They had a few more hours.
Not the kind that announced themselves as precious, or demanded to be marked, but the quieter kind that slipped past unnoticed until they were almost gone. Time that did not ask to be filled with meaning, only inhabited.
Morning softened into late morning without ceremony. Sunlight shifted across the penthouse in slow increments, climbing the walls, warming the floors, catching in glass and metal until the space felt awake rather than illuminated. The city below moved on with its usual impatience, traffic threading through streets that did not care whether anyone inside the building was ready to rejoin it yet.
Willow moved through the kitchen barefoot, a mug of coffee warming her hands, the sleeves of Zane's shirt pushed up her arms without thought. She opened cabinets she did not need, straightened nothing in particular, and paused more than once simply to stand still and listen to the quiet hum of a home that had survived interruption.
