Amelia didn't sleep that night. Not truly.
She drifted in and out, her body tangled in the sheets of a borrowed bed, the scent of Daniel still faint on her skin. He'd stayed with her until the sun began to rise, then left quietly—his hand sliding gently from hers, a promise pressed into the curve of her palm.
She missed him the moment the door closed.
Now, with morning pouring through the blinds in tired streaks, she stood in front of the mirror in Julian's guest room, wearing one of Daniel's old shirts she'd taken from the studio weeks ago. The collar hung wide on her collarbone, and the sleeves swallowed her wrists, but it grounded her somehow—soft armor against the uncertainty clinging to her ribs.
A knock at the door broke the stillness.
Julian didn't wait for permission to enter. He never did.
"You should rest," he said, eyes shadowed and voice low.
She met his gaze in the mirror. "I did. Enough."
He studied her a moment too long. "The board's already spinning stories. The gallery wants answers. Insurance, damage estimates... statements."
She turned, folding her arms. "And you want what? An apology for the mess?"
"I want to help you clean it up," he said, stepping closer. "But I can't do that if you keep letting him pull you further into the wreckage."
Her breath caught. There it was. The crack she'd been expecting.
"You think Daniel is the problem?" she asked, voice cold.
Julian's jaw tightened. "I think you forget who you are around him."
"No, Julian." She stepped forward now, her voice rising like a tide. "Around him, I remember. That I feel. That I breathe. That I exist for something more than curated perfection and pretended detachment."
His expression shifted—something raw flickering behind the practiced calm. "And when he leaves?"
"He won't."
"You don't know that."
"I don't," she admitted. "But I'd rather fall into something real and painful than stay standing in something lifeless and safe."
Silence pressed between them.
Julian didn't argue. He just nodded once, slowly, and walked out.
Later that afternoon, she returned to the studio. What remained of it.
Daniel was already there, sleeves rolled, hands smudged with soot. He was pulling debris into rough piles, methodical and quiet. He looked up when he saw her, a small, tired smile breaking through.
"I thought you might not come back here."
"I had to," she said. "It's where everything started."
They worked side by side for hours, speaking little. Clearing. Breathing. Unburying pieces of a life scorched but not erased.
At one point, Amelia paused, her eyes falling on a half-charred figure study—lines still faintly visible beneath the blackened edges. One of hers. Of Daniel.
She held it in her hands like a relic.
When she looked up, he was watching her. His eyes held a question. Not just about the sketch—but about them. About what they were now, in this soot-and-ash version of their world.
She stepped closer. He didn't move.
"I'm not sure where we go from here," she whispered.
"Then let's not decide yet," he murmured. "Let's just be here. In this."
Her hand found his. Fingers threading together.
And there, surrounded by ruin, they began again—not with passion, not with fire, but with presence. With a quiet understanding that love doesn't always arrive in perfect form. Sometimes it survives in what remains.
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