The term partner when he’d used it before had made her think of the pairings of soldiers she had known of before. Those who were friends, closer than friends, and there for one another. She hadn’t thought more of it. Until now, when he spoke of Paul cooking and Cain baking and she couldn’t help but wonder. She couldn’t help but smile a bit, moving to lean against the counter, watching him. It was the one thing she knew she was good at after so many years. Watching and learning.


At the mention of Glitch, she flinched, looking down and away though it didn’t last long, looking back to the other room, thinking of that design and of the floor. “He has such a great eye for things,” she said, fairly choking on the words as her memories and emotions threatened to overwhelm her. “Is that something you did in the O.Z.,” she asked, curious of the man he’d been as well as the man he was. “Gardening? I admit, I enjoyed a bit of it, of digging in the woods for things, though I rarely had the patience though I enjoyed the science of plants very much,” she said, smiling at the memory of her studies.

“What does Paul do,” she asked, refusing to speak of him in the past tense. Too much had changed, too suddenly, and she didn’t want either of them thinking in the past tense of those they cared for.