❝I need to put me first❞ | Being back home isn't as good as Rose thought it would be, living surrounded by a family she doesn't know is taking a toll on her. As Rose tries to deal with her amnesia while she also comes to terms with trying to find ou...
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The safehouse was quiet tonight. Elle had finally crashed after hours of self-defense drills and bad karaoke attempts in the living room. At eleven, she still had that wild energy that made her seem older one minute and painfully young the next.
I stood in the doorway of her room for a long moment, watching her small frame curled under the blankets, one arm hugging the stuffed panda I won for her at a festival last month when we wouldn't let her go.
She looked peaceful, and I desperately wanted it last.
But I know it wouldn't.
Han was in the kitchen when I walked back to him, nursing a beer and staring out the window like he could see trouble coming. He always did that—quiet observation while others charged ahead.
I grabbed a water bottle and leaned against the counter across from him. "We need to talk about what's coming."
Han's eyes met mine. He nodded once, setting the beer down. "Nobody's plan."
"Yeah." I crossed my arms, trying to keep my voice steady. "He's serious about this; she's too valuable. Who knows what they'd do to her if they found out where she is."
Han rubbed a hand over his face. "And what about you?"
"I stay behind." The words tasted bitter, but they were necessary. "The fewer people who know where you two are, the safer Elle stays. If I go with you, I become another link. Another weakness someone can use. Shaw taught me that much—compartmentalize. I'm better at being the ghost on the outside."
He didn't like it. I could see the argument building behind his eyes. The same protective instinct made him take me when I showed up in Tokyo with nothing but scars and questions.
"Rose—"
"I mean it, Han. You and Elle. That's the play. I'll help set everything up. Mr. Nobody's already got the documents and the safe locations lined up. But once you're gone... I stay in the game. Someone has to watch the board from this side."
Han was quiet for a long time. The clock on the wall ticked loudly. Finally, he sighed. "You really think this is the only way?"
"I know it is." I glanced toward the stairs where Elle slept. "She deserves a normal life, or as close as we can give her. No more running, no more looking over her shoulder every five minutes. You can give her that. I can't. Not with my past."
He reached across the counter and squeezed my shoulder. "You're still her family, you know that, right?"
"Yeah," I whispered. "And that's why I'm doing this."
We spent the next hour going over details. Timelines. Backup plans. How Mr. Nobody would extract them quietly. Han kept trying to find holes in the plan where I could come with them. I shut each one down. By the time we finished, my chest felt tight, like someone had wrapped chains around my ribs.
Later, after Han had gone to bed, I couldn't sleep.
I sat cross-legged on the couch in the dim living room, laptop balanced on my thighs, the blue glow the only light. My fingers flew across the keys, diving into encrypted databases and satellite feeds I wasn't supposed to have access to. Owen. I needed to know if he was really gone.
After that fall from the plane in London... no body had ever been confirmed. Part of me hoped he wasn't dead. Another part, the colder, sharper part, trained by him and Deckard, needed certainty.
I pulled up every sighting, every whisper since that day. Rumors in Eastern Europe. A blurred photo from Morocco that could've been anyone. Nothing solid.
Then my mind drifted to the hack from months ago, the day Reiko had tried to talk to me for the first time, and I'd left my laptop unattended.
Someone had breached my systems. Not a kid playing around, but a professional, clinical. The fact that I'd been stupid enough to get caught off guard, and now whoever did it knew where I was.
But no one had come.
I reopened the logs now, digging deeper. The IP chain jumped continents: Moscow, then Cape Town, then Seoul, then nowhere. It pinged like someone was deliberately taunting me.
"Who the hell are you?" I muttered, chewing my lip, but still nothing.
I slammed the laptop shut harder than I meant to and rubbed my eyes. The bad feeling wouldn't leave; it sat heavily in my stomach like bad sushi and too much regret.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I crept out of my room.
Han's door was ajar. I pushed it open quietly and slipped inside. He stirred as I lifted the edge of the blanket and slid in beside him, keeping a careful distance.
We'd done this before, when nightmares were tearing me apart, and there were no memories to anchor me. Platonic. Safe. Like the brother I couldn't remember having.
"Rose?" His voice was thick with sleep.
"Yeah. It's me."
He shifted, turning toward me in the dark. "What's wrong?"
I stared at the ceiling, the words sticking in my throat. I never did this. Never admitted weakness. But tonight the weight felt too heavy to carry alone.
"I have a bad feeling," I said finally. My voice came out smaller than I wanted. "Like something's coming. Something we're not ready for. I-... I don't want to be lost again. I don't want to go through what I did before. It's too hard."
Han was quiet for a moment, then his hand found mine under the blanket and squeezed. "You're allowed to be scared, you know."
"I'm not scared," I whisper, lying through my teeth. "I'm... uneasy. And I don't do uneasy. I do prepared. I do lethal. But this feels bigger than that."
He didn't call me on the lie. Just let the silence sit between us comfortably, in a way only years of trust could make it.
"You've carried a lot," he said eventually. "More than anyone should have to. Losing your past, Shaw's training, finding your family, leaving again, protecting Elle, planning all this stuff like it's just another Tuesday. It's okay to feel the weight of it."
"I just keep thinking... what if I'm wrong? What if staying behind isn't the right call? What if I lose you two for real this time?"
"You won't." His voice was steady, the same calm anchor he'd been since day one. "We've got a plan. A good one. And you're the strongest person I know, Rose Toretto. Even without your memories, that part never changed."
I let out a shaky breath and turned on my side to face him. In the faint moonlight coming through the blinds, he looked older than he had when I first met him. Tired, but still solid.
"Promise me you'll keep her safe," I whispered. "No matter what."
"I promise." He pulled me into a loose hug, the kind that felt like family. "And you promise you'll watch your back out here. Don't go chasing ghosts alone."
"I'll try."
We stayed like that for a while. No more words. Just the quiet rhythm of breathing and the distant hum of Tokyo that never really slept. For the first time in weeks, the knot in my chest loosened just a fraction.
Tomorrow we'd keep training Elle. We'd refine the plan. I'd keep digging into shadows I couldn't name yet.
But tonight, I let myself feel it. The fear. The love. The dread that something bad was coming for us all.
