Page 62 of The Words Beneath the Noise

“You don't have to carry this alone,” I said quietly. “If there's guilt, it belongs to both of us.”

“That's not supposed to make me feel better.”

“I know. But it's true. And maybe. Maybe it helps to know you're not the only one who lies awake at night wondering if the weight is worth carrying.”

His breath caught.

“Why are you here, Art?” The question came out raw, desperate. “Really. Why do you care what happens to me?”

“Because you asked me once if I was alright, and you meant it. Because you walked me through the snow and didn't judge mewhen I fell apart. Because—” I stopped, suddenly aware of how close we were standing, how intimate this moment had become. “Because I think you might be the first person who's ever seen me properly, and I don't want to lose that. Don't want to lose you.”

Something shifted in his expression. The raw pain was still there, but underneath it, something else. Something warmer.

“You're not going to lose me.” Rough. Raw. “I'm not going anywhere.”

“Then neither am I.”

We stood there in the dim light of his small room, my hand on his wrist, his tears still wet on his face, and the distance between us felt smaller than it ever had before. Some barrier that had been holding us at arm's length finally beginning to give way.

“Stay,” he said quietly. “Not for. Just. Stay for a while. I don't want to be alone with this.”

“I'm not going anywhere.”

He guided me to sit on the edge of his bed, and he took the single chair, and we sat in his small room as the last light faded outside and talked about nothing. About everything. About the specific shade of grey the sky turned before a heavy snowfall. About whether the canteen tea had always been this terrible or if we'd just noticed. About Ruth's dry humour and Noor's sharp tongue and the way Mrs Parker always seemed to have an extra biscuit hidden somewhere.

Small things. Safe things. Human things that had nothing to do with codes or coordinates or the weight of lives we couldn't save.

And somewhere in the conversation, Tom's tears dried. His shoulders relaxed. The shattered look in his eyes slowly reassembled into something more like exhaustion than despair.

“You should try to sleep,” I said eventually, when the silence had stretched long enough to feel comfortable. “You've been awake for. How long?”

“Lost count somewhere over the Channel.”

“Then sleep. I'll go.”

“You don't have to.” He said it quietly, not quite meeting my eyes. “Go, I mean. You could. If you wanted. Just. Be here.”

The offer hung between us, weighted with implications neither of us was ready to name. Not an invitation to anything improper. Just the simple, profound request to not be alone.

“Finch's rules,” I said reluctantly. “If someone sees me leaving here in the morning?—”

“Right.” He nodded, something flickering across his face that might have been disappointment. “Right. Of course.”

“But.” I hesitated. “Tomorrow. If you need. I'm in the attic room in the east wing. Third floor. You can knock.”

“Returning the offer?”

“Seems fair.”

Something almost like a smile touched his lips. The first one I'd seen since he returned from France.

“Thank you, Art. For coming. For. All of it.”

“Thank you for letting me in.”

THIRTEEN

SUSPICION AND SUGAR