moved.

Her breath stutters.

One hand flies instinctively to her stomach—round and heavy beneath the fitted fabric of her combat dress. Seven months. The weight of it has changed her center of gravity, her balance, the way she moves in a fight. Their child shifts at the surge of her panic, a firm press beneath her palm as if reacting to the spike in her heartbeat.

No. No, no, no—

She pulls away from Glynda then, who has been coaxing her toward the elevator—toward Bart and Port waiting to shepherd civilians out. Glynda’s gloved hand slips from her arm as Aurelia steps back toward Ozpin instead.

“Don’t say that,” she whispers, already shaking her head. Golden curls cling to her flushed cheeks, streaked faintly with ash. “Oz—don’t.”

Another tremor ripples through the tower. Something massive collapses in the courtyard below. The sound vibrates through her bones.

“That makes it sound like you aren’t coming back.”

Her voice cracks on the last word.

She hates that it does.

She searches his face desperately, memorizing every line, every faint crease at the corner of his eyes, every silver strand fallen loose against his temple. He looks calm—too calm. That measured composure he wears like armor. It terrifies her more than the screaming outside ever could. He looks like a man who has already decided something.

“You don’t get to talk like this is a farewell,” she breathes, her grip tightening in the front of his coat. Her knuckles ache but she doesn’t loosen them. If she lets go, he’ll walk away. If he walks away—

“Not now. Not when—”

Her words falter as the baby moves again, stronger this time. A roll. A kick. It steals her breath and she swallows hard, pressing her palm more firmly against the curve of her abdomen.

Not when you promised you’d be there. Not when you said you’d teach them to read before they could walk. Not when you’d talked about names in the quiet hours of the night.

“Not when she hasn’t even met you yet,” she says softly, voice trembling despite herself. “Or he. You still haven’t admitted which you think it is.”

There’s the ghost of something fragile in her expression—an almost-smile that dies before it can form.

“I need you,” she continues, fiercer now, anger bleeding into fear. Her aura flickers faintly gold around her, agitated and unstable. “They need you. You don’t get to love us like this is some final act of devotion before you walk into danger.”

She has already buried a brother. A best friend.

She has already watched blood soak into stone.

She will not—

Her free hand slides from his coat to his face, fingers brushing along his jaw, thumb tracing the familiar line of it. He's warm. Solid. Real.

“I can fight,” she insists quietly. “I can stand. I can still protect the students. I can still lead. I am not fragile.” Her chin lifts stubbornly, defiant even now. “But I cannot—”

Her voice fractures.

“I cannot do this alone.”

The admission almost makes her wince. She has never liked needing anyone. Never liked the vulnerability of it. But this is not pride. This is survival. The tower groans again, louder this time. A burst of brilliant light flashes somewhere far below. Fate moving, grinding forward.

She steps closer despite the swell of her stomach between them, pressing her forehead to his. The contact steadies her for half a second. His breath brushes her skin. She focuses on that. On him. On the way their auras hum when they’re close. Her breath is uneven, controlled only by force of will.

“You come back to me,” she says, and now it is no longer a plea—it is a command, a vow, a desperate attempt to bend destiny by sheer stubbornness. “You come back to your wife. To your children.”

Her fingers curl into his coat again, as if daring the world to try and pull him away.

“You don’t get to make me raise them on stories,” she whispers. “You don’t get to become a memory. Do you understand me?”

Her eyes burn, but she does not let the tears fall. Not yet. She refuses to let this moment look like surrender.

In the back of her mind, terror coils—ancient and prophetic. A whisper that this is the kind of sentence people say before everything changes.

She tightens her hold on him, as if she could anchor him to this timeline by force alone.

Please, she thinks, but she does not say it aloud.

Please don’t make me learn how to live without you.

“Aurelia.”

Glynda’s voice cuts through the moment—sharp, controlled, but threaded with urgency. Another explosion rocks the tower hard enough to stagger them all. The lights flicker violently.

“Aurelia, we have to go. Now.”

Aurelia doesn’t move at first. For one reckless second, she considers defying them all—staying. Fighting at his side. Consequences be damned.

But then the baby shifts again beneath her palm. A reminder. A tether.

Glynda’s hand closes firmly around her arm this time—not cruel, but unyielding.

“We need to get them out,” Glynda says quietly, close to her ear. “He needs you to do the same.”

Aurelia inhales sharply, something breaking silently inside her chest. Her gaze locks with Ozpin’s one last time. She tries to memorize him whole. The set of his shoulders. The steadiness in his eyes. The man she loves standing on the edge of something irreversible.

“You come back,” she says again, softer now.

And then Glynda pulls her away.

The separation feels violent. Like tearing something stitched too tightly together. Aurelia’s hand slips from his coat, fingers dragging across fabric before losing hold entirely. For a split second she nearly lunges back—instinct screaming at her to close the distance again—but Glynda’s arm anchors her, guiding her toward the elevator.