At Alex's grave, Dominic tells Rowan that the body they uncovered is Alex, not Hank, and points out the nearby graves for Naija and Tom. Exhausted by death and uncertainty, Rowan decides she cannot keep digging for answers about her husband. She presses Dominic about Hank's passport, and Dominic admits he hid it because he knew it would look incriminating. Dominic says Hank was unraveling, talking about letting everything drown, and appeared to flee the island in a mental health crisis, leaving his belongings behind. Rowan cannot fully verify the story, but she chooses, for now, to believe Dominic.

After Rowan and Dominic rebury Alex, they return to the red field hut and try to rest. Rowan cannot settle, thinking about Alex's death, Yen's body, the sea, and the life waiting for her if she ever leaves the island. Rowan realizes that accepting Dominic's version of Hank means facing a future in which Hank is damaged, absent, and no longer the man she depended on. When Rowan wakes later, she feels unexpectedly lighter, as if she has let go of her old life while sleeping.

That shift leads directly into action when Rowan finds Dominic stripping off to wash the dirt away in the freezing ocean. Despite her fear of the water and the danger it represents, Rowan follows him, enters the sea, survives the shock, and feels newly alive. Back inside the hut, the tension between them finally breaks, and Rowan and Dominic begin an intense sexual relationship. For Rowan, the encounter is both physical release and a reclaiming of a body and self she had felt detached from.

Afterward, guilt quickly returns, especially Rowan's sense that what she has done would end any future with Hank. Rowan and Dominic awkwardly share food, try to keep their distance, and even agree they should not repeat what happened, but they fail almost immediately and spend the night together again. In bed, they discuss what comes next for Dominic and the children if no supply ship comes. Dominic insists the children stay with him and resists Rowan's warnings that Shearwater is too dangerous, snapping that Rowan is not their mother. He apologizes, but the exchange reveals a real divide between Rowan's trauma-driven fear and Dominic's determination to keep his family intact on the island.

During a stormy night, Rowan and Dominic finally talk more directly about Hank and their damaged marriages. Rowan explains that she never wanted children, partly because River's death left her unable to face the risk of losing one, and admits Hank never forgave her for that refusal. She also reveals Hank came to Shearwater only after their shared life collapsed and later summoned her there saying he was in danger. Dominic responds that Hank was in danger internally, not from anyone else, and questions whether Rowan still imagines a future with him. Rowan points out that Dominic is also being pulled away from his unfinished marriage. As they drift off together, Dominic asks the question that changes the emotional stakes of the story: whether there could be an "after" for the five of them.