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First thing Lucy notices is that Thomas never seems to miss much.
He's 6 months old, soft where he should be soft, sturdy where he has learned to be, and is hitting all the expected markers.
He rolls both ways now. Sits with minimal support. Grasps reasonably at things, rather than reflexive. Laughs easily, loudly, as if he hasn’t figured out yet that the world will punish him for joy.
But when Lucy places him on the blanket in the common room, he doesn’t try to grab the brightly colored scrap toy someone sewed for him. He looks around first.
Not unfocused. Not drifting.
Watching.
His eyes follow movement with chilling accuracy. He traces sound back to its source, even when it’s faint, the clink of a tool, the soft scrape of boots on concrete, the shift in pitch when someone’s voice grows tense.
Lucy tells herself it’s coincidence. Babies are observant. That’s how they survive.
Still.
Cooper notices later.
He's sitting on the floor with Thomas propped up against his thigh, one hand firm at the baby’s back while he polishes his revolver with the other. He’s not so in the habit of doing this around Thomas, but Lucy’s in a meeting and he won’t leave if the kid is there by himself.
Thomas watches him.
Not the gun.
But his father.
His gaze stays locked on Cooper’s hands, how they move, precise and economical. When Cooper pauses, Thomas wiggles, lets out a questioning sound, like he’s waiting for the motion to continue.
“Well?” Cooper mutters. “You gradin' me?”
Thomas responds by reaching out and slapping the grip of the revolver with a soft, open palm.
Cooper freezes.
Lucy’s voice echoes distantly from down the hall, mid discussion. No one else notices.
Cooper slowly removes the gun from Thomas’s reach and sets it aside.
“This, Mr. Howard,” he murmurs. “Is not for playin’.”
Thomas grins at him.
Not reflexive. Not random.
Charismatic as hell.
Cooper sighs. “You got your mother’s charm. God help us all.”
Thomas makes a happy noise, as if he recognizes praise though he doesn’t yet have the words. Cooper studies him for a long second, something thoughtful settling behind his eyes.
By 9 months, Thomas knows who people are.
Not just Lucy and Cooper, but the regulars. Mara. Rafael. There’s Mr. Granger, who smells like a combination of oil and tobacco that hums out of tune under his breath more often then not.
When certain faces come into view, he lights up, his entire body responding before his brain has a chance to catch up.
But what bothers Lucy is how selectively he responds.
He’s friendly. Engaging. He babbles at traders, flashes gummy smiles at guards, charms information out of people without knowing what information is.
Yet when someone new enters the settlement, someone Lucy hasn’t vetted yet, Thomas goes quiet.
Still.
He watches.
Once, a man named Matthews crouches to get closer, grinning exaggeratedly, waving his fingers in Thomas’s face.
Thomas stares at him.
Doesn’t smile and doesn’t cry. Just watches, eyes sharp and unblinking.
Matthews shifts uncomfortably. “Uh. He… doesn’t like me?”
Lucy adjusts her grip on her son. “He’s thinking.”
Matthews laughs, uneasy. “Thinking about what?”
Lucy meets his gaze evenly. “I don’t know yet...”
Thomas continues to watch until Matthews backs away.
Only then does he relax, his face against Lucy’s shoulder.
Lucy doesn’t tell anyone in the settlement about it.
She does tell Cooper that night, though.
Cooper listens without comment, leaning back against the pillows on the bed in their shared space, Thomas asleep on his chest.
“Could just be temperament,” Lucy finishes. “Some babies are more cautious.”
“Mm,” Cooper hums.
She watches his face. “You don’t sound convinced.”
Cooper stares down at Thomas, face impassive. He notes the light waves in his sons hair. “I know so many people who survived because they noticed things early.”
“That’s not genetic,” Lucy says, gently.
“No,” Cooper agrees. “But pattern recognition is a hell of a thing.”
Thomas shifts, one tiny hand curling into Cooper’s shirt.
Cooper stills instantly.
Lucy smiles faintly. “You’re doing that thing where you pretend not to be affected.”
He snorts quietly. “Not pretendin’.”
She lets it go.
But later, when Cooper thinks Lucy’s asleep, he whispers to Thomas anyway. “World’s loud,” he murmurs. “Ain’t wrong to watch before you jump.”
Thomas sighs in his sleep.
The healer does an informal assessment during a routine check.
“He’s strong,” she notes, gently flexing Thomas’s legs. “Good muscle tone. Grip’s excellent.”
Thomas clamps down at her finger harder than expected.
She chuckles. “Strong little guy.”
Lucy smiles. “He’s been trying to pull himself up.
“Already?” the healer raises an eyebrow. “Ambitious.”
Cooper, seated nearby, mutters, “Told you.”
Lucy shoots him a look.
The healer continues, checking Thomas’s eyes, tracking how he follows her movements. “Good visual acuity. Attentive.”
Thomas tracks her hand perfectly.
Then he gets bored.
He shifts, looks past her, locks eyes with Cooper and laughs. A full body, delighted laugh that makes the healer jump.
“Well,” she says. “Someone has a favorite.”
Cooper clears his throat. “Obviously raised right.”
Lucy rolls her eyes, but there’s warmth in it.
As the weeks go on, Thomas starts doing something new.
He studies.
Lucy notices it when she’s organizing supplies, Thomas seated nearby with a scattering of harmless objects, cloth scraps, a wooden spoon, a tin cup.
He doesn’t just grab randomly.
He tests.
Drops one object repeatedly, watching how it falls. Bangs another, listening to the sound. Presses the spoon against the cup, then the floor, then his own knee.
Cause. Effect.
Lucy freezes, watching.
“That’s…” she murmurs.
Cooper looks over. “What?”
“He’s experimenting.”
Cooper watches Thomas deliberately knock the cup over again, eyes narrowing as if comparing outcomes.
“Huh,” Cooper says. “Wonder what that lil cowpokes up to...”
Lucy laughs softly. “He’s not even frustrated. He’s just… curious.”
“Yeah,” Cooper replies. “That’s the dangerous kind.”
She elbows him. “Don’t start.”
But Cooper isn’t joking.
Thomas learns to babble with intent.
Not just noise, but directed sound. He makes different noises for different people. A bright trill for Lucy. A lower, pleased hum for Cooper. A sharp squeak when he wants attention now.
Once, during a tense council meeting, Thomas starts fussing in Lucy’s arms.
She shifts, murmuring reassurances.
He quiets instantly when Cooper clears his throat from across the room.
Lucy blinks.
“So,” she says afterward, amused. “You outrank me now?”
Cooper smirks. “Always knew it’d happen.”
Thomas grins like he’s in on the joke.
The guards start calling him “the Mayor” and Lucy hates that.
“He’s a baby,” she snaps when she hears it.
“Relax,” Rafael, one of the guards who is currently standing sentry at the start of the marketplace in their settlement says. “It’s affectionate. Promise.”
Still, Lucy notices the way people watch Thomas. The way they speak more carefully when he’s present. How conversations soften around him, as though the baby sets the mood.
Charisma isn’t supposed to arrive this soon, but Thomas seems to have it.
He doesn’t cry all that often, but when he does, people notice. And he settles much more quickly to voices than touch, as if sound matters more to him than feeling.
Lucy starts reading aloud more as Thomas listens intently. Cooper pretends not to notice until Thomas starts babbling back at the exact pauses Lucy uses.
“He’s mimicking cadence,” Lucy whispers one night.
Cooper grunts. “He's smart. Probably gets it from you.”
"Coop-"
"Sweetheart, you're what's considered book smart, and I'm whats considered street smart. They both have their compliments."
The first real scare comes when Thomas crawls. Not a wobbly inching forward but a deliberate, determined movement.
Lucy turns her back for less than a minute, and suddenly Thomas isn’t where she left him.
Panic hits immediately.
“Cooper,” she calls, sharply her head turning every which way.
His reply is instant. He reaches Thomas, who is half way across the room, stops, and stares at the door as if he senses something was there.
Cooper snatches him up and hands him to Lucy, whose heart is pounding. “What were you thinking?” she murmurs, placing her forehead to his.
Thomas pulls her hair and places his head against her shoulder. Cooper exhales slowly. “Yeah. “We’re gonna be baby proofin' a war zone.”
Lucy laughs weakly. “You think?”
That night, Cooper sits alone with Thomas again. His son is drowsy, eyes half lidded, thumb in his mouth.
“You’re observant,” Cooper murmurs. “Strong. Smart. People like that tend to get noticed however.”
Thomas watches him sleepily, his green eyes fighting sleep with every blink.
Cooper swallows. “I won’t let them turn you into a weapon,” he says quietly. “Or a symbol. Or a shield.” He hesitates. “…But I won’t dull you, either.”
Thomas blinks slowly.
Cooper rests his forehead against the baby’s. “Guess we’ll just have to teach you when to use it.”
Thomas sighs, warm and solid against him. Across the room, Lucy watches silently, heart full and aching.
9 months in, Thomas is still just a baby.
But he’s already watching the world.
And the world, slowly, is starting to watch him back.
The settlement seems eerily calm. Not the quiet after a firefight, edgy and sharp, but enticingly hushed and watchful, as though the air itself knows something is about to occur.
Lucy is handling supply logs, making rations and watching the perimeter. Cooper is crouched cross legged on the floor, Thomas sitting on his lap, soft blankets laid out in a tangle around them.
It’s late morning as sunlight angles through the shattered windows, catching dust motes like little stars.
Thomas is staring at Cooper with a level of focus that Cooper hasn’t witnessed in all his years in the wasteland and before. Not the absentminded stare of a baby sitting across from him, watching for movement or sound, but the intense, analytical gaze of a mind attempting to grasp how the world is ordered through this one other person.
Cooper coughs, pretending not to let it affect him.
“All right,” he mutters, picking up a small wooden block, “let’s see what you bring to the table, kid.”
He awkwardly stacks two blocks, grinning at the wobble.
Thomas’s eyes follow every motion, one hand in the air as if he were about to jump in. Cooper deliberately topples over the stack.
Thomas flinches, brow furrowed. Then he's crawling, small fingers closing around the spilled blocks. He piles one, and then another, stops, tilts his head.
Watches Cooper then grins lopsidedly, happy when his father approves.
“You’re … scary,” Cooper murmurs, half to himself, half to the baby. “I feel like you’re markin' me now.”
Thomas babbles something unintelligible, but Cooper leans in, listening intently.
His chest tightens. This isn't just noise. He's learning Cooper’s rhythm, gauging approval, playing around.
Lucy walks inside, half anticipating chaos, but she finds Cooper taking it easy as Thomas is preoccupied and babbling like he’s filing a report on their little block tower experiment.
“What are you guys up to?"
"Stackin' blocks. Young Mr. Howard over here has an affinity for focusin' on damn near everything. He was able to stack'em no problem. He's currently hyper focused. Surely he gets that from his father,” Cooper mutters dryly, though his lips twitch with something like pride.
Lucy rolls her eyes. “You do realize that’s… terrifying.”
“I’ve had centuries of practice in being terrifyin',” Cooper replies, shrugging. Thomas squeals in delight at the tone of his voice, as if recognizing the emphasis.
Lucy shakes her head. “I swear, he’s watching you, Cooper.”
Cooper stares at Thomas. The baby tilts his head again, eyes locked on his, tiny brow furrowed.
“Oh,” Cooper says slowly. “Oh, that’s worse than I thought.”
The day is a haze of minor victories and inscrutable observations. Cooper notices subtle changes, Thomas leaning against him when he’s looking for attention, copying his moves, playing with boundaries by rolling blocks in ways Cooper has done for effect.
It’s not just for the hell of it, either.
At lunch, Lucy cooks for herself and some of the other adults, while Cooper wears Thomas in a sling. Thomas grabs at Cooper’s water bottle, knocks it over a bit and looks at the spill.
Cooper raises an eyebrow. “That’s… not bad,” he mutters. “You’re thinking two steps ahead. Dangerous little guy.”
Thomas laughs happily at the mess he’s created.
Cooper shakes his head, knowing that he can no longer keep anything from this child, not his tone of voice, not his habits, not the way he sometimes mumbles to himself when thoughts are spinning out in his head.
Thomas sees it all. Absorbs it. Learns.
In the evening, it’s silent.
Thomas lounges on Cooper’s lap once more, one chubby hand tugging at his fathers shirt. Cooper watches the baby carefully.
Then, it happens.
“Da—da.”
Cooper freezes. His fingers still on the sling strap, Thomas looking up at him expectantly.
“…Excuse me?” Cooper says softly, heart thumping faster than it has in decades.
“Da—da,” Thomas repeats, more deliberately, full of clarity and purpose. His eyes are bright, fixed on Cooper.
Lucy, across the room, freezes mid motion, hand on a tin cup. She looks first at Thomas, then at Cooper, and back again, uncertainty and disbelief tangled in her expression.
Cooper’s chest swells before he even realizes it. Not the sentimental swell of pre war stories, but something sharper, awareness. He’s being observed, evaluated, understood.
“Da—da!” Thomas insists again, clapping his tiny hands.
Cooper swallows, voice catching. “Is that what's been going on in your little head? You've been tryna find the right moment to bring that out?”
He excitedly babbles and reaches toward Cooper’s face, patting him on the cheek. It catches at Cooper’s heart then, the realization, the acceptance, his first struggle to put a name to the one unchanging thing in his young life. Lucy comes and kneels down to her sons eye level.
“He said it!” she whispers. “He said your name. Congratulations dad.” She leans down and kisses Cooper chastely.
Cooper doesn’t move. He lets the moment stretch, letting the sound of it hang in the air like a delicate weapon. Finally, he leans down, pressing a slow kiss to Thomas’s temple.
“I love you,” he murmurs.
Thomas squeals, basking in the complements. Cooper’s feeling the burden of centuries past, centuries of survival, and loss, and terror, and now knows that none of it is relevant anymore. None of that matters, except for this little life in his arms.
Over the next weeks, Cooper notices other markers, Thomas pulling up, cruising along furniture, pointing deliberately at objects and people. He watches Cooper intently during every task switching sides in Lucy's arm to see what he's up to.
While Cooper chops at firewood, cleans his and Lucy's weapons, interacts with others, Thomas cant help but watch everything that he does without fail. During a routine patrol, Cooper crouches to Thomas’s height, holding his hands steady.
“You see what I see?” Cooper murmurs. “You see how we do this? Safety first, eyes always open, nobody sneaks past the line without me knowing.”
Thomas watches carefully. His face is eerily similar to that of Cooper’s. A tiny hand grasps Cooper’s glove, as if trying out weight and balance. Cooper knows, with a pang, that Thomas is not only absorbing, he’s processing.
By that evening, after Lucy has tucked him away for the night and gone to bed herself, Cooper is sitting beside Thomas’s closed door.
He whispers into the dimly lit space, “You watch too much, kid. Not fair. I was supposed to be sneaky.”
Thomas murmurs a very soft, 'da-da' in his direction.
Cooper chuckles. “…Figures. Already smarter than me.”
He leans back against the wall, arms folded, and allows himself to just watch.
When Lucy awakes sometime later, she cant help but feel for his side of the bed. It's cold, meaning he never went to bed and it doesn't take powers of observation to know where she can find him. She pads through their place and finds Cooper in the baby's room, as always, long after the settlement has quieted.
“You’re just staring at him again,” she says softly, leaning against the doorway.
He doesn’t look up. “It's hard not to,” he says simply. "Plus he judges me at every turn."
Lucy laughs. “Judging, huh?”
Cooper nods. “Not sure I like it.”
She steps closer, brushing a hand over his shoulder. “He’s not trying to be mean.”
“It's not about being mean,” Cooper sighs. “I just… didn’t expect to see myself through his eyes yet. Not like this.”
Lucy kneels beside him, eyes level with his. “You’re a good man, Cooper” she says simply. “He knows it. He trusts it. He trusts you.”
Cooper swallows. “…Yeah. That’s new too.”
In the days to come, Thomas is all but clinical. He babbles in cadences that resemble words (“dada,” “mama”) long before more emerge, repeating syllables in certain patterns, experimenting with inflection and timing. He points to things with intention, smiles when Cooper mimics his movements, frowns when he doesn’t.
One afternoon, Cooper finds him observing a small drill, guards rehearsing perimeter sweeps with Lucy in charge. Thomas follows each move, then looks up at Cooper, clapping and squealing. Cooper understands the baby is not just learning how, but why, expectation, coordination, attention.
Cooper crouches beside Thomas. “Your moms pretty cool huh?”
Thomas laughs, claps again, delighted.
Cooper shakes his head. “I think so too. But first, young Thomas, " he says while sweeping the baby up into his arms, "we survive.”
By the time Thomas’s first birthday is officially celebrated, Cooper is unrecognizable even to himself. He's no longer just a protector or a soldier, he's a father. He's learned patience through observation, humility through tiny hands and tiny expectations, and love through the smallest, most precise recognition, a first word.
Lucy stands nearby, watching Cooper interact with Thomas, both of them full of small quirks and unguarded gestures.
“He’s your son,” she says softly. “But he’s… also yours in every way you don’t expect.”
Cooper looks down at Thomas, who waves a shaky hand up at him and laughs so hard he can hardly breathe. Cooper waves back, with overblown formality, causing the baby to screech in delight.
“Yeah,” Cooper mutters, his voice low, almost reverent. “Of course, he’s mine. Unless... you're out here with other ghouls I dont now 'bout?”
Lucy merely glares at him and rolls her eyes. "I totally have this thing for them. They just get me, ya know?"
"Is that right?"
"Oh shut up, I have to get back to quarters. See you in a bit?"
Cooper hums and shakes his head. He leans in and kisses her lightly.
Thomas babbles what could be mama, clapping his hands in pure glee. Cooper stoops down, kissing the top of her head.
Lucy kneels next to them, tucking a loose curl behind her ear. “I never thought I could love something so small,” she whispers.
Cooper lets out a big breath and allows the sound to fill the room.
For a second, the world disappears. The wasteland outside fades. The noise, the threats, the centuries of isolation, it’s all behind them. All that matters is the baby, intuitive and bright beyond his months, and the little family that has somehow endured long enough to see it.
It’s acknowledgment, comprehension and statement all in one. Thomas has named him. He has seen him. He has learned from him.
Cooper allows the gravity of it to sink in.
“Okay,” he says, his voice thin with emotion. “We keep going. We teach. We survive. And perhaps, just perhaps … we’ll get to be normal too.”
Thomas squeals yes, as if giving his consent, and Cooper cackles, a throaty sound that ripples through the silence of their home.
Lucy looks at him, really looks at him, and smiles, because this survivor of centuries, this ghoul who’s lived through all that time, has found himself a role in which he can’t fail. Because despite the shattered world, Cooper Howard still has a son. And Thomas is watching.
And perhaps, just maybe, Thomas will teach him as well.
Thomas scampers across the central courtyard, little feet pounding on the uneven concrete floor, a scattered line of toys behind him. Cooper follows half a step behind, hand sliding, poised, but giving the boy room.
Thomas babbles, consonants stringing together into basic words. “DADA!” he cries, his voice upturned but firm.
He stretches for a toy hammer and whacks it against a tin cup with intent. Cooper swallows, sensing the precision of the blow, how Thomas levels it. Not random. Deliberate.
Lucy appears behind them, carrying a tray of water and dried fruit, eyes gentle on the boy.
“Careful,” she says. “He’s far more sophisticated than we give him credit for.”
Cooper grunts, but doesn’t argue. He’s seen it.
A scream erupts from the outer perimeter before Cooper can respond to Lucy. Not a child, not a trader looking to sell their hauls, but the sound of someone alive, terrified, and running. The settlement has been quiet for months, nothing outside the walls usually stirs this kind of alarm.
Cooper stiffens, eyes narrowing. He already senses it, and sees it off in the distance.
Banners.
Messers’ caravan arrives within time, just as the dust settles. Cooper listens while the trader talks too freely over mead and firelight, his voice tinged with fear.
“They call themselves the Unsettled,” Messer says. “Seen their banners… burned into the walls of towns on the edge. A compass, broken. Needle snapped. Outer ring cracked. Nothing stays, they say. Nothing that stays survives.”
Cooper’s hand flexes around the cup he holds. “And?”
“And they’ve got a message for you,” Messer continues, ignoring the hardness in Cooper’s eyes. “They call Lucy, the False Crown. You, they call the Relic Gun. And Thomas? The first weakness of the settlement.”
Cooper stares, silence heavy in the room. Messer stops talking. Cooper doesn’t move for several breaths.
The baby doesn’t know what any of this means yet, but he notices the tension. Thomas crawls to the edge of Cooper’s lap, small hands brushing against his father’s. Cooper looks down and nods once.
“They’ll catch me fuckin’ dead before they get ahold of you.”
Later that day, Cooper examines the horizon.
The Unsettled’s banner is described by traders passing by, and now it's real in his mind. Nothing stays, nothing survives. They're not here for land, not for resources. But rather for symbols and ideals.
And they see Thomas as one.
Cooper crouches low beside Lucy in the central hall, Thomas playing quietly on the floor between them.
“They don’t want a fight. Not yet,” Cooper murmurs. “They want to prove something. They want to mark us.”
Lucy tightens her jaw. “We’ve faced worse. They’re still outsiders. They underestimate us.”
“Yeah,” Cooper says slowly. “Until they see what happens when you touch our family.” His fingers brush Thomas’s soft hair. “Then they’ll learn.”
Thomas babbles 'dada' and Cooper’s chest tightens. He smiles briefly, grimly. “Yeah, kid. That’s right. You know who’s protecting you.”
The first attack comes at dusk.
Small at first.
Scouts and runners who underestimate the settlement’s defenses. Cooper sees the banner before the chaos begins, painted hastily on a burned barn wall across the western ridge. The compass symbol is unmistakable. Its needle snapped, outer ring jagged, no directions marked. The words Nothing That Stays Survives scorched into the wood.
Lucy reacts instantly, calling for guards to flank the perimeter. Cooper scoops Thomas up, holding him close to his chest.
“No one touches him,” he mutters under his breath, the words more oath than warning.
The Unsettled aren’t sloppy.
They hit with speed, but Cooper anticipates. He doesn’t move into the fray immediately, eyes scanning, assessing, picking targets. The first Unsettled goes down under his hand before he fully engages.
Thomas babbles at the sound, curious, as if noting the rhythm and cadence of the violence.
Cooper pauses, just a fraction of a second, and presses a kiss to his son’s temple.
“Not yet, little one. Not yet. I need you to stay here.” He places the baby into a sealed off room and puts his finger against his lips. “I need you to be quiet for daddy okay? Can you do that?”
All Thomas can do is stare and for a split second, Cooper swears he can recognize what’s going on.
”I promise I’ll be right back.”
He shuts the door and finds Lucy rushing towards it.
“He’s safe. Now let’s go take care of these sonsofbitches.”
Lucy moves alongside him, methodical, precise.
Together, they counterattack.
Every strike, every movement is calculated.
There’s blood on the dust, but Cooper doesn’t flinch. Whenever Thomas faces a threat in the sense of men wandering in the doors general direction, Coopers hand intercepts, his eyes focused.
“Not today,” Cooper mutters, almost under his breath. “Not ever.”
Some of the Unsettled move to circle the nursery building where Thomas lies. But just as quick, some of the guards and Cooper himself settle it with finality.
He intercepts, sneaking along like a shadow, knocking the men off balance before they can sense he’s there.
The attackers yell as Cooper’s answer is surgical and definitive.
The man in question falls to the ground, moaning. He motions for a guard to take him and they do just that knowing that his son shouldn’t be exposed to such senseless violence within his vicinity.
As soon as they leave, Cooper and Lucy rush the door. She grabs at the baby who has been playing with a random toy in the walls crevasse.
Thomas looks skyward pointing at a random pipe that contains a small leak.
Lucy hums soothingly. “Safe,” she says. “See? Nothing got you.”
Thomas babbles once more, landing his hands on her. Cooper kisses the little hand, holding it pressed to his lips, feeling the warmth of it, the solidity of its weight.
“Yeah,” he whispers. “That’s right we got you.”
Night falls over the settlement.
Fires burn in small braziers, casting long shadows. Cooper sits on the edge of the central hall, Thomas asleep in his lap, swaddled in blankets. Lucy brings up the rear, leaning against his shoulder.
“They’ll come back,” she murmurs. “And stronger.”
Cooper’s jaw tightens. “They won’t touch him again. Ever. We’ll make sure of it.”
Lucy nods, resting her head lightly against his shoulder. Cooper presses a gentle kiss to her hair, then lowers his gaze to Thomas.
“I need the both of you to be safe.”
Thomas gurgles in sleep, fingers curling against Cooper’s jacket. Cooper chuckles softly, a low, rumbling sound, full of pride and something older, something protective and fierce.
Outside, the Unsettled campfires smolder in the distance. Their banner waits, the broken compass a promise of inevitability. The slogan echoes in the burned woods, Nothing That Stays Survives.
Inside, Cooper holds Thomas tighter, eyes narrowing. He lets Lucy speak first, soft but resolute.
“We’ll survive Coop,” she says.
“Yes,” Cooper agrees. “I’m just scared of who I’ll become if someone threatens that. I’m not tryna be that man anymore but lord knows… I’ll do right to protect what’s mine.”
Thomas stirs in his sleep, tiny fists clenching, almost in agreement. Cooper presses another kiss to his head, murmuring, “This is your world too, little one. And I’ll make sure no one ever forgets it.”
The first battle is over, but the war, symbolic, and personal, is just beginning.