I looked down at this scarred, battle-worn dog. This creature who had recognized me when no one else could. This animal who had crossed a room because he remembered the touch of my hands, the sound of my voice, the scent of smoke and antiseptic.

“You kept my secret,” I whispered to him. “You knew I was alive, and you never told anyone.”

He wagged his tail.

“He couldn’t talk,” Samuel said with a small smile. “But he knew. He always knew.”

“How?”

“Dogs remember what matters. They don’t forget the people who saved them. They don’t let go of the ones they love.”

I looked up at Samuel. “Are you saying he loved me?”

“I’m saying he never stopped looking for you. Every time we visited a city, every time we passed a woman with dark hair, he would pull toward her. We thought he was just excited. Now I know he was searching.”

Atlas licked my hand.

“Five years,” I said. “You searched for me for five years.”

“He did. And if it took him fifty, he probably would have kept searching.”

I laughed. It was a wet, broken sound, but it was real.

“I need a moment,” I said, standing up. “I need to… I need air.”

I walked toward the door, my legs barely carrying me. The rain had stopped outside, leaving the streets slick and glittering under the streetlights.

I stood in the doorway, breathing in the salt air, the smell of rain and ocean and the promise of something I hadn’t allowed myself to feel in years.

Hope.

“Claire?”

Jonah had followed me out. He stood a few feet away, his hands in his pockets, his limp more pronounced now.

“I’m not going to run,” I said. “I’m done running.”

“I know.”

“I just needed a second.”

“Take as long as you need.”

I looked at this man, this ghost from my past, this person who had broken down when he saw me because five years ago, I had held his life in my hands.

“You believed I was alive,” I said. “Even when everyone else thought I was dead.”

“I knew the fire didn’t take you. I don’t know how I knew. I just did.”

“Why?”

He walked closer. Slowly, carefully, like he was approaching a wounded animal.

“Because you were the strongest person I ever met,” he said. “You held my guts in your hands while mortars went off around us. You talked to me about my mother, about the fishing trips we took when I was a kid, about the dog I had when I was eight. You kept me alive with a voice that never once sounded afraid.”

“I was terrified.”

“Maybe. But you didn’t show it. You gave me something to hold onto. And I never forgot that.”

He stopped in front of me, close enough that I could see the tears in his eyes.

“I never forgot you,” he said. “And I told myself that if you were still alive somewhere, you would find a way to come back to us.”

“I didn’t find the way. Atlas did.”

“He always was smarter than the rest of us.”

I laughed again. That strange, broken laugh that felt like coming home.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

Jonah looked back through the diner window at Reed and Samuel, still sitting at the table. At Atlas, still watching me through the glass.

“We start over,” he said. “We figure out where you’ve been, what you need, and how we can help.”

“I don’t need help.”

“Everyone needs help, Mercy. Even the ones who save the world.”

He said my call sign like it was a prayer. Like the word itself held power.

“Don’t call me that,” I said, but my voice had no strength in it.

“Why not?”

“Because that woman died in the fire.”

“No, she didn’t.” He reached out and touched my scarred jaw gently, his fingers barely brushing the damaged skin. “She just went to sleep for a while. And now she’s waking up.”

I closed my eyes.

For five years, I had hidden. I had kept my head down, my scarf high, my voice quiet. I had built a life out of invisibility because I was terrified that if anyone saw the real me, they would see only the scars and the pain and the brokenness.

But in one night, in one diner, in one moment, all of that had been torn away.

“You want to know something silly?” I asked.

“What?”

“When I walked into that diner, I just wanted peach pie. I wanted one normal thing. One thing that didn’t hurt.”

Jonah smiled. “Did you get your pie?”

“No. It’s still inside. Probably cold by now.”

“Then let’s go back inside, and I’ll order you a new one.”