Run: 2026-02-19-01KHT0R2EWX4K6AFVQVRHNTYJV

The door creaked open with a hesitant groan, swinging inward before Rory could brace herself. Her breath caught as the figure filled the frame—Lucien, impeccably dressed in his usual charcoal suit, the ivory cane tucked neatly under one arm, eyes sharp and unblinking. The amber and black of his gaze burned with the same intensity she remembered, the shadows of their last meeting lurking behind them. She hadn’t expected him, not here, not now, not like this. “Lucien,” she said, voice clipped but steady. She stepped back, the small space between them charged with tension. “What are you doing here?” He closed the door with a soft click, no urgency but no apology either. He didn’t bother to move past the threshold, letting the shadows cling to him like a second skin. “I’m here because you ignored every other door I knocked on,” he said, voice smooth but edged with something sharper. “And because there are things we left tangled up.” Rory’s hands twitched at her sides, fingers itching to reach for the scar on her left wrist. She swallowed hard and fought to keep her expression neutral. “I’m busy,” she said, but the words felt hollow. The cramped room—books, scrolls, the faint waft of curry still clinging to the air—it was her sanctuary, and suddenly it felt too exposed. “You’ve always hidden in busy,” he returned, a ghost of a bitter smile curving his lips. “That’s what made you such a puzzle. And now you shut me out.” She flinched. His words scraped against an old bruise—one she’d tried to cover in layers of carefully maintained distance since their last, fractured goodbye. “Why now?” Rory asked, stepping around him to move further into the flat. She barely acknowledged Ptolemy curled up on the windowsill, watching Lucien with green eyes that seemed to judge. Lucien’s gaze flicked to the cat then back to her. “Because time’s running out. And because,” he hesitated, voice lowering, “I still care.” The room seemed to shrink. Rory’s heartbeat thundered, a tempest she refused to name. Her eyes dropped to the floor, refusing to meet his. “You don’t get to say that. Not after everything.” His jaw tightened, and he shifted his weight on the balls of his feet, the ivory handle of the cane catching the low light. “No, I don’t. But this isn’t about the past, Rory. It’s about what’s in front of us.” She swallowed past the lump rising in her throat. “You don’t know what’s in front of me. You left—” “And I thought I was saving you,” he interrupted with a breath that sounded like regret. “I was wrong.” The vulnerability was something she hadn’t expected from the Frenchman. It made the ache bloom hotter, louder. “Why come now? Why not call? Send a message?” His lips pressed into a straight line. “Because words aren’t enough. I need you to see me. To hear what I’ve kept hidden.” He took the first step inside, collapsing the space Rory had tried to maintain between them. Her breath caught again, and she pressed her back against the kitchen counter. “Don’t,” she warned, voice harder than she intended. Lucien raised his hands slightly, holding the fragile truce between them. “I’m not here to hurt you.” “Then why are you here? To remind me?” “No.” He took another step closer, careful, deliberate. “To ask for a chance. For us to speak. Without the walls we built.” The texture of his words, the drawl of his accent, the way his amber eye softened—it all pushed against every brick she’d laid to guard her heart. Her voice trembled, barely audible. “You made your choice.” His fingers brushed a stray lock of black hair away from her face, thumb ghosting over the sore scar on her wrist. The gesture held years of pain and longing, unspoken apologies woven through. “Not all choices are set in stone.” She pulled back, retreating behind years of cool detachment. “So this is about you? About fixing what broke when you walked away?” “It’s about fixing what could break if we don’t try.” Rory stared at him, the man who haunted her dreams and her daylight hours, for whom the line between ally and threat had always blurred. The flat’s cluttered confines echoed with the silence that neither had dared to breach before. Lucien’s voice softened, edged with a rare tenderness. “Let me stay. Just for tonight.” Her throat tightened. The past hovered between them like a spectre, but part of her wanted to reach out, to close the distance, to let the fractured pieces find shape again. She stepped aside. “One night.” He nodded once, sharply. “One night.”