The Husband

"...Tea? Sure," a booming, unmistakably familiar voice called from the back room.

Arista's head snapped toward the sound, and a moment later, an absolutely massive man stepped through the doorway, broad-shouldered, built like an actual tank, exactly the kind of physical presence she'd always imagined behind Bram's apparently limitless willingness to stand in front of dangerous things.

"...Bram," he said, extending a hand with easy, unbothered confidence, apparently never having felt the need to invent a different name for real life at all.

Arista's jaw dropped entirely.

"...You?!" she managed, staring between him and Simone, the whole impossible picture assembling itself in real time. "How?! When?!"

Bram grinned, settling a gentle, careful hand against Simone's shoulder.

"...Remember the tunnel?" he said. "The one we dug through the dome, to let the seawater out. Where Nettle and I stayed behind to man the rig."

"...You died," Arista said slowly, the memory surfacing properly now. "Both of you. The pressure breach."

"We did," Bram confirmed, grinning. "Turns out dying together, standing shoulder to shoulder against a fire-hydrant blast of ocean water, is apparently a pretty solid way to start something."

Simone laughed, leaning into him easily, comfortable and warm. "...We just sort of... kept talking, after. About everything, honestly. Turned out we lived much closer to each other in real life than either of us ever expected."

"Three towns over," Bram said. "Close enough that meeting up properly wasn't nearly the logistical nightmare either of us assumed it'd be."

Arista stared at both of them, utterly delighted, the specific, careful ambiguity she'd always noticed between them finally, fully resolving into something wonderfully, obviously real.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"...I knew something was going on," she said, laughing. "I caught you two in that workshop, remember? The mithril coat, both of you flustered—"

"We remember," Simone said, grinning, entirely unashamed. "We weren't exactly subtle."

"You were incredibly subtle," Arista corrected. "I completely missed it at the time."

"You were staring at a coat," Bram pointed out, dry. "In your defense."

Arista laughed properly now, the whole overwhelming reunion settling into something genuinely, joyfully warm. "...And now you're married. And—" she glanced at Simone's belly again, still faintly stunned "—having a baby."

"Due in about six weeks," Simone confirmed, resting a hand gently against the swell. "We haven't settled on names yet. Bram keeps suggesting increasingly ridiculous options."

"I suggested one dragon-adjacent name," Bram protested. "One time."

"You suggested Thoth."

"It's a good name!"

Arista laughed harder, tears of genuine, overwhelmed happiness pricking at her eyes now. "...I can't believe this. Any of it. I walk past a random furniture shop, see a plushie in the window, and somehow end up here."

"Small world," Simone said, smiling warmly. "Even outside the game, apparently."

"Honestly, I can't believe none of us ever tried to find each other," Arista said, shaking her head. "Partly that's on me. I deleted everything after the servers closed. Every account. I decided I was throwing myself into real life and not looking back."

Bram scratched the back of his neck. "...About that."

Simone turned to look at him. "About what?"

"I looked you up once," Bram said to Arista. "Right after the servers closed. Pink hair isn't exactly easy to miss. You still had a public profile then."

"...And?"

"You lived on the other side of the country."

"I did," Arista said slowly. "That's where I grew up. I only moved here for university."

"I could have talked to you. Messages, calls, whatever. But being able to talk and not being able to sit across a table from you..." He shrugged, awkward. "It felt like picking at something that hadn't closed yet. And a week later you were gone anyway."

Simone stared at him. "You found her and didn't tell me?"

"We'd just set up shop. Money was tight. We couldn't afford a trip across the country, and I didn't want to tell you knowing neither of us could actually go."

Simone opened her mouth, then stopped.

Bram looked down.

Simone's expression softened despite herself. "Idiot."

"I know."

"I would have wanted to know."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Come on," Bram said, gesturing toward the back room. "Let's actually sit down properly. I want to hear everything: the university, all of it. We've got a lot of catching up to do."

Arista followed them into the back room, still faintly disbelieving that a plushie in a furniture-store window had somehow led her here.

"...Yeah," she said, smiling. "Let's catch up."