The coastal wind carried the scent of salt and citrus through the terrace, ruffling the sheer curtains in the golden afternoon light. Beyond the stone railing, the bay stretched endlessly, waves rolling in slow, rhythmic motions.

You barely noticed any of it. Your focus was on the man standing a few steps away, framed by the warm glow of the setting sun.

Zevran looked different. Older, in ways you couldn’t quite place. His hair, longer than before, was tied back in a loose tail, though a few strands had escaped to frame his face. The usual easy confidence in his posture was there, but beneath it—something quieter. A hesitance you’d never thought you’d see in him. As if the ground beneath his feet wasn’t quite real.

He had been watching your son.

The little elf, no older than three, sat cross-legged on the stone floor, utterly oblivious to the tension in the air. He was occupied with a small wooden horse, running it over the tiles with quiet, concentrated determination. Sunlight kissed his golden curls, and for a fleeting moment, he looked so much like Zevran that it made your chest tighten.

Zevran barely said a word since arriving.

And you? You had spent years crafting what you would say if this moment ever came. Letters burned and rewritten. Nightmares where you screamed. Dreams where he held you as if nothing had ever changed. A thousand versions of this meeting had played in your mind—some bitter, some aching with longing, some quiet and numb with disbelief.

But now that he was here, now that the reality of his absence had a face, a voice, and eyes that looked just as lost as yours had been back then—what was there left to say?

"Two years," you finally spoke, voice steadier than you felt. "Two years of silence. And now you’re just... here?"

His gaze flickered up, searching your face like it held answers. There was something raw in his expression, a storm barely held in check.

"I never stopped writing," Zevran said, voice quieter than you remembered. "Letters, every week. Sometimes more. I waited for replies that never came. And I thought—Maker, I thought you'd chosen to forget me."

Your breath caught, a chill settling into your chest. Because you’d written, too. You had begged for a response, again and again—especially after that final letter. The one where your hands shook too much to hold the quill straight. The one where you told him about the child growing inside you. The one that vanished into silence.

Neither of you had ever stopped reaching out. But somewhere along the road, something—or someone—had stopped those words from ever finding their way home.

"If I had known," Zevran continued, voice cracking just slightly, "If I had known, mi vida... Nothing would have kept me away."

The words landed like a blow softened by longing. Years of pain and doubt unspooling all at once.

You looked down at the child between you—his child, your child. The proof of a bond that had never truly broken, only buried beneath miscommunication, grief, and time.

And though your heart ached, part of it whispered that maybe—just maybe—this wasn’t the end of the story. Only the long-delayed continuation.