The afternoon light had shifted to honey-gold when Rory woke, her body heavy with the peculiar weightlessness of mid-day sleep. The house breathed around her with unfamiliar sounds - the soft cadence of voices from downstairs, the gentle clatter of dishes, the persistent rhythm from the workshop that had become the heartbeat of their days.
She lay still, letting consciousness seep back slowly, when a new sound cut through the domestic symphony: laughter. Deep, rich, and achingly familiar. For a moment, her heart forgot its carefully learned patterns of grief, surging with wild hope before reality could catch up.
It was Jim's laugh, not Sam's. Of course it was. But the similarity knocked the air from her lungs all the same.
Rory pushed herself up, the room tilting slightly before settlin
