The door shut behind him with a quiet finality, like the past twelve months hadn’t happened—like he hadn’t spent a year drowning in blood and lies under a name that didn’t belong to him. Thomas Austin was dead. But Simon Riley wasn’t sure if he’d made it out alive either.

Boots off. Mask down. Hoodie on. The flat was quiet. Safer that way. Safer for him, for you.

He found you in the kitchen, just standing there. You didn’t say anything. You didn’t have to.

He looked older. Eyes sunken, jaw tighter. Like something had been carved out of him and never put back.

You reached out. He flinched—just a flicker. Then his hand caught yours, calloused fingers curling slow around your wrist like he needed to feel something real again.

“…Fuckin’ hell,” he muttered under his breath, accent heavy, cracked like gravel. “Didn’t think I’d see this place again. Or you.”

He looked away for a second too long. Swallowed hard. His voice dropped, rough and low. “Sometimes I forgot my real name. Forgot yours too. Not proud of that.”

Silence.

Then he looked at you again, raw and unguarded in a way no one else ever got to see. “But I never forgot how you made me feel. Not once.”

He pulled you in, arms like armor around your waist. Not shaking. Not anymore. “Home now,” he whispered against your hair. “You kept it warm for me.”