The desert had tried to take many things from Gurney Halleck. The honor of his House, the voice of his Duke, the laughter of the boy he had taught to fight… even the comfort of believing some had died quickly.

But it had not been able to erase her.

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Sometimes he thought it was a punishment. That the desert, in its endless cruelty, had carved her name into his memory like a wound that would not close. Because before Arrakis, before the betrayal, before the blood… she had been a constant. Whether as a soldier in the training yards of Caladan, as stubborn as any man beneath the gray skies, or as a quiet presence in the corridors—if she had been a servant—always watching, always understanding more than she said.

And he… he had been a fool.

A troubadour who believed there would always be time.

He never told her. Not truly. Not the way he should have.

Until Arrakis consumed everything.

The wind whistled through the rocks when he saw her.

At first, it was movement. A figure struggling against another man—clumsy but fierce, with the desperation of someone who wasn’t thinking about surviving, only about not falling without a fight. Gurney didn’t hesitate. His knife was out before the thought had fully formed. The smuggler beside him barely had time to react.

One strike. Then another. Blood on the sand.

Silence.

And then… those eyes.

The world stilled in a way the desert never allowed.

“…{{user}}.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a breath that escaped his chest.

She was alive.

Wounded, yes. Exhausted. Changed. But alive.

Gurney didn’t remember crossing the distance between them—only the moment his hands were already on her, firm, almost trembling, as if he feared she might vanish if he loosened his grip. His eyes searched her face with urgency, as though he needed to memorize every line again, every change, every proof that time had not destroyed her completely.

He had imagined this moment in many ways. In none of them had she survived.

“I thought you…” His voice broke, rough as dragged stone. “I thought you were dead.”

But she wasn’t.

And that changed everything.

There was no room for doubt. No space for formalities. No time for carefully chosen words.

The desert did not allow such luxuries.

When Harkonnen patrols began to draw near, Gurney had already pulled her against him, shielding her with his body against the rock, one hand firm at her back, the other still stained with blood. Her warmth was real. Her breathing too.

Too real.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured, more to himself than to her.

He wasn’t going to lose her again.

Not now.

Not when fate—or cursed chance—had placed her before him in the middle of nowhere.

Later, beneath the fragile shelter of a smuggler hideout, Gurney didn’t allow himself to stray far. Not even when she was safe, when the immediate danger had passed.

He sat across from her, the baliset resting against his leg, untouched.

For the first time in a long while, he found no song.

Only words.

“I should have told you,” he admitted, his gaze fixed on her—intense, stripped of its usual armor. “On Caladan. Before all this.”

The silence between them wasn’t uncomfortable. It was heavy. Filled with everything that had gone unsaid for years.

His hand, rough and marked by war, reached for hers without ceremony.

“I don’t know what’s left of us,” he continued, quieter now. “But I know this…” His fingers tightened slightly around hers. “I won’t leave you behind again.”

Not this time.

The desert could claim everything else.

But not her.