Page 125 of Infamous

“That sometimes we fight monsters,” she says softly. “And sometimes, we survive them.”

He turns to her, a small smile ghosting his mouth. “You made it sound so noble.”

“I made it sound true.”

She presses her forehead against his chest, breathing in the scent of smoke and soap and something purelyhim.“He doesn’t need to know yet. About the rest. About how dark it got.”

“He will one day,” Lucian says. “When he’s old enough to understand that even in the worst places, you can still find something worth saving.”

“You mean me?”

His voice goes quiet, reverent. “I meanus.”

Later, they walk out past the wheat fields. The air hums with cicadas. Fireflies blink in the tall grass like fragments of the stars that fell too close to earth.

She threads her fingers through his, and he squeezes gently -the same hand that once held her through withdrawal, through surgeries, through nightmares she couldn’t wake from.

“Do you ever miss your old work?” she asks.

“I regret how long it took me to stop living in that world. But I don’t regret protecting you. I never will.”

Nadia leans her head against his shoulder. “You gave me a second life, Lucian. And him. You gave me him.”

He kisses her hair, quiet. “You gave yourself that. I just stayed close enough to catch you when you fell.”

They stand there for a long time, watching the sky blush purple and gold. Somewhere in the house, Billy stirs and murmurs in his sleep, a soft little sound that carries across the field.

Lucian smiles, the kind that still feels like a miracle every time it happens. “Ten years ago, I didn’t think we’d live long enough to have this.”

“Ten years ago,” she says, “you didn’t know how stubborn I am.”

He laughs, pulling her closer. “You call it stubborn. I call it surviving.”

When they finally go inside, the house glows with the gentle kind of light only earned by people who’ve been through hell and built themselves bigger and stronger afterward.

Lucian pauses at Billy’s doorway. The boy is asleep, curled around his paper plane.

He whispers, “He’s got your heart.”

Nadia smiles faintly. “Poor kid.”

Lucian looks back at her. “Best kid in the world.”

She steps beside him, her hand slipping into his. “We really did it, didn’t we?”

He nods. “Yeah, angel. We did.”

And as they stand there, watching their son sleep beneath asky that’s finally still, the ghosts of their past fold into the quiet - not gone, but gentled.

Because redemption was never meant to roar.

It’s the hush of a child’s steady breathing.

It’s the man who chose to stay when he could have vanished.

It’s the woman who learned how to live again, scar by scar.

And it’s the silence between them - no longer hollow, but whole.