Chapter Text
Noah wasn't in the house when N woke, but he'd left a note on the kitchen table about meeting up with Lanz and Eunie. Just as well. He had errants of his own to run, and Noah didn't need to waste his time coming along. A shower—a quick breakfast—getting dressed—and then he was off towards the industrial district.
Instead of heading straight to Valdi's place, N took a small detour over to a different kind of workshop, wherehe clanging of hammer on metal reached his ears even from outside, and indeed, when N entered, he found Riku busy hammering away on an anvil. N cleared his throat. Riku didn't acknowledge his presence for another minute before finally putting the hammer down and turning around.
"What N want?" he asked.
"Your sword broke while I was—"
If Nopon eyes could bulge, Riku's surely would have at that moment. "Broke sword? Broke sword? That finest example of Nopon craftsmanship you broke!"
If a tude's jaw had been able to break it in two, that was doubtful. Pointing that out would likely get him kicked out of the workshop though, so N held his tongue. "It was a tude," he explained. "It bit down on the sword."
Riku harrumphed. "Should try harder not to let tude bite on sword next time. Then sword not break."
Why exactly was the most capable weaponsmith they had left such an insufferable little... N took a deep breath. "I'll need a new sword," he said. "Please."
"Why make sword if just going to break again next time tude appears? Noah didn't break sword. Only N did."
He could have argued that tudes rarely ventured that close to New Alcamoth. He could have argued that Noah's staying intact had been mere luck. He even could have argued that the sword breaking had been instrumental in killing the tude in the end. None of those would get anywhere with Riku. Instead, he grit his teeth and said, "I'm sorry. I'll try my best not to break the next one."
"Hm..." Riku squinted at him. "Will believe N this time. May not believe the next. Issue would not have happened if had not discarded Lucky Seven, also."
"I was dead, Riku."
"That nothing more than excuse. Should try not being dead next time, too."
There came a point in every conversation N had with Riku where he wondered if Riku was intentionally messing with him. This time, Riku continuing without waiting for an answer spared him the need to think of a response.
"Anyway, if N is Noah, then decision of Noah reflect back on N as well. N should take share of responsibility for loss of Lucky Seven."
Strange logic that veered into philosophical topics on the subject of personhood and identity that N had no desire to discuss with Riku. Or anyone else other than Noah, frankly. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "Will you make a new sword for me?"
"Fine. Riku will make sword. Will deliver to house when done." Riku turned his back on him and resumed hammering on the anvil. It was as good a dismissal as any, so N bid him goodbye, which Riku might or might not have heard over the clanging, and left the workshop.
Valdi's own workshop wasn't far from here, a few blocks past empty buildings and storehouses. Inside, Valdi and Segiri stood leaning over the prototype of the farm helper. At the sound of his footsteps past the open front gate, Segiri looked up. "Your timing is excellent," she said in lieu of a greeting. "Requesting assistance with an issue that previously occurred."
Valdi looked up as well. "Oh! Hi N! Yeah, your timing is great, can you look this over with us? Oh, er, how is your arm, by the way?"
"It's healing," N said. He didn't especially want to stick it into the innards of a machine and risk scratching the barely closed skin, but that didn't preclude looking at whatever issue they had. "Is it still the moisture detection?" he asked as he joined them in the centre of the workshop.
"Yup. I recalibrated the probe according to the soil sample Zeon gave me which he said was 'ideally moist' so now it gives the correct readings, but... er, just see for yourself." Valdi reached over and engaged the mechanism, which whirred to life and lowered the probe rod into the pot of soil standing underneath. The meter they'd installed in the outer casing of the robot in case someone wanted live readings and not just the logs counted up to a low percentage, and though N didn't know much about soil moisture it looked accurate enough. He was about to ask what the issue was when the robot emitted a beep and the pot shattered under the pressure of the rod still descending. Soil scattered across the workshop floor.
"It just doesn't stop," Valdi said. "Well, it does here because of the floor, but if we try it outside, it breaks out of the holding."
"What is the issue? Just install a safety measure to prevent it from going too far."
"That has been attempted," Segiri said. "We have determined that the issue lies in the programming attempting to bypass the hardware, rather than the hardware itself."
For someone who'd only barely begun to dip her feet into the world of engineering, Segiri had assimilated the lingo quickly. As for the issue itself: N knew why he had always preferred the manual controls of Kevesi Levnises. He distinctly recalled similar problems cropping up whenever they'd developed new Agnian ones. Seeing how neither Valdi nor Segiri had any firsthand experience with Agnian Levnises, that presumably made him the most qualified to diagnose the issue despite his relative inexperience with writing the software himself.
Let me see the code, he wanted to say, but Valdi cut in before he got the words out.
"It reminds me a bit of when I tinkered with Agnian Levnises, trying to get the automation logic to work—"
"How did you have the opportunity to work with Agnian Levnises?"
"Oh, well, after we made peace with Colony Iota they handed some of them over to us—mostly the defective ones, now that I think about it, but I still learned a lot from them!" Valdi touched the log terminal of the robot. "I used that to write the software for this one... hey, do you think that's the issue? Using Agnian-style code with this type of machine?"
Incredible. Moebius had gone to great lengths to keep the technology of each side out of the other's hands to ensure a relative equilibrium in the war, and they'd been successful at it for the thousand years and then some N had been among them. Oh, certainly, there had been slip-ups, it was unavoidable when operating at the scale of Aionios, but they'd always been quick to rectify any mistakes, by force if necessary. Then a new crop of Ouroboros had come along and—no, it hadn't just been them. Valdi and the commander of Colony Iota had chosen to make peace and collaborate, something once considered to be unthinkable.
Even in the frozen moment of Aionios, change had forged its own path.
"Well," he said. "Let's have a look at the code, then."
Valdi pulled it up on a screen and N found himself faced with the spectre of someone whose ability in writing software vastly eclipsed that in documenting said software. Line after line after line of code scrolled past with nary a comment or explanation on what any of it did. The naming scheme Valdi had employed, or rather hadn't employed, was of no help either.
"Scroll back up," he said. "What is 'hrvstFruAcrdLogFile'?
"Oh, that? Harvest fruit according to log file," Valdi said as though it was perfectly self-evident. "I thought it was getting pretty long and annoying to type, so..."
The integrated development environments of this world came with all the same autocomplete capabilities as the ones in Aionios had provided. N chose not to point that out at this juncture. The function was unlikely to have anything to do with their present issue, anyway.
Not that the code that did relate to measuring moisture or extending the meter into the ground revealed anything to him. Including, as it were, how it actually worked. Squinting, he scanned the lines of code for any semblance of understanding to no avail. A quick glance at Segiri revealed that her expression was as impassive as ever, but her own gaze seemed fixed on one particular line as if she, too, was grappling with its meaning.
This was intolerable.
"Valdi," N said, "you need to work on making your code readable."
"Aw man, Yuzet always says that too."
"He is correct. If you want help on your project, you can sparking well learn to make your code presentable."
"Woah," Valdi said. "I think that's the first time I heard you swear."
He didn't sound hurt about it. N stilled anyway. He'd never been one to swear overmuch, and had lost the habit completely over the years. "My apologies," he said.
"Nah, you are right." Valdi sighed. "I just don't get how I'm supposed to do it, is all. I look at my code and it all makes perfect sense to me. Look, here—this part is obvious, right, it's for computing the input from the meter—"
It was a jumbled mess. Much like the entire workshop, in fact. Tools strewn about, materials haphazardly stacked, when had Valdi last cleaned up in here? It merited a reprimand...
But what was he thinking? He was in no position to do that anymore. "How about we just go through it together," he said instead, stifling a sigh.
It took a while, due to Valdi's tendency to get distracted, but little by little the code became less messy, and by the end Valdi didn't even need much prompting anymore to swap the incomprehensible abbreviations for something more obvious. They even stumbled across the bug they'd originally tried to find by complete accident. An issue with the feedback from the probe had rendered the data stream empty, which prevented the program from recognising when the probe had been fully extended. A quick dive into the output format solved the issue, and the next test run was a full success.
In that it didn't break the replacement pot, at least.
Valdi cheered. A moment later, Segiri joined in, though with rather less overt enthusiasm. N contented himself with a smile.
"Was that the last remaining issue?" he asked.
"Yep! Now we can show Zeon the prototype!"
"How much have you tested it, exactly?"
"Er. Hm. I think it was enough?"
N glanced outside. It had grown late in the afternoon, after having spent so long listening to Valdi explain his own code to them. "How about you spend tomorrow doing some final testing."
"Hm, guess you have a point. Yeah, let's do that tomorrow. Hangout time?"
"I'll see y—" N started before Valdi's last two words sank in. "Hangout?"
"Sure. We have nothing else left to do, right?"
N hadn't 'hung out' with his engineers, of course. He'd been a Consul; they'd been rank and file, due to expire in a few short years. In the times before, perhaps... but if he'd managed it with Noah, he could manage it with Valdi and Segiri.
"What did you have in mind?" he asked.
Investigating the wildlife, apparently.
"Oh, look at this one!" Valdi exclaimed while circling around an eluca, which didn't seem concerned with the attention as it continued eating its way through a tree's worth of leaves. "They're similar to the ones we had around Colony 30, but the colouring is different and I think this one has more hairs!"
Who'd have thought the mechanic had such an interest in biology.
"You've been to Erythia Sea in Aionios, right, N? What about you, Segiri?"
"Affirmative," Segiri said. "After the fall of Colony 0, operations were shifted to Li Garte prison, which lay empty at the time."
Owing to the proximity to Agnus Castle, the area had been firmly in Agnus' grasp. As a colony soldier, N had seldom gone and on those occasions had rarely stayed long. In the City, expeditions close to the castles had been far and few between for good reason. And as Moebius... well. Visiting M had never put him in the mood for sight-seeing. "She probably remembers more than I do," he said and left it at that.
"My apologies. I am not familiar with the specifics of Eluca biology. I can confirm the colouring is different, but am unable to provide further information."
"That's okay," Valdi said as cheerfully as ever. "I can ask other people later. I bet Triton's been all over Erythia Sea!"
"Have you always been interested in this?" N asked as Valdi circled the Eluca together with Segiri.
Valdi produced a measuring tape from his pocket and held it against the eluca's antenna. "Not always. I noticed how cool all this was when I worked with Isurd—that's the commander of—"
"—Colony Lambda, yes." Hard not to be familiar with him, after J's little stunt with the colony. Just how many Agnian commanders had Valdi made friends with, anyway?
"I was helping him with some stuff, and that's when I noticed how cool all this is. They react to us and their environment, change their behaviour... well, usually at least, this one doesn't seem to care about us..."
It was such an obvious conclusion. Of course they did; what else were they supposed to do? But in the eyes of a colony soldier who'd never known anything else, maybe it was just that special. Segiri certainly seemed to agree, as she took note of everything the two observed with unwavering attention.
Faced with that, how could N just stand by?
"This tree existed in Erythia Sea, or at least a species very close to this," he said. The fruits were edible, so they'd been propagated in the prison yards. "I don't recall the Erythia elucas feeding on it, but I'm hardly a biologist. Do you know anything about it, Segiri?"
Segiri sat and pondered, eyes cast downward, a finger on her lips. "Affirmative," she announced eventually. "I believe I have seen this while patrolling the former prison yard. Inference: This eluca and the Erythia Sea variant have similar nutritional requirements."
"Man," Valdi said, "I wish I knew how all that stuff with Origin worked..."
"Recommended course of action: Querying Queen Melia. Past experience indicates she might be amenable to explain."
"You think she'd explain? She's so busy all the time, though... I don't want to bother her." Valdi looked up from his measuring tape. "I don't suppose you know, N?"
"Not in the slightest. Z never told us anything of how Origin worked." To this day, N couldn't even be sure how much Z had known of its working. Being born of the souls sleeping within, had he been granted knowledge that surpassed the boundaries of Aionios? Or had he been denied that just as much as everyone else?
Next to Valdi, Segiri had laid her pen and paper down on the grassy plain and now looked up at N. "Requesting information," she said. "I am interested in the experience of serving under Z, if you are amenable to sharing your knowledge."
N stilled. Nobody had asked him that—not since they'd all woken up in this world, and not before either. Perhaps Noah would have, but he was the one person who didn't need to. Not after seeing for himself.
What had it been like? It was hard to put into words.
"You don't need to talk about it if you don't want to," Valdi said.
"Affirmative. It was a request. Thi—I don't have the authority to give orders to you."
"I know," N said. "I want to." It was his past, full of shameful deeds and sorrow; it was what had led to him becoming the person he was today, for better or worse. It had led to Noah existing, and perhaps for that alone it had almost—almost—been worth it. Therefore, he didn't want to keep silent about it. Not permanently, and not fully.
"The days blurred into each other," he began after another moment of deliberation. "Time passed, and I barely took notice." If not for his work as head consul, perhaps he would have lost track of it altogether. As it was, at times he'd woken up in the morning only to realise an entire year had passed by without seeing M. He'd told himself then that it didn't matter; they had eternity, and in the face of that what was one measly year?
He'd been a fool.
"I suppose it might be hard for you to imagine," he continued. "But in those days, nothing ever seemed to change. Living became routine. Rote, even." And so the years had passed by in a haze. He'd gained the eternity he'd wanted and found it empty.
"And Z..." He paused for a moment, groping for the right words. "Z loomed over everything. He always watched us. Or perhaps there was never any way to know he wasn't watching at any given moment." But that still fell short of what it had actually been like to be Moebius under Z.
The eluca crawled away from the tree as he grappled for a way to convey the sheer outsized presence Z had held in his life. "He was... he was everything," he settled on eventually. "As much a benevolent saviour as a spiteful enemy. He liberated me from the cycle, and then..." He lowered his gaze to the ground. The things he had done as Moebius had been his choice. He could have left and didn't. But was it so wrong to say that Z had led him to those choices? Was it dodging accountability again?
"He brought out the worst in me," he said, still not meeting their eyes. "Always prodding, pushing me to go just a step further than I was willing the day before... and I went along with it, every step of the way."
Of course, the very first step—destroying the City and murdering its people—had already been more than he should have taken.
"I am reminded of Consul F, who led Colony 0," Segiri announced into the silence. "In hindsight analysis, I am able to see the way his orders continually escalated."
"That's not the same."
"Please elaborate on the difference."
I'm Moebius, N wanted to say. Actions of one who had stood outside of the system and benefited from it couldn't be compared to one who lived within it and felt its coercions. But then, at the start, he hadn't been Moebius, had he?
"I benefited from it in a way you never could have," he said quietly. "But maybe in this, F and Z were not so different—and maybe neither were we, all the way back before I settled into being a consul."
"I would like to continue talking about this matter," Segiri said. "When we are not outside of the city's boundaries at nightfall."
A fair point. It was growing darker by the minute.
"I don't have nearly as much of a stake in this all," Valdi said, "seeing how my own Consul was a right mudder but didn't do any of that, but if you want someone else to talk about it... well, you know where to find me."
It was ridiculous of a sixth termer to offer; and that was a line of thought N no longer wanted to entertain. "Thank you," he said and he meant it.
"Anytime." Valdi packed away his measuring tape and then smiled up at N. "That's what friends are for, right?"
Friends. It had been a long, long time since N had truthfully been able to call another his friend; though they were by all accounts friends, it felt odd to call it that even now. "You can come to me about engineering issues, too. I can't promise I'll be able to help, but I can at least try."
"That's great, because I already have loads of other ideas for things to build..."
Valdi didn't stop talking for the entire rest of the way. N surprised himself by not feeling annoyed by it. When had he last tolerated being talked at like this? He was changing, little by little.
The only question was, whom was he changing into?
"This is your farm helper?" Zeon asked, circling the Levnis planted in the middle of the freshly tilled and seeded field. His voice was passive; his face even more so. This was not a man who easily let on what he felt, which perfectly matched the impression N had gleaned from Noah's memories.
It was strange for people he'd never met to feel so familiar, even now.
"Yep!" Valdi said. "He autonomously checks field conditions, waters the crops as needed and sends alerts if something's wrong that he can't fix by himself."
Zeon gazed at the farm helper without responding. The early morning light glinted off of the chassis; out here in the field, there was nothing to block the sunlight. Not even other people. Zeon had neglected to invite any of his co-workers, and nobody else had cared enough to attend the demonstration.
The entire time he had not cast even a single glance at N, who felt a lingering regret that he'd accepted Valdi's request to come. He'd helped build it, certainly; he was still not needed to showcase the final prototype. He knew from Noah's memories that Zeon's colony had hungered after being cut off from castle supplies. Having the former head consul of Keves present to him something meant to help with farming would feel like mockery, even if N had never personally been involved in that order.
"Well, let's give it a try," Zeon eventually said.
Valdi, grinning broadly, hit a few keys on the robot's interface. It whirred to life, its display showing the various initialisation notices that N had personally rephrased after Valdi had entered another round of shorthands only comprehensible to him.
"So I heard that you had trouble with plant diseases before, yeah?" Valdi said. "He can check for that too. Do you want to see?"
Zeon nodded, and Valdi engaged the robot. For a moment it spun in place, then its movement sensors engaged properly and it whirred off to the nearest crop. What were they even growing here? N hadn't asked, nor did he recognise the budding sprouts.
The sensor arm swung over the plant. Valdi had done most of the heavy lifting in writing the code controlling it, and the component had been swiped from an existing Levnis of this new world. It was a cobbled together machine, but that was only appropriate. They'd all come from a cobbled together world, and brought their patchwork lives into this one.
And somehow, everything still worked. The sensor beeped, the display lit up, and judging by Zeon's approving nod the information shown on it was accurate. "It's true this one has been plagued by lice," he said. "Not to a degree we weren't able to deal with, but if we hadn't noticed they'd have eaten away at the leaves undeterred. Automating check-ups will be... helpful. How long did it take you to build this?"
"Couple months. It would have been longer if not for them helping." Valdi motioned towards Segiri and N. The gesture prompted Zeon to glance at Segiri and then, at last, at N as well.
"Clarification," Segiri said. "I did not join until late in the development process. Valdi and N completed most of the work before then."
There was an uncomfortably long moment of silence before, finally, Zeon nodded towards N. "Thank you for the work, then. We have some leftover produce if you'd like to help yourself."
N almost said no, that wasn't necessary; he didn't need to skip the queue and get things from the source. That was until Zeon added, "The remainder of the heart peach harvest needs to go before it goes bad anyway."
Heart peaches, of all things.
"Is that alright with you?" N asked.
"I would have thought you were used to taking more than your fair share."
N winced, then shushed Valdi who'd launched into protest. "I am," he said. "Therefore, it's more important that I try not to fall back into old habits."
Zeon nodded, and a part of N bristled. Could Zeon not at least have employed something more sophisticated, if he had to test him at all? But that was a fool's reaction. He accepted the armful of heart peaches, nodded back to Zeon and said his goodbyes to Segiri and Valdi, who wanted to stay behind to further instruct Zeon in how to use the farm helper.
It was a good day, crisp and cloudy, and if the food was unwieldy to carry without a basket, what did it matter? He still had two healthy arms to bring it home—maybe to cook something with it to surprise Noah, if he wasn't yet home—
Melia rounded a corner in front of him and stilled at his sight. "Good morning," she said amicably. "Gone shopping for food during your recovery?"
"Zeon gave it to me, as thanks for helping with the farm Levnis." N glanced at the armful of food. It must look a little strange for him to walk the street carrying fresh produce. Most of the yields were meant to go to the canteen, after all.
"What will you make with it?"
"I don't know yet," N said. "Something for Noah. He likes them."
A look of sadness crept onto Melia's face and disappeared as soon as he'd noticed. "I'm glad it's still being farmed. Someone I knew also had a fondness of it..."
Someone who had since vanished without a trace—a few months ago, or a few thousand years. "It must have been hard on you," N said quietly. "To be the only one left."
At that, Melia smiled, tinged with the same sadness. "It is, I cannot lie. Even though it is not the first time I have found those around me gone from this world, it never gets any easier. Thank you for your concern. I will be fine."
Not 'I am fine'. 'Will be'. "I doubt you'll look to me for support," he said, "but if you're in need of someone to talk to..." He shrugged, awkwardly. "I'm hardly a stranger to losing those close to me."
"Maybe I should," Melia said. "Maybe I will. After all, those I used to confide in are... not here anymore."
Not here anymore. Three words that at once encapsulated the horrible emptiness perfectly and fell so far short of describing it. And this wasn't the first time she'd experienced it, she said...
N glanced at the produce he was holding. "I'll bring some to the palace when I'm done preparing it, if you'd like."
"I've had my reservations about you," Melia said. "But I was right to trust Noah when he spoke out for you. You've changed, and for the better." She paused then, as if to contemplate her next words. "Tell me. What is it you want to do in this world?"
"I'm still trying to find out." N fell silent, sorting through his own words in turn. "I want to be with Noah. I want to help re-establish contact with Alrest, if I can. And beyond that..." He thought of the guards who had patrolled the surroundings before the Intersection, whom he'd never met, and said: "Beyond that, I want to protect the now so that those in it can chart the future."
Melia's smile widened, now absent the sadness. "Spoken like a true Moebius. I believe that you—no, that we will all find a new path for ourselves in time. I have faith in you all, and faith that we will find a way to bridge the distance between our worlds one day."
If even Melia, who had lost everything in the Separation, could find it in herself to meet the future with confidence, what excuse did he have to waver?
What excuse to dally regarding the question that had occupied him? He had his answer, didn't he?
"Would you excuse me?" he asked. "I have something to attend to."
Melia excused him, and he continued his way through New Alcamoth's outskirts, full of empty houses that would one day be filled again. A catastrophe of untold proportions had befallen this world, but they were still here, still carrying the legacy of those that had come before into the future. All thanks to those who had fought to bring an end to Aionios. And did that not include him as well? He deserved no praise for changing his mind after a thousand years, but in that space between spaces, he'd made the choice to believe in the future.
He could be proud of that, he found.
As expected, Noah wasn't home when he returned. Still busy collecting volunteers for the memorial inauguration, probably; it had been a few days, but even the most efficient surveyor couldn't hope to cover everyone in such a short time.
He unloaded batch of heart peaches on the table and consulted the recipe sheets Noah had made, but came up empty. The recipes Noah had written down were mostly filling main dishes, not something one could use a pile of fruit for; as for the ones that weren't, he lacked other ingredients. There was always the option of finding a basket and arranging them in it for Noah to find, but that was dull. No, he wanted to make something out of them.
He placed the sheets back on the table next to the peaches. Wasn't there a recipe book on the shelf stocked by the home's former owners?
Neither he nor Noah had felt comfortable touching it in these past few months. Though N had read the book he'd borrowed from their predecessor's room and more recently Noah had brought home some books from the newly reopened city library, there was something too personal about the ones in this home.
He had to get over that sooner or later. There was no reason not to tackle it today.
He made his way over to the bookshelf, looking past all the entertainment literature. One day he'd examine those; today was not this day. But there in the corner stood a short row of cookbooks. One of those had to have what he sought. And indeed, flipping through the pages for a few minutes, he paused at a recipe for heart peach jam.
Did Noah like jam? N didn't remember him bringing it up; in fact, he didn't recall seeing Noah ever eat jam in his memories, though those had grown fallible over the past few months. But then, if Noah had never tried, that made them the perfect gift. He had lemons from the castle stocks, harvested recently. And the so-called gelling sugar was right there in the kitchen. Left behind by Mel'iren and Galtryth, perhaps in the hopes of making jam of their own.
He tied his hair back so it wouldn't get in the way, took the recipe book over to the kitchen and grabbed the back of sugar, weighing it in his hands. It felt about half full, but there had been no jam in the fridge when they'd moved in. Maybe they'd eaten it before the Intersection, or they'd given it away as a gift as well.
"Thank you," he said out loud into the empty room, feeling silly for it. "I'll be sure to treasure it."
One by one, he removed the pits and cut the peaches into small chunks, making a right mess in the process prying the pits from the flesh, but he could wipe down the counter after he was done. The aroma spread through the kitchen in no time. He snuck a piece into his mouth before dropping them in the pot, savouring the sweet flavour melting on his tongue. When was the last time he'd had heart peaches? They'd grown around Keves Castle the entire time, yet he'd never cared enough to procure any.
In went the gelling sugar with the peaches, along with the freshly squeezed lemon juice. Then he turned up the heat, and resisted the urge to stir obsessively lest it burn. Every once in a while was enough.
He hummed a tune as the peaches cooked into jam, totally off key yet unable to bring himself to care. Maybe if he practised enough he'd get on Noah's level one day. Wouldn't that be nice, to write his own melodies?
By the time his melody had come to an awkward ending he couldn't bring himself to mind, the peaches had thickened enough to take them off the stove, give them a final stir and then sample it, spoon directly into the mouth.
It was delicious. Sweet and acidic in just the right balance, melting on the tongue in equal measure—or at least N thought so, and if he did then surely Noah would as well. They had, after all, retained the same taste buds.
It was then that he realised he didn't have any jars. Rummaging through the cupboards didn't unearth any either. Frowning, he looked at the cooling jam pot. He could head over to the kitchenware store he'd found while looting the city—
The door clicked open. So much for that, then. His frown deepened; he'd wanted to be done by the time Noah came home.
"Are you back already?" Noah called from the entrance. "How did the presentation—ah?"
"I made jam," N said as Noah came into the kitchen-living room, awkwardly shuffling in front of the stove. "I couldn't finish up before you arrived, though..."
Noah, of course, didn't complain, or grumble, or indeed express any negative reaction at all. "It's delicious," he said after sampling the jam right out of the pot. "Do we still have leftover bread? Here, let's—"
And then they stood in the kitchen and ate bread with fresh jam dripping off the slices and onto their hands, still warm from the stove, sticking to their lips. It wasn't at all what N had in mind, that would have been presenting Noah with a jar of jam wrapped with a ribbon or somesuch. It was better, somehow.
Almost, he didn't want to interrupt the peace, the levity with what he was about to say. Though Noah would take it well, there was every chance that it'd change the dynamic between them in ways he couldn't foresee. Could he really—should he really—
"Hey," Noah said. "Do you think we're ready to move into the bedroom?"
"Ah?" N replied, and immediately felt stupid. So absorbed in his own head that he'd been caught off guard. For a moment he didn't know what to answer, then he nodded. "We dallied long enough, haven't we? Let's... let's try."
It wasn't running away, to delay the conversation. Settling into their home was important too.
The bedroom was only a short walk away, but it was a walk neither of them had undertaken since moving in. The door had remained firmly shut, letting them ignore some portion of their new reality. Now N pushed the door open, a step ahead of Noah, and entered.
It was a bedroom, almost disappointing in its mundanity. It didn't look any different from the other new-world bedrooms N had seen; the cream-coloured covers were neatly folded back, the pillows fluffed up, the clothes drawer adorned by a pair of socks haphazardly discarded in front of it. Another photo of the couple stood tilted on the nightstand, this one showing them arm in arm and side by side. It was covered in dust, which stuck to his fingers when he wiped it off.
"Do you think it'll ever feel like ours?" Noah asked.
How could it, when nothing else did? They lived on borrowed ground—stolen ground, even if they themselves hadn't been the thieves. None of it belonged to them, except for the jam still in the pot down in the kitchen, or the fruit Zeon and his fellows had harvested, or the farm helper Valdi had built with his and Segiri's help.
And for what he was about to reclaim for himself.
"We could start by changing the bedding," Noah continued when he didn't answer. "There's a former store we can get more from if we need to..."
And on the way pick up jars for the jam, and anything else they might need for their new bedroom. It made perfect sense. Yet, if he left the words he wanted to say behind, here in this bedroom full of ghosts, who could say when he'd next find the courage? How silly, to have such apprehensions about it—but then, maybe that was simply part of being him.
Part of being his own version of Noah.
Heart pounding, words quivering in his chest like a bird fluttering its wings, he turned and faced Noah—the other Noah, his other Noah—head-on.
Noah paused, and reached out to grab his hand. "It's going to be alright," he said.
He must have noticed something in N's posture, or perhaps his expression. N gazed at their hands, fingers intertwined, Noah's palm warm against his own. It was going to be alright, wasn't it?
For the roads went on without end, and regret did not have to be their be-all, end-all.
"Will you call me Noah again?" he asked, and with that, took his first step onto a new road. As himself.