45.GREY ZONE

It happened on a Sunday.

The hospital was quiet. Too quiet. Nora had come in early not for work, not for anyone else, but for herself. To breathe. To exist for a few hours within the walls that had both broken her and, somehow, rebuilt her piece by piece. The corridors stood empty, washed in a faint morning light that softened everything it touched. She hadn't expected to see him again. She had convinced herself that she didn't need to.

But he was there.

In the courtyard, beneath the same overgrown tree where Lily's photograph had once hung like a quiet reminder of everything they'd lost. Rowan stood with his hands in his coat pockets, shoulders slightly hunched, staring into the middle distance at nothing, or maybe at something only he could see. He looked different now. Older, perhaps. Or maybe just stripped of the edges he used to wear like armor. His hair had grown longer. His eyes were darker. And yet, despite everything, the sight of him triggered something in her chest a dull, persistent ache that felt too familiar.

Nora didn't speak right away. She watched him from the threshold, frozen in that quiet doorway, unsure whether to step forward or turn around. She had imagined this moment more times than she could count. In some versions, she shouted. In others, she walked past him without a word, as if he were just another ghost. But here, in the stillness of the morning, all those imagined moments fell away.

Rowan turned before she could decide.

Their eyes locked across the empty courtyard.

No one moved.

"I heard about Brenner," he said finally. His voice was quiet not hesitant, just careful. "And the settlement."

Nora gave a small nod. "It's over."

"For them maybe," he replied. "Not for you."

She looked away, blinking slowly. "You're right."

A long pause followed. Not cold, just uncertain. Unfamiliar. Like two people learning to speak again after forgetting the language.

"I didn't know if I had the right to come back," Rowan said. "Or if you'd want me to."

"I don't know what I want," Nora admitted. "And that scares me more than anything else."

He stepped forward not too close and stopped. His presence felt quieter than it used to. Less like a storm, more like a memory trying to take shape.

"I don't expect anything," he said. "I didn't come to fix things. I came because I didn't want silence to be the last thing between us."

Nora held his gaze. "Then say something that matters."

He looked at her for a long moment really looked. Then he spoke, and his voice didn't waver.

"I loved you. I think I still do. But more than that… I respect you. And I'm sorry I wasn't stronger when it counted."

Her breath caught. Not because of the word "love," but because it wasn't dressed up in expectation or apology. It was the truth. Honest. Unprotected. Human. It was the only thing she had truly needed not a declaration, not a promise. Just this.

"I don't know if we can go back," she whispered.

"I don't want to go back," Rowan said. "I just want to know if we can start again. Somewhere new. Somewhere real."

Nora didn't reply.

But she didn't leave, either.

And for now, that was enough.