(Ruby's POV)
The morning after the storm, the world was quiet.
I woke to sunlight streaming through the curtains, warm and golden. The rain had stopped sometime in the night. The wind had died down. The sea was calm, the waves gentle. For the first time in days, I could hear the birds singing outside the window.
Nicholas was still asleep. His dark hair was spread across the pillow, his face peaceful. The scars from the fire were pale in the morning light. His chest rose and fell slowly.
I watched him for a while, thinking about the storm, about the power outage, about the way he had gone out into the rain to fix the generator. He didn't have to do that. He could have waited. He could have let the workers handle it. But he didn't. He put on his coat and went outside because that's who he was now.
Not the Beast. Not the man who hid in the west wing. A man who faced the storm.
