“Eat. You collapsed from malnutrition as much as head trauma. Your body is trying to heal while you feed it nothing. Math doesn’t work that way.”
She pushed food into my grasp. Bread. Cheese. Something wrapped in wax paper that smelled like cured meat. Hovering. Her palm warm on my shoulder.
Worried. She was worried in ways that went beyond clinical concern.
The realization settled in my chest. Different heat than protectiveness. Softer. More dangerous.
I tore off a piece of bread. My hands steady now, at least. Small victory. Forced myself to chew and swallow even though my throat wanted to close around questions I couldn’t ask.
The taste exploded across my tongue. Real food. Salt. Fat. Substance. My stomach woke with a vengeance, cramping with sudden hunger.
I ate mechanically. Bread, cheese, meat. Watching her watch me. The exhausted shadows under her eyes. Darker than before. The way she kept checking me like I might vanish.
She barely slept watching me. Probably didn’t sleep at all. We were circling back to a few days ago, and that was counterproductive.
We needed to talk about this. But food first. Then laptop. Then... maybe I could figure out how to gesture that conversation.
I glanced at the groceries spread around us. Raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah, I bought enough for a small army. Because apparently I panic-shop when fugitives I’m harboring collapse unconscious for eighteen hours.”
Sarcasm again. Deflecting.
I reached for the notepad tucked under the laptop. Wrote: Thank you.
She read it. Her expression shifted. Softened.
“Just eat the damn food.”
I ate. She watched, satisfied when I swallowed, relaxing by degrees.
After a few minutes, she grabbed the laptop, angling it so we could both see. Our shoulders touched. Natural. Easy.
Her weight against my side grounded me more than the food.
“While you were unconscious, I became best friends with anonymous internet surgeons. Living the dream.”
She pulled up the forum thread. Lines of text filled the display, username after username stacking responses beneath her original post.
“Got some responses. Nothing concrete, but enough to be... concerning.”
I leaned closer, reading over her shoulder. My hand found her thigh automatically, settling there like it belonged. Denim was warm under my palm. The contact grounded me while processing the words on screen.
She didn’t pull away. Didn’t even flinch. Just kept scrolling, her leg solid and real beneath my touch.
“Okay, so.” Clare tapped the trackpad. “General consensus from the medical hivemind: your chip is weird as hell. Custom-built for something that definitely isn’t helping you.”
“This guy,” she pointed, “thinks it’s military hardware. Prototypes, classified trials. Another one speculates wireless capability.” She scrolled faster. “Lots of technical jargon. Nobody really knows. But everyone agrees it’s not medical.”
My fingers tightened.
Wireless. Signal handling. Someone could be listening. Watching. Tracking.
“Yeah, I had the same reaction.” She glanced at me. “Super comforting. “
“And here’s where it gets interesting.” Bitterness crept into her voice. “Meet V_Actual_87. Internet’s most charming personality.”
She highlighted a post in all caps.
