I think it without dread. That's new.
six
Dutch
Clearwaterhasstartedtofeel like mine in the way places do when you stop treating them as temporary. I know the guard rotation. I know that Harry takes his coffee black and gets mean before he gets it. I know that the east wall needs attention every three days because the soil underneath shifts and the posts work loose. I do it before Avery has to ask.
She notices. She doesn't say anything about it, which is more telling than if she had.
The night is calm. Evening wall check. We do this now, at the end of every day, standing side by side looking at the treeline like it'll tell us something. Mostly it's just an excuse to stand next to each other without an agenda.
Below us Jenna crosses the compound toward the medical building. Something in her walk is different than it was a week ago. Purposeful. Like she knows where she's going. She’s going to turn out great. Better than I expected.
"So, I’ve heard from Cole, they want me to join the network," I say.
Avery says nothing. She tenses.
"I'm going to tell him I want to run eastern coordination from here. If that's something you'd consider — using Clearwater as a base."
Still nothing. I glance at her. She's looking at the treeline.
"That's a significant commitment," she says finally.
"I know."
"To the settlement."
"To you." I face her. "Mostly to you. I'm not going to pretend otherwise."
The settlement sounds drift up around us. Hammer on wood. Someone calling across the compound. Ordinary, ongoing, alive.
"I was fine before you got here," she says. "I want to be clear about that."
"I know you were."
"I don't need anything."
"Avery." I wait until she looks at me. "I know you don't need me. You'd run this place perfectly well until the end of the world without me. That's not why I'm staying."
"Then why?"
"Because this is the first place since the world went to hell that's made me want to stop." I hold her gaze. "That's entirely your fault."
She looks at me for a long moment, reading me the way she reads everything, looking for the lie. She won't find one.
"Talk to Harry about the radio setup," she says. "If we're running network coordination from here we'll need more equipment."
"Is that a yes?"
"It's a yes." The corner of her mouth moves. "Don't make it weird."
I want to kiss her. We're in full view of the compound and I want to do it anyway.
I settle for covering her hand with mine on the railing. She looks down at our hands and then back at the treeline and doesn't pull away.
The call from Red River comes three days later.
Avery's already in the command center when I get there, bent over the radio with Harry. She straightens when I walk in. One look at her face tells me it's bad.
