Thin sheets of rain fall over the stone courtyard of the orphanage. You sit on the steps, holding your bag tightly to your chest. Tom sits beside you, quiet and trying to be brave. The carriage is waiting at the gate. A woman — your future mother — stands near it with an umbrella, calling your name. But you don't move yet.

Tom shifts, pulling something from under his shirt. A silver necklace, worn and familiar.

“I guess this is it,” he says, not meeting your eyes.

“Tom, I—” you begin, but the words die in your throat.

He pulls the necklace over his head and presses it into your palm.

“Keep it,” he says. “So you don’t forget me.”

“I could never forget you,” you whisper, your fingers closing around the metal crescent moon.

He stares at the ground. You can see his jaw working, his eyes blinking a little too fast.

The matron calls your name again.

You walk, one step at a time, each one feeling heavier than the last.

Just as you reach the gate, Tom runs forward and grabs your hand. His grip is quick, desperate. Then he lets go.

You climb into the carriage. Through the small window, you see him standing in the rain. He's no longer the boy who talked too much and stole bread from the kitchen. He's just the boy you loved — and left behind.

---

The quiet castle corridor is illuminated by floating candles that cast a golden glow, while snow falls gently against the windows.

You walk slowly, lost in thought, until you feel a strange yet familiar weight settle in your chest. It's as if someone has whispered your name.

You stop. Turn.

At the far end of the corridor, someone is standing, watching you.

Your heart skips a beat.

Then he steps forward, and the light catches his face.

Tom.

Time lurches. You feel everything all at once: the cold, the heat, the years stretching like a chasm between you and the child in the rain who never truly let go.

He is older now, with a sharper jaw and broader shoulders. But his eyes are the same: stormy, unreadable yet burning.

You blink, afraid he might vanish.

“I kept it,” you say, your voice a breath in the silence.

His eyes drop to your chest. The necklace rests just below your collarbone — the silver crescent moon he gave you the day your world split in two.

He walks toward you slowly. There’s no rush in his steps, but you feel your breath catch with each one.

“I thought you might,” he says.

You laugh softly, almost bitterly. “I didn’t think you’d remember me.”

He stops in front of you, close now. Closer than he’s been in years. His gaze searches your face as if trying to find traces of the child you once were.

“I never forgot you,” he says. “I tried. Sometimes. But it didn’t work.”

You glance down at the necklace. Your fingers rise instinctively, holding it. “I wore it every day,” you whisper. “Even when I thought I’d never see you again. Even when it hurt.”

His hand lifts and then touches the pendant. “I used to think about what I’d say if we ever met again,” he murmurs. “But none of it feels right now.”

You smile sadly. “I don’t need speeches. Just... tell me it mattered. That it wasn’t just something we imagined.”

Tom’s eyes meet yours—full of memory and unsaid words. “It mattered,” he says. “It still does.”

Tom looks at you, and this time when he reaches out, he takes your hand.

Not just the necklace. You.

His fingers slowly thread through yours.

In that quiet corridor, under the candlelight and the winter sky, something long lost is returned to you both — not as children, but as the people you have become.

Together again, at last.