#conflict

White hair, soft and unbrushed. Crimson eyes.

Staring down at a plastic capsule, tiny fingers struggling to pry it open, cheeks puffed in sheer, adorable defiance. The boy looked up and grinned at someone just out of view.

And then—there you were.

Crouched beside him, arms around your knees. That necklace still at your throat. Your hair longer. Your posture calmer. But it was you.

He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

You looked up. Met his eyes.

The world didn’t fall apart. It just... recoiled.

Your lips parted. He couldn’t tell if it was shock or guilt. Maybe both.

He took a step forward. Controlled. Precise. Like walking through fire and pretending it didn’t burn.

“Well,” he said, voice rough, cool, razor-sharp. “Isn’t this adorable.”

You didn’t answer.

He tilted his head, gaze dragging from the boy to you.

“You got taller,” he added, tone almost conversational. “I always said you needed better posture.”

Still, silence.

He smiled — the wrong kind of smile.

“And here I thought you were dead. Would’ve sent flowers. Or a bottle of wine. Maybe danced on your grave. Depends on the day.”

You stood slowly, one hand resting lightly against the child’s back. Protective. Subtle.

“I wasn’t hiding from you,” you said.

“No?” he murmured. “Just... the rest of reality?”

You didn’t answer that.

His eyes dropped again. To the boy. Then back up. He didn’t ask. Not out loud. Didn’t have to.

Your expression answered for you.

He exhaled once, slow, through his nose. Then laughed. Just a little.

“Of course,” he muttered. “Why not. Five years of silence, and now I get the full soap opera.”

He took another step, voice dipping low.

“Tell me something,” he said. “Was it worth it? The running? The silence? Did it help you sleep?”

You stared at him, steady.

“I did what I had to do.”

“Sure,” he said, nodding, the sarcasm now soft, silky. “And now you’re back in broad daylight, in my city, with my blood standing in front of capsule machines. Very covert.”

His fingers twitched slightly at his side. Not from rage — from restraint.

The boy turned.

“Mom?”

Your breath hitched.

“Come here, sweetheart.”

Small feet padded over. A tiny hand found yours without hesitation. Sylus watched it like a punch to the ribs.

The boy blinked up at him.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

Your voice was quiet. Even.

“Someone I used to know.”

Something in Sylus’s jaw clicked. He crouched down, not too close. Not yet.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi,” the boy replied.

“What’d you get?”

A capsule was held up proudly. “Tiny raven with red eyes!”

Of course. Sylus stared at it, almost amused.

“Good taste,” he said. “I used to have one just like that.”

The boy beamed.

Sylus rose to his full height again, gaze flicking to you — sharp now, cooled over, dangerous.

“This conversation’s not over.”

Your grip on the boy tightened, imperceptibly.

“I know.”

He didn’t linger. Just turned. Walked away like it cost him nothing.

But you saw it — the slight tremble in his fingers. And for the first time in five years — you knew: he wouldn't sleep tonight. And neither would you.

***

He doesn’t sleep. Not because of nightmares — those he’s made peace with years ago — but because of you. Because you were real again. Present. Breathing the same air. And now the silence he once ruled feels like a cage made of your absence.

He paces his study like an animal too big for its den, the whiskey glass untouched on the desk, sweating against the dark wood. The documents in front of him blur, ignored. His body is wired, restless, his mind clawing at thoughts it doesn’t know what to do with. He used to find solace in this room. Now it’s just another echo chamber.

You came back. Just like that. No warning. No apologies. As if you hadn’t torn him apart and scattered the pieces across five fucking years. And you didn’t come alone. You brought his son.

His son.

The words twist inside him like a blade. Rage flares hot and sharp — not just at you, but at himself. At the way he still aches for you. At the way his hands trembled the moment your eyes met his. You don’t get to come back like this. Not after he worshipped you. Not after he handed over every part of himself — the power, the silence, the vulnerability — and let you keep it like it was nothing.

You, who once ruled him with a smile and a whisper. You, who made the most dangerous man in the city gentle. You, who he let in so deeply that even now, after everything, his instincts still tilt toward you.

He should hate you. He wants to.

But all he can think about is the boy’s eyes — his eyes — and the fact that he didn’t know. You hid it from him. You stole that from him. And yet, the second he saw your face, all he wanted was to feel the warmth of your body again.

No. This can’t be impulsive. He tells himself that. Over and over. He has to be careful now. Strategic. This isn’t just about you anymore. There’s too much at stake. A child. Blood of his blood. If he moves wrong, if he rushes this, he could lose everything before he’s even had the chance to hold it.

You came back so openly, so carelessly — as if you knew. As if you were daring him to act.

But this isn’t a reunion. It’s a chess game. And he intends to win.

Still, all the logic in the world can’t stop the pull. His body moves before his mind can catch it. He throws on his jacket, crosses the hall in long, deliberate strides. He ignores the way his pulse hammers, the way his breath shortens. He tells himself this is reconnaissance. Observation. That he won’t knock on your door, won’t say your name, won’t touch you.

But he’s already walking to the car, and he knows — he’s lying.

Because it’s already too late. You’re a gravity he never escaped. And he’s hurtling back toward you like a star on its last, burning descent.

***

You hadn’t heard the door. You were sure you’d locked it — triple-checked, in fact. But when you stepped barefoot into the living room, the shadows shifted. And he was there.

Sylus.

Sitting in the armchair by the window, so still he might’ve been carved from shadow. His face half-hidden in darkness, but his eyes — those eyes — watched you with the slow, dangerous heat of banked coals. As if he were waiting for something. As if he’d already decided what it was.

You clutched your son’s sweatshirt to your chest, still warm from sleep, still soft with safety. Your fingers curled into the fabric like it might shield you from the inevitable.

Your throat closed around a breath you forgot to take.

“I should’ve known you’d find a way in,” you said. Not angry. Not even surprised. Just… tired. But not the kind of tired sleep could fix.

The silence stretched. And then—

“Why.” His voice was low. Steady. But there was nothing calm about it.

“Why come back?”

You hesitated. Sat down at the edge of the couch, careful to keep distance between you. Close enough to feel the tension, far enough to pretend it couldn’t touch you. Your grip tightened on the tiny sleeve in your lap.

“I didn’t have a choice,” you said quietly.

A lie. And you both knew it.

He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just watched.

The air between you hung thick with everything unspoken — all the years, all the damage, all the silence that had grown teeth.

You tried again, voice thinner now. “Money was running out. And I didn’t want him to grow up in places that... don’t let kids be kids.”

Still no answer.

You looked down, as if the floor could save you.

“But that’s not really why I came back.”

There was a shift in the dark — barely perceptible, but enough. A muscle in his jaw, maybe. Or the faintest tilt of his head.

“I kept dreaming,” you said. “That he’d start asking questions. About who he is. Where he came from. Why he can hear footsteps down the hall before they happen. Why his teachers can’t meet his eyes. Why he knows when I’m lying, even when I don’t.”

You paused. Swallowed.

“I didn’t know what I’d say.”

For a long, breathless moment, there was nothing. And then:

“Thought maybe I was dead?”

You laughed — bitter, small, nothing like real humor.

“No. That would’ve been easier.”

He still didn’t move, but something in the room recoiled anyway. Maybe it was you.

You turned toward him, carefully, like stepping toward a storm you once loved.

“I thought if I stayed gone long enough, you’d forget. Or hate me enough not to care.”

He leaned forward slowly, like something waking up. The light from the hallway carved across his face, catching the sharp edge of his cheekbone, the faint scar at his jaw. He looked older. Not in his body — in his bones. In the way ruin settles behind the eyes and builds a kingdom there.

“Do I look like a man who forgets?” he said.

God, the way he said it. Like the last bell before a burial.

You didn’t answer.

“You ran,” he said. “Took my son. Hid him from me. For five years.”

“I had to,” you said, a little too fast. “You know I had to.”

“Say it.”

You met his eyes, barely.

“I didn’t want to raise him in your world.”

There was a pause. Then:

“He is my world.”

That broke something in you. The sweatshirt slipped from your lap, forgotten.

“I know,” you whispered. “I know.”

You stood before you meant to, took two small steps forward before you could stop yourself. A mistake. A betrayal of your own walls. Still, your hand lifted — hesitated — and reached out. Just barely. Fingertips grazing the side of his.

He didn’t flinch. But he didn’t hold you back either.

Not yet.

His breath caught, brushing your wrist like memory.

“I could’ve loved you softer,” he said. “But you were never meant for soft things.”

Your eyes burned. You couldn’t speak for a moment. And when you did, your voice was almost gone.

“Maybe I’m not. But he is.”

And still, beneath all of it — the guilt, the weariness, the regret that howled behind your ribs — you waited for the part that scared you most. The part where he would turn cold. Where he would say the thing you feared since the moment you left.

The part where he would take your son from your arms and never look back.

You knew he wouldn’t hurt you. Not you. Not the boy.

And still, that fear clawed at you like a curse.

So you did what fear makes people do — you attacked. With silence, with half-truths, with distance you didn’t want. You kept the mask on as long as you could, clung to it like armor, because if it slipped — if he saw how badly you still wanted to crawl into his arms and sleep like you used to, when he would whisper in that deep, velvet voice and stroke your hair until the nightmares went quiet — he might use it against you.

He might leave.

And you… you had no idea how to survive that again.

***

The night he left, you didn’t sleep.

You just lay beside your son, one hand curled protectively around his small, warm frame, the other pressed to your chest like it might keep your ribs from collapsing inward. Every breath felt like it came with splinters. He slept soundly, unaware. Safe in a world that you had built with trembling hands and stubborn silence.

By morning, Sylus hadn’t returned.

But Luke and Kieran had.

They didn’t knock. Didn’t speak. Just entered with the quiet precision of men who used to be part of your life — before you made them ghosts.

Their arms were full. Boxes, bags, toys, medicine, books. Clothes in every size. Food you hadn’t even realized you needed. And a black card, placed on the kitchen table like a detonator.

“From him,” Luke said, voice clipped, eyes avoiding yours.

You opened your mouth. To say thank you, maybe. Or I’m sorry. Or how have you been.

But Kieran was already turning away.

“Don’t,” he muttered. Not cruel. Not cold. Just done.

And it hit you, like it hadn’t hit you until that moment — not just guilt, not just regret.

You didn’t just run from him.

You ran from them too. The only people who had ever stayed. The only ones who’d held space for you when you were nothing but sharp edges and unfinished grief.

Now they wouldn't even look at you.

You stood there, frozen, surrounded by things you didn’t ask for — abundance you hadn’t earned — while your son laughed on the floor, tangled in a new toy, as if the world wasn’t cracked beneath your feet.

You didn’t cry. You didn’t scream.

But something broke. Quietly. Deeply.

Your pride was already bleeding. Your shame had nowhere left to hide. And still, it wasn’t the card that pushed you over the edge. It wasn’t the gifts or the silence or even the anger simmering in Luke’s shoulders.

It was the absence.

It was the fact that he didn’t come himself.

That he sent others. That he kept his distance — like you were already something to be managed, not faced.

And it shouldn’t have hurt. You’d told yourself a thousand times you didn’t want to see him. That this wasn’t about him. That you didn’t need his money or his empire or the echo of what you used to be.

But the truth — the ugly, humiliating truth — was this: you didn’t want his wealth.

You wanted him.

His voice. His arms. The way he used to pull you close and whisper things that made the dark quiet. The way he used to tuck you in like a secret, like something too rare to risk losing. You wanted him. And you hated yourself for it.

So you moved before you could think. Before the fear, the shame, the rational voice could stop you.

You grabbed your coat. Your keys.

Tara, bless her, had shown up just minutes before, arms full of groceries and soft reassurances, promising to stay the night if you needed to rest. You told her you’d be gone for a few hours. That everything was fine.

You kissed your son’s head — maybe a little too long, maybe a little too tight — and walked out the door without another word.

And then you drove.

Not because you knew what you were going to say.

But because if you didn’t see him now, if you didn’t make him look at you — you might shatter into pieces too small to ever come back together.

***

His estate was still the same.

Too grand. Too silent. Still heavy with ghosts you left behind.

The guards moved aside the moment they saw your face. No hesitation. No questions. Just doors opening like jaws — welcoming you back into the mouth of a beast you once dared to call home.

You didn’t knock.

You didn’t hesitate.

You stormed into the room mid-meeting — a rupture in the polished calm — slicing through tailored suits, cigar smoke, and the tight, brutal quiet of dangerous men interrupted. Every head turned.

Including his.

Sylus sat at the head like a monarch grown colder with time. Glass in hand. Eyes unreadable. And that stillness — the kind that wasn’t calm, just leashed violence.

He saw you. Took you in.

And didn’t blink.

“Out,” he said.

Just one word. Soft. Absolute.

And the bosses of N109 — men who’d burned cities, bled kings, slaughtered empires — obeyed without a sound.

The door clicked shut behind the last of them.

You stood there. Just the two of you now. Five years of silence between your ribs. His name lodged somewhere behind your teeth.

You stepped forward, fists clenched.

“So this is how it’s going to be?” you snapped. “You send your men with toys and blank checks and think that counts? You think that makes you a father?”

He arched a brow. Slowly. And then — God help you — he laughed.

It was low. Mocking. Bone-deep with disbelief.

“You’re angry?” he said, with a cruel sort of wonder. “That’s rich.”

“I’m serious—”

“Oh, I can see that. Look at you,” he gestured to you with his glass, casual, vicious. “Marching in here like I haven’t been erased from his life. Like you didn’t take a scalpel to the past and cut me out clean. And now what — two days after a chance encounter, suddenly I’m not doing enough?”

His smile was the kind that used to make people flinch.

“What exactly were you expecting? Balloons? A welcome-home banner? Me groveling for the right to meet the child you kept hidden like some dirty secret?”

You flushed. Heat crawled up your throat.

“That’s not what I—”

“No?” he cut in, voice quieter now, colder. “Because from where I’m standing, you vanish for five years, show up with a son that wears my face, and get pissed when I don’t instantly fall into step like nothing happened.”

You stared at him, stunned. But he wasn’t done.

“You don’t get to paint me as the absentee,” he said, each word deliberate, venomous. “You built that absence. You enforced it. You chose it.”

You swallowed, but your voice cracked anyway.

“I didn’t have a choice.”

He laughed again, but there was no humor in it. Just razor-sharp ache.

“Oh, come on, kitten. You always had choices. You were the clever one, remember? The strategist. The girl who read people like maps and always knew the way out. So tell me—what part of your master plan involved disappearing with my son and calling it love?”

“I was protecting him.”

“From me?” His voice dropped, dangerously soft. “Because you thought I’d do what, exactly? Teach him how to hold a knife? Make him my little monster?”

You didn’t answer fast enough.

He stepped forward, eyes burning now.

“You don’t get to disappear, reappear, and accuse me of being a bad father in the same breath. You don’t get to bury me in silence and then demand I dance the role you left me.”

And then, softer, darker:

“You think I wanted this? To send strangers to the doorstep of the boy I didn’t even know existed?”

Your mouth opened. Nothing came out.

He stared at you — not with hate, but with something worse. Hurt twisted so deep it no longer bled. It just settled.

“You think I wouldn’t have taught him to live?”

Your lips part. No sound.

“I would’ve taught him how to breathe in a world that eats soft things alive,” he says. “I would’ve taught him how to survive it. How to carry your laugh like a shield. How to fight for it. How to protect it.”

He’s not shouting. But each word cuts deeper than a scream.

“I would’ve laid down my empire for him,” he says. “I would’ve bled for every step he took.”

He pauses — just long enough for the weight of it to hit — and then:

“But you didn’t just take him from me.”

His voice lowers, rough and hollow.

“You took me from him. You took you from us. You didn’t just rewrite the story — you burned the whole fucking book before we even had a chance to open it.”

He steps closer, and you don’t move.

“You didn’t trust me with him. Fine. But you didn’t trust me with you either. And you—” his voice catches, jaw tightening, “you didn’t even give yourself the chance to know what it could’ve been like.”

His eyes are glass now. And every word is a knife he’s too tired to stop from falling.

“You robbed all three of us.”

You try to speak, but the words catch somewhere in your throat. A hard knot of guilt and grief you can’t seem to swallow. You want to say his name. Just his name.

But before you can, his voice changes.

It’s no longer cold. No longer composed.

It’s blistering.

“Do you know what I did the day I realized you were gone?” he says — and now it’s breathless, like the memory itself is suffocating him. “Do you?”

You don’t answer. You can’t.

So he does it for you.

“I drank,” he bites. “I tore the city apart. I hunted ghosts. I played the organ until the walls bled. Until the sound felt like your scream in my skull.”

You sway. He sees it. Doesn’t care.

“I sat in your chair,” he hisses, “and begged it to creak. Just once. Just once, like you were still in it.”

Your knees buckle.

Still, he doesn’t move to catch you.

“I watched videos of you sleeping,” he says, hoarse now. “Kept that ugly little mug you always hated — because your lipstick was still on the rim.”

You cover your mouth with both hands as your breath shatters open.

“I slept in our bed fully clothed,” he whispers, “because I couldn’t let the sheets forget your shape.”

He finally takes one step forward — and then stops. Something in him splinters.

With a growl pulled straight from his chest, he turns and hurls the whiskey glass into the fireplace.

It explodes in flame and glass, the sound like a gunshot, like a scream. Fire licks up the wall as the liquor catches, dancing high and fast.

You flinch. Cover your face.

But not from fear. From shame.

You drop to your knees, hands shaking uncontrollably, sobs raking through your ribs. You can’t see through the tears anymore, and your voice is barely there when you whisper—

“I didn’t know how to love you without losing myself.”

There’s silence for a beat. The kind that hurts worse than screaming.

Then his voice — softer now. Almost gentle. Still raw.

“Kitten,” he says. “Was I really such a monster that you had to vanish with a newborn? Cage yourself in pain and loneliness for five years?”

You can’t look up.

“Did it help?” he asks. “Did it ever help?”

Your voice comes out choked.

“No... no,” you cry. “It felt like I was dying every second. I called for you every night. I prayed you’d come.”

He exhales sharply through his nose.

“Maybe your pride didn’t let you call loud enough.”

His words hit like lashes — and they’re meant to. You hear the fury under them. The wound he’s trying to cauterize with cruelty.

“And now what?” he snaps. “You think I’ll just let you use me again? Let you touch me again? And then vanish with my son all over again? Is that the plan?”

“Sylus, please...”

Your voice cracks as the sobs take over. The panic. The helplessness. You’re unraveling at the seams.

“Please don’t do this. Please—” You clutch at your chest, as if trying to physically hold your heart together. “You’re cutting me open— You’re cutting me alive— I made a mistake— so many mistakes— I didn’t know how to come back— I was scared— I was so scared— I didn’t know how to fix it, I didn’t— I never— I never—”

You can’t breathe. The words collapse.

But one thing pushes through.

“I never stopped loving you.”

Everything halts.

His expression breaks. Not shatters — breaks, quietly, like a fault line slipping beneath the surface.

And then he’s moving.

Down to the floor. To you.

His knees hit the marble hard. He doesn’t feel it.

His arms are around you in the next second, pulling you in, wrapping you up like a shield against everything — even himself. Even your shared grief.

You sob into his chest, into his collar, into the hollow beneath his jaw that still smells like night and memory and danger and home. Your body convulses with it, trembling like the child you once were in his arms.

And he holds you. Tight.

Because there’s nothing else left to do.

And now, with you in his arms again — trembling, broken, real — something in him gives way.

Not all at once. Slowly. Inevitably.

You feel it before he even realizes it’s happening: the way his muscles start to loosen, the way the sharp lines of rage soften, his breath slowing against your temple as his hands begin to move. Hesitant at first. Then helpless.

He’s touching your hair — slowly, gently — like he forgot what softness felt like. His fingers slip through the strands, curl at the nape of your neck, anchor there. One hand presses against your spine, the other strokes up your back, down again, grounding you with each motion like he’s trying to memorize the shape of your grief against his skin.

Your sobs soak through his shirt, seep down to his chest, dampen his collar and slide down his neck. And he lets it happen. Welcomes the burn. Because after five years of silence, your tears feel like the only thing real.

You cling to him like the world’s collapsing again — but this time you’re dragging him into the rubble with you. Your arms around his shoulders. Your knees curled against his sides. Your legs wrapping around him like instinct. Like survival.

He doesn’t flinch.

He welcomes the ache of it. Every breathless grab. Every tremor in your limbs. Every desperate mark your body makes against his.

Because it means you’re here.

Because it means he still feels something.

And then your voice — a wrecked, shaking thing — finds its way through the ruin:

“I came back… because… because I couldn’t give him what he deserves. I tried. I tried so hard to be everything. But how can I show him joy, or love, or hope — when I live in the ashes of something beautiful I destroyed?”

Your voice cracks.

“How can I teach him love, when the only thing left in me is the bitter taste of everything I ruined?”

His arms tighten around you.

Your voice drops to a whisper.

“I know I don’t deserve forgiveness. Not now. Maybe not ever. I don’t even know how to fix myself. Let alone… heal you.”

You press your face into his chest, as if that could protect you from what you’re about to say.

“But please,” you whisper. “Please help me find the path back. What do I do? What do I say to make you stop hating me?”

There’s a pause.

A long, dangerous pause.

Then he exhales slowly — like the weight of your question cracked something inside his chest.

His lips find your temple.

Tentative. Testing.

He lingers there, breathing in the scent of you, like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to want this.

Then he moves. A little bolder now.

Your hairline. The crown of your head. Your forehead. The slope of your cheek. His lips brush over each point like it’s a litany. Like he’s not kissing you, but praying through you.

He kisses your nose. Your brow. Your eyelids.

And then—your lips.

Or almost. Just close enough for his breath to mix with yours.

Each kiss a scar he’s trying to erase with his lips. Each touch a memory he’s begging not to lose again.

He doesn’t say your name.

He devours it.

“I hate that I still love you like this,” he breathes between kisses. “I hate that even now, after everything, all I want is you.”

You gasp. Half-sob.

“I hate that just being here… makes me want to forgive you.”

And then he’s kissing you, not like before. Not like memory. Not like longing.

Like a man drowning. Like someone trying to inhale every second he lost, burn it into his lungs before it’s torn away again.

You kiss him back — shattering into him, against him, with him. Arms tight. Mouth hungry. Breath wrecked.

Because this isn’t peace. This is survival.

When he finally pulls back, it’s only just enough to breathe.

His forehead presses against yours. His voice shakes.

“I’m not ready to forgive,” he says. “But I can’t go another day without trying.”

Your eyes stay closed. Your lips tremble.

“That’s all I want.”

He exhales — broken. Guttural. Human in a way he never lets himself be.

“I missed you so much it ruined me.”

And you say it — softly, clearly, the last shard of your heart finally offered:

“I came back to help you rebuild.”

***

A month later.

The dining room is too big for three people.

The chandelier still glitters like a threat. The long table could seat fifteen warlords. The silverware looks like it costs more than most apartments.

But tonight, with one small boy seated on a velvet cushion, feet not even reaching the chair rung, and a half-eaten pile of mashed potatoes in front of him — it somehow feels… livable.

You watch him with a kind of cautious awe.

He’s trying so hard to be proper. Sitting straight. Using both hands to hold the fork. Stealing glances at the towering ceilings and flickering wall sconces like they might come alive. Every now and then he glances at you — checking if he’s doing this right.

And then there’s the raven.

Mephisto — jet-black, silent, elegant — perched on the edge of a nearby armchair, watching your son like a curious god. Your boy is enchanted. He keeps whispering questions at him, occasionally offering a green bean as tribute.

Mephisto doesn’t flinch. Just cocks his head like he’s listening.

You’re barely touching your food. Too busy memorizing.

The way your son laughs softly at the bird. The way the candlelight flickers against the long mahogany floors. The quiet.

God, the quiet.

You don’t realize you’ve zoned out until footsteps echo down the hall.

Sylus appears in the doorway — sleeves rolled, collar undone, a worn copy of Somewhere in the Sky in one hand.

“He’s out,” he says, voice low, warm. “Fought it like a gladiator. I barely survived.”

You smile.

He crosses the room, setting the book on the sideboard. Loosens his shoulders like someone still unused to relaxing.

“Apparently,” he adds, deadpan, “the only thing he truly cares about in this mansion is the antique rifle mounted over the fireplace.”

Your blood runs cold.

“You didn’t.”

“I did,” he replies, reaching for the wine. “I told him if he managed to fall asleep on his own tonight, he could hold it — under supervision.”

You stare.

“Are you insane?”

He pours. Slowly. Deliberately. A touch of amusement in his eyes.

“He fell asleep in two minutes.”

He passes you a glass. You take it like it might explode. He clinks his own against yours and sits beside you.

There’s a pause. The kind that tastes like something new, but gentle.

And then, without looking at you:

“I like being a father.”

You glance over.

He’s staring into his glass. But the corner of his mouth twitches, like he almost doesn’t believe he said it out loud.

“It’s because it’s still new,” you say softly. “Still shiny.”

He shakes his head.

“No. It’s because he’s mine.”

 A beat.

“And because when he runs into a room, he doesn’t hesitate. Like he belongs there.”

Your throat catches. You take a sip of wine just to avoid answering.

He leans back, drapes one arm across the back of the chair, and looks at you like he’s about to say something dangerous.

And he does.

“So.”

You blink.

“How do you feel about making a daughter?”

You choke on the wine.

He doesn’t laugh. Just smiles — that smile. The slow, calculated one that used to mean someone was about to lose a war.

“You’re not serious.”

“I’m entirely serious, kitten” he says. “We could use someone to balance out the chaos. She’d keep him in line.”

“She’d own you in three weeks.”

“I’d let her,” he says, completely unbothered.

You shake your head, laughing into your glass.

“You realize we’re barely functional as it is?”

“And yet, here we are,” he murmurs, “functioning.”

The silence that follows is soft. Safe. Domestic in a way neither of you knows what to do with.

You lean your head on his shoulder.

And for the first time in years — no one is running. No one is bleeding. No one is apologizing.

...Anyway. Once you've decided how to get your character to notice that change is in the air, you need to determine what their likely reaction will be, and what kind of effect the realization will have on their behavior and on the people around them. The more they are inclined to resist the change, the longer it's going to take on the page to get them there. (And this is not necessarily a bad thing.)

Jung's Stricture—as some call it—can usefully be applied to this problem. The Stricture can be summed up as "What you resist not only persists, but will grow in size." (...At some point or another I remember saying that Kylo Ren was the poster boy for this problem, and with the benefit of hindsight, I think that assessment holds up.*) So the harder your character pushes back against the realization and internalization of Thing Z, the harder it (rightly) should keep impacting them until they make the choice to deal with it. This pushback will allow them time to process Event Y, while other plot-related stuff is going on around them.

Part of what will determine the character's resistance is what the stakes are if they change (or don't), and how high. (Here my old friend David Gerrold's recommendation comes in handy: find the always-vital answer to the question "Who does it hurt?" And what complications are caused by the pain.) The character may very well roll over without too much resistance in the case of a low-stakes change. But you can easily make a case that life-or-death stuff typically will be resisted quite hard if accepting it also means that the character has to admit that they've been wrong about something. The wronger they are, and the more people have to find out about it, the stiffer the resistance. ...And this can be good, because this resistance causes Drama, and Drama is Good. 🙂 (As long as it's realistic Drama, and doesn't slow the plot down too much.)

...Then there's the question of how to realistically structure the working-through of the character's acceptance in the narrative (or non-acceptance: that way can lie tragedy, which is just fine if it's what you're after). If the issue is a sufficiently painful one, you might want to consider pushing them through a tailored variant of the classic Kubler-Ross stages of grief. (Always understanding—as has been accepted for a while now—that the well-known "basic" versions of the K-R stages are merely shorthand for a process that happens in many different ways, and at different speeds, for different people... and that the order of the stages doesn't necessarily go this way.)

So first, maybe, the character will deny (more or less vehemently) that there needs to be a change at all. Then, when circumstances prove otherwise, they get pissed off about it. Then they start "bargaining" with themselves, trying to rationalize finding ways to feel better about what can't otherwise be changed. Then deep sorrow begins to creep up on them (lasting as long as is realistic or useful for them). And finally they find their way through to acceptance of the way things are going to have to be—sometimes pushed into this by plot events that might otherwise have had no great effect on them.

You can shuffle the stages around in whatever way seems most appropriate to suit your character's individual needs... always, again, looking for ways to maximize the drama within the broader plot. There doesn't necessarily need to be a whole lot of flashy physical action accompanying this process. Quite intense stuff can go on strictly confined to the insides of someone's head.

...If the change that's in the air isn't necessarily a bad one, or leading to pain: I remember running into someone's suggestion a while back that there might as likely be stages of joy as of grief. (Not to be confused with the "stages or kinds of happiness" stuff that's to be found here and there online. Joy is not happiness: it's far more potent stuff, and far less predictable or controllable [as Le Guin says somewhere or other].) So—in this mode—you would invert, or subvert, the recognized "grief structure" somewhat.

It makes a certain sense to keep denial as a first stage: "No, no way, this is wish fulfillment, this is too good to be true...", and the character pushing back from whatever's in that first stage of handling the new realization: initially rejecting it. Then the first green shoots of hope, but kept silent and unshared, for fear everything's going to come undone if they say anything. Then uncertainty: "this is really happening... what do I do about it?" After that, the first tentative or daring moves toward accepting the new reality... of finding a way to incorporate it into the new ground of being. And finally: joy, letting oneself be part of it, making it real at last.

...Now all these various dynamics and sets of factors obviously can't be made to work out in isolation. All of them are going to have to be weighed against one another and adjusted in terms of timing and the larger structure of the plot (and other characters' working-through schedules...). Your goal is to set things up so that when the Thing Z explosion of realization or whatever goes off—however long it takes—it happens at the right time, in the right place, to drive the plot correctly forward. If it has no effect on the surroundings, but only on the character, it won't get the job done... and no one will be satisfied: not the characters as an ensemble, not you, and not your readers.

This is essentially a structural and logistics issue. You get to figure out when and where to make this sequence of events initiate, execute, and complete. It can't be too soon in the work: it can't be too late. It can't be right on top of the events that will bring your work to a close, or your readership is likely to come after you with pitchforks (and complain about the whole business feeling badly structured, or contrived). Emplace your character's working through and climactic business correctly, though, and the work as a whole will feel thoroughly done when it's done. (Even, mysteriously, if it's a cliffhanger. Correct completion is powerful stuff.)

...Also, here's an extra mechanism to think about (should you feel so inclined). If you can find the right spot in which to emplace this kind of interaction, there can be a certain satisfaction in having two characters' "resolution arcs" initially seriously interfering with one another, until without warning they blow up in each other's faces and inadvertently (or purposefully) push each other over the edge into the territory on the far side of their individual—or joint—problems. (And then, regardless of the positivity of the results, they can still be slightly pissed off with each other. Drama!) 😂

Anyway. Assuming that POV issues allow, what remains is to let your character's working-through of a specific thorny issue (or issues) take place over a few chapters at least... slotting the whole business in among other characters' business, so that not only they, but your reader, have time to process what's happening. Finding that time—or creating the illusion of it as the narrative flows—is something you'll start sorting out in your "zero draft", and will have time to fine-tune as you continue work thereafter.

Anyway. I hope all this has put some useful ideas in your head. Thanks for asking!