Background Noise

ZADEN

I was in the office by six fifteen.

The wedding was yesterday. I'm aware of this the way I'm aware of any completed task. It happened, it's done and doesn't need any more of my attention. The account is closed. The arrangement is in place. Whatever comes next in that particular part of my life can wait until it actually requires something from me.

Right now it doesn't.

So I work.

The boundary situation is the thing keeping me up. I don't lose sleep over operational problems, but it's the thing occupying the largest portion of my attention right now and I'd like to get ahead of it before it becomes an actual crisis instead of just a very concerning pattern.

The report from last night confirms what I already suspected. Whoever is sending scouts isn't being random about it. They're building a map. That kind of deliberate patience means something is coming, and I need to know what it is before it arrives.

I pulled up the territorial maps and worked through them for two solid hours.

Damian appeared at nine with the morning briefing.

Standard stuff.

I listened, made decisions, sent him away with a list. He was almost at the door when I heard it, movement in the hallway outside, then the kitchen. Cabinet opening. Mug on the counter. Coffee machine running.

I looked at the door for about three seconds then looked back at my maps.

She's here. Obviously she's here. Where else would she be. The house is large enough that two people can go weeks without meaningfully crossing paths and that is a feature I have always appreciated and plan to continue appreciating going forward.

I don't think about her.

I think about the eastern boundary.

Then went to the kitchen at half eight to get some water. That's a completely normal thing that had absolutely nothing to do with the footsteps I heard like twenty minutes ago.

She was at the island with a mug and her phone.

She looked up when I came in.

That face again, the controlled one, the deliberate neutral one that I'm starting to understand isn't emptiness but management. She's managing what she shows. It's a practiced face. The kind you develop when you've learned that giving people your reactions is a liability.

I went to the cabinet. Got a glass. Filled it at the sink.

She didn't say anything.

I didn't say anything either

I drank half the glass, set it on the counter and left.

I went back to my office, closed the door, sat down and opened the territorial maps.

I didn't think about the way she looked at me like she'd already done the maths on whatever I was and arrived at a conclusion she was perfectly comfortable with.

Didn't think about it at all.

Damian found me at noon.

"Amsterdam confirmed for three," he said. Then one of his pauses. "The Luna asked me this morning where the nearest grocery store was."

I looked up.

"She asked you."

"Yes."

"Why didn't she just…" I stopped. Right. Because I hadn't told her anything about the house. The area. How anything worked. Nobody had. She'd arrived here with a garment bag and a date on a card and that was the sum total of the orientation she'd received.

"I told her," Damian said. He was doing the thing where his face gives away absolutely nothing but the specific quality of his nothing tells you everything. "She walked there. Been back about an hour."

"Is there a point to this update?" I asked

"Just keeping you informed of movements."

"She's not a security variable, Damian."

"Of course not."

Then he left.

I sat for a moment with the image of her walking to a grocery store. Alone. First full day in a neighbourhood she doesn't know, in a pack territory that hasn't decided what to do with her yet. No driver. No guide. She just… figured it out herself and went.

Hmmm. I refused to think much about that and went back to work.

I wasn't planning on seeing her again that evening.

I was coming down the main staircase and she was in the entrance hall below, standing near the window, arms loosely crossed, looking out at the front garden or maybe at nothing at all. She hadn't heard me yet.

Her face in that unguarded moment was different.

Not soft exactly. Just…less managed. Whatever she normally keeps locked away wasn't fully locked right now. She looked tired in the specific way of someone who's been holding themselves upright through sheer stubbornness for long enough that the stubbornness is starting to cost something.

I continued down the stairs.

She heard me at the third step from the bottom. I watched the shift happen in real time, the face recalibrating, the neutral sliding back into place and she turned slightly and said nothing and I said nothing and I walked past her toward the kitchen.

I got to the kitchen, stood at the counter and realised I didn't actually need anything from the kitchen.

On my way back to my office, I heard her exhale quietly, the smallest release of something she'd been holding.

I didn't stop walking and didn't turn around either, because she's just a background noise.

That's all she is.

She's in my house because a debt required it and I'm aware of her because she's a new variable in a familiar environment and my brain registers new variables automatically. That's not personal. That's just how I function.

My phone lit up. It was Damian. The eastern boundary scouts had been spotted again, same position and closer this time.

And just like that she was completely out of my head because I had more important things to deal with.