“Got it.”
The segmented plates extend over the trench with a mechanical shriek. Beneath them, the maintenance well glows like a wound, all cold blue light and moving pistons. Heat rises from it in greasy waves. Tilda steps out first, weight centered, body low. I follow exactly where she places her feet. Plate one. Hold. Plate two. Wait. The sweep arm flashes past close enough that I smell hot copper. Plate three. Shift left. The steel vibrates under our boots.
A sudden crash to our right announces trouble. One of the lateral support beams has buckled under another team’s bad landing, and the jolt throws the whole sequence into a hard shudder. Tilda’s next step hits just as plate three stutters. Her footing slips.
I do not think. I move.
Not outward. Not flashy. Not the kind of full-body stunt that nearly gets everyone killed while looking cinematic. I plant my left foot, drop my center of gravity, and catch her under the ribs with one arm before momentum can carry her toward the gap. The sweep arm comes again. I twist us both down, taking the impact on my shoulder against the rail shield rather than letting it tag her. Pain sparks bright and immediate through my arm, but it is superficial, the kind of hot blunt shock I can catalog later.
“Tilda,” I say, close and low, because the machinery is too loud for anything else. “Look at me.”
She does, breath sharp, eyes wide for a single unguarded beat.
“You with me?”
“Yes.”
“Good. On three we move together. Not fast. Together.”
She nods.
“One. Two. Three.”
We cross the last plates as a unit, not pretty, not elegant, but synchronized enough that the sweep arm misses by inches. Once we hit solid flooring on the far side she shoves a hand through her hair and glares at the course like she would like to invoice it for emotional damages.
“You took the hit.”
“I’ve had worse.”
She grabs my arm before I can wave it off properly, fingers quick and competent over the shoulder the sweep arm clipped. “Show me.”
“It’s fine.”
“Bron.”
“It’s singed, not detached.”
She checks anyway, and the look on her face when she confirms I’m telling the truth is complicated enough to make me look away. “We keep moving,” she says.
“Thought you’d never ask.”
The rest of the course is a blur of grinding doors, tight turns, and pressure-timed gates. We move better than we ever have, and not because the cameras might love it or because unresolved longing sharpens chemistry, but because our trust has become procedural. Useful. She says jump, I jump. I say clear, she moves. At the final obstacle, a descending barrier threatens to split us, and instead of dashing through solo to shave a second,I brace the edge with both hands and hold long enough for her to slide under before following at the last possible instant. My shoulder hates me for it. I do not care.
We hit the finish platform in the safe bracket with enough margin that the scoreboard flashes our advancement before I have fully caught my breath. The crowd erupts. Somewhere overhead the commentators are probably inventing language about redemption arcs and couple synergy and whatever else sells ad space. None of that reaches me. I am bent over, lungs burning, listening to Tilda breathe beside me, feeling the fossil’s shape in the pocket over my heart where I put it before the run and realizing there was not a single moment in that course where I wanted to do anything impressive if it increased the chance of not going home to see Jesse again.
Tilda straightens first. “You could’ve cut past me at the barrier.”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t.”
I look at her. The arena lights turn the sweat on her skin to gold. “Didn’t want to.”
“That might have cost us time.”
“It didn’t.”
“That’s not the point.”
