31. Declan #2
Her expression flickers—something warm, conflicted, guarded, and searching all at once. “I wasn’t sure you’d still be here,” she says.
“I wasn’t sure I’d still be welcome.”
“You’re… here.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m welcome.”
“Declan.”
My name from her mouth does something to me I’m not ready to examine. Before I can say something stupid, she nods toward the kitchen. “Do you want breakfast?” she asks. “I was going to make something.”
“I can help.”
“No,” she says with a strange conviction. “You sit. I’ll cook.”
Whether she means she needs control or she needs space or she needs normalcy, I don’t know. But I accept it. I sit at the counter while she moves through the kitchen—slow, thoughtful motions, measured breaths, the faint crease between her brows when she reaches for something on the higher shelf.
She cooks quietly. Eggs, toast, fruit. Nothing complicated, but it feels like something I don’t deserve. I watch her hands shake slightly when she sets down my plate.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Morning sickness,” she says. “It’ll pass.”
I swallow too hard. The words hit differently now. More real than they ever have. Morning sickness. Ailish. My child. I pick up my fork mostly to have something to do with my hands. We eat in silence for a moment. Not awkward. Just… careful.
She glances at me as she takes a sip of water. “Did the mission go well?”
I nod. “Clean. Efficient. Liam’s happy.”
“Are you?”
I look up at her. Really look at her. Her eyes are soft but steady. Searching again. Bracing, maybe, for whatever truth I choose to give her.
“I’m… better than I’ve been in a long time,” I admit. “But I don’t know what that means yet.”
She swallows. Her fingers move unconsciously to her stomach again, brushing along the fabric of her robe. “Thank you for telling me,” she says quietly.
We sit there, breathing the same air, holding the same thousand unspoken things between us. She looks tired in a way that frightens me—not physically, but emotionally. Like she’s carrying too much alone.
“I’m not leaving,” I say. “Not today.”
She closes her eyes for a second, like she’s absorbing the words before she lets them settle. “Okay,” she whispers.
We finish our food. The house stays quiet, and as the sun rises fully, the light softens across the hardwood floors. For a moment, it feels like a life we might’ve had in another world—one where there’s no war room, no Russians, no threats, no years of bad choices between us.
When she stands, I stand. When she starts clearing dishes, I move to help. She doesn’t fight me this time. We work side by side, elbow to elbow, in a kind of quiet rhythm we’ve never allowed ourselves before.
When everything is clean, she rests her hand on the back of a chair, steadying herself as a wave of dizziness passes.
I react instantly. Too quickly. “You alright?”
She nods. “Just a head rush. It happens.”
My jaw tightens. “You should be resting more.”
She shoots me a look that could peel paint. “Don’t start.”
I hold up my hands. “I’m not trying to—”
“Yes, you are.”
I almost smile. “Fine. I’m starting. Because you’re not taking care of yourself the way you should.”
“I’m taking care of myself just fine,” she snaps. “What I’m not taking care of is dealing with you.”
And there it is. The honesty I’ve been craving even when it burns.
I take a slow breath, grip the back of the counter, steadying myself before I say anything we’ll both regret. “Ailish,” I start, low, quiet, “I’m trying.”
“I know,” she whispers. Her voice breaks on the second word. She looks away quickly, blinking hard. And something in me fractures cleanly down the center.
Without thinking, I reach out—just enough to touch her wrist. A gentle pressure. A question. An apology. Everything I don’t know how to say.
She doesn’t pull away. Not at first. But she does close her eyes. “Don’t,” she says softly. “Not unless you mean it. Not unless you’re staying for more than a night on a couch.”
It hits like a punch. “I’m here,” I tell her. “I’m staying.”
Her eyes open. And the look she gives me is the closest thing I’ve ever seen to hope dying and being reborn in the same breath. “Then stay,” she murmurs, voice shaking. “Not as a soldier. Not as someone waiting for orders. Stay because you want to.”
I let go of her wrist. Only because touching her right now feels like standing on the edge of a cliff with my chest open. “I want to,” I say.
It’s the truth. It’s terrifying. And it’s not enough.
She turns away, gathering herself, and that small distance between us feels larger than any war I’ve ever fought. “I have to get ready,” she says. “Mackenzie is coming in an hour for my prenatal check-in.”
“Okay.”
“But you can stay,” she adds, almost too quietly. “If you want.”
I nod. “I’ll be here.”
She pauses halfway up the stairs, looking back at me with something unreadable—fear, maybe. Longing. Exhaustion. Vulnerability. All the things she never lets anyone see. And then she says, “Declan?”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you for last night.”
I swallow hard. “You don’t have to thank me.”
But she does anyway. With a soft smile. Then she goes upstairs, leaving me standing in the kitchen with my pulse pounding and my lungs refusing to work like they were meant to.
I sit back on the couch, tilt my head against the cushions, and let the morning wash over me.
For the first time, I’m choosing not to run from the one thing in my life that might matter more than the war we’re fighting—Her.