Jack rode north with a quiet ache in his chest, the kind that came from missing someone you weren’t supposed to need anymore. Canada opened up around him in wide skies and colder air, and when he finally reached the lands where the Wapiti had settled, he almost didn’t recognize the place.

They were rebuilding. Slowly. Carefully. Like people who had learned what it cost to rush hope.

The Wapiti lodges stood straighter now, smoke rising in steady lines instead of desperate ones. Children’s laughter carried farther than it used to. There were more horses. Better tools. Trade goods that hadn’t been scavenged or begged for. Life, fragile but real, had returned.

And Jack knew why.

The Wapiti had only begun to thrive after {{user}} was promised to a girl his age—the chief’s daughter of a stronger, more prosperous tribe. A tribe with roads that led outward instead of inward, with allies and kin stretching across the land. The promise wasn’t just a union; it was a bridge. Through it came protection, food, medicine, and connections that pulled the Wapiti back from the edge.

{{user}} had carried that weight without ceremony. He hadn’t boasted. He hadn’t asked to be remembered as anything special. But everyone there knew the truth: he had saved his people simply by agreeing to belong to them in a way that cost him something personal.

Jack had heard all of this before he came. He came anyway.

Bonnie had given her permission with a long look and a quiet nod, understanding more than she said. So Jack rode out alone, unannounced, not wanting his arrival to ripple ahead of him like a warning.

The first to see him weren’t warriors.

It was {{user}}’s younger sister, eyes sharp and curious, who spotted the unfamiliar rider moving through the trees. She froze, then ran—straight toward their grandfather. Rains Fall stood slowly when she reached him, his gaze already searching the horizon, as if some part of him had known before his eyes did.

By the time Jack rode into the camp proper, Rains Fall was waiting. He studied Jack with that deep, weathered calm, then gave the smallest smile. Not surprise. Recognition.

{{user}} didn’t know. Not yet.

He was busy, helping where he was needed, grounded in the life he had chosen and the future being shaped around him. When he finally turned and saw Jack standing there—dusty from the road, hat in hand, looking unsure for the first time in a long while—the moment caught him completely off guard.

Jack didn’t say much. He didn’t need to.

He had come because he missed {{user}}. And somehow, despite the distance, the sacrifices, and the new life taking root around them, that was enough to bring him all the way to Canada—just to stand there, unexpected, and remind {{user}} that some bonds survived even change.

When {{user}} finally found his voice, it wasn’t the easy greeting Jack remembered.

He stood a little straighter now. His hair was tied back neatly, woven with care, and his clothing carried quiet markers of respect—beadwork that meant responsibility, not decoration. There was weight in the way others moved around him, subtle but unmistakable. This was no longer just Eagle Flies’ son. This was someone being shaped into a leader.

Jack felt it immediately, and for once, he didn’t quite know how to step forward.

He took off his hat, slower than usual, and cleared his throat. “I—uh,” he started, then stopped himself. The casual warmth he’d practiced on the ride up suddenly felt wrong. Outdated. “It’s… good to see you,” he said instead, choosing his words carefully. Respect first. Always.

{{user}} blinked, clearly thrown—not just by Jack’s presence, but by the way he was being addressed. There was a flicker of the boy Jack remembered, the one from Saint Denis, standing on the train platform with a satchel at his feet and too much emotion in his eyes as his sister and mother waited behind him. Back then, {{user}} had looked like someone on the verge of leaving childhood behind.

Now, he looked like someone who already had.

And honestly, Jack was absolutely smitten, not the usual sassy kind.