I haven’t seen Darius since the storm. Not really. A few brief passes in the corridor. A flicker of eye contact at the edge of a room before he disappeared again, vanishing like fog when the sun finally breaks through. It’s like something changed in that moment when he carried me in from the greenhouse, something fundamental neither of us have dared to name.
He’s quieter now, if that’s even possible. But it’s not avoidance. It feels more like... deliberation. Like he's trying not to let something slip through the cracks.
I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I was supposed to come here to escape, to hide from the world and bury myself in routines and stillness and forget how it felt to be seen and discarded. But instead, I found this house that breathes around me like it’s alive. I found Mary, who watches me like she’s measuring how close she can let me get. And I found Darius: dark-eyed, unreadable, and far more human than he wants anyone to believe.
And he hasn’t laughed. Not once. Not even a smile that touches his eyes.
That’s what I’m thinking about when I hear the familiar rhythm of his boots along the hallway. Deliberate, measured, almost lazy in their weight, but not careless. Never careless. He enters the room without speaking, the scent of the forest clinging to him like a second skin—pine, earth, cold air, and something older I still can’t quite place.
“Morning,” I offer gently, trying not to startle the moment into vanishing. My voice is soft, careful in the same way you might approach a wounded animal or a brittle relic on the verge of breaking.
He nods, his expression unreadable as always, though there’s a slight pause when he notices the extra mug on the table, steam curling invitingly from its rim.
“It’s cinnamon apple,” I say, lifting my own cup slightly. “From the stash I brought with me. One of the last bags.”
He studies the tea for a moment longer than necessary before pouring a cup for himself. He doesn’t thank me. I don’t expect him to.
He sits across from me with that same coiled stillness, like every muscle in his body is waiting for something: danger, acommand, a reason to flee. I take a slow sip, letting the warmth unfurl through my chest before I speak again.
“I had this patient once in Portland,” I begin, keeping my voice easy, casual. “A little firecracker of a man in his eighties. Insisted everyone call him Captain. Wouldn’t answer to anything else.”
Darius doesn’t respond, but I see his brow shift slightly in interest.
“Swore he’d circled the globe more times than Magellan, though I’d bet my last dollar he never left Multnomah County. But every morning like clockwork, he made me salute before I could check his vitals. Said it was ‘proper protocol for high-ranking officers.’”
A ghost of amusement passes through Darius’s eyes, and I feel it like a brush of wind across bare skin.
“One day, during a wound check, he suddenly shouted ‘Brace for impact!’ and let loose the loudest, most unapologetic fart I have ever witnessed in my entire career. The nurse down the hall screamed. I dropped the gauze. He just smiled like he’d delivered a war-winning strategy.”
It happens then—so unexpectedly that I almost miss it.
A sound erupts from Darius that doesn’t belong in the carefully constructed gloom of this house. It’s raw, unpolished, and entirely human. A laugh. Deep and surprised, pulled from a part of him I wasn’t sure still existed. He leans back slightly, one hand coming up to rub at his face as the laughter escapes again, softer this time, almost in disbelief.
“Captain Gas,” he mutters, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Now that’s a proper war story.”
“I’ve got more where that came from,” I say, smiling as warmth rises in my cheeks, not from embarrassment, but from the unexpected lightness now hanging between us. “He usedto demand cannon drills with his Jell-O. Once nearly choked because he tried to salute during pudding.”
Darius shakes his head slowly, the remnants of his laughter still curling around the edges of his voice. “You’re... not what I expected.”
“Good,” I reply, voice quieter now, less playful. “Neither are you.”
His smile falters then, not out of offense, but out of thoughtfulness. He looks down at his cup like it might have answers. I study him in the quiet that follows, noticing how the tension in his shoulders has eased, how his hands rest a little looser on his knees.
“You miss it?” he asks eventually, not looking up. “The work. The noise. The... everything.”
I nod, though he’s not watching. “I miss the people. The routines. The sense that I was doing something that mattered, even on the worst days.”
“And the rest?”
I shrug. “I don’t miss the politics. The understaffing. The way you were expected to do more and more with less and less, until you started losing parts of yourself just to keep up.”
He hums in agreement, and I realize with a jolt that he understands more than I gave him credit for.
“I stayed too long,” I admit softly. “Not because I loved it, but because I didn’t know who I was without it. And I was scared of what I’d find if I stopped.”
Darius looks at me then, and there’s something fragile in his expression. Not weakness. Vulnerability, carefully unwrapped from years of armor.
“I know that feeling,” he says, and it’s the first time I hear true emotion in his voice that isn’t anger or restraint. “Of clinging to something just because it gave you shape. Even when it was killing you.”
