Lincoln watched her carry Marie out to where Finn was warming up the car, then he headed for his own vehicle.
His house was exactly as he’d left it.
Lincoln stood in the doorway for a moment, taking in the familiar space. Quiet. Organized. Everything in its designated place. No coats thrown over chairs, no abandoned plates, no children’s toys scattered across surfaces. No noise, no chaos, no sticky-fingered assistants or arguing uncles or crying babies.
This was what he preferred. What he’d always preferred.
He set the to-go container on the kitchen counter and hung his coat in the closet. Removed his shoes and placed them on the rack by the door. The same routine he followed every time he came home. Predictable. Comfortable. Correct.
The silence settled around him like a familiar weight.
Tonight it felt different. Not uncomfortable, exactly. Just... noticeable in a way it usually wasn’t. The contrast, maybe. Forty people, then none. Chaos, then stillness. The particular warmth of being surrounded by family, then the particular coolness of being alone.
Lincoln moved to his desk and opened his laptop.
11:47 PM.
He’d already talked to Mercury tonight. Their ritual was complete—9:00 PM, as always, unbroken for seven hundred and two consecutive nights. There was no reason to reach out again.
He thought about Bear’s hand resting on Joy’s stomach, that expression of wonder Lincoln couldn’t quite parse. About his parents dancing in the corner like the rest of the room had ceased to exist. About Marie’s serious little face when she’d told him he made sense.
The way they all just belonged to each other. Effortlessly. Instinctively. Like breathing.
Lincoln didn’t fully understand that need—for proximity, for touch, for constant togetherness. His whole life, he’d felt like an observer of human connection rather than a participant in it. Watching from the outside, cataloging the patterns, never quite finding his way in.
But tonight, standing in his quiet, empty house...
He thought he might be starting to.
His fingers moved before his brain could intervene.
Binary: System diagnostic. Confirming channel integrity.
The response came faster than it should have, given the hour.
Mercury: Binary. It’s nearly midnight.
Binary: I’m aware of the time.
Mercury: We talked at nine. Our ritual is complete.
Binary: I know.
A pause. The cursor blinked. Lincoln watched it, waiting for the question—why are you here, what’s wrong, what happened to make you break the pattern we’ve maintained for two years?—
Mercury: And yet here you are.
Binary: Here I am.
Mercury: I’m glad.
Something loosened in his chest. She wasn’t going to make him explain. Wasn’t going to demand justification for the anomaly.
She just met him there.
Mercury: How was the rest of your evening? The gathering of forty humans?
Binary: Eventful. My cousin announced he and his fiancée are expecting a baby. Two teenagers appeared from the woods and triggered a security response that turned out to be unnecessary. And I organized a dessert table by quality with a three-year-old collaborator.
