I wake in my chambers, the weight of the crown feeling heavier than usual. The memories come unbidden again—the cottage with the tiled floor, Teddy's graduation, Quentin's smile across our breakfast table after forty years together. These phantom memories feel more real some days than the cold stone walls surrounding me now.

A knock at my door interrupts my thoughts. "Come in," I call, already composing my features into the mask of a king rather than a man haunted by a life he can't return to.

The door swings open, and Quentin enters. My breath catches. After three days of avoiding my gaze, he's looking directly at me, his expression a complicated mixture of determination and hurt. The leather pauldrons of his guard disguise look uncomfortable against the warmth of his skin.

"We need to talk," he says, closing the door behind him. The room suddenly feels too small, the air charged with tension I've been trying to ignore.

I paste on a dismissive smile. "About what? The state of your fashion choices? Because I have notes, Q." My voice sounds more confident than I feel.

Quentin doesn't smile. He takes a step closer, and I can see the memory of our life together flickering in his eyes—the same way it does in mine when I let my guard down. "About us. About what we had. What we could still have."

My throat tightens. I look away, focusing on an elaborate tapestry rather than his earnest gaze. "That wasn't us," I repeat the words I've been telling myself for days. "That was some other version of us. This is real life." And real life doesn't offer second chances like that.

"Bullshit," he says, the word soft but firm. "We remember it, Eliot. Every day, I wake up and remember fifty years with you. How is that not real?"

He steps closer still, close enough that I can smell the leather of his uniform and the subtle scent that is uniquely Quentin. The air between us hums with tension, and for a moment, I let myself imagine leaning forward, closing the distance...

But duty pulls me back. "I can't," I say, the words feeling like shards of glass in my throat. "There's too much at stake. Margo—"

"Margo would want you to be happy," Quentin interrupts. "Just for once in your goddamned life, stop thinking about everyone else and think about what you want."

His hand brushes mine, and a flood of memories washes over me—morning coffee, children's laughter, the weight of his body against mine at night. I pull my hand away as if burned, but the damage is done.

Our eyes meet, and in that moment, I see everything—the fifty years we had, the potential for fifty more, the fear in both of us that this might be our last chance. The choice hangs between us, heavier than any crown.