The house is quiet in a way that feels intentional rather than empty. It is not the fragile silence that follows fear, nor the suspended stillness of hospital corridors where every breath sounds temporary and borrowed. This quiet carries warmth. It feels lived in. Earned. It holds the weight of survival and the soft exhale that comes after something nearly breaks and then does not.
Willow wakes slowly into that quiet, her eyes opening not because pain insists, but because awareness does. For a few seconds she lies still, letting the ceiling come into focus, letting the morning settle around her before memory arrives fully formed.
It is her wedding day.
