Chapter 28
The drive back blurred into stretches of motorway and sodium-lit streets.
Jonas barely noticed the way the headlights smeared across the windscreen, or the muted sound of the radio left on low.
He drove in silence, every mile taking him further from his mother’s fragile smile and deeper into the knot in his chest.
She’d remembered him. God, she’d remembered him. For one perfect hour, she’d been the mother of his childhood again, warm, sharp, loving, alive. And then, just as quickly, the light had gone out in her eyes. What’s your name again? The words cut through him like broken glass.
He’d smiled, reassured her, but inside, it had shredded something.
He thought he’d prepared himself for it; the books all said to expect this, that the forgetting came in waves, but knowing it in theory was nothing like living it.
Every story she remembered and shared, he’d felt like if he could just relive more of those moments he could save her, but he couldn’t.
Clara’s hand had been in his mother’s, steady, gentle. She’d smiled like she belonged there. Like she was part of them, had always been.
And Jonas, weak fool that he was, had wanted it to be true. Fuck, more than his next breath, he’d wanted that.
Back at the compound, the corridors seemed longer than usual, the low hum of servers and overhead pipes pressing against his skin. Clara walked beside him, quiet but watchful. He could feel her attention, like heat at the side of his face.
At her door, he stopped, trying to arrange his features into something resembling control.
“You’re not all right,” she said softly. Not accusing. Just truth.
His throat tightened. “She knew me today. And then she didn’t. Every time, it’s less. One day, there’ll be nothing. And she’ll never see…” He stopped, breath sharp. “She’ll never see me as more than her boy. Never see me fall in love or start a family. She deserved that.”
The admission left him raw, stripped to the bone.
Clara stepped closer, her eyes wide, her voice a whisper as her fingers feathered over his jaw. “Jonas… what do you need?”
The answer slipped out before he could stop it. “I need to hold you.”
Her breath caught. Then she opened the door and drew him in without hesitation.
The room was dim, shadows soft around the edges.
She didn’t say anything more, just reached for his shirt, fingers steady as she worked the buttons.
Jonas stood rigid, fighting the urge to back away, to apologise.
But he let her do it, let her peel away the fabric until his chest was bare.
Her fingertips lingered on the scars scattered across his skin, not flinching, not asking.
She slipped out of her dress, left in simple underwear, pale in the lamplight. For a moment, he shut his eyes, shame and desire tangling tight in his gut. But then she took his hand, warm and sure, and led him to the bed.
She slid in first, tugging the duvet back, and shucked his jeans before he followed, awkward in his bulk, his too-long limbs, the weight of him that always felt like too much. But she made space. Always, she made space.
Clara pulled him down until his head rested against her chest. Her arms wrapped around him, firm and gentle at once, and he clutched at her like a drowning man finally reaching shore.
The scent of her filled his head; soap and something faintly floral, grounding him, steadying him. The steady rhythm of her heart thudded against his cheek, an anchor in the storm of his thoughts.
For the first time in years, he allowed himself to relax fully, his body melting into hers. The tension bled out of his shoulders; out of the fists he’d carried clenched for so long.
“You’re safe,” she whispered, her fingers combing through his hair. “With me, you’re safe.”
The words sliced straight through his defences.
His chest ached, his eyes burned, but he pressed his face against her and let the warmth soak in.
He didn’t trust himself to speak, didn’t trust his voice not to crack, didn’t trust that if he opened his mouth, everything he’d been holding back wouldn’t spill out.
And still… with Clara’s arms around him, he believed her.
Clara’s arms tightened around him, her breath a steady rise and fall beneath his cheek. The silence stretched, warm and heavy, until it became something else entirely, a cocoon. The kind of quiet he’d never been able to hold with anyone else.
He realised with a jolt that his hands were clutching her too tightly, his fingers digging into her waist. He started to loosen his grip, to apologise, but she only smoothed her hand down his back and whispered, “Don’t. Just… stay.”
So, he stayed.
Minutes passed. His breathing evened out, though the storm in his chest still churned.
Words pressed against his throat, words he’d never said out loud, not even to the team who trusted him with their lives.
“I don’t… fit,” he said finally, the words raw, half-broken.
“Not in rooms. Not in conversations. Even with them, my family. I know they love me, but I miss cues, or I go too deep, or I freeze. And then I watch them all laughing, easy, and I feel…” His voice cracked. “Wrong. Like I’m defective.”
Clara shifted beneath him until her chin rested lightly on his head. “Jonas,” she murmured, and the way she said his name, soft, sure, made his chest ache. “You’re not defective,” she said. “You’re… you. And I think the world’s better for it.”
His throat closed. He clung tighter, burying his face against her, hoping she didn’t notice the dampness at the corner of his eyes.
“I hated school,” he admitted in a rush, like pulling thorns from his skin.
“I was bored. Too fast for the lessons, too slow with the kids. My mum tried. God, she tried, but I always felt outside. Computers made sense. Code made sense. People…” He gave a low, bitter laugh.
“People are chaos. I can predict a system down to its last line, but I can’t predict what someone will say when they look me in the eye. ”
Clara’s fingers carded through his hair again, gentle, soothing. “Maybe that’s why you see people so clearly, even when you think you don’t. You notice the details the rest of us miss. You notice pain because you’ve carried it. That doesn’t make you wrong, Jonas. It makes you rare.”
Her words settled in him like a balm, but he shook his head, still tangled in the net of his own doubts. “And yet I let them take me. I let them hurt me. I wasn’t strong enough.”
Clara pulled back slightly, just enough to tilt his face up so he had to meet her eyes. “You survived them,” she said, fierce now. “That’s strength. That’s everything.”
His chest heaved. He searched her face for any flicker of pity, of disgust, but all he saw was fire. Fire for him.
Something loosened inside him, something he hadn’t realised was clenched so tight. His arms wound around her waist again, holding on like he’d come apart without her. Their legs tangled together, her warmth seeping into him, their bodies fitted as if they’d always been meant to lie this way.
For a while, neither spoke, just breathed.
Then Clara’s voice broke the silence, low and steady.
“Do you know what it feels like,” she whispered, “to live your whole life as a disappointment? To smile, to nod, to accept their rules even as they squeeze the air out of you. I’m marrying a man I don’t love to keep my parents happy.
To keep their house. Their reputation. Like I’m a bargaining chip, not a person. ”
He lifted his head a fraction, staring at her. Her eyes glistened, but she wasn’t crying. She was burning, the way he’d just seen in the mirror of her gaze.
“I hate it,” she admitted. “I hate myself for being too weak to walk away. For letting them do this to me.”
Jonas reached up, cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing the dampness there. “You’re not weak,” he said, the words torn from the core of him. “You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met. You look them in the eye, and you endure. You survive them.”
Her breath shivered out. She closed her eyes, pressed her cheek into his palm.
“And you’re not fucking marrying him.”
The room seemed to shrink around them. Nothing existed but the press of her body against his, the thrum of her heartbeat under his ear, the shared rhythm of confessions they’d never dared speak.
“Jonas,” she whispered, fingers curling in his hair, “you make me feel… seen. For the first time.”
His chest constricted. He tucked his head back against her, resisting the urge to kiss her because he knew he wouldn’t stop there, instead wrapping himself tighter around her, as if he could fuse them together and never let go.
“Stay with me,” he murmured, the words slipping out before he could stop them. “Just stay.”
Her answer was simple. A soft “Always,” breathed into his hair.
And for the first time in years, Jonas Mason let himself drift into sleep in someone else’s arms.