"No promises!"
"Nana—"
She blew him a kiss and ended the call, already bouncing off her bed to clean her apartment. Which mostly meant shoving things into closets and hoping Zayne wouldn't investigate too thoroughly.
An hour later, her doorbell rang.
Nana opened it to find Zayne standing there with flowers (pink roses, because he'd remembered they were her favorite), two cups of bubble tea (one strawberry for her, one plain milk tea for him), and a small white box from the fancy bakery downtown.
"You brought gifts," she said, already melting.
"I brought bribes," he corrected. "In case your cooking attempts go poorly."
"So little faith!"
"So much realism."
She pulled him inside, accepting the flowers and bubble tea with a happiness that felt almost too big for her chest. This was good. This was normal. This was the life she'd fought to get back to.
"Welcome to my humble apartment!" Nana gestured around. "It's small but it's home. Also I may have panic-cleaned for forty-five minutes so if you open any closets, things might avalanche out."
"I'll avoid the closets," Zayne promised, setting the cake box on her kitchen counter.
"Come on, let me give you the tour! It'll take approximately thirty seconds because it's basically three rooms."
She showed him her small living area with its well-loved couch and the TV that was definitely too large for the space. Then the kitchen that she barely used except for making coffee and occasionally burning toast. And finally—
"This is my room!"
Nana opened the door with a flourish, revealing her personal space. It was more lived-in than the rest of the apartment—hunter gear scattered around, a few mission reports on her desk, photos pinned to a corkboard showing her with Tara and the team.
And her laptop, sitting open on her desk.
The screen was still on, displaying exactly what she'd been looking at before Zayne's video call.
**AVALON SURVIVORS**
*If you remember a place between life and death...*
Zayne stopped in the doorway.
His expression changed. Not dramatically—he was too controlled for that—but Nana saw it. The way his jaw tightened. The way his eyes fixed on the screen and didn't move.
"Zayne?" Her voice came out smaller than she intended.
"How long?" His voice was quiet, carefully neutral in a way that made her stomach drop. "How long have you been... dealing with this? With Avalon? With thinking no one believes you?"
"I..." Nana moved to close the laptop, but he caught her hand gently.
"Don't. Please. I want to see."
She watched as he crossed to her desk and read the website. Every word. Every description of ice portals and blood moons and impossible creatures. The contact form with zero messages. The visitor count showing she'd refreshed the page 347 times.
When he finally turned to look at her, his expression was pained. "You've been carrying this alone. This whole time. Why didn't you tell me?"
"How could I?" The words burst out of Nana before she could stop them. "How could I explain any of this without sounding completely insane?"
"I told you I wanted to know—"
"You told me you wanted to know when you were READY!" Nana's voice was rising now, over a year of isolation and frustration pouring out. "But how do I tell you? How do I explain that we fell through an ice portal into a death realm? That you died SIX TIMES? That I watched you die and held you while you dissolved into mist?"
Zayne opened his mouth, but she wasn't done.
"Everyone thinks I'm crazy, Zayne! Tara and Nero sit me down every few weeks and suggest therapy. My parents change the subject whenever I mention the forest. Captain Jenna looks at me like I'm having a mental breakdown!" Tears were streaming down her face now. "And you... that first night in the forest when we woke up, you looked at me the exact same way. Like I was losing my mind. Like I needed help. Like nothing I was saying was real!"
"Nana—"
"I JUMPED BACK INTO THAT HELL FOR YOU!" Her voice cracked completely. "I saw the portal reappear two weeks after I escaped and I jumped back in because I couldn't leave you there! I searched for SIX MONTHS! I found you and we fought together and we escaped together and then the universe just... erased it all! Reset everything! And now I'm the only one who remembers and everyone thinks I'm INSANE!"
The temperature in the room dropped sharply. Frost began forming on the windows, spreading in delicate crystalline patterns. Zayne's ice evol was responding to her emotional distress, manifesting without his conscious control.
But he didn't seem to notice. He was staring at her with an expression of such pain and guilt that it made Nana's chest ache even through her anger.
"You're not insane," he said quietly.
"Everyone thinks I am."
"I don't."
"You did! You looked at me in that forest like—"
"Like I was terrified you'd been hurt!" Zayne's voice rose for the first time, matching her intensity. "I woke up with no memory of anything except Wanderers attacking. You were crying and talking about portals and death realms and I thought you'd hit your head. I thought you were concussed. I was scared you were seriously injured and I'd missed it!"
He took a step closer, frost still spreading around them.
"I've been having dreams for months," he continued. "Dreams of dying. Of ice and darkness and fighting beside you in places that don't exist. Dreams where I sacrifice myself over and over because keeping you safe is more important than breathing. And I wake up and there are no scars, no marks, nothing to prove any of it was real."
His hand moved to his chest, right over his heart. Right where the Roman numeral VI would be if Avalon's marks still existed.
"I feel like there should be something here," he said. "Some proof that I've died. That I've lived more than this one life. But there's nothing. Just this sense of missing something crucial. Missing YOU, even though you're right here."
"Zayne..." Nana's anger was draining away, replaced by overwhelming sadness.
"So when I said I wanted to know the truth, I meant it. Not when it's convenient. Not when you think I'm ready. NOW. Because you've been carrying this alone and that's..." He ran a hand through his hair, frost still forming on his fingertips. "That's not okay. We're supposed to be partners. In everything."
"But I don't have proof!" Nana's voice broke completely. "The portal is gone. The cave is just a cave. My scars healed. My hair grew back. Every physical piece of evidence disappeared! How am I supposed to convince anyone—convince YOU—that it was real when I have NOTHING?"
"You have your memories," Zayne said. "You have this website. You have the skills you gained and the trauma you're carrying and the fact that you're so much stronger than you should be." He gestured at the laptop. "You have the fact that you've refreshed this page 347 times hoping someone else would remember. That you've been dealing with this completely alone while pretending everything is fine."
"That's not proof. That's just... me being crazy."
"Stop calling yourself crazy!" His hands gripped her shoulders, gentle but firm. "Please. Stop. You're not crazy. Something happened to you—to US—and just because I can't remember it doesn't mean it wasn't real."
Nana stared at him, tears still streaming down her face. "You believe me?"
"I..." Zayne hesitated, and she saw him struggle with it. The doctor in him warring with the part that trusted her absolutely. "I believe that YOU believe it. I believe something traumatic happened in that forest. I believe you experienced something that changed you fundamentally. Whether it was exactly as you remember or whether your mind created a narrative to process something even more traumatic, I don't know. But I believe YOU. And I believe that you need support, not judgment."
It wasn't quite the validation she'd been desperately craving. But it was more than anyone else had given her.
"That's not the same as believing me," Nana said quietly.
"I know." Zayne pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her. "But it's where I am right now. And I'm trying. I promise I'm trying. The dreams, the sense of missing memories, the way my ice evol responds to you like it recognizes something my mind doesn't—I'm paying attention to all of it. Trying to understand."
"What if you never remember? What if I'm stuck being the only one who knows the truth forever?"
"Then you won't be alone in it anymore. I'll be here. Even if I can't remember, even if I can't fully understand, I'll be here."
Nana pressed her face into his chest and sobbed. Really sobbed—the kind of crying she'd been holding back for over a year. The kind that shook her whole body and made it hard to breathe.
Zayne held her through it, one hand stroking her hair, the other wrapped firmly around her waist. Frost continued spreading around them—up the walls, across the ceiling, coating everything in crystalline patterns that would have been beautiful if they weren't so sad.
"I'm so tired," Nana whispered against his shirt. "I'm so tired of being the only one who remembers. Of feeling crazy. Of not being able to prove that Mina and Jisu and all those people existed. That they mattered."
"Tell me about them," Zayne said quietly. "Tell me everything. About Avalon, about Mina and Jisu, about what we were to each other there. I might not remember, but I want to know. I want to understand what you've been carrying alone."
"It'll take hours."
"I have time. I have all the time you need."
So Nana told him.
Everything.
She told him about falling through the portal and waking up in that abandoned classroom. About Mina saving her and teaching her to survive. About the elimination cycles and the constant death and the way humans were more dangerous than any monster.
She told him about their reunion. About him searching for her for three years while she trained with Mina. About finding each other and falling in love without the baggage of their previous relationship.
She told him about the blood moon. About his sacrifice. About watching him dissolve into mist while white vampires surrounded them.
She told him about coming back. About the reset. About jumping into the portal again because she couldn't leave him there.
She told him about his six deaths. About the Roman numeral VI carved into his chest. About finding him with no memories and starting over from scratch.
And she told him about the escape. About climbing the Ancient Tree together. About him being bitten. About having to mercy-kill him while he guided her hands to the blade.
By the time she finished, they were sitting on her bed, backs against the wall, Zayne's arm around her shoulders. The frost had spread to cover most of the room, turning it into something from a winter fairy tale.
"I killed you," Nana whispered. "In that tunnel. You were turning into a vampire and you asked me to end it before you fully transformed and I... I did it. I stabbed you while you smiled at me and told me I was helping you. And then you dissolved and I was alone and the bridge collapsed and I thought I'd failed. Thought I'd lost you forever."
Zayne was very quiet. His arm had tightened around her sometime during the story, and she could feel him shaking slightly.
"I'm sorry," he finally said. "I'm so sorry you had to do that. That I put you in that position."
"It's not your fault. You were trying to save me. You always try to save me."
"It's still not fair. None of this is fair to you."
They sat in silence for a long time. Outside, the sun was setting, painting her frost-covered room in shades of orange and pink.
"I don't know how to help you," Zayne admitted. "I don't know how to make this better or prove that it was real or bring back your friends. But I'm here. And I'm not going anywhere. And I promise—I PROMISE—I will never make you feel crazy for remembering this. Okay?"
Nana nodded, not trusting her voice.
"And maybe..." He hesitated. "Maybe we can investigate together. Look for evidence. Try to figure out why the portal disappeared and why everything reset. There has to be a reason. An explanation."
"You mean that?" Hope flickered in Nana's chest, fragile but present. "You'd help me investigate?"
"Of course. We're partners. In everything. Remember?"
She turned to look at him properly. His hazel eyes were serious, determined, free of the judgment and doubt she'd been so afraid of seeing.
"I love you," she said.
"I love you too. In this life and apparently several others that I can't quite remember but am starting to believe might have existed."
Nana laughed—a watery, broken sound, but genuine. "That's the most romantic thing you've ever said."
"I'm trying to be supportive in a crisis. Romance is difficult under these circumstances."
"You're doing great. A-plus boyfriending."
"Thank you. I'll add it to my resume."
She kissed him then—soft and grateful and full of relief that she wasn't completely alone anymore. He kissed back gently, his cold hands cupping her face, frost still spreading around them in response to their combined emotions.
When they pulled apart, Zayne looked around at the ice coating her bedroom and winced. "I may have gotten carried away with the evol response."
"It's beautiful," Nana said honestly. "Sad, but beautiful."
"Like us?"
"Exactly like us."
He helped her to her feet, and together they surveyed the damage. Frost covered the windows, the walls, even parts of her ceiling. It would take hours to melt, and probably leave water damage.
"Your landlord is going to have questions," Zayne observed.
"I'll tell them my boyfriend has ice powers and emotional regulation issues."
"That's not going to help."
"Probably not. But it's the truth."
They moved to her kitchen, which had been spared the ice storm. Zayne started pulling ingredients from the bag he'd brought—vegetables, chicken, rice, things that could become an actual meal.
"We're still cooking?" Nana asked.
"You need to eat. Crying for an hour burns a lot of calories." He paused, then added quietly, "And I need to do something normal. Something that helps. Even if it's just making sure you have a good dinner."
Nana watched him move around her kitchen with practiced efficiency, and felt something settle in her chest. He believed her. Maybe not completely, maybe not in the way she needed, but he believed that something had happened. That she wasn't making it up or losing her mind.
And he was here. Choosing to stay even after hearing the impossible truth. Choosing to investigate with her instead of suggesting therapy.
It wasn't everything she'd wanted. But it was more than she'd had yesterday.
And for now, that was enough.
"Zayne?" she said as he started chopping vegetables.
"Mm?"
"Thank you. For not leaving. For not thinking I'm crazy. For... just being here."
He looked up and smiled—that soft, genuine smile that made her fall in love with him all over again. "Where else would I be? You're my person, Nana. In this timeline and apparently several others. I'm not going anywhere."
Nana moved to stand beside him, resting her head on his shoulder as he cooked. Outside her window, the last light of day faded into night.
And in her frost-covered bedroom, her laptop still displayed the Avalon Survivors website, its visitor count ticking up to 348 as it automatically refreshed.
Still zero messages.
But for the first time in over a year, Nana felt like maybe—just maybe—she wasn't completely alone in the truth anymore.
.
.
.
.
.
To be continued.