I sit on the edge of the mattress, close enough to feel the heat coming off her skin, far enough that she will have to choose to close the rest of the distance. “Aurora,” I whisper.
She doesn’t wake all at once. She does what she did at the conservatory—surfaces in stages, lashes first, then a slow frown like she’s measuring the distance between now and then. She blinks at me. The first emotion that crosses her face is unguarded. Then she remembers the world. She reaches down without thinking, feels the damp, and sits up too quickly.
“I—” She’s already swinging her legs over the side, instinct to handle, fix, and hide. Embarrassment lands in her shoulders before it hits her face. “I’ll take care of it.”
“You don’t have to move so fast,” I say. I put my hand around her wrist because she’s already punished herself with the thought. The grip is firm because my hands default to firm; I make it careful consciously. “Not alone. Not here.”
Her eyes flare with the refusal I like and the fear I hate. “Cassian—”
“A bath is running.” I tip my head toward the door. “Cloths are warm. You’ll be more comfortable if you let me help.”
“I can—”
“You can,” I interrupt. “But you don’t have to.”
That sentence stops people more often than any command. It stops her now. Pride and relief fight for space in her throat and she looks away so she doesn’t have to let me see both. After a moment she nods once.
I keep her hand in mine as she stands. The robe hangs open in the back and she tugs it closed, then doesn’t bother when she realizes I’m not cataloguing her body for purchase; that’s already been done. I steer us down the short hall with my handjust above her elbow. The bath breathes steam across the tile. She stops at the threshold, cheeks hot because shame is old in her bones, even when there is nothing to be ashamed of.
“I’ve got it,” she says again, softer.
“I know.” I reach past her for the cloths like it’s the most normal thing we do, and maybe from here it will be. I sit on the little bench built into the cabinet. “Sit,” I tell her, and the word is gentle and holds.
She sits. Her knees knock together the way they do when someone can’t keep them still. I unfold the first cloth, test it against the inside of my wrist again, and then set it at the crook of her knee. She flinches at contact and then breathes out. I work slow, outer thigh to inner, never making her volunteer for her own modesty. When I move higher, I look at her face and ask, “May I?”
Her chin lifts half an inch. “Yes.”
The cloth is warm and she leans back on her palms because the muscles in her belly have cramped. She trembles once, and I don’t pretend not to notice. I put my free hand above her knee, and say, “Breathe.”
She does, ragged at first, then with something approaching trust. I wring the cloth in the basin and repeat the motion until the blood is water and then clean. I hand her the pad in silence, so she doesn’t have to ask me to hand her the pad. When she’s ready, I turn my back a fraction so she can stand and pull on the cotton shorts without feeling like she’s in a clinic. She ties the lets out a breath that almost sounds like a laugh. Relief.
“No one ever taught you that this counts,” I say, because I can read the history behind how quickly she moved to remove herself from sight.
She looks up, eyes cut sideways, mouth a little wry to disguise the ache. “No.”
“Now you know.” I hear my mother’s voice when I say it, not because she ever said those words to me but because she lived in that tense—teach it now, because later is too late.
Her hand finds the counter behind her and she holds the edge. She is still embarrassed and she is also watching me with something I haven’t earned yet and want anyway. “You’re very—” She stops. The word she wants isgood. She chooses a different one because she doesn’t want to give me an absolution. “Efficient.”
I smile because she’s right and because I like her even more for refusing the easy grace.
“Tea,” I say. “Then heat.” I pull the cabinet and take out the small microwaveable pack wrapped in soft fabric, the one the donors with too much money for their consciences like to call acomfort aidin brochures. In the house it’s a hot pack. I slide it into the little drawer microwave, set it for forty-five seconds, and in that span she watches me like she can’t decide whether to lean into the care or bite the hand that offers it.
My phone vibrates on the counter. Reid, again.
REID:Caldwell press at 07:30. Leak is real. We have the staffer’s phone. Two calls to a blocked number, three to a reporter.
REID:Do you want Hale briefed before or after Navarro?
I look at Aurora. Her hair is a dark spill, damp at the ends from last night’s steam and what we did in it. There is a little vertical line between her eyebrows where she concentrates on pretending not to be watched. This is not the moment to hand her a new fear and tell her to carry it to breakfast.
ME:After. And the report is redacted. She sees process, not names. Move the Echo kids before the press hits.
REID:On it.
The microwave beeps, a small sound in the large tile. I take the pack to Aurora and test it against the inside of myforearm. I press it gently against her lower belly, watch for the flinch, and release when her face doesn’t pinch. “Hold this here.”
She does. The way her shoulders drop is better than a study in any book. The adrenaline leaves her mouth and her eyes and leaves something raw and honest in its place. Without lifting the pack, she reaches for my wrist. Her fingers close around it like she wants to saythank youand can’t yet. I take the thanks anyway and put it where it belongs, in the part of me that still believes building things is better than burning them.
