Daphne’s POV
I wake to morning light streaming through bedroom windows, harsh and unforgiving in the way daylight always is after you've made questionable decisions in the dark.
For a disorienting moment, I don't understand why I'm here—in our bed, not the separate space I've been defending like a fortress for weeks. Then memory crashes back, and reality settles over me like physical weight.
Last night happened.
The desperate passion on the hood of the car. The way I came apart in Xander's arms, all my carefully constructed walls crumbling under his touch. The fact that I let myself need him again, let myself be vulnerable in ways I've been avoiding since the hospital.
I don't remember the drive home. Don't remember walking inside or climbing the stairs or changing out of the ruined emerald gown. Xander must have carried me.
He's still here now, sleeping beside me. His arm is draped across my waist in a gesture so familiar it makes my chest ache with recognition. This is how we always slept before everything broke—him wrapped around me like he could keep the world away through proximity alone.
I turn my head carefully, trying not to wake him, and study his face in the morning light.
The lines of exhaustion are carved deep around his eyes, evidence of weeks spent sleeping poorly in an unfamiliar bed, carrying stress he can't put down. His jaw is rough with stubble he didn't shave yesterday.
There's gray at his temples I don't remember being so prominent before, though maybe I just haven't looked at him this closely in weeks. Haven't let myself.
In sleep, he looks younger. The tension he carries like a second skeleton is absent, his face relaxed in a way it never is when he's awake. This is the man I fell in love with, stripped of the power and control he wears during daylight hours.
What does last night mean?
The question circles in my mind, impossible to answer. Was it a moment of weakness? A temporary lapse in the boundaries I've been maintaining? Or was it something more—a crack in the armor I've built, the beginning of finding our way back to each other?
What do I want it to mean?
That's the harder question. The one I'm not sure I'm ready to answer. Part of me wants to believe last night changed something fundamental, that the desperate connection we found on that empty road can somehow bridge the distance between us.
But another part knows better. Knows that one night of passion doesn't fix weeks of distance, doesn't erase the impossible choice he made in that hospital corridor.
Sex has never been our problem. Even at our worst, the physical connection was there. It's everything else that's broken.
Xander stirs beside me, his arm tightening fractionally around my waist before his eyes open. For a moment, he looks confused—like he's not sure why he's here either, why I let him stay. Then awareness floods his features, along with something that might be hope or fear or both.
"Hey," he says softly, his voice rough with sleep.
"Hey."
The awkwardness is immediate and profound. We lie there in our bed, in a position we've occupied thousands of times, and neither of us knows what to say. What last night means, what happens now.
I should probably move. Pull away, reestablish the physical distance that's been keeping me safe. But I don't. Just lie there with his arm around my waist and try to figure out who we are in the morning light.
"Did you carry me inside?" I ask finally, needing to fill the silence with something.
"You fell asleep in the car on the drive home. I didn't want to wake you."
"The dress…"
"Is in the laundry. Probably ruined, but I figured that wasn't the priority last night."
A flash of heat goes through me at the memory—his hands pushing up expensive silk, my complete disregard for anything except getting closer to him. I should be embarrassed. Should regret the recklessness, the lack of control.
I don't.
"Xander, what are we doing?" The question escapes before I can stop it.
He's quiet for a long moment, his thumb stroking absently along my hip bone through my pajamas—pajamas he must have helped me into at some point. "I don't know. What do you want to be doing?"
"I don't know either." My throat tightens. "I'm confused. About what I feel, about what I want, about whether we can actually survive this."
He goes still beside me. "Last night…"
"Last night was..." I search for words that capture the complexity of what happened. "Intense. Real. But it doesn't fix everything that's broken between us. One night doesn't erase weeks of distance or the choice you made."
"I know." His voice is quiet, careful. "I'm not asking it to fix everything. I just... I needed you. And it felt like maybe you needed me too."
Did I? Do I? The questions tangle in my mind without clear answers.
"I need time," I say finally. "Time to think, to figure out if what we have is enough to rebuild on, or if we're just prolonging something that's already over."
I feel him tense, his arm going rigid across my waist. "Is that what you think? That we're over?"
"I don't know what I think. That's the problem." I turn to face him properly, needing him to see my face, to understand I'm not trying to hurt him—I'm just trying to be honest. "I love you, Xander. That was never the question."
Something like relief floods his expression.
"But I don't know if love alone is enough. If it can bridge what's broken between us. If we can move forward from this or if we're just going to keep orbiting each other, loving and hurting simultaneously until one of us can't take it anymore."
Xander reaches for my hand where it rests on the pillow between us. His fingers intertwine with mine, the gesture both familiar and tentative. "What do you need from me?"
My throat tightens further, emotion threatening to overwhelm me. This question—simple and impossible at once. What do I need? Forgiveness I can't give. A different choice made in that hospital corridor. The ability to forget what happened. None of which he can provide.
"I don't know," I whisper, and tears start sliding down my face. "I don't know how to let you back in without it destroying me all over again. I don't know how to be your wife again when I'm not sure I can forgive you for loving me so much."
"Daphne…" His voice breaks.
"But I also don't know how to let you go. How to give up on us when there's still this," I gesture helplessly between us. "When I still want you. When I still need you, even though needing you terrifies me."
Xander pulls me closer, and I let him. Let him wrap me in his arms, let him hold me while I cry into his chest, let myself be vulnerable in ways I've been avoiding for weeks. His hand strokes my hair, and his own tears fall into it, and we lie there in the harsh morning light breaking together.
"We'll figure it out," he says finally, his voice rough and unsteady. "Together. One day at a time. I know last night doesn't fix everything, I know I can't undo the choice I made. But I'm here, and I'm not giving up on us, and I'll take whatever you can give me for as long as you'll let me."
I want to believe him. Want to believe that one day at a time is enough, that we can navigate this impossible situation and come out intact on the other side. Want to believe that love—messy and complicated and damaged as ours currently is—can be sufficient foundation to rebuild what's broken.
But lying in his arms with morning light exposing every crack in our foundation, I'm not sure I can. Not sure belief is enough when the hurt is this deep, the fracture this fundamental.
"Okay," I whisper anyway, because what else is there to say? "One day at a time."
He holds me tighter, and I close my eyes, and we pretend for a little while longer that neither of us is terrified this might not be enough.