Helena feels the world do a funny thing. It halts, it slows around them, it closes off until it's them and their warmth. Some part of her knew, and some part refused to believe it until it was right there. And it's Christmas Eve, and they're so far from home, and she hasn't lost her fears in life. She will always worry about who she is. But there are words her father said for her ears only, and there is the sense that never once, in her doubts, has she doubted Darcy. Never doubted that if they made a vow, it was by their own choice.

She does not doubt their love, nor hers. Only that she is doing enough, that she can be enough. And Helena knows, if she asks for another year, for three, they will be granted. Yet, when all she can really offer is her heart, this is still held out to her. It is enough. It has to be. It is a thing that every poet tries to capture and only gets a fragment of, it is as certain as her hand on her cane or how she'd know them by their footsteps. She had already considered herself promised, in the ways that matter. Not to follow through right now - she knows what she wants, under truly free skies, when they can rejoin the world - but still. Still. It is there.

With all of that, there is only one answer to give.

"Yes."

Her heart is swelling in her, and happiness is rising, rising, weightlessness that chases away any ideas of chill or anything that is not now.

"Yes, Darcy. I will."