A bolt slid back with a metallic whisper, then another, and finally the door swung open to reveal the woman who had haunted his thoughts and dreams for all these months of separation.

Diana stood in the doorway wearing a simple nightgown covered by a woollen wrapper, her dark hair braided loosely over one shoulder, and her face bearing the soft vulnerability of one roused from sleep.

For a moment that stretched between heartbeats, she simply stared at him as though he were an apparition conjured by her own longing.

Her face, always pale, went white as fresh parchment, and her hand flew to her throat as though to still a cry that threatened to escape unbidden.

"Jaegar?" she whispered, and the single word carried within it all the hope and fear and desperate love that had sustained her through the long months of his absence.

The sight of her—older somehow, more fragile than the fierce protector he remembered from childhood—broke something loose in his chest that he had been holding tightly closed since the day he had walked away from this house in anger and hurt pride. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

He had been so certain then of his righteousness, so convinced that she had chosen fear over love, safety over family.

But standing here now, seeing the way joy and sorrow warred across her features, he understood things he had been too young and too wounded to comprehend before.

"Mom," he managed to say, though his voice emerged as barely more than a croak. "I... I’ve come home."

The words seemed to release some spell that had held them both frozen in the doorway’s threshold.

Diana’s composure, already as fragile as spun glass, shattered completely.

Tears began to flow down her cheeks in silver streams, and her legs seemed to lose their strength, carrying her down to the stone step as though the weight of relief and regret combined had become too much for her slight frame to bear.

She never imagined hearing the word and the voice after the last time. She stared at him, thinking of the last moment she saw of him, thinking she was dead wrong about what she said. How she prayed that he would come back to her, sleepless nights of calling him.

"Oh, my boy," she sobbed, reaching for him with shaking hands.

"My dear boy, I thought... I thought you might never come back. I thought I had lost you forever."

Jaegar dropped to his knees beside her without hesitation, gathering her into his arms as he had longed to do through all those nights when he had lain awake remembering the warmth of her embrace and the safety he had always felt in her presence.

She felt smaller than he remembered, more fragile, as though the months of separation had worn away some essential part of her strength.

They remained there on the doorstep, holding each other as Diana wept against his shoulder with the desperate intensity of one who had kept too much sorrow locked away for too long.

Her tears soaked through his shirt, but he found his own eyes burning with moisture he had refused to shed during all the proud, stubborn months of their estrangement.

"Why did you leave?" She gasped between sobs, her voice muffled against his shoulder but carrying clearly in the night air.

"Why didn’t you come back sooner? I waited every day, watching the road, hoping to see you walking up the lane like you used to do when you were small and had wandered too far in your games."

"I was angry," Jaegar whispered, his own voice thick with unshed tears.

"I was hurt and angry, and I thought... I thought you didn’t want me anymore."

Diana pulled back just enough to look into his face, her hands framing his cheeks with a tenderness that spoke of years of love carefully hoarded against this moment of reunion.

"Oh, my dearest child. I was not in my right mind when I said those words. I don’t need anyone but you. I will wait for you for as many years as possible. I just wanted to see you, talk to you, and touch you."

She drew a shuddering breath, trying to find words for feelings that had tormented her through the long, lonely months.

"It was my mistake that day—my fear speaking when love should have guided my tongue. I should have told you that whatever you became, wherever your path led, you would always have a home here with me. Instead, I let my terror make me cruel, and I drove away the most precious thing in my life."

The admission hung between them in the gaslit darkness, raw and painful but necessary as the lancing of an infected wound.

Jaegar felt something that had been knotted tight in his chest for months finally begin to loosen, allowing him to breathe more freely than he had since that terrible day when harsh words and wounded pride had built a wall between two hearts that had always been united in love.

Tears fell down his cheeks as he hugged her close to his heart, and she wrapped her arms around him, tightly.

They both remained there, just relieving their months of sorrow.

Jaegar was cursing at himself for not coming sooner. If he had known that she was hurt, the same as him, he would have rushed back sooner.

He thanked his grandmother for bringing him back even though the time wasn’t safe for him now.

He lifted her up and closed the door, then took her to the living room as they sat. But Diana didn’t let go of him; she sat on his lap and hugged him tighter, strongly putting in all her strength.

She thought if she let go of him now, he might leave.

Jaegar smiled bitterly as he patted her back, telling her, assuring her that he would never leave her again. He could see how much she was hurt by his departure, and the months had been tough on her. He could tell that she had been alone, and the house seemed like no one had been in it for days; everything was dusted.