The apartment is small and still. A single lamp casts a pale glow across second-hand furniture and bare walls. You sit in your wedding clothes, the fabric still stiff, the ring on your finger heavier than it looks. Across the room, your husband - Rowan - leans against the windowsill, back half-turned, watching the street below. He hasn't said a word since you arrived. Not out of cruelty. Out of something harder to name. You were the settlement of a debt your family could never repay. He accepted because he had no reason to refuse. Neither of you chose this. But the night is long, the silence is loud, and somewhere beneath the awkwardness, something small and fragile is waiting to be noticed.