Inlove with my Father's murderer

Under one roof

The morning sunlight leaked through the thin, inexpensive curtains of Aria’s small apartment, slicing across the modest living room like a hesitant visitor. It was a cold, quiet light, typical of the late autumn city.

​She moved with an ingrained quietness, careful not to disturb the fragile silence or the man sleeping on her couch.

​Alec was still there, wrapped in a threadbare blanket that was far too small for his broad, rigid shoulders, one arm hanging over the edge like he had utterly surrendered to the furniture. His chest rose and fell steadily, a rhythmic anchor in her chaotic world. For a strange moment, Aria just watched him, trying not to think about the fear, the adrenaline, or the gratitude that felt too vast for words.

​She set the kettle on the stove, humming softly under her breath—a tune she hadn’t realized she remembered from a different life. Toast popped from the toaster, and she buttered it unevenly, a nervous habit she maintained when distracted. Eggs sizzled sharply in the pan, and she added a sprinkle of salt without measuring. She hoped the savory aroma of cooking fat and spice would be enough to pull him into wakefulness without requiring her to poke or prod him.

​When she returned to the living room, balancing two plates carefully, he stirred.

​“You’re awake,” he said, his voice hoarse, like the words had been caught and sanded in his throat overnight.

​She shrugged, affecting a casualness she didn’t feel. “I usually wake early.” Her fingers brushed the edge of the couch as she passed, a tiny, almost imperceptible tremor in her hand. He didn’t move, didn’t say anything. A thick, expectant silence settled in, feeling heavy enough to be carved into the air.

​She set the plates on the coffee table and left a note next to his small, precise handwriting that betrayed the trembling of her nerves: You can stay if you want to. My number is on the fridge. Call me if you need anything.

​He didn’t read it immediately. He just looked at her, and in his gaze, she felt a question that never crossed his lips. She forced herself to manage a tiny, weak smile, turned back toward the stove, and pretended to be busy with nothing.

​Later, when he eventually slid off the couch and took the plate in his hands, he didn't ask. He didn't thank her. He only ate quietly, the scraping of utensils against the ceramic plate louder than anything he said.

​Days passed in a rhythm neither of them had explicitly chosen, but which both had silently fallen into. Aria went to work, her broom and neon vest her constant companions, and returned to find him there again, always silently seated on the couch, sometimes reading, sometimes staring out the window. She tried not to look too closely, tried not to let the dangerous, fragile thoughts drift toward who he was, where he came from, or why he had saved her.

​She began leaving small, utilitarian things out for him—cups of water, extra towels, socks scavenged from thrift stores, their unfamiliar fibers neatly folded on the arm of the couch. One evening, she returned with a thick, soft sweater. “For when it gets cold,” she said, holding it out. He took it without a word, allowing her to help pull the wool over his broad frame. She caught a glimpse of his eyes in the mirror and saw only something vast and impassable—a gaze too contained for her to touch.

​Her apartment, once a space of guarded solitude, started to feel dense with his presence. He didn’t ask to be there. He didn’t intrude. He simply existed. And that existence subtly changed the apartment’s internal rhythm. She cooked with the smell of bread and garlic, but now, occasionally, the aroma was shared. She repaired broken faucets and wobbly chairs with his help, or sometimes just watched as he did it with calm, meticulous precision, his muscles moving smoothly, his hands steady. Her apartment became less lonely, even if she couldn’t allow herself to acknowledge the feeling.

​It wasn't just the physical presence. It was the quiet that followed him, the way he seemed to settle into spaces without claiming them, the way he moved around the apartment like he had been there for years.

​One night, she returned from work to find him on the couch again, a faint shadow under his eyes, but radiating calm. The apartment smelled faintly of tea and wood polish, the curtains pulled aside just enough to catch the moonlight.

​“You’re here,” she said softly, as if the simple words would make the reality less fragile, less dreamlike.

​He nodded, no words, no explanation. Just a tilt of his head, the hint of a small, quiet agreement. And yet, it was enough. Enough to make her chest ache, enough to make her wonder if this fragile connection could survive beyond the walls of her small apartment.

​Weeks passed. The city carried on outside, indifferent to their two lives. Aria watched Alec move through the space they now shared: the way he repaired the flickering light in the kitchen without being asked, the way he adjusted the leaky faucet without comment, the way he folded blankets with meticulous care. She had always been careful, precise, but she realized she had never shared her rituals of survival with anyone.

​He watched her too, in his quiet way. He noticed the way her shoulders slumped when she thought no one was looking, the way she flinched at sudden noises, the way she spoke to herself under her breath while sweeping streets. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t force answers. He simply existed alongside her, a steady, silent presence in the chaos of her world.

​One rainy evening, Aria came home utterly exhausted. Her hands were scraped raw from sweeping up debris, her arms sticky from the grime of the city. She paused in the doorway, watching him stretch across the couch, his hair damp from the humidity that slipped through the cracked window.

​“I’m going to shower,” she said. He offered no response. She left the room and returned minutes later, wrapped in a towel and the faint, clean scent of lavender soap. The couch was empty. She felt a familiar, sharp spike of abandonment before she located him. He had set up a small space near the radiator, a blanket over his legs, a worn notebook in his hand, writing or sketching—she couldn’t tell which.

​For the first time, she noticed the faint, white scars on his knuckles, map lines of old, brutal fights. She wondered how someone so steady, so physically strong, could live in a world that was clearly cruel enough to mark him this way.

​They shared meals without conversation, sometimes without even looking at each other. The apartment hummed with the sound of cooking, clinking dishes, the rain pattering against the window. And yet, in the quiet, a deep sense of safety emerged. Not complete, not perfect, but a fragile thread, a line connecting two wounded lives.

​Aria found herself talking more, cautiously, at first. About work, about the city, about small, trivial things she never thought anyone would care to hear. Alec listened. He never interrupted. He never dismissed. He simply absorbed the words like water into soil.

​And then came the small, unexpected moments: a hand briefly placed on her shoulder when she flinched at a siren, a blanket draped over her knees without asking, a cup of tea left steaming on the coffee table, just within reach. The gestures were simple, but in them, Aria began to see something she had not allowed herself to feel in years—a tentative, hopeful trust.

​One night, as she folded laundry, she caught him watching her from the couch. Their eyes met, and she froze. The apartment felt suddenly smaller, heavier, as if the air itself had thickened around the unspoken history between them. She swallowed, forcing herself to continue folding shirts, socks, towels. But when she glanced again, he was gone, standing near the window, hands in his pockets, staring at the distant city lights.

​“Do you ever talk to anyone?” she asked quietly, the question leaving her lips before she could stop it.

​He didn’t turn. After a long pause, he said, “Not much. Not really anyone.”

​She nodded, folding a shirt with more care than usual. “It’s... hard, isn’t it? Being out there, and no one noticing.”

​He didn’t reply. But she could feel it, the quiet acknowledgment of shared pain, of lives touched by the same cold indifference.

​The weeks rolled into each other. Snow began to fall lightly outside, dusting the city in quiet white.

​One evening, it was the end of a long shift, and Alec had appeared unasked at the edge of her sanitation route.

She felt unusually buoyant that day, speaking with the simple, unguarded freedom of a child as they walked.

She was gesturing wildly about the pattern of the snowfall when a powerful, dark sedan slowed abruptly beside them.

​Her ex-fiancé, Richard Vance, was behind the tinted glass. He knew her, but he first saw Alec the ragged coat, the familiar, haunted jawline and registered the shock of seeing the ruined Kane family's son in this state.

Then, his eyes fixed on Aria in her yellow vest. He hadn’t known she was out of prison.

​The shock was instantaneous, quickly replaced by a chilling look of cold calculation. Richard Vance knew exactly what he had just seen, and he knew how to investigate.

​Aria kept her routines, sweeping the streets, filing the forms, leaving small notes for her mysterious guest. Alec adapted to the apartment, claiming corners and spaces without ever asserting ownership.

​One evening, she found him in the kitchen, hands covered in flour, kneading dough with surprising ease. The smell of yeast and warmth filled the small space.

​“What... are you doing?” she asked, startled.

​“Bread,” he said simply, shrugging. “You said you liked fresh bread in the mornings.”

​Her lips curved into a faint smile. She didn’t say it, but inside, her chest warmed. Someone had noticed. Someone had cared enough to remember a trivial preference.

​By the time the bread was ready, golden and steaming on the counter, Aria realized she had begun to imagine him in ways she couldn’t articulate—protector, companion, stranger, anchor. And yet, he remained a mystery, a puzzle she didn’t dare solve.

​Still, in the quiet of that shared apartment, surrounded by the hum of streetlights and the occasional hiss of passing cars, Aria began to feel something she hadn’t felt in years: the faint pulse of hope.

Not loud, not overwhelming, but enough to suggest that maybe just maybe two broken souls could exist under one roof without shattering entirely.

​And Alec? He sat on her couch, tearing a chunk off the steaming bread. He watched her with eyes that had seen far too much, yet found in this shared silence something newly and dangerously worth guarding.