**FIVE MONTHS LATER**
Five months later, the packhouse breathes differently.
It is not quieter and it is not louder, but steadier, like a body that has healed past the sharp pain and settled into a new rhythm it did not have before. Walls that once felt tense now hold warmth. Corridors that echoed with urgency carry laughter more often than orders. Even the bond has changed, deepened into something less volatile and more enduring, a constant presence that no longer feels like it needs to warn me of every shift in the air.
Tonight, that steadiness fractures.
It happens slowly at first, a tightening low in my abdomen that makes me pause mid step, one hand bracing against the table as I breathe through it, telling myself not to overreact because pregnancy has taught me that not every sens
