Grace looks up from her paperwork, blinking as Mason enters the kitchen. She follows his gaze - narrowed eyes, lip curled, judgemental finger pointing - to the single cupcake on the table between them. A small candle sits in the middle of it, unlit.

“I believe the humans call those ‘cupcakes’,” she muses, tapping her pen on her lips thoughtfully, “though I may have the inflection wrong. CUP-cakes? Cup-CAKES?” She shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

He gives her a withering stare. If there had been a single live plant in the kitchen, it would have simply disintegrated. 

“I know it’s a cupcake, smartass.” She’s pleased that he can’t seem to hold back a begrudging smirk. “Where did it come from? Who’s it for?”

“Oh!” She caps her pen and sets it down on top of her papers, clasping her hands together. This is the moment she’d been waiting for. “I’m so glad you asked. That cupcake is for you.” 

He looks taken aback, even as he pulls out a chair to sit beside her. They both stare at the cupcake, one amused, the other suspicious. 

“I don’t… eat cupcakes?” he says finally, hesitantly, looking at her as if waiting for the catch. 

“No,” she agrees sadly, “you don’t. But I needed something and a bag of blood in the middle of the counter just didn’t have the same vibe, you know?”

“And what vibe would that be?” is his dry response. 

“Celebration, of course.” She smiles at him, her smile only growing wider as she takes in his stricken expression. 

“What…” He clears his throat. “Uh… what are we…celebrating?”

“Relax.” She takes pity on him. “It’s nothing I would have expected you to remember.” She shrugs, suddenly self-conscious, picking up her pen to fiddle with it. 

He spots the motion, understands it for what it is, and clasps his hand over hers, squeezing them gently. 

“Tell me,” he says quietly, gruffly. He wants to know. 

“This is the day…” She hesitates. Another gentle squeeze. “This is the day we met. At the Warehouse.”

He pauses, then lets out a bark of laughter. “The day you shot Adam?!”

“Shut up!” She pulls her hands away, even though she can’t help her own laughter. 

He reaches for her, pulls her out of her chair and onto his lap, nuzzles her neck and nips lightly at her ear until she squirms and giggles. He only tightens his hold. 

“Sentimental,” he chides. “Still.” 

“Yeah.” She settles into his arms, rests her head on his shoulder. “It feels good, though. To remember.” She sighs, even though she doesn’t need to anymore. “It feels like so much slips away these days. Time is…different.”

He hums in agreement, kissing her head and otherwise staying quiet. 

“Sometimes I put out a cupcake for random things when they come to me,” she continues softly, her gaze unfocused and her mind elsewhere. “My mom’s birthday. The day I became a detective.” Her mouth twists with emotion. “Other things.”

He knows what she’s trying to say without her needing to say it. She honours the difficult dates. The ones that come with the burden of immortality. Of time passing and friends passing and days that turn into years in the blink of an eye. 

“It’s okay,” he says softly. “It’s good you do that. Keep doing it.”

“Yeah.” Her voice is watery, but when he looks down, her eyes are dry. “Anyway, this one is for you.” 

Mason looks at the cupcake. Then he looks back down at Grace. 

“Any regrets?” he wonders. It’s too late now, of course. Has been for years. Decades? Maybe more. 

But still, he wonders. 

She shifts until they’re facing each other. She looks the same to him as she did then in that Warehouse - all false bravado and shaking hands - and the thought in his head that he’s had many, many times after that moment: Fuck.

Fuck, this is it.

Like looking down the barrel of the rest of his existence. Recognizing then, even if he didn’t realize it at the time, that life was about to change irrevocably. 

“Regrets?” She smiles, those familiar eyes crinkling, still vibrant and youthful even after all this time. “Never.”

She leans forward and kisses him sweetly and he holds her hair and she twines her arms around his neck. 

They have a good life. They have friends, like them. Friends who stay. They have a home. They have each other. 

And they have the little anniversaries. Some years they honour the same ones again and again, others they forget. But each time there’s a cupcake. And a candle. 

Mason lights this one and they sit quietly together, watching the wax melt down, remembering.