He was quiet again.
Then: "He should have reached me sooner."
"He was afraid of what reaching you might cost you," Tav said. "Same as you were afraid of telling me things, early on."
Alistair held his gaze.
"That's not—" He stopped. "That's annoyingly apt."
"People who love each other protect each other through concealment sometimes," Tav said. "It's usually a mistake. But it's a human one."
Alistair looked at the archive file.
"Did you just explain away the most operationally significant deception of your professional career," he said, "using the logic of love?"
"I explained it," Tav said. "Not away."
Something in Alistair's expression softened.
"You're getting better at this," he said.
"At what?"
"At—" He gestured, somewhat vaguely, at the general territory between them. "At saying the true thing."
Tav watched him.
"You make it easier," he said.
Alistair looked at him.
Then he reached out and covered Tav's hand with his, briefly and deliberately.
"Okay," he said.
Naomi, who had been working at the table across the room with the professional absorption of a journalist in the middle of a significant story, looked up.
"Sorry," she said, "I just want to document for my own records that we are currently in a safe house, being hunted by a shadow intelligence organization, having committed several criminal acts in the last forty-eight hours, and you two are—" She gestured. "You're sweet. That's what you are.
It's completely inappropriate and very sweet."
"We're—" Alistair started.
"Sweet," she said firmly. "Don't ruin it."
He turned to Tav.
Tav said nothing.
Alistair fixed on the window.
"Right," he said, with the expression of someone accepting a verdict. "Sweet."
By the end of the second day, Naomi had what she needed: the editorial structure for the publication, the legal framework that would protect the source material under press freedom provisions, and a trusted network of colleagues who could ensure simultaneous multi-outlet publication.
Tav and Alistair had what they needed: confirmation of the drive's activation protocol and the upload sequence, Lucien's verification of the technical process through an encrypted exchange, and the decision about timing.
They agreed, in the end, on the following evening.
