I woke up shivering on a hard surface in an unfamiliar place. I tried to sit up but was stopped by something strong banding around my midsection.

“What is going on? Where am I?” I said aloud to myself.

“Ros, are you okay?”

That voice. That deep, melodic voice that I now only heard in my dreams. And in that moment it all hit: me on the beach in Eastsound, the cold, damp air. Thinking Archer appeared there when I’d known he was gone. Yet here he was, his arms wrapped around me while we sat on a rock on the beach.

I turned to him them, his arms loosening their hold, but not breaking their embrace. “You’re here. You haven’t left.” I couldn’t hide the astonishment, the hope in my voice.

His eyes crinkled as they smiled, and it was a sad thing, that smile. Not the one full of joy I had been so used to. His hand snaked up between us, cupped my face, and caressed my cheekbone. I closed my eyes and nuzzled into his touch, a feeling of rightness, of warmth, of home seeping into me.

“Of course I’m here. Where else would I be?”

“The other side? That bright white light to oblivion?” I tried to joke, but I choked on the words so thick and sharp with all the things that remained unsaid between us, with all the things that had happened while we were separated.

Archer shook his head at me. “No, Ros. There was no bright white light, no paradise for me once you left. I fear there never will be. I considered, for a time, trying to seek you out, to make sure you were doing well. I couldn’t bring myself to do that. I knew that if I found you happy with Dan, it was something I couldn’t stand to see.”

He paused then, and I wondered why he wasn’t as happy to see me as I was to see him. His words made it sound as though he still loved me, but his actions, the emotional wall he seemed to have erected in my absence said something entirely different.

It was when I looked down at his arm still wrapped around me, resting on the swell of my stomach, that I realized where his thoughts were. His eyes dipped to mine, then down to my belly, and back up to my face. He smiled, but it didn’t even begin to reach his eyes.

“How long are you here for, Ros? Did Dan come with you?” His voice dripped with anguish even while he tried to sound happy for my current situation. It was obvious he thought Dan was the father and that our time really had passed.

“I don’t know, Archer. Forever, maybe,” I said with a shrug, trying to send him a message with my eyes, urging him to read between the lines. His face broke at my words though, heartbreak in every cell of his body.

I shifted then, turning into his lap, and grasping his face in my hands. I nearly jolted at the electricity that sparked as our bodies connected, that ever-present current that hummed between us. Relief flooded my body with warmth that this part of our bond remained unchanged. I had to resist the urge to lay my lips upon his. The fight against my instinct took everything in me.

“Archer, it’s just me. I’m here alone. I came for you, if you’ll still have me.” It came out as a statement, but it was just as much a question.

My heart pounded, threatening to beat right through my chest. I had been gone for nearly seven months, and I didn’t think Archer had fallen for someone else during that time, but I was worried that it was enough time for him to change his mind about me, about us. There wasn’t any logic to the thought, but it was there nonetheless.

He pulled back and his eyes searched my face frantically, disbelief written all over it. “Repeat that, please.”

The first tear fell. Then the next. For a minute, I wondered if I had made a mistake. Then I thought back through what it had taken to get me to this moment and I knew that even if this ended poorly for me, even if Archer walked away from me, this risk I’d taken was not a mistake.

I smiled through the tears. “I’m here to stay, Archer. This is where I belong, and I hope that you’ll be by my side.”

Archer’s lips quirked in a faint smile and it was obvious he still didn’t quite believe me. He looked down at his hand on my stomach again and his expression dimmed. “And what about Dan, Ros?”

“We’re done, Archer. The divorce will be finalized in a month. So what do you think?” I didn’t want to let on that his reluctance to give an answer was killing me, that the hope I’d had at his appearance on the beach was slowly starting to fade.

“I… I don’t know, Ros. I don’t know what to think.”

Archer turned his head, breaking my hold on him. My hands fell down into my lap and I looked down, unsure of where to go from here. Maybe I needed to give him time to think through this all, to wrap his head around it. Springing something like this on someone wasn’t always the best idea, but here I was and I couldn’t undo it now.

“Ros, what about the baby? Is Dan fine with you moving so far away with his child? How will that all work out?”

My head jerked up suddenly as my eyes searched his face. It was there. I swore I heard it, the hint of hope underlying his questions. I stood up and walked to where the water met the shore.

In all the things I’d planned when I came back here, I’d somehow forgot to even consider how I would explain to Archer the truth of my pregnancy. How had I not even considered that this man might not even believe that he was, in fact, the father?

I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, exhaling slowly. I would throw the words out there with the understanding that this could end badly for me. It was the only way I could think to move forward and I was done living half a life, letting fear rule over the things I truly desired.

My skin sparked to life as the scent of sandalwood and tobacco wrapped around me. A second later I felt the weight of Archer’s very real, present body behind mine, the featherlight touch of his fingertips brushing against mine. That magnetic pull, the thread in me connected to the one in him. I opened my eyes then and straightened my spine.

Now was the time. And for better or worse, I was ready.

I turned to Archer then, taking him in fully one last time before I let the last truth fall from my lips. “The baby isn’t Dan’s, Archer.”

He gasped, took a step back, nearly stumbling before he righted himself. He rubbed at his chest as though it pained him, with a look of agony on his face. I realized then with horror that he’d taken the leap I hadn’t intended.

“Archer,” I began, arm outstretched I took a step toward him. Thankfully he didn’t continue to retreat. “This baby isn’t Dan’s. It isn’t anyone else’s, either. Archer—this baby is yours. Somehow, and don’t ask me how, I can’t even begin to explain it, we created her that night. She is just as much yours as she is mine.”

I stopped myself then. I let my arm drop and I bit my lip to keep more words from pouring from my lips. I watched as the emotions crossed his face: disbelief, hope, anger, fear, and something else I couldn’t put my finger on. I wished I could skip this part, take away the hurt and pain I was sure he was feeling. Archer shook his head and turned away, walking up the shore away from me.

My eyes welled up and I didn’t have the strength to wipe them away. My body began to shake and my chest tightened painfully. I knew this was the risk, that he wouldn’t believe me or want what I wanted anymore, and while I had tried to prepare myself for that, there was no way to anticipate this kind of pain. My stomach jolted, and I looked down to see my daughter begin to kick around, her foot or hand pushing outward through my skin. I grunted as she hit what felt like my ribs.

I looked up then to see Archer right in front of me, silently reappearing in that ghostly way of his. His eyes narrowed on my stomach and looked back to mine in question, so many questions.

“Are you—? Can I—? Ros…” He looked so confused and he couldn’t finish one sentence.

I gave him a tentative smile, my heart too battered to hope this was the turning point. I reached out and grabbed his hands and placed them on my stomach. He trembled slightly under my hands as I held them to my abdomen, shifting every few seconds in an attempt to figure out where she would move next. It only took a few minutes before she kicked again. He looked up at me then, such wonder written all over his beautiful face, so many more questions lingering in his eyes.

“I know this seems crazy, Archer. I didn’t believe it myself at first. There is no other explanation. You are the only person I have been with in well over a year. I don’t know how this is possible, but she’s real and she’s ours.”

I waited him out, letting him process all of this without saying anything else. I didn’t want to influence his decision in any way, this had to be something he truly wanted.

“She’s… She’s mine? Truly, Rosalind?” Archer’s voice shook with yearning as a tear slipped down his face.

I nodded then, smiling through my own tears, smiling so big my face hurt with it. “Yes, Archer. She’s yours.”

Before I had time to process it, I was wrapped up in Archer’s embrace, my face in his neck, inhaling his scent that I had missed so much. I gripped him back, hoping that I never had to spend another night without this, that I never had to know what it was like to not have him in my arms and by my side.

Archer pulled back then and wrapped a hand around the nape of my neck, gently caressing the pulse beating in my throat. “And you, Ros? Are you mine, too?”

I broke then, my knees buckled and the tension in my chest eased in relief. “Yes, Archer. I’m yours. Always, only yours.”

Archer smiled at me then, that breathtaking smile that finally made its way to his eyes, those beautiful green eyes crinkling with unrestrained joy. He kissed me, a deep, soul-shattering meeting of our lips that breathed life back into me.

With our lips melded together and his body fused to mine, I knew with complete certainty that I had finally returned home.