Chapter 12 Savannah
TWELVE
Savannah
The FBI debriefing room smells like burnt coffee and bureaucracy, fluorescent lights harsh after three hours of questions.
Maria Santos sits across from me, recording device between us, going through every detail for the fifth time. Sawyer's in medical, getting his leg properly treated—the field dressing held through the fight, but he needs real surgery to repair the damage.
"Walk me through the code sequence again," Santos says, patient but thorough.
I explain, again, how Nathan built his redundancies, where he made mistakes, and how I recognized his coding signature. My throat aches where he choked me, voice rough, but I keep talking. This testimony will put away what's left of Prometheus, and I want them buried.
"The chemical formula he was using," Santos continues. "Where did he source the knowledge?"
"He had access to classified studies on water treatment vulnerabilities from his time consulting for Homeland Security." I pull up the files on my laptop. "Here. Every study they accessed, every weakness they exploited."
Santos reviews the data, and her expression grows grimmer. "This could have worked. If you hadn't stopped them—"
"We did stop them." I'm too tired for hypotheticals.
"Yes." She closes the file. "Which brings me to it. The FBI wants you back. Full reinstatement, your choice of assignments, commendation for stopping a terrorist attack."
Four days ago, I would have accepted immediately. The FBI was my life, my purpose, my identity. Now...
"I need time to think."
Santos's eyebrows rise. "Time? We're offering complete vindication."
"I understand. But I almost died for an organization that turned on me the moment Nathan pointed a finger." I meet her eyes. "I need to decide if I can trust the system again."
"The system failed you. But you could help fix it from the inside."
"Maybe. Or maybe I can do more good from outside." I stand, and exhaustion makes the room tilt slightly. "I'll give you an answer tomorrow."
"Savannah—" She pauses, seems to really see me for the first time. "You're different. This experience changed you."
"It showed me who I really am." I manage a tired smile. "Turns out I'm not just an analyst who follows rules."
I leave before she can respond and leave for the hospital. Sawyer's in recovery, and the nurse tries to stop me from entering.
"Family only—"
"I'm his fiancée." The lie comes easily, but the ring of truth in it surprises me.
She lets me pass.
Sawyer's awake, right leg pinned and immobilized, but looking better than he has in hours. His eyes find mine immediately.
"Hey, troublemaker."
"Hey yourself." I take the chair beside his bed, our default position now. "How's the leg?"
"Repairable. Two surgeries, six weeks of physical therapy, but full recovery expected." He reaches for my hand with his left. "How was the debrief?"
"Thorough. Santos offered me reinstatement."
His expression is carefully neutral. "That's good. It's what you wanted."
"It's what I thought I wanted." I trace patterns on his palm. "But that was before."
"Before what?"
"Before I met someone worth changing everything for."
His fingers tighten on mine. "Savannah—"
"CJ offered me a position. Field cyber warfare specialist. I'd work with the Guardian teams, help prevent situations like Prometheus." I meet his eyes.
"You can't make career decisions based on—"
"On the man who saved my life repeatedly? On the person I trust most in the world? On someone I'm pretty sure I'm falling in love with?" I lean closer. "Watch me."
He pulls me down, kisses me with days of suppressed want. When we break apart, we're both breathing hard.
"I love you too," he says against my mouth. "In case that wasn't clear."
"You barely know me."
"I know you turn earrings into weapons. I know you face your fears even when terrified. I know you dragged me bleeding out of Titan’s facility and never let go." His thumb brushes my cheekbone. "I know enough."
"This is insane. It's too fast."
"Probably."
"We're bonded by trauma.."
"Definitely."
"It might not work without the adrenaline."
"Only one way to find out." He kisses me again, gentler this time. "Take the job. Move here. Let's see what we are when no one's shooting at us."
"What if we're boring without death threats?"
"Then we'll be boring together."
I laugh, my first real laugh in days. "Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay, I'll take the job. Okay, I'll move here. Okay, I'll see where this goes." I kiss his forehead, his cheeks, his mouth. "Okay, I love you too, you beautiful disaster."
"That's my line."
The nurse returns and insists that visiting hours are over. I promise to return in the morning, but Sawyer doesn't let go of my hand.
"Stay."
"I can't—hospital rules—"
"I've been shot, blown up, and saved California from a chemical incident. They can bend the rules."
The nurse looks between us, sighs. "Fine. But if anyone asks, she snuck in after my shift ended."
She leaves, and I curl up in the chair that's become my second home. Sawyer's hand finds mine again.
"Tell me about after," I say. "When you're healed, and I’m settled, and life is normal. What does that look like?"
"Sunday mornings without alarms. Coffee that doesn't taste like dirt. Teaching you to rock climb and rappel properly so you're not terrified of heights."
"I'll always be terrified of heights."
"But you'll climb anyway. Because you're brave like that." His voice goes softer. "Maybe a house near the beach. You said you love beaches."
"I do."
"Dinner with my team. You'll love them—they're all slightly insane, just like us."
"Sounds perfect."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
He falls asleep holding my hand, and I watch him breathe, this man who jumped out a window for a stranger. My phone buzzes—text from CJ at Guardian HRS, inquiring about the position. I accept without hesitation.
The next morning brings chaos—media attention, official statements, and enough paperwork to build a fort. But through it all, Sawyer and I stay connected, orbiting each other even when pulled in different directions.
I feel nothing over Nathan’s death—no satisfaction, no regret, just hollow acknowledgment that it's over.
By evening, I'm officially no longer FBI. My credentials surrendered, my access revoked, my five-year career ended with a form and a handshake. Santos hugs me, tells me I'll always have a place if I change my mind. I thank her, but I won't be back.
Guardian HRS sends a car, and I arrive at their facility as the sun sets over the mountains. CJ himself does the tour, showing me the technical division where I'll work. State-of-the-art everything, quantum computing access, and a team that looks at me with respect instead of suspicion.
He hands me a tablet with my first assignment. "Titan is rebuilding their chemical division. Want to make sure they can't?"
"Absolutely."
"Then welcome to Guardian HRS, Ms. Cross."
Sawyer's waiting when the tour ends, leg in a brace but mobile. "How'd it go?"
"I start Monday."
"That's four days away."
"Recovery time, apparently. CJ insists I need to sleep for seventy-two hours before tackling Titan."
"Sounds about right." He’s dressed in jeans and a Henley that does wonderful things to his chest. "Have dinner with me."
"Now?"
"Now. No running, no shooting, no bombs. Just food and conversation and seeing if we work without adrenaline."
"What if we don't?"
"Then we'll manufacture some adrenaline." His grin is wicked. "I have ideas."
"I bet you do."
Dinner is a tiny Italian place where the owner knows Sawyer by name and insists we take the corner booth reserved for special occasions. We eat too much, drink wine that makes me warm, and talk about everything except the last few days.
I learn he rebuilds motorcycles when he can't sleep. He learns I play violin badly but enthusiastically. I discover he reads poetry, secretly. He discovers I've never seen a Star Wars movie, which apparently is a crime against humanity.
"We'll have to fix that," he says, scandalized.
"We'll have to fix a lot of things." I trace the rim of my wine glass. "I don't know how to do normal, Sawyer. Five years of being an analyst, three days of being... whatever I am now."
"You're yourself. Just more honest about it."
"Is that enough?"
He reaches across the table and takes my hand. "You're enough exactly as you are."
"You're just saying that because I saved your life."
"I'm saying it because it's true. The life-saving was just a bonus."
We walk back to his apartment—he insists on showing me the neighborhood since I'll be living here. His place is exactly what I expected—clean, organized, with minimal decoration, except for photos of his team and Tyler’s challenge coin, now displayed proudly on a shelf.
"Guest room's yours as long as you need it," he says, suddenly formal.
"Guest room?"
"I didn't want to assume—"
I kiss him, cutting off whatever noble thing he was about to say. "I don't want the guest room."
"Savannah—"
"We've been through hell together. We've saved each other's lives. We've said we love each other." I frame his face with my hands. "I don't want to sleep alone tonight. Or tomorrow. Or any night if I have a choice."
"My leg—"
"We'll be creative."
He laughs, dark and appreciative. "You're going to be trouble, aren't you?"
"The best kind."
We’re creative.
Careful of injuries but not of feelings.
He maps my body like he's memorizing terrain, and I discover scars he didn't mention, each with a story he whispers against my skin. When release finds us, it's with my name on his lips and his on mine, a promise and a claim and a beginning all at once.
After, tangled carefully around bandages and bruises, I trace lazy patterns on his chest.
"No regrets?" he asks.
"None. Is this what normal looks like for us?"
"Probably." He presses a kiss to my hair. "That okay?"
"Perfect."
I fall asleep to his heartbeat, steady and sure, the rhythm that kept me going when everything else fell apart. Tomorrow there'll be paperwork, arrangements, and the business of building a new life. But tonight, there's just this—us, together, alive despite the odds.
When I wake at 3 AM from habit and trauma, he's awake too, watching the ceiling. Without words, I curl closer, and his arm comes around me, anchoring us both.
"Can't sleep?"
"No."
"Want to talk about it?"
"Not yet."
"Okay."
We lie in comfortable silence, two damaged people choosing to heal together.
It shouldn't work. It's too fast, too intense, built on a foundation of violence and fear. But maybe that's why it does work—we've seen each other at our worst and chose to stay anyway.
"I love you," I say into the darkness.
"I love you too."
Simple words for a complicated truth, but they're enough. We're enough.
Together.