Huxley

“I’m here, Hux,” Tia’s voice is distant and full of emotion. “We all are.”

My fingers tighten, and I grip the hand I hold, and I know even without seeing, that it’s Tia’s.

My eyes flutter open, feeling like a great weight is trying to keep them shut.

“Hux,” Tia’s words are laced with hope and concern and when my eyes finally focus, I see my wife leaning over me, her hand cupping my face. “You’re alive. You’re going to be all right.”

I try to smile, to reassure her, but everything hurts. “Tia.”

“No, don’t move a muscle. You’ve just gotten out of surgery.”

“He’s awake?” Banks asks, coming in. I look around, realizing I’m in a medical room. We must have made it to Miriam’s bunker.

“Is Mason okay?” I ask, the words scratching my throat.”The girls?”

Tia’s face softens. “Yes, they’re all here. We all made it. But we’ve started a revolution.”

“Not now,” Banks tells her.

But I’m awake now, I need to know what’s happened.

“A revolution?” My mind is still groggy, but I try to focus on her words.

Tia and Banks share a look, and when Banks sighs, telling her to get the husbands, I know Tia’s won.

I smile, grimacing as I do, realizing I have a long road of recovery ahead of me.

“If we hadn’t left when we did,” Banks tells me, moving to the side of the bed and checking my IV. “Warren’s men would have gotten us at the compound. We would have been stuck inside the house, sitting ducks. If you hadn’t made the decision to get us out of the house so quickly, we’d all be dead.” He rests a hand on my arm. “I owe you my life. And beyond that, the cure that I’ve found, it would have been lost without you. Thank you.”

On the surface, Banks is so fucking pretentious, high brow, as different from me as possible, but something's happened over the months we’ve been married to Tia.

We’ve changed.

Thank God.

We’re better men now. Stronger. We have something bigger to fight for than ourselves, bigger than the stories of our pasts that brought us here, to the lottery. Dead sisters and buried lovers and old resentments and unfulfilled dreams.

Now we have a fucking future that is brimming with hope and promise and love.

So much fucking love, it overwhelms me.

As Tia enters the room with Giles, Emerson, Fallon, and Salinger, everyone’s faces are flooded with relief.

They fucking care if I live or die and that means more than I could put into words. But I guess my face says it all.

“You crying, Hux?” Sal says, nearing my hospital bed, giving me a hard time. But that sucker has tears in his eyes too.

I may have held his upbringing against him for a long ass time, but I’m over that shit that held me down. His family, this bunker, their resources fucking kept me alive.

“I love you like a brother,” I tell him, not caring if I sound weak. Truth is, admitting that makes me feel fucking strong.

“I know.” He runs a hand over his jaw. “I love you too.”

Maybe it takes a near-death experience to make a man realize what he has to live for, but I don’t think that is what happened to me.

I glance over at my wife and know the truth.

I fell in love.

And real love is louder than a battle cry, stronger than a war. It fought through the demons in my heart and fucking won.

Maybe the good guys do end up first, after all.

“So, what’s this about a revolution?” I ask.

Salinger lifts his brows, and I see there is still a knot of worry in his eyes. He is carrying a hell of a lot right now. “The Director is dead and so is Warren Thorne. It means anything could happen.”

“What does that mean for us?” I ask as Miriam rolls into the room.

She smiles like she’s been waiting a long ass time to answer. “It means it’s time to make some announcements.”