It was still dark outside the bedroom windows, but just the faintest edge of dawn gilded the horizon. It brought back memories, that knife-edge of light. Memories of sleepy Sphinxian dawns, before the Queen’s Navy had gifted her with that instantaneous transition between sleep and awareness. Memories of a younger Honor Harrington who now seemed incredibly far away…and far more innocent than the woman looking out those windows this predawn morning. For just an instant, as she saw that glow kiss the eastern sky, she wished she were still that teenaged girl looking out her bedroom window at the four hundred-year-old greenhouse and the ancient, ninety-meter crown oak, its bark carved with Stephanie Harrington’s initials and the name “Lionheart.” The girl who’d never worn the uniform, who had no blood upon her hands, no burden of beloved dead, and for whom the universe was a new, unstained promise on the horizon.

That edge of grief, that flare of loss, flashed through her, sharper than a razor and crueler than winter, in the instant the chimes roused her. It struck her in that first moment, before her defenses were back in place, and she clenched internally. But then, almost before the razor had cut, she felt another presence. Two more presences: the loving glow from the sleeping ’cat on his bedside perch, and the warm, deeply breathing presence at her back, arms wrapped protectively about her even in sleep.

They were there with her, Nimitz and Hamish. They were there for her, just as they always would be, reminders that the universe was filled with even more love than loss.

Then the chimes sang again, and she patted the hand on her ribs.

“Um?” a voice uttered indistinctly.

Unlike Honor, Hamish Alexander-Harrington seldom woke without a struggle. Or, rather, he had an ability (which Honor frequently envied but had never managed to acquire) to turn the Navy’s hardwired “Wake Up Now” switch off and then on again as needed. At the moment, he clearly had it in the “off” position, and she patted his hand again, harder.

“Wh’ zat?”

He didn’t sound any clearer, so she jabbed with a reasonably gentle elbow.

“Urruuff!”

That got his attention, and she smothered a giggle as he twitched awake.

“One of us has to take that call,” she observed, still gazing out the windows as the com chimed yet again.

“So?” His voice was still soft-edged with sleep, but she tasted his amusement an instant before his lips nuzzled under her braid to nibble the nape of her neck with slow, teasing thoroughness. “And you’re telling me this exactly why?” he inquired between gentle nips.

“Because the com is on your side of the bed,” she told him severely. “And because—stop that!”

“Stop what?” he asked innocently, and she sighed as the hand she’d patted earlier cupped her breast. “Oh. You mean stop this?”

“No…I mean, yes!”