Hannah POV:
I cried the entire walk home.
It wasn't the kind of crying you could hide. It wasn't quiet or graceful. It was ragged, open-mouthed, chest-heaving sorrow that refused to be contained. My body shook with it — from the weight of guilt, from the release of everything I had buried for months, and from the ache of leaving him again. Even if this time, it hadn't been by choice.
Sebastian's voice still rang in my ears, low and raw and full of things I wasn't sure I deserved to hear. He loved me. Still.
How can someone still love me after the way I disappeared? How can he see me when I haven't been able to find myself in almost a year?
The porch creaked under my boots, a sound too loud in the quiet of the night. The cool breeze bit at my cheeks, now raw from crying. I wiped my face on my sleeve, hands trembling as I unlocked the front door. The moment it swung open, the warmth of the fireplace spilled out — the soft, orange flicker of flame dancing across the floor and casting long shadows on the walls.
But even with firelight, the cabin felt cold. Hollow.
Empty in all the places that mattered.
There was a strange kind of safety in not knowing — when I didn't know if Sebastian would ever forgive me, if Sam or Abigail would ever look at me the same. That unknown protected me from the shame of knowing. Now I'd seen it. Felt it. In their eyes. In their silence. In the cracks in Sebastian's voice when he said he missed me. Loved me.
And I left him standing there. Again.
I curled into the armrest of the couch, arms around my knees, letting the fire crackle and spit beside me. My chest felt hollow. My head pounded. Sleep was a stranger I hadn't known in months. I couldn't close my eyes without being dragged back to that cavern — the monsters, the endless dark, the twisted illusions that didn't feel like dreams.
I heard the knock before I realized what it was. Sharp and sudden.
My heart lurched.
Maybe it was the witch. Maybe it was a shadow from the mines come to finish what it started. Or maybe, finally, it was the end.
But when I opened the door... it was Sebastian.
He stood there in the porch light, all black hoodie and messy hair, his eyes sharp and unblinking — like he'd been fighting with himself the entire walk here and had finally chosen war.
"Look at me," he said, his voice deep and unrelenting.
I hesitated — embarrassed, hollow, too raw to pretend I was okay.
But I looked up.
My eyes met his. I knew what he saw — the tear tracks on my face, the guilt etched into every line of my expression, the way my hands couldn't stop fidgeting at my sides.
His jaw flexed, and he took a step forward.
"I don't know how to fix whatever happened to you down there. I don't know what you saw or what it did to you. But I do know this — I'm not losing you again." His voice cracked slightly, and he stepped even closer. "You think you lost yourself? Maybe you did. But I never stopped seeing you. I never stopped loving you. I love you, Hannah."
My breath hitched. My lips parted to speak — to say something, anything — but he didn't give me the chance.
He closed the distance between us in two quick strides, his hands finding my hips with an urgency that sent shockwaves through me. I barely had time to exhale before his mouth was on mine.
It wasn't tentative. It wasn't soft. It was hungry — months of silence and pain and longing crashing into one kiss. I gasped into it, but the sound was swallowed by his lips as they moved against mine with desperation. My hands tangled into his hoodie, clinging to him like a lifeline.
He pushed us backward into the house, never breaking the kiss. His hands slid up my back, threading into my hair, tilting my head so he could deepen it. My knees hit the edge of the couch and I stumbled slightly, but he caught me effortlessly. With a sharp movement of his boot, he kicked the door shut behind us.
The cabin fell into silence — just the fire popping and the soft rush of breath between us. His forehead pressed against mine for a moment, both of us catching up to the storm we'd unleashed.
"Sebastian..." I whispered, dizzy from the heat of his mouth, from the feel of his body pressed against mine.
His hands moved to cup my face, fingers splayed along my jaw as he kissed me again — slower this time, but no less intense. Like he needed to memorize me. Like he was reminding himself I was real.
"I thought I'd never get to touch you again," he breathed against my lips.
I reached up and ran my fingers through his hair, tugging gently, and the low sound that rumbled in his throat sent a shiver straight through me.
"You're here now," I said, barely audible.
He kissed my neck, my shoulder, my jaw — not rushed, but consuming. And with every touch, I felt a piece of myself come back into place. My body, still so tense from the weight of months of trauma, finally started to yield.
We moved to the couch in a tangle of limbs. My back hit the cushions as he hovered over me, his eyes searching mine for any sign of hesitation. There was none.
His hoodie was gone in a blink. My shirt followed soon after, and it wasn't about lust — not only. It was about proximity. About proof. About two people relearning each other through heat and breath and need.
His hands were everywhere — reverent and rough at the same time. One ran along my waist, the other tangled with mine above my head as he kissed me again, deeper this time, until I couldn't tell where I ended and he began.
And for the first time in months... I wasn't in the cavern.
I wasn't lost.
I was here. With him.
Alive.. again.
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