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“I should have been more afraid of losing you.” Martha dropped her hand from around herself and jabbed him in the chest. “You’re what I have left, not Farlon.”
“We…” Leon’s hands shook, and he clenched and flexed them to make them stop. “We have his memory.”
Martha sighed and patted his chest softly with the hand she’d just jabbed at him. “And that’s it. Now, all we really have are you and me and the Resistance and a war and a hell of an uncertain future. We don’t need to make it worse by trying to live up to all the dreams of a dead man.”
Leon swallowed.
Forcing himself to nod felt like finally letting go of the edge of a cliff he would never climb up.
He braced for his stomach to fall out, for the fear and the loss to hit him…but it didn’t. Instead of plummeting to his death, he landed straight onto his feet, and he stood solid and secure for the first time in years.
He found himself shaking, then stepped forward swiftly to wrap his arms around the woman who had raised him. “I love you, Martha.”
“I love you too, Leon.”
They held each other tightly for a few moments, shaking each other with a shudder or repressed sob now and again but with their faces stubbornly dry and set.
“And to set the record straight, Leon,” Martha said as she released him. “I was wrong to tell you to let Sebastian go.”
“No.” Leon shook his head and fended off the hope Martha offered him. “No, you were right.”
“I was wrong,” Martha insisted. “All we have is the living, Leon, and if you can have Sebastian, you should damn well take him. He’s a good man and—”
“And he deserves someone who will treat him like one.” Leon cut his hand through the air. “He deserves better than someone who will put him second. Someone who will make him do the things I might make him do.”
Martha bit her lip. She looked back at the table of maps and charts that Leon had tried to make a break for before. She sighed. “So don’t.”
Leon shook his head and pushed past her. “It’s not that simple, and you know it.”
Even if Farlon was dead. Even if Farlon was never going to see Leon give that speech. Even if Leon didn’t owe it to him… he owed it to someone. He owed it to years of effort and sacrifice. His own and the effort and sacrifice of others. Martha and Sebastian weren’t all he had—he had the weight of responsibilities and expectations and the knowledge that he’d come too far to turn back now.
Martha didn’t reply, and Leon groaned and closed his eyes. He rubbed his temples as all the conflicting emotions of the past week ran around in his head and revived the headache he’d put to bed that morning. Life had been simpler when he’d managed to fool himself and everyone around him that he didn’t really even have feelings.
He dropped into a chair at the table, and it groaned under his weight. “Do you have numbers for how many of our people got out of the capital?”
Martha didn’t call him out on his deflection. Probably because she didn’t have any better idea of the right course of action than he did. She handed him a data tablet. “Some. We’ve been attempting a roll call.”
Leon took it and started scrolling through the names.
Chapter Thirteen
By the time a soft knock on the door pulled Leon from his thoughts, he’d let Martha go to sleep and moved himself to a room a couple of hallways away. The room was dusty and small, but it had a bed and a desk, which had always felt more than enough for Leon.
“Come in,” he called as he set the data tablet aside and rubbed his eyes. His heart did an absurd little flutter when Sebastian appeared in the doorway.
“You said I’d get to see you later.” Sebastian closed the door behind him and lifted his chin.
Leon slowly spun his chair toward him and gave him a half smile. “And now you’re seeing me.”
“Only because I came and found you.”
“Well, one of us was going to need to do the finding.”
“It could have been you.” Sebastian put a hand on his hip.
Leon raised an eyebrow. “The last time I came and found you in a bar doesn’t rank among my most pleasant experiences.”
Sebastian’s face fell. “That was a low blow. I said I was sorry.”
