Page 100 of Thexan

“You do now.”

The words moved through me with unexpected force.

I stood looking at him, feeling the steadiness between us and understanding the offer for what it was. Thexan would never bring flowers or dress a promise in softness. He built things that held.

Help.

Presence.

A shoulder under the weight I had carried alone for so long—I had stopped noticing how heavy it was.

“You can’t fix my whole life in three weeks,” I said.

“No,” he replied. “But I can begin.”

My throat tightened.

That was probably the most romantic thing he had said all day.

Maybe ever.

I stepped closer, resting my hand against his chest. He no longer needed stabilization and I had no need to prove anything. I just wanted the contact.

“Then begin with staying,” I said.

“I have already begun.”

I smiled, and this time it came easily.

Outside, the settlement kept moving, uncertain but no longer unchanged. Inside, Thexan stood with me in the room where all of this had started, no longer dying on my cot, no longer a problem I was trying to solve, but a man who had chosen to stand beside me in the middle of everything I refused to abandon.

And for the first time in years, I let myself wonder what it might feel like to not carry all of it alone.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Thexan

By the end of the fourth week, the settlement’s response to my presence had altered in measurable ways.

The shift was neither complete, nor was it uniform, but it had endured long enough to become pattern rather than accident. Individuals who had once crossed the yard to avoid my path now passed within speaking distance. Those assigned to the lower fence line listened when I pointed out structural weaknesses, even when they argued before accepting the recommendation. The children watched openly, the adults pretended not to, and Tanner had begun disagreeing with me as if disagreement itself had become a form of trust.

Progress, by any practical measure, had occurred.

It should have simplified the equation.

It did not.

I stood near the drainage cut after the others had returned to the central yard, examining the section of reinforced fence where new supports had been anchored into old ground. The repair would hold under moderate pressure now. It remained insufficient against a trained assault, but it was no longer the obvious breach point it had been that morning. With proper reinforcement along the east slope and a repositioned watch point, the approach vector could be reduced further.

The work gave me something to assess, and assessment gave me structure. That had always been useful. It still was. But beneath the familiar process, another awareness moved with increasing persistence, refusing to be contained by practical action.

I was creating a stronger perimeter around a place I had not yet proven safe for Brynn by remaining in it.

That conclusion had formed slowly, resisted at first by the bond and by preference, and by the increasingly difficult truth that preference could no longer be dismissed as a secondary variable. I had told Brynn I wanted to remain with her, and the statement had been accurate. It remained accurate. The desire to return to her, to stand within reach of her, to occupy the same space until the rhythm of her breathing and movement became part of my baseline awareness, had only intensified as the day lengthened.

That was the source of the problem.

If I were thinking only as a tactician, the solution would be clear. A compromised asset who drew unauthorized hostile units toward a civilian population should not remain embedded within that population unless the tactical benefit outweighed the danger. My benefit to the settlement was significant, but not yet enough to eliminate the risk created by my presence. The kill unit had been stopped, but the organization that sent it had not been erased. If Kaer’vas had reported before engagement, if another cell had been assigned, if any trace of my bond with Brynn reached forces still operating beyond this territory, then the threat would return.