Naya cooked when she couldn't sleep.
The kitchen was quiet, lights dimmed low, the only sounds the soft hiss of oil meeting pan and the rhythmic chop of her knife against the board. Precision calmed her. Structure. Control. These were things she trusted.
She tied her hair back, movements automatic, muscle memory guiding her hands the way drills once had.
When she cooked, the past stayed quieter.
Tonight, it didn't.
She stared at the pan, watching onions soften, their sweetness rising into the air, and for the first time since she'd walked away from Kairo's room, doubt slipped past her defenses.
Did I make the wrong choice?
The question startled her. She hadn't allowed herself to ask it until now. Choices were final in her world. Hesitation got people killed. Second-guessing was a luxury she couldn't afford.
And yet.
She remembered Kairo's face when she told him she wanted to focus on being his guard. Not anger. Hurt. That had been worse. She had trained herself to withstand rage, threats, violence. She had never trained for the quiet devastation of someone who loved her and felt abandoned.
She flipped the vegetables harder than necessary.
What was I thinking?
She told herself the same answer she'd repeated all day: I was protecting him. The campaign. His future. His life. She had seen what happened when enemies couldn't reach the man they reached the woman beside him.
She had lived that lesson in blood.
The scent of garlic took her back years to a different kitchen, half a world away. A military base with unreliable power. A knife that wasn't meant for cooking. Hands that shook not from fear, but from the memory of pulling a trigger hours earlier.
That was the first time she had cooked. Do something normal. Something human. She had followed instructions because it was easier than remembering faces. Easier than counting the dead.
Cooking had saved her then.
And Kairo… Kairo had reminded her of that part of herself she thought she'd buried. The woman who could protect and feel. Who could fight and love.
She plated the food carefully, beautifully, even though no one else would eat it. Even though he wouldn't taste it.
I chose duty over desire, she thought. Again.
She sat at the counter, fork idle in her hand, appetite gone. Outside the window, the city glowed, alive and careless. Somewhere in the house, Kairo was awake too. She felt that with the same certainty she felt threats.
She had walked away because she was afraid.
Not of loving him.
But of surviving it.
What if staying meant becoming the weakness they exploited? What if loving him was the opening that got him killed? She had promised herself she would never be the reason someone didn't come home.
Her chest tightened.
"I did the right thing," she whispered into the empty room.
The words didn't convince her.
Because if the choice had been so right, it wouldn't hurt this much.
Naya cleaned the kitchen over and over thoroughly , wiping down surfaces already spotless, keeping her hands busy so her mind wouldn't wander back to his laugh, his touch, the way he looked at her like she was more than a weapon.
When she finally turned off the lights, she accepted the truth she'd been avoiding:
She might have chosen correctly.
But she wasn't sure she'd chosen happily.
And for the first time in a long time, that uncertainty frightened her more than any enemy ever had.