She walked into the apartment trying to be quiet which had been a good choice since Hamish was sleeping on his couch with Theo on his chest. She walked over picking up the baby very carefully and walking her over to her carseat. Theo woke up whimpering having been disturbed from her nice little nap with her father but seeing her mom made it okay. She smiled a little and closed her eyes again while Vera put her in her carseat and sat beside it rocking her until Theo was out again. She waited a moment longer watching Theo sleep, a little smile curling up on her face from time to time and making her feel her heart flutter. She was so sweet when she was sleeping, she always looked so much like Hamish with that little half smile on her face and her fluffy sweeping bangs. Vera tried to smooth it down only to have it bounce back up into place and make Theo whine and stretch in her sleep.

"Sorry, there is nothing you can do, you are stuck with it." Vera smiled hearing his voice behind her.

"Can't blame me for trying."

"You wouldn't change anything about her and you know it."

"I'm just curious as to how by inheriting your smile she constantly looks like she's got a cocky smirk when she's sleeping. She's five months old, she shouldn't have a cocky smirk yet." Hamish sat up and patted the couch beside him inviting Vera up. She got off the ground tip toeing over to Hamish and quietly sitting down beside him before raising up her hand palm up. "Can I have my ring back?"

"You don't think I'm a mistake?"

"I do, but you are a mistake I'm happy I made and I'd never get rid of you either." He smirked with that same cocky little look their daughter always seemed to have making her laugh a little. Reaching into his pocket he pulled the ring out. He took her hand rather than just handing it back to her and slipped it back onto her ring finger before leaning over and kissing her. Resting a hand on his chest Vera pushed him back. "Hamish." She licked her lips sat back resting her back into the arm of the sofa. "Randal said you seemed a little off coming back from closing that rift."

He shifted his weight uncomfortably and looked down at the floor. "Alejandro and I got pulled through. It was, it was weird."

"Really?" She leaned in a little closer to him.

"Yeah, it was the year 2000."

"I'm so sorry, that is weird." She agreed because that was a horrible year for many reasons.

"I agree, I saw you." He smirked at her. "You were very funny, very open about being a sweetheart, very kind."

"Oh." She paused a moment before hitting him. "Did you try to sleep with me because that Hamish Duke is morally wrong."

"No." He responded shaking his head. "Well a little but no."

"So the moral dilemma of sleeping with me made you pissy when you got back?" She raised a brow looking at him. Dammit sometimes he could be so uncomfortably weird and Theo was disturbingly similar in that regard.

"No." He stopped again taking her hand. "I had to make a choice, a hard choice and it makes me wonder." She seemed a little more sympathetic to him from the pain on his face and the fact he couldn't even look at her. "I called her, I called Cassie. It's the first thing I could think to do. I just wanted to hear her voice again, I wanted to tell her everything but I couldn't but I wanted to. For a moment I even thought to hell with my future, to the Knights, to everything."

"And you felt like you were being selfish."

"I could have destroyed the world just so I could have a happy ending." It stung a little thinking she wasn't his happy ending. "She was kind and beautiful and selfless, she made me who I became, she made me a werewolf, she made me a knight and when it mattered most I couldn't save her." Even if it hurt a little, even if it cut into her she held his hand tighter and moved closer to him wrapping an arm around him so he could at least take comfort in knowing someone was there now. "I used to think she would be my future, I thought she was my soulmate." She choked up a little looking up at her, tears in his eyes. He was so hurt, there was so much pain in those beautiful blue eyes of his, she just wished she could take it all from him.

"But what does that make you Vera? Because I love you so much, I need you more than anything in this world. You are everything, you gave me Theo, you give me so much even when I don't think I deserve it from you. How can I love and miss her so much but want you in my life so badly?"

"Because there are so many different versions of love. It's the same way I can love Theo and want to give my life for her but still love and miss Maggie more than anything else in the world and want to give everything to bring her back if I could."

"But not at the risk of Theo?"

"Never." She could see what he was getting at.

"Because I could have saved her Vera, I could have done the right thing and saved Cassie when I called her but I didn't, because I smelled you, I knew you were there and I was far more afraid of the world without you in it than the world without Cassie. I know this world, I know what it's like without her but without you, without our daughter? It's the place I'm most afraid of." He put his arms around her and held her tight. "I let my best friend die Vera, I let Cassie die."

She put her arms around him realizing how heavy that choice must have been for him to make. If she had the opportunity to save Maggie now would she knowing she could never have Theo? She'd like to think in a perfect world she could have them both, that she would have powered through raising her daughter and still be accepted to Belgrave, still join the Order and see her daughter become an impressive practitioner one day because she always imagined maybe Maggie would have. She thought she would have been a great sister to Theo now and perhaps a buffer in her dealing with the world around her. But had her pain pushed her harder to accomplish her goals? Had her loss made her claw her way through life, towards Hamish, towards Theo? Could she risk not having them in her future? Never in a thousand years. She was honestly happy she didn't have to make that choice but Hamish had.

"She forgives you Hamish." Vera finally spoke up. "What would Cassie have wanted from you if something ever happened to her?"

Hamish held Vera tighter trying to remember the conversations they used to have together at night. They had always known both of them were living on borrowed time. "We promised each other if one of us died the other would move on and be happy for them. Live life for each other."

"She didn't want you to go down with her because she cared about you so much Hamish. She wanted you to carry on, to live, to love. You can't think you are wrong in having decided to do that. Not if you did it for her, not if you kept that promise to her." She kissed him pulling his chin up so she could look him in the eyes. It was amazing how stunning she was, how bright her soul burned behind those green pools. "I hope someday our daughter grows up to have your strength and your kindness and your moral compass to guide her. Because of you I think one day she'll be so much better than I could ever be. She'll be capable of the things I couldn't."

"I must have done something that changed the timeline, you're being so nice." Not that she wasn't nice, well, not this sort of nice. She was comforting but the way he knew Vera she always had a sharpness to her edges, even for him at times. Right now she was his greatest source of comfort holding him, making him feel safe to express his emotions to her.

"Maybe but not because of the past, because you've changed me Hamish. We but heads and fight over who gets to be boss and who listens to who sometimes but you've made me look at sides and options I would never consider. To ground myself more often and practice greater patience." She kissed him on the lips and grabbed both his hands. "Come on Hamish, come back home."

He perked up a little, even though they lived together it was always Vera's home and the apartment and the Den were his homes. But the way she was talking now it felt like she was suggesting her home was his home. It only took five months after their daughter was born to finally count her home as his home too. "Home?"

"Yes Hamish, the place you belong."

"You are my home Vera." He held her close and rested his chin on the top of her head, his fingers running through her hair. Even when he was going through a crisis Vera was just a constant source of familiarity, she was his grounding force just as much as he was hers.