“Then we fail honestly rather than succeed falsely.”
“I’m a disaster,” she says, looking at the soup-covered disaster area.
“Yes,” I agree, reluctantly releasing her hand. “But an interesting one.”
“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me since Martin called me ‘adequately attractive’ on our anniversary.”
“Martin was an idiot.”
“You don’t know him.”
“I know enough.”
She looks at me, soup-stained and exhausted, and smiles. A real smile.
Something shifts in my chest. Not magic. Something more dangerous.
She hands me a mug of questionable soup.
“Want some?”
“I do not require food.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
I take the mug. It is warm against my palms. “I have not eaten in four days.”
“Four days? That’s...”
“Typical.”
“That’s sad.”
“That is immortal efficiency.”
“That’s definitely sad.”
She moves to the sink, rinses the soup pot, sets it in the dish rack with the care of someone trying to impose order on chaos. I recognize this—she does it constantly. Straightening papers, organizing books, cleaning when stressed. Control in small things when large things are impossible to control.
She clinks her mug against mine, sloshing more soup. “To terrible soup and impossible choices.”
“To unexpected partnerships.”
We drink. The soup is terrible—metallic, vaguely sweet, wrong in ways I cannot name. She makes a face but keeps drinking.
The foundation stone starts humming “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” loud enough to rattle the windows.
She laughs, soup sloshing. “The stone has opinions about our partnership.”
“The stone is an optimist.”
We stand in the soup-covered break room, and this—sharing terrible food in a disaster area—feels more intimate than any ceremony could.
“Stenrik?”
“Yes?”
“After we save everyone... would you maybe want to get real soup? That isn’t expired?”
