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You didn’t believe in love at first sight.
It's him (It’s always him) that makes you reconsider that belief- the first time you see him isn't some magical moment where he rides into town on horseback all tall, dark, and handsome. It’s not like in your mothers trashy romance novels you stole as a teen. He’s sitting in your living room with both your parents where they’ve huddled him as close to the fireplace as they dare- he’s wrapped in several blankets and wearing a pajama shirt that belonged to your father, a pile of soaked clothes folded neatly on the coffee table. He looks up at you and he’s quite the pitiful sight. His hair’s been mussed up from a rigorous towel dry and his lips are still tinged blue, and he’s shivering so badly your mom has to help him hold the mug of tea steady.
Still, despite the exhaustion and hypothermia and confusion, he smiles at you.
And well- that was it. Your fate was sealed.
Your mom tells you later, as your father helps the boy to the guest room, that he’d stumbled out of the woods half frozen to death and terribly confused. Miss Mia, who’d babysat you when you were in diapers, had brought him to your house as soon as she found the boy curled up in her greenhouse and near incoherent. It’s not as strange as it sounds- your Mother was a doctor (the doctor, the only one in town,) and your father her nurse. While you’d trudged through the snow on your way home from school, your parents had spent the past few hours rearranging clinic appointments and trying to warm up the kid brought to their doorstep.
He sleeps for nearly two days straight, but when he finally wakes up again he tells you his name.
You’d come in to check on him after your mom had asked and found him sitting up in bed, looking around the room curiously.
“Good morning, sleeping beauty.” You say, voice light despite the stress his mini-coma had induced in your household. It’s not his fault he got caught in a snowstorm.
He ducks his head shyly, face turning red, “Beauty?” He parrots, cocking his head to the side.
It takes you embarrassingly long to realize he has no idea what you're talking about, “It’s a reference from a movie.” you move across the room, picking up the glass of water on the bedside table and handing to him, “How long have you been awake? How are you feeling?”
“One hour and thirteen minutes,” He says certainly, “I am alright, thank you.”
You gape at him, “You’ve been awake for over an hour and just… sat here? Why didn’t you come out and say something?”
He looks down at where his hands are wrapped around the glass and takes a sip to stall for time, “I do not know what I have to say.” He says quietly, “Other than thank you to you and your family for taking me in.”
“That’s a good start, but how about your name?” You ask, nudging him gently as you sit on the side of the bed.
He looks at you with brilliant blue eyes, “My name is Zane.”
You tell him your name next and then, “Well, Zane, where are you from? Mom and Dad can arrange to get you back to your family if you were lost during the blizzard.”
He looks away, this time turning his face away from you to stare at what must be a particularly interesting patch of wall, “I… do not know.” He admits quietly.
“Oh.” You say, and the conversation grinds to a halt.
Your mother checks him over after that, running her fingers along his scalp to check for a head injury. She’s not a mechanic, so she doesn’t recognize the subtle differences in a weld suture and a skull fracture- so, as a human doctor and nothing more, she diagnoses head trauma. There's no equipment for something like this for miles, but after a thorough check she tells them both he probably won't need further medical assistance unless it gets worse.
He stays in your guest room for another three months. Your parents would never kick him out- he’s only maybe a year older than you, two or three at the most even if he looks mature for his age. He’s old enough to go out on his own, but his memory is shot and his social skills are severely lacking and there’s no good excuse for turning him away. Your mother has a big heart and bigger connections, reaching out far and wide trying to catch wind of a missing persons report matching his description.
But nothing ever turns up. No one is looking for him.
“Does it bother you?” You ask quietly over chores one night. You’re both doing the dishes together because it’s always more fun with a friend, “That we can’t find your family?” You’ve been told before you’re blunt at the worst times, and you ready yourself to apologize for overstepping.
Zane doesn’t seem bothered by the question though, “Occasionally.” He says, putting the plate he’d just rinsed in the dishwasher, “It is difficult not knowing. There are many questions I have that will not be answered.”
“Like what?”
“Are they okay?” He says gently. It’s dark outside the kitchen window, there’s no snow but it’s still too cold to catch fireflies, “Did they leave me? Or were we separated? Do they think of me?”
You press against his side comfortingly, leaning your temple against his shoulder. He rests his cheek on the top of your head for just a moment before the two of you finish off loading the dishwasher.
After three months of crickets from his family, he moves in with Miss Mia. Miss Mia had been old when she first started babysitting you, and she was practically ancient now. He helped her around her house, fixing things up and gardening when the weather aggravated her arthritis too much. In return, she loved him like a son. She’d lost her husband young, before they’d had any children, and she’d never married again. When he left, he took the clothes he’d worn when she found him and a stack of books your mom had gifted him when he was still on bed rest. Your home was dimmer without him in it, and after two days your Dad finally spoke up.
You sigh listlessly, sitting on the couch and staring blankly at the TV when your Dad snaps his book closed and says, “just go see him!”
“What?”
“You’re smart as your mother, Kiddo. Get a clue.” He says, giving you a meaningful look.
So you do. You stand up off the couch and grab your coat and your dad goes back to reading his book the moment you close the door behind you. You don’t break into a run or even a fast walk, nerves getting to you, and when you finally walk up Miss Mias dirt pathway up to her front doors you’re feeling a little weak in the knees. You’re smart like your mother, but you're as bold as your father so after only a heartbeat of hesitation, you knock on the door.
When he answers, he’s wearing a pink apron with frills along the edges and wiping flour off his hand with a rag. When he sees you, he smiles that same smile he had all those months ago while thawing out on your living room floor. He was happy to see you. He’s always happy to see you.
Your voice fails you, the smile disarming you completely, so he invites you inside. When you get to the kitchen, flour in a neat little circle on the counter with a mass of cookie dough off to the side, you work up the nerve to speak.
“I miss you.” You say, throat closing up with a sudden swell of emotion. You hop up to sit on the counter on a safely flour-free portion.
“I miss you too,” he says without a moment of hesitation. He rolls out the cookie dough flat, and picks up little Halloween theme shaped cookie cutters despite how it was may. There’s a brief moment of consideration before he speaks again, “I want to spend all my time with you. I feel as if I am not so lost when you’re here with me.”
Your heart swells, “Can I kiss you?” And before you can even finish the sentence he’s slotted himself between your knees, chilly fingers trailing your jaw. When he leans in, your eyes flutter shut.
You’re not one to kiss and tell but, well, if you were to blab to anyone about this kiss, you’d probably be bragging.
One year after that first kiss, you move into Miss Mias home. It’s Zane's, now. Has been since this past April, when Miss Mia had passed peacefully in her sleep. She’d left everything to him. It’s a beautiful house, big enough for the both of you and then some, and you spend a few months making it into your home too. Pictures of your family, a few pieces of heirloom furniture your mother had packed away in storage for just this occasion, a new mailbox hand-painted by the two of you. He strings up a hammock out in between the apple tree and the peach tree, and it’s there that you ask him.
“What do you think about starting a family?”
You're laid back against his chest, and he has his arms wrapped around you. The sun is warm and kind where it dapples your skin through the gaps in the canopy. You could stay like this forever, in this moment. You love him.
“I would love to, but I think we should get married first.” He presses a kiss into the nape of your neck. “I don’t have a ring yet, it is still getting fitted.” He says apologetically.
The world slows and your heart beats loudly in your chest before you squirm around to face him, gaping at him, “Are you asking me to marry you?” You gasp, clasping your hands together.
“I am.” He says sincerely, “I-“ but he doesn’t get much further, cut off by you kissing him silly.
Later on, after much planning and dress shopping and fittings and cake tastings, you say “I do.” In front of the whole town, hand in hand with the man you love. In his vows, he tells you how he was lost until he found you. He tells you that he’s so excited to begin this chapter with you, to start a family, to be a husband and father. He looks amazing in the deep black of his tux, and when he recites his vows he smiles at you with that same smile you loved more than anything else in the world.
He kisses you, and everything is right with the world.
Which is why it breaks your heart to let him go.
You’d come home from a shift at the clinic with your parents, 5 months pregnant, to Zane sitting solemnly at your coffee table. His face is twisted in an uncertainty that he fails to hide quick enough for you not to notice. You’d stood at the door for a long while then, waiting.
“I met someone today. A elderly man. Master Wu.” He tells you in the cloying silence. “He knows me, I think. He knows who I am. He asked me to go with him.”
You suck in a breath through your teeth. Everyone in Ninjago knew Master Wu, and what his presence entailed. You can’t bring up the courage to ask when he’s leaving, when Master Wu will be back to scoop him up and whisk him off to his fated role. Tears well up in your eyes.
“I said no.” He rises from the couch and crosses the room in a handful of steps, taking your hands in his.
You look up at him in shock, shaking your head, “No, Zane- No. This is your chance to learn about your family. Your destiny.” You squeeze his fingers, “You can’t just… let that pass you by.”
“I have a family,” He insists, “I have you, I have our daughter. The past is the past.”
The smile you offer is watery along the edges, “I know you, Zane.” You remind him, “I know you want answers. I know you want to know where you came from.” Your heart squeezes painfully in your chest, “You can go, if you want to. Not forever. You have to come back to us, that’s my only condition- but I don’t want you to miss this opportunity.”
He stares at you with eyes that grow wet, “I do not want to leave the two of you, but I…”
“I know.” You wrap your arms around his neck and drag him down into an embrace, “I love you.”
As he walks out the door to meet Master Wu along the stone pathway the two of you had installed, he says, “I will see you soon.” And it’s a promise.
Your daughter is born without meeting her father. Being a single parent is hard, but you love her. A part of you waits at the door for the sound of familiar footsteps that don’t come. After your daughter's second birthday, only a few days, enough time that there’s still cake in the fridge, there’s a knock at your door.
Your daughter is playing with a toy your mother gifted her, set up in her playpen while you took a break on the couch.
When you open the door-
He’s standing there. He’s a little more silver than before, a little less human, but that doesn’t matter.
You’d know that smile anywhere.