There's a certain silence that follows collapse—not the absence of sound, but the kind of hush that feels earned. Heavy. Sacred. Like the air is holding its breath.

That's how it felt at the temporary station they set up in an old training facility. Concrete floors, flickering lights, the scent of bleach fighting old smoke. Bare bones. No legacy.

But maybe that's what we needed. A blank slate.

Rafe was seated across the table, still bruised, his arm wrapped in a sling, a scar curling beneath his eye like a comma in a story that wasn't finished.

"You sure about this?" he asked, voice low.

I met his gaze. "About what?"

"Coming back. Fighting this. Us."

Us.

The word landed like a match striking kindling.

I pulled my chair closer, sat down so we were eye to eye. No badge. No politics. Just breath and blood and choices that couldn't be taken back.

"I didn't walk through fire for you just to walk away now."

His lips twitched with the faintest smirk. "Technically, you tackled an arsonist in a tunnel."

I grinned. "Details."

He went quiet. The weight between us no longer felt like a threat—it felt like truth settling into its final shape.

"They're going to come after you harder now," he said. "You know that, right?"

"Then let them."

A pause. Then I reached across the table, took his hand.

"I'm not hiding anymore, Rafe. Not from who I am. Not from you. My mom wants me to be safe, the department wants me to be quiet, but you... you see me. And I'm not letting that go."

He looked at me like he hadn't dared to in days. With hope. With fire.

Then he nodded.

"Then we rise. Together."

Later that night, under the pale hum of the emergency exit lights, we stood outside the station. The city breathed around us—still scarred, still healing.

He leaned in, resting his forehead against mine.
"I thought I'd lost everything."

"You didn't," I whispered.

He kissed me then. Not the reckless kind. Not the desperate kind. The real kind. The kind that rewrites the rules.

And just like that, I felt it—

The beginning of everything.