The safehouse was still, but Lilly wasn't.
She sat on the edge of the cot, Sam's stitched handywork pulling tight across her ribs, her breath shallow and fingers twitching like she was holding a gun—or maybe just trying not to shake.
Sam sat across from her on the cold floor, arms loosely wrapped around her knees. Watching. Waiting.
Lilly's gaze was on the floor, voice hushed like a confession between sins. "I didn't tell anyone what really happened in Havana."
Sam didn't speak. She just waited—like she always did when the truth needed space to be ugly.
"I told HQ it was clean. That the intel was burned, and our contact went dark. I said Ava died on the mission, shot during extraction."
She paused. Swallowed the taste of salt and memory.
"But she didn't."
Sam leaned forward slightly; her brow furrowed. "Lilly—"
"I lied." Her voice cracked. "Because I didn't want to admit it. She left me. She chose to disappear."
Sam's breath caught, just a little.
"We were lovers, yes," Lilly said, eyes finally lifting to meet hers. "But we were partners first. She trained me. Broke me down. Built me back up. She was steel and wildfire, and I thought if I could just be enough—if I could just be hers that maybe I'd stop feeling like a ghost in my own life."
Sam's face softened, pain flickering across her features.
"Then came Havana. We were supposed to intercept a list—a ledger of names. Traitors. Hidden operatives. A game-changer."
Lilly's hands clenched on her knees.
"We got the list. But something changed in her eyes that night. Like she saw something I didn't. She told me to run. Said she'd cover the exit. That she'd meet me at the safehouse."
Lilly laughed—sharp and bitter. "She never came."
A beat of silence.
"And I never saw her again. Just a body in the water. No ID. Just her ring."
Sam's voice was a whisper. "But now…"
"I think she's alive," Lilly said. "And I think she's been playing a longer game than any of us knew."
The air between them was thick now—charged, aching.
Sam crawled forward, slow and deliberate, until she was kneeling in front of Lilly.
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" she asked.
Lilly looked away. "Because I didn't want to see it in your eyes. The look that says I'm still chasing ghosts. That I can't be trusted. That I'm—"
"Human," Sam interrupted, gently reaching for her hand. "You've been carrying this alone for too long."
Lilly's lip trembled.
And then Sam kissed her.
Soft at first. Tender. But beneath it was something deeper—a promise, maybe. Or a challenge. Or both.
Lilly responded like she was drowning. Like Sam was the only air left in a burning room.
Their mouths moved in sync, slow and aching, until it grew hungry hands in hair, fingers curling around ribs, skin against skin. A desperate kind of connection, where feeling became the only way to survive the telling.
When they finally pulled apart, breathless and flushed, Sam rested her forehead against Lilly's.
"She's not your unfinished chapter anymore," Sam whispered. "I am."
Lilly closed her eyes.
"I just hope I don't lose you, too."