The hospital at night hums like something asleep but dreaming badly. Machines whisper; vents murmur; footsteps pass and fade. Scottie moves through it with a paper cup of water and a hand pressed to the gauze at her throat. Her voice is a splintered thing, but she isn't here to use it much. She follows the arrows until she finds the door with his name taped crooked in a plastic sleeve.

Adrian is out cold. He looks younger without the suit and the grin, lashes tipped dark against his cheeks, mouth open a fraction in the flat light. The blanket is tugged up wrong; his hand sticks out, bandaged across the knuckles, an IV taped into the back of it. His chest lifts shallow under white. The monitor blips a slow, stubborn rhythm.

There's a big vinyl chair in the corner and a smaller plastic one pulled close to the bed. Chris is in the small one, elbows on knees, hands hanging. Helmet on the floor between his boots. He's staring at nothing like it might answer him if he waits long enough.

He looks up when the door eases shut. Jumps slightly, like she caught him with something private.

"Hey," He says, quiet for him. His face is raw, eyelids swollen, the skin around his nose red, the cut on his cheek scabbed crooked. He starts to stand, "I'll, uh... give you--"

She shakes her head and the motion makes her throat throb.

"Stay," She croaks, barely a word. She gestures at the chair. He settles back down slowly, like the seat might bite.

It's weird, for a minute. They listen to Adrian breathe. There's a little snore that isn't the loud, triumphant chainsaw of his usual, more like a soft valve leak. Scottie's mouth tugs at the corner despite everything. Chris sees it and huffs a tiny laugh, then wipes it away with his wrist like he shouldn't be allowed.

"Docs said he did good," Chris says after a while, voice pitched to keep the room asleep, "Bullet missed anything important. Which is crazy, 'cause, like, everything in there's important. I don't know what counts as not important. Spleen? Is that--"

Scottie nods, holds up a palm: it's fine. He doesn't have to fill the silence.

He clears his throat. His hands can't find a place to be; they end up clasped, knuckles whitening.

"I, uh..."

He looks at his helmet instead of her, "Thanks for... y'know. Earlier. With Eagly. With... everything," He swallows hard, "And I'm... I'm sorry I told you not to talk," He grimaces like the memory hits him, "I mean, fuck. You know what I mean. I didn't mean it like... that."

She lets him twist for a second because it's familiar. Then she shakes her head again: it's okay. She points at the chair across from him, at herself, then at the floor. Sit. Stay. He gives a shaky smile.

They let the machines talk for them. The hall outside sighs; a cart squeaks by. Somewhere distant a TV plays a game show with the volume down so low the laugh track is just a shadow.

Finally Scottie takes a breath that hurts and does it anyway.

"Thank you," She whispers.

"For...?" He looks up like he thinks he misheard.

She has to work around the bruise to get the words out, "Auggie."

His name in her throat comes out like dry glass. Chris flinches like she threw something at him, then nods once, sharp. He looks down at his hands again, "Yeah," The word is thick, "I should've done it sooner."

She shakes her head immediately, no, and then yes, and then no again, because none of it lines up clean. She holds her water cup in both hands and stares into it like there's an answer at the bottom. The cup trembles.

"I should've taken you," He says suddenly, the words climbing out like they've been trapped for years, "The first time he raised a hand to you. I should've grabbed you and run and not looked back. When you were five. When you were ten. When you were--" He scrubs a hand over his face and catches his breath on the way down, "I was right there. I was right there and I let you stay. I let you--" His jaw locks, "Fuck."

She shakes her head, and when she lifts it this time it's because something in her cracks clean with the motion. The tear is hot, sudden; she swipes it away with the heel of her hand and the motion jostles her throat.

"I left," She rasps.

"I should've gone with you," He says to his fists, "I should've--" He stops. The words crowd his mouth and won't pick an order.

There's a pressure building behind her sternum that feels like a storm choosing a county. She sits forward, elbows on her knees, head bowed.

"There's something I didn't tell you," She says. The words are stones; she rolls them one at a time, "About why."

He looks at her then. Really looks. Everything in his face softens at the edges, like the tough has nowhere to hold on.

She keeps her eyes on the stitches in the vinyl, because if she looks at him she will swallow the words and they will calcify again.

"Lamar," She says, and her voice breaks like a match. She swallows and it scrapes, "My boyfriend. When I was sixteen."

Chris's mouth shapes a small oh he doesn't let escape.

"He was good," She says. Tears start obeying gravity now, chasing each other down her cheeks, salt hot and stubborn, "He was so good, Chris. He was... stupid with kindness. His parents, Denise and Calvin, they fed me. They patched me up. He..." She laughs, a cracked sound, "He made me a mixtape like a dork. He learned how I take my coffee. He--" She chokes and shakes her head, "You never met him."

"No," Chris says, like an apology.

She sets the cup down and threads her fingers together tight enough to blanch the knuckles.

"He saw us," The word is a pit, "Kissing. In the street."

The room pulls tighter around them. Chris goes very still.

"He said get in the truck," She whispers, staring at nothing, "I said no," Her laugh is airless, "And he--" The memory rises with its own hands and takes her by the throat from the inside. She forces the rest out, "He hit him. He just, he didn't... he didn't even... warn. He just--" Her breath breaks; she claps a hand under her jaw to hold herself together, "Chris, he killed him. Right there. Like he was taking out trash. And I," Her face folds. The tears come full force now, cheap and unstoppable, "I ran."

Chris doesn't move at first. Then he stands so suddenly the chair squeals. He staggers two steps like the floor tilts and then he drops to his knees in front of her, big body folding small, hands hovering like he's afraid to touch a wound he can't see.

"Scottie," He says, her name a plea and a wound.

"I ran," She says again, defending herself to a jury that isn't here, "I ran to Denise and Calvin. I didn't go back. I didn't-- I texted... I couldn't... I didn't call you. I didn't--" The sob hits so hard it takes the strength from her spine; she bows over it, "I thought if I called you, he'd, he'd, " She can't say the rest. They both know the shape of it.

Chris is breathing like a drowning man trying to make a bargain with the surface. He puts his hands to the floor and then to her knees and then to the floor again like he's trying not to contaminate her with his touch.

"I didn't know," He says, voice shuddering, "I didn't--" He swallows a sound. His face scrunches, boyish and terrible, "I should've been there. I should've-- God, Scottie, I'm so sorry."

She shakes her head, tears dropping onto her hands, "You didn't do it."

He squeezes his eyes shut. Tears force their way out anyway. He tries to catch them with a forearm and ends up smearing his face with his wrist like a child.

"I left you there," He says, and something breaks in the center of him. The sob that follows has no pride in it. He bows forward until his forehead touches the side of her bed and makes a sound like grief stripped of words.

She slides off the chair onto her knees without thinking, the vinyl sticks to her skin, the movement sends a flare of pain through her throat, but she's down there with him now, on the tile, both of them badly built and still standing. She puts her hands on his shoulders; they are mountains. He glues his hands to his eyes and chokes another apology into them.

"Please," He says, and it's from so far back in time she can hear the boy still living there, "Please forgive me. Please. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should've-- I should've taken you. I should've killed him a long time ago. I should've--"

She pulls him to her, palms on either side of his face, thumbs to the wet skin at his temples, and he goes where she puts him like he did when she was five and couldn't reach the cereal. Their foreheads touch. The tears jump from one of them to the other with nowhere else to go.

"Chris," She whispers, and it hurts, and she does it anyway, "Hey. Look at me."

He tries. His eyes are red and slick, his mouth pulled ugly, the tough blown off him. He looks twelve, then eight, then fifteen with blood on his shirt that wasn't his.

"I forgive you," She says. It's not for his benefit; it's a fact she's been carrying around waiting for a place to set it down, "I do. I already did. I--" She breathes around the pain, "I know you loved me. I know you love me."

He shakes his head hard, like he can't let that land because the landing will kill him.

"You hate me," He mumbles into her wrists, "You gotta hate me."

She huffs a ruined laugh and wipes his tears with her thumbs as if that'll make him believe her.

"I could never," She says, and it's steady, "Not you."

He breaks again. There's no dignity to it. He makes a noise she's only ever heard from small animals and people in waiting rooms. He says her name and a prayer at once. He says I'm sorry and I love you in the same breath like he's discovering both are true for the same reason.

She wraps her arms around him and he folds his around her, clumsy and crushing and exactly right. They're both strong enough to hurt each other with the hug; they don't. He shakes against her. She shakes against him. They breathe in unison because that is a thing they remember how to do: the rhythm of not dying when someone else is holding some of the weight.

On the bed, Adrian snorts in his sleep and mutters, "Soup," and then sighs. The monitor keeps time. A nurse's shoes whisper past the door, hesitate, and move on.

"I'm here," Chris says into her shoulder, words torn ragged, "I'm here now. I'm not... I'm not going anywhere, I swear to God. Not again. Not ever."

She nods against his hair, lets the promise anchor instead of drag.

"Okay," She whispers.

"I'm gonna be better," He says, the vow hot and scared, "I'm gonna-- I don't even know how, but I'm gonna. I'll learn. I'll-- I'll shut up when I should shut up, I'll--"

"Don't make promises you can't keep," She says, a little smile breaking through even as tears keep falling.

He laughs wet, a sound more alive than anything he's made all night, "Okay. I'll try. That one I can... I can try."

They kneel like that until their knees bark objections and their backs cramp, and then they sit on the floor with their shoulders against the foot of Adrian's bed, side by side, sharing the same terrible vinyl tile. Scottie leans her head on his shoulder because the world is too heavy for her neck and because it's the same spot she used to lean when she fell asleep on him during bad movies they weren't supposed to rent. Chris very carefully sets his cheek on the top of her head like he's putting a medal somewhere it belongs.

"I missed you," He says finally, small and everything.

"Me too," She says, and it hurts less to say it than she thought it would.

They sit there while the night shifts around them, while the machines breathe and the building dreams and Adrian whispers nonsense. At some point, Chris's hand finds hers again on the tile. He doesn't squeeze. He just holds, and she holds back. The past doesn't leave; it quiets. The future doesn't fix; it opens.

Outside the window, the parking lot lights throw halos on damp asphalt, and somewhere across the city dawn starts practicing behind the horizon. Inside, a brother and a sister stop being alone.

—

Morning slips in on the backs of beeping monitors and a square of winter light creeping up the far wall. The hospital has a way of making time feel like wet paper, thin and mushy, until something tears through.

It's Adrian's eyelids.

They flutter, squinch, open to slits. He stares at the ceiling tile like it's a puzzle only he can solve. His lips move around a word that takes a few tries to stick.

"Soup," He whispers, then frowns, "No. Scottie."

On the floor beside his bed, Scottie is already awake, she woke to the rustle of sheet and that ridiculous first word. She's a tangle of stiff neck and pins-and-needles legs, because she and Chris fell asleep against the foot of the bed like two kids at a sleepover who lost the couch lottery. Chris is still out, mouth open, snoring softly, his back curved like a comma. She carefully, carefully untucks her shoulder from under his cheek. He grumbles, teeters, but she folds her black leather jacket, slides it under his head like a pillow, and tucks the sleeve near his ear the way she remembers he likes, an old habit wearing a new day.

Her throat feels less like barbed wire this morning, more like sandpaper. Manageable. She stands, stretches until her spine clicks, and pads to the bedside.

Adrian, gratifyingly, is the exact level of post-op loopy she had hoped he'd be: pupils dilated, hair a storm, expression earnest and slightly unmoored. He blinks up at her and squints as if trying to focus a camera.

"You're blurry," He announces, delighted, "But in a... glowy way. Like a saint in a painting. Or like when you look at a streetlight through tears, but I'm not crying, so it must be the first one."

She huffs a laugh that sandpapers her throat and pats her sternum once, worth it, "Hey."

"Hi," He says, then gasps as if a memory slams back in, "You didn't die!"

"Shockingly," She rasps, "You didn't either."

"I was shot," He says, proud of the facts, "But now I'm less shot. That doctor dude said it'll heal better if I don't do cartwheels for a while. Joke's on him, I don't know how to cartwheel," He tries to lift a hand and immediately looks personally betrayed by the IV, "Ow. Rude tube."

She reaches out and steadies his wrist, thumb light on the tape, "Rude tube is keeping you alive."

"Mm," He considers, "Okay. Thank you, tube. I accept your conditions." His attention swings back to her like a lazy cat tracking a ribbon. "Scottie? I'm on... so many drugs."

"I can tell."

"My brain feels like a marshmallow someone dropped on a hospital floor," He says, awed.

"Yum," She deadpans.

He peers past her at the floor and freezes,"Is that-- is Peacemaker dead?" His voice drops to a scandalized whisper.

She glances back at Chris, wrapped around her jacket like a large, armorless raccoon, "No. Just... exhausted."

"Ohhh," Adrian breathes, instantly soothed. He leans conspiratorially toward her and immediately winces, hand going to his bandaged torso, "Ow. Okay, note to self: whispering is an abdominal sport."

"Don't make me laugh," She says, but she's already smiling, "Or yourself."

"I cannot promise that," He says solemnly, "I also can't promise not to flirt with you while medically compromised, because my filters are broken. Like, extra broken."

She lifts a brow, "Extra?"

"Yeah," He whispers, "Normally they're made of lace. Now they're made of... fog."

"I can see that," She sets his bed control within easier reach and lowers the head a notch so he doesn't crane. He watches her the way people watch fireworks.

"You're very pretty when you boss things around," He says, "Machines. Men. My heart. Ow. Literally, ow."

She snorts, then coughs at the rasp that snort grates into. He frowns, concerned, the goofiness parting just enough to show the earnest under it, "How's your throat? Scale of one to 'the time I swallowed a Lego.'"

"About a seven," She says, "But trending down."

"Okay," He says, and nods like a doctor, "No shouting at me. Or do. I like being yelled at by you."

"Noted," She says. Her eyes slip to his hand again, "May I?" She gestures at the callouses across his knuckles, the tape, the bruising blossom under his skin.

"You may take anything you want within reason and within consent," He says instantly, "And if it's unreasonable we can negotiate a payment plan."

She sets her fingertips lightly over his knuckles; he goes very still, like a bird being entrusted with bread. Up close, the anesthesia makes his pupils spill wider, but his gaze is steady. It slips down to her mouth, back to her eyes as if checking with security.

"You look different without a mask," She says, "Less... serial killer."

"Thank you," He says gravely, as if she knighted him, "You look different without pink shorts."

She groans, "You're never going to let that go, are you?"

He shakes his head, then remembers he shouldn't, and makes it a very gentle sway instead, "They're my Roman Empire."

She bites back a smile, "That... makes no sense."

"It does to me," He reaches up with his IV-free hand, slowly, telegraphing it, giving her lanes and exits, and stops just short of brushing a curl off her cheek, "Can I?"

She hesitates, only because her body remembers rough hands where they shouldn't have been. His palm hangs there, open, patient, dumbly hopeful. She leans into it an inch, a consent you could miss if you weren't him. He smooths the errant strand back toward her ear with the care of someone defusing a bomb and then retreats, fingers trembling like he touched an outlet.

"Your hair," He says, awestruck, "It's like... if night learned jiu-jitsu."

She snorts again, "That's not a compliment."

"It is in my head," He worries his bottom lip between his teeth, then blurts, "I have a lot of owl facts to tell you later that are completely true."

"Hit me with your best wrong one."

"Owls are just cats with wings," He says confidently, "They land on their feet and can smell lasagna."

She stares at him, "Where do you... get these?"

"My brain," He says, "It's like National Geographic, but with worse funding."

She laughs for real then, a dry, scratchy spill of sound that makes the sleeping giant on the floor twitch and turn but not wake. Adrian's grin blooms slow and proud, like he grew it himself.

The moment softens. She doesn't realize her thumb has started to rub the ridge of his knuckles until he inhales a little hiccup of a breath. Heat rolls under her skin; she stills, but doesn't pull away. He watches her like a man who woke up to find the northern lights had moved into his room.

"I'm glad you're okay," She says, quiet enough the machines have to lean in to hear it.

"I'm glad you're okay," He counters, "You scared me. The gorilla. Your dad. The... cow. Which is not a cow. I don't like lying animals. It's false advertising."

"Add it to your list of grievances," She says.

"Oh, I have a list," He assures her, "Number one: butterflies. Number two: gravity. Number three: the color teal lying to us by pretending it's blue and green at the same time. Pick a side."

"Teal slander, wow. Bold stance."

"I'm brave," He whispers, "Also very high."

Her hand is still on his. His fingers, carefully, slide between hers, the IV tape rasping lightly against her skin. It is not a move he makes often; it fits anyway. She squeezes, barely, and watches his throat bob.

"Is this okay?" He asks, because he asks, because he's decided that's how he wins.

"It's okay," She says, and something enormous inside her unclenches at hearing herself say it about someone's touch.

They sit in that hush, hands laced. The sunlight climbs the wall to a framed poster about handwashing and makes it look spiritual. A nurse pads past the door, sees the sleeping pile of Peacemaker with a leather jacket for a halo and grins, then moves on.

Adrian's eyes drift to Chris, then back, "If he wakes up and sees me holding your hand, he's going to staple a turd to my face, isn't he."

"Forehead," She corrects, "He was very specific."

"Right. I would prefer not to have any... face turds," He lowers his voice conspiratorially, "We can pretend we were doing a medical procedure. Like... hand transfusion. Or testing if our fingers are compatible."

"We already know they are," She says, and he beams so hard his monitors tick up. He glances at the heart rate reading and then waggles his eyebrows.

"Science confirms I am attracted to you," He says.

"You're impossible."

"I'm Adrian."

"Same thing."

He shifts, grimaces, then relaxes when her thumb resumes that tiny back-and-forth on his knuckle.

"I was going to bring you soup," He says mournfully, "Empowering soup."

"After you're not a human colander," She says, "Then you can soup me all you want."

He blinks. Processes. Glows.

"Consensually," He adds, because he is who he is.

She nods, "Consensually."

They're quiet. The shape of the room changes, not the dimensions, just the edges. The fear moves over to the corners. The center is warmer.

Adrian clears his throat carefully.

"I keep thinking about last night," He says, "When you... you know. Saved me. And fought. And said you weren't okay and then did it anyway," He swallows, "You were... you were like if justice had a switchblade."

Her laugh breaks in the middle; she smooths it out with a breath, "I just did what needed to be done."

"That's the hottest sentence you've ever said," He replies gravely.

"Stop."

"Can't." Beat. "Won't."

She leans her hip against the rail and looks at him the way she hasn't let herself: full on, no side-eyes, no hedge. He notices. Of course he does. He blushes a little, he blushes, underneath all that blood and bravado and anesthesia, and the sight of it kicks something warm and foolish in her chest.

"I don't hate you," She says, a different confession, a smaller one, but honest.

He blinks, "Because I shot your-- I mean, not-actually-your-- but still your..."

"I know what you mean," She says, saving him from his own tongue, "I don't hate you."

He nods, slow, like he's arranging that sentence on a mental shelf where he can reach it again later.

"Okay." A beat. "Do you... like me?" The childlike way he asks should be ridiculous. It isn't.

She angles her head, lip caught between her teeth. She could deflect. She could weaponize sarcasm and get out clean. She doesn't want to.

"I think I do," She says, "In a way that is going to make my life very annoying."

He beams like someone turned on a second sun.

"Yes," He whispers, "That's my specialty."

From the floor, Chris snorts in his sleep, mumbles "Hanoi Rocks," and resettles, hugging her jacket like a teddy bear. They both look down at him, then at each other, then stifle matching laughs.

"We should... probably not make out over your brother's head," Adrian says, scandalized by his own boldness the moment it leaves his mouth, "I mean-- we shouldn't make out anywhere unless you want to and after I'm not on drugs and also you're not grieving and also you've had soup and--"

She squeezes his hand, "You're doing great."

"Thank you," He says, relieved, "I don't want to mess this up."

"You won't," She says, surprising herself with how sure it comes out. He looks at her like she just handed him a map out of a maze.

The door bumps softly and a nurse leans in with a chart.

"Good morning," She says in that special hospital voice people learn to use around trauma, "How's our patient?"

"Infatuated," Adrian says, "And also slightly stabby if I sneeze."

Scottie lifts their joined hands a fraction and the nurse's eyebrows rise a hair, amused, then settle, "Pain level?"

"Four," He says, "Or six if she stops holding my hand."

"Then we'll keep everything right where it is," The nurse says, jotting. She checks the IV, the dressing, the vitals, and ghosts away.

As the door hushes closed, Adrian says, "If I had a diary, which I don't because I'm masculine, today would be the day I write 'Scottie held my hand and I didn't die.'"

"You are allowed to have a diary," She says, "Masculinity will survive."

"Maybe I'll start a journal," He says, "With swords on the cover."

"Very tough."

"I am very tough," He agrees, "And extremely soft."

"I've noticed," She says, and he looks like she pulled a splinter out he didn't realize he was carrying.

They lapse into a quiet that feels earned. Down in the parking lot a car alarm yips once and gives up. Sunlight finds the metal edge of his bed and paints a line of hot gold. Chris snores. Somewhere far away, an intercom asks for a doctor with too many syllables in their name.

"Hey, Scottie?" Adrian says, so tentative it hardly counts as sound.

"Yeah?"

"If you want," He says, "I could be the person you don't have to be okay for. Sometimes. Or I could be the person you are okay with. Or both. I'm... adaptable. Like an owl."

She laughs into her teeth, eyes stinging in the good way this time, "Owls aren't adaptable."

"They can turn their heads three-hundred and sixty degrees," He argues.

"They can't."

"In my heart they can," He says, and she shakes her head, smiling.

She leans in, slow, clear, and brushes her mouth to his forehead. It's a kiss that says we're here. He goes very still, then exhales like he'd been holding that breath for years.

"Rest," She says.

He nods, dazed.

"Yes ma'am."

He doesn't let go of her hand. His eyes sink closed in tiny increments, lashes dropping like blinds, a little smile stuck there as if the anesthesiologist hid one under his tongue. Within a minute he's breathing steady again.

Scottie stays where she is, hand in his, watching the idiot heart monitor prove it keeps working even when everything else takes a minute. On the floor, Chris shifts, sighs, and burrows deeper into her jacket pillow. She looks from one to the other, the boy she grew up with and the boy she didn't know she'd been moving toward, and lets herself, just for now, be held up by both.

—

Discharge day tastes like antiseptic and cable news. The room TV is turned down low, subtitles racing beneath Adebayo's face as she stands behind a tangle of microphones. Scottie balances on the edge of Adrian's bed, one hand lightly braced on the rail; Adrian sits forward, paper discharge bracelet digging his wrist, eyes bright with the giddy menace of a man who's been medically cleared to cause problems again.

On-screen, Adebayo says, "...Yes, that does mean Christopher Smith never wrote any diary. Both the Peacemaker and the costumed crime fighter Vigilante were working in a deep-cover operation for the U.S. Government called Project Butterfly. This is all part of a black-ops program known as Task Force X... run out of Belle Reve... under the command of a woman named Amanda Waller, who happens to be my mother. I'm calling for an immediate investigation into these inhumane--"

The chyron explodes; questions erupt. Adrian points at the TV with his free hand, "See? Not a diary. A journal would've been fine."

Scottie snorts, which still rasps, "Keep telling yourself that."

"I will," He says cheerfully, then tries to stand too fast and absolutely regrets it, "Ow. Okay. Pain is real. That was not a rumor."

"Easy," She slips an arm around his back without touching the bandage and offers her shoulder as counterweight, "You good?"

"I am... ninety percent soup," He declares, "Ten percent knives."

"Let's keep the knife percentage under five in public."

"Compromise," He says, charmed, "You're very good at that."

She hands him a bundle, his folded shirt, his hoodie, soft sweatpants the nurse scrounged.

"I'll turn around," She offers.

"You can, uh, look if you want," He says, then blushes so hard it looks medically dangerous, "Consensually! I'm just... I'm very proud of my body right now; it didn't die."

"Show-off."

He drags the shirt over his head, slow as a nature documentary of a seal molting: careful, stately, a little ridiculous. The hem lifts to reveal a stretch of skin and honest-to-God abs, more wiry than bulky, a map of bruises heading toward his left side where the bandage peeks. The biceps are ridiculous, though, granite when he flexes to work his arm through. Scottie is not made of stone. She is made of sarcasm and caffeine and scars, and also, apparently, a small, appreciative noise that escapes before she can tackle it.

His head pops through the collar, hair standing straight up, "What? Is my cowlick... heroic?"

"Your everything is a little much," She says, deadpan, and his grin happens to his whole face.

They get him into sweatpants and sneakers, and he leans into her for the last tie. She knots it, efficient, "You good to walk?"

"Walking is my third best skill. After soup and... you."

"That's not a skill," She says, rolling her eyes at how warm her cheeks are.

"It is now."

They sign papers. A nurse gives them a pharmacy bag and a smile like she's been rooting for them since act one. Scottie thanks her and steers Adrian out into cold daylight.

"Where to?" He says, holding the door for her with a little bow that he immediately ruins by almost tripping on the threshold. He recovers with a flourish.

"Coffee," She says, "Then store. Then... your show."

"Our show," He corrects gently, "Owls."

"God help me," She mutters, but it's fond.

In the car, her car today, he's fussily careful buckling his seat belt around the bandage, then remembers to open his window when he sees her do it: habit from a life of exits. At the drive-through he orders his usual, whatever it is smells like cinnamon and bad decisions, and Scottie orders her absurd white-girl special. He beams, "It's like a birthday cake that wanted to be a coffee when it grew up."

"Don't coffee-shame my coffee."

"I would never. I respect its journey."

The grocery store is a blur of fluorescents and linoleum. Adrian requests control of the cart with the solemnity of a sacred oath and then treat-heists it down the produce aisle at a speed that makes three toddlers worship him.

"What soup are you making?" Scottie asks, pacing him.

"Empowering chicken orzo with lemon," He says, ticking items off on his fingers, "Chicken thighs because they're juicier and more forgiving, mirepoix because I love French words, orzo because it's rice pretending to be pasta, lemon to cut trauma, dill because it tastes like hope, and clandestine red pepper flake because we like pain in a controlled setting."

"My chef," She says, realizing too late she said it out loud.

He bonks the cart into a display of celery in a dignified way, "Yes. Absolutely. I will get you so many vitamins your bones will file compliments."

Back at her apartment, he makes her sit on the counter and supervise under strict conditions: "You can comment, but only if it's to praise me. If I do something unsafe, say 'hot' and I will assume you mean the stove."

"Or I could say 'turn off the burner,'" She says.

"Right, but that's less flirty."

He washes his hands like he's in a training video, hums the guitar part from "11th Street Kids," then lays out the produce with care. Knife in hand, he glances up, "You okay with chopping sounds?"

"I'm okay," She says. And she is, watching the steady rhythm of his hands. They're competent, quick. The knife thunks through carrots; celery sighs into crescents; onion makes him blink heroically.

"Mirepoix," He announces, sweeping it into the pot, "French for 'I'm sorry about your childhood, here's flavor.'"

Oil hits hot metal; the smell leaps up. He stirs, wooden spoon clicking.

"Pro tip," He says, wincing when his side reminds him that pros don't get shot, "don't stir like a maniac."

"I'll write that down."

"Please do. There will be a quiz." He salts, lets the vegetables sweat, adds garlic, and the room turns into a safe place you can breathe. The chicken sizzles next, bronzing on contact. He doesn't crowd the pan. He is unbearably proud of not crowding the pan.

"Look at her," He coos, "Look at that Maillard reaction. We are caramelizing our pain."

"That should be embroidered on a pillow."

"I'll cross-stitch it while we simmer."

They deglaze with a splash of broth. He could have used wine; he didn't ask; she notices and files it under considerate. He adds the rest of the stock, lowers heat, skims foam the way he'd pet a shy cat. Orzo rains in. The lemon he rolls first with his palm ("to wake it up"), then zests ("confetti of sunshine"), then halves and squeezes with his hand over the seeds, careful.

She is watching him like it's a movie and she is not supposed to talk during movies. He notices and gets flustered and then flattered about being flustered, which is very him.

"Dill now or later?" He asks.

"Both," She says, "Build and finish."

He brightens.

"Chef's kiss," He says, actually kissing the air, "Okay. Ten minutes to al dente. We do owls now."

"Bowls, then owls."

"Oh my God," He says, reveren, "Date motto."

"Date?" She echoes, testing the weight of it.

He sets the spoon down and faces her full on, arms a little akimbo to keep from pulling his stitches, eyes wide open the way his always are when he means it.

"If you want," He says, "If not, then it's soup between friends and I will behave like a Victorian who fainted at the sight of an ankle."

"It's a date," She says, because she is done pretending she doesn't want the thing that makes her feel like right now.

He preens, there is no other word, then ladles soup like a priest blessing bowls. He sprinkles a finishing handful of dill, a swirl of olive oil, a crack of pepper. They carry the bowls to the couch like they're holding treasure.

"Wait," He says, then scampers back for the remote, "National Geographic. Owl edition. Prepare your mind palace."

"Please do not say mind palace around soup."

He laughs and sinks down carefully beside her, doing that little hop people do when they want to flop but remember they're mortal. They sit close but not touching, until she adjusts, shoulder tipping into his, and he becomes the man who learned how to breathe again.

On the TV, a snowy owl lifts off in slow motion, feathers catching golden tundra light. Adrian gives a running commentary in a hushed, reverent whisper, "You see that? Hollow bones filled with espresso. That's how they're so fast."

"Incorrect," She says, sipping. The lemon brightens the broth; the dill is, indeed, hope-tasting. Heat unfurls through her chest in a way that feels like being let in from a storm.

"Also owls can rotate their heads four hundred degrees," He adds.

"They cannot."

"Emotionally, they can," He slurps, then makes a face of indecent joy, "Is it weird to be attracted to soup I made? Is that narcissism? Don't answer; I know the answer."

"It's very good," She says, and his shoulders drop like a weight finally noticed has been lifted.

They eat. They watch an owl pick its way along a branch the way thieves do in cartoons. He leans in to point out wing filaments and whispers, "These act like silencing spells," and she doesn't correct him because she's busy noticing the way his voice warms the space three inches from her ear.

"Is your throat okay?" He asks after a few minutes, turning the volume down a click, "We can pause and you can gargle lemon. Or soup."

"I'm okay," She says, "It doesn't... hurt much to talk."

"Then I'm going to ask you a very serious question," He sets his bowl on the coffee table, sits up straighter, and folds his hands like he's about to negotiate a treaty, "When you're ready, I would like to take you on a second date that is not medically adjacent. It can involve soup again, because I'm building a brand, but it could also involve... a bookstore? Or throwing axes? Or a bookstore where we throw axes?"

"Let's not combine those."

"Right. Safety is sexy."

She pretends to ponder, "There's a used record store two blocks over. Saturday afternoons they let you play one thing from the dollar bin on the old turntable."

His mouth forms a perfect O.

"We could find Hanoi Rocks," He says, starry, "Or something so bad it becomes religion."

"It's a plan," She says.

"Date two," He says, testing it in the air like a paper airplane, "I will wear less hospital."

"I will wear fewer... pink shorts."

He clutches his chest melodramatically, "No, no, I didn't mean, pink shorts are invited to every event."

She laughs, and the sound is almost normal now, rough only in the edges where last night still clings. He hears the difference and doesn't point it out; he just sits in it with her, watching owls ghost over snow.

They finish the bowls. He tries to get up to wash them; she herds him back with one finger to his sternum, "Sit. You cooked."

"Yes, ma'am," He says, so happy to be bossed around by her it's a little embarrassing. She decides not to comment. This time.

When she comes back from the sink, he has scooted an inch closer without noticing. She claims the inch, shoulder to shoulder, a lean that says I choose this. On the screen, the owl blinks sideways; on the couch, his knuckles brush hers, then settle, no grabbing, no taking, just heat and nearness.

"First date," He says softly, eyes still on the TV, "We survived it."

"By eating cow-adjacent soup and watching murder birds," She says.

"Owls are not murderers," He says, scandalized, "They are justice with eyebrows."

She turns her head slowly until he feels it and turns his, too, like they're planets deciding on an eclipse. His eyes are big and earnest and a little stunned to be here. She thinks about grief, about empty halves of beds, about a boy with a knife and a heart he never hid even when it would've been smarter.

"Thank you," She says.

"For soup?" He grins, "You're welcome."

"For not making me pretend I'm okay."

He sobers, his face doing that open thing again that always gets her.

"You never have to pretend with me," He says, "I'll probably be too busy pretending I'm okay to notice."

"Deal," She says, and rests her head on his shoulder. He breathes out like a wish was granted. The owl on screen tilts its head four hundred emotional degrees. The afternoon lays a stripe of sunlight across their knees.

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