Our eyes didn't meet. He didn't acknowledge me.
But the bond tightened anyway, uncomfortable and wanting in equal measure.
Then he turned and walked away, footsteps echoing down the corridor until they faded into silence.
I exhaled slowly.
Beside me, North made a soft sound. Curiosity, maybe. Or something else.
"It's complicated," I told him.
He didn't seem convinced.
The afternoon passed in pieces.
I did the work of my internship—took notes, checked charts, observed North's behavior with the clinical detachment Rae had taught me to fake. But mostly I just sat with him. Let him lean against me while I read through me textbook. Scratched behind his ears when he pushed his head into my lap. Existed in the same space, breathing the same air, letting the bond do what words couldn't.
Somewhere in the third hour, I realized something had changed.
Not dramatically. But the quality of North's calm was different than it had been a week ago. Deeper. More stable. He wasn't just settled because I was there—he was settled because some part of him had remembered how to be settled.
The routine was working. The slow, patient accumulation of safe moments was building something in him that hadn't existed before.
Trust. Maybe.
Or the beginnings of it.
I thought about this morning. About leaving him to go to class. About the spike of anxiety through the bond when I'd walked away—and the way it had faded, slowly, as the hours passed. He'd survived my absence. He'd been calm when I returned.
That was new.
That was why I could do this at all—attend classes, eat meals, pretend to be a normal student. Because leaving him for a few hours no longer felt like abandonment. Because the bond held steady across the distance, a thread connecting us even when we weren't in the same room.
He was getting better.
Slowly. In increments too small to measure. But better.
And maybe—someday—the man who had touched my face with trembling hands would find his way back.
The light through the window had gone dim by the time I stood.
North's head came up immediately.
"I have to go," I said. "Dinner. Then sleep. The real kind, in an actual bed."
He didn't move. Just watched me with those golden eyes, and I felt the bond pull taut between us.
Stay.
The word wasn't spoken. Didn't need to be.
"I'll come back tomorrow," I said. "First thing after classes. I promise."
He rose slowly, reluctantly. Followed me as I gathered my things, my clipboard, my badge. Stayed close as I walked toward the door, his shoulder brushing my leg with every step.
At the threshold, I stopped.
He couldn't follow me past this point. The residential wing had boundaries—for his safety, for everyone's safety. He understood that, even if he didn't like it.
