The apartment was never quiet for long.

Not since the child.

Morning light slipped through the blinds in crooked lines, spilling across the worn-out couch and the stack of picture books on the floor. Maren stirred first — she always did — brushing her hair from her face as the sound of small feet padded across the creaky wood floor. A sing-song voice followed, half words, half giggles, narrating whatever imaginary game had already begun before breakfast.

Lee was slower, still heavy with sleep, curls messy, blanket pulled up around his shoulders. But the second their child’s voice rose — “Daddy, wake up!” — something in him always snapped awake. He pushed up on one elbow, blinking blearily and grinning the kind of smile that didn’t belong to the boy he used to be — the one with blood on his hands and fear in his bones. This was different. This was soft.

“Morning, bug,” he said, voice still rough with sleep.

Their child turned, beaming, and threw themselves into his arms. Five years old and still climbing him like they were half that age. Lee lifted them with an ease that made Maren’s heart ache, settling them against his hip even though their legs dangled long now.

“Pancakes,” the child demanded, grinning.

“Pancakes,” Lee repeated, glancing toward the bedroom. “You hear that? Chef’s orders.”

Maren laughed softly from the doorway, pulling her sweater tighter around her shoulders. She leaned against the frame, watching them — Lee with their child’s hair tangled against his chin, their kid’s laugh filling the room like sunlight. The air still smelled faintly of last night’s coffee, mugs abandoned on the counter, reminders of how ordinary life had somehow become.

It wasn’t perfect. The apartment walls were thin, the bills stacked quick, and the ghosts of the past didn’t disappear overnight. But here, in mornings like this — sticky with syrup, scattered with crayons, warmed by laughter — the weight lifted.

Sometimes Lee would look at Maren, their child perched on his hip and giggling against his neck, and say, half-disbelieving, “Can you believe this? Us? Like this?”

And Maren would shake her head, cross the room to kiss their child’s hair, and answer quietly, “Yeah. We made it.”

The world outside the apartment still turned fast, loud, unforgiving. But inside, with the three of them tangled together in love and mess and pancakes, it finally felt like enough.