Chapter Text
The apartment door shut behind them with a sound that felt too normal for what had just happened.
The hallway outside was still, but inside, the air smelled like old coffee and laundry detergent and whatever candle Patterson had burned the last time she tried to convince herself she was a person who owned candles.
Tasha didn’t let herself stop moving. If she stopped, she’d feel everything. If she stopped, she’d see Mick again. If she stopped, her ribs would remind her they were still cracked or bruised or whatever the hell they were now, and her burns would start pulling like the skin had opinions.
So she moved.
She got them in, got the door shut, got the deadbolt turned with a sharp twist that made her shoulder sting. Then she stepped aside to make room, because there wasn’t enough room for all of them to exist without shuffling.
Patterson didn’t hesitate. She never did when her brain had something concrete to grab.
“Phones,” she said, and it came out like an order even though she wasn’t trying to sound like Weller. “On the table. All of them.”
Rich blinked at her like he’d been personally betrayed.
“Excuse me, I just survived being pancaked by the internet and you’re taking away my emotional support rectangle?”
“Rich.”
He fumbled it out of his pocket anyway, screen spiderwebbed from whatever it had slammed into at HQ. He held it up for a second like evidence.
“Look at this,” he complained. “Boston is going to say this is my fault. He’s going to say it’s because I’m reckless and I don’t take care of my possessions, and he’s going to be right, but I still don’t want to hear it.”
He dropped it on the table with a little more force than necessary.
Jane added hers without commentary. Weller followed, jaw tight, eyes scanning the apartment like he expected the ceiling to come down on principle. Afreen’s phone landed last, careful and precise, as if the table itself might be compromised.
Tasha hesitated.
Her phone hadn’t been on. It hadn’t been part of anything. It had sat in her pocket like a useless, innocent weight.
She set it down anyway.
Patterson was already moving.
She crossed to the small desk wedged against the wall, cleared the corner with two fast sweeps of her arm, and opened the drawer like she’d rehearsed it. A black pouch came out, then another. Velcro. Foil-lined. The kind of thing she had started keeping around long before anyone else thought they’d ever need it.
Faraday bags.
“Power down,” she said, and it wasn’t panic. It was procedure. “Off. Not silent. Off.”
Rich made a sound like he was about to protest on principle, then thought better of it and started stabbing at his cracked screen.
Afreen was already ahead of her, fingers moving quickly, efficient. She slid her phone into the pouch and sealed it, then reached for Patterson’s without being asked. Patterson didn’t flinch. She just let it happen, kept moving.
That was the first thing that felt familiar since the explosion.
Not the apartment. Not the table. Not the smell of detergent.
The two of them falling into motion beside each other, not looking up, not needing to.
Patterson yanked the router plug from the wall.
The little lights died instantly. The sudden silence that followed was ridiculous, like the apartment itself had stopped breathing.
“Okay,” Rich said, watching it go dark. “So now we’re just… raw-dogging reality?”
Patterson didn’t give him a glance. She went for the television next, hand firm as she pulled the power cord free. Then the smart speaker on the shelf by the couch, because yes, she owned one, because yes, she’d convinced herself it was fine because she’d “hardened it,” and she was going to spend the rest of her life regretting every moment of that arrogance.
She tossed it into a kitchen drawer like it was a grenade.
“Tash,” Weller said quietly. “Windows.”
Tasha hadn’t even noticed she was drifting that way until her hand found the curtain.
She yanked it closed.
One, two, three. Every window in the small living room. The bedroom door down the hall was already shut, but the blinds were open and she could see the faint shape of the streetlight through them. She crossed the hall and pulled those closed too, then stood there for a second with her palm still pressed against the cheap vinyl slats, breathing through pain that didn’t care about timing.
When she turned back, the apartment looked different.
Not safer. Not really.
But smaller. Darker. Sealed.
Like a place that had chosen to keep its secrets.
Patterson was crouched by the wall outlet nearest the couch, tracing the cord run with her fingers like she could hear electricity with her skin.
Afreen knelt beside her without asking. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a small tool roll, the kind that came from habit, not planning. Patterson’s eyes flicked to it for half a second, then she grabbed the screwdriver and started opening the faceplate.
Jane leaned against the counter by the kitchenette, still as a statue. Her gaze tracked the doorway, the hall, the windows, the locks. She looked like she was waiting for the next hit.
Weller hovered near the living room entrance like a sentry, one hand on his belt out of instinct, finding nothing there except fabric because they’d left half their world in two vehicles and the other half in a wrecked building.
Rich paced the small strip of floor between the couch and the table, stopping every few steps like his brain was buffering.
“I just want to point out,” he said, too loud in a space this small, “that this is the least romantic apartment invasion I have ever experienced.”
No one laughed.
His mouth tightened. He tried again, softer. “What are we doing?”
Patterson didn’t answer right away. She finished tightening the faceplate back onto the wall, then stood, wiping dust and grime onto her jeans without noticing. She looked around the room like she was seeing it for the first time as a workspace instead of a home.
“We’re making sure,” she said. “We’re making sure we’re not carrying them in with us.”
Afreen’s gaze lifted.
“Your neighbor has a baby monitor,” she said. It wasn’t a question. It was a fact she’d just remembered with quiet horror.
Patterson’s jaw tightened.
“And Mrs. DiLuca has a ring camera pointed directly at our front door.”
Tasha’s stomach dropped. She hadn’t thought about any of that. She hadn’t wanted to.
Jane finally moved. She stepped closer to the table, eyes on Patterson.
“How clean can you get it?” she asked.
Patterson exhaled slowly through her nose.
“I can’t make it invisible,” she said. “Not here. Not like this. But I can cut the easy routes. I can isolate. I can slow anything that’s passively listening.”
Weller’s eyes narrowed.
“And if it’s not passive?”
Patterson didn’t answer him at first. She looked at the closed curtains, the dead router, the pile of phones sealed in foil like they were contaminated.
Then she looked down the hall.
Her voice came out quieter.
“Then we’re still in Brooklyn,” she said. “And we’re still us.”
That landed hard.
Because it meant no amount of unplugging was going to change the fact that this place had a lease agreement and a mailbox and a delivery driver who knew which buzzer to press.
Rich shifted his weight, suddenly serious.
“So,” he said, “this is… an overnight situation.”
Patterson’s eyes flicked to him.
“This is a right-now situation,” she corrected. “We needed walls. We needed a table. We needed power that wasn’t coming from a building Echo could turn into a circuit.”
Tasha flinched at the word Echo like it had teeth.
Afreen’s mouth tightened.
“We should assume—”
“No,” Tasha cut in, and her own voice surprised her with how sharp it sounded. Everyone looked at her.
She swallowed, ribs protesting.
“No assumptions,” she said again, slower. “Just save it for later. Not tonight.”
Patterson’s gaze stayed on her a beat too long.
Then she nodded once, like she’d heard the thing underneath the words.
Jane broke the moment by leaning forward, palms flat on the edge of the table.
“Okay,” she said. “Then this is the line. We’re here. We’re breathing. We’re contained. For the moment.”
Weller’s eyes flicked to the curtained windows again.
“For the moment,” he echoed, and it sounded like a warning.
Tasha looked around the room and realized, for the first time, that there weren’t enough chairs. There weren’t enough places for everyone to sit without touching. There wasn’t enough anything.
The apartment held them anyway, packed tight with dust and exhaustion and all the things they hadn’t said yet.
Patterson straightened and wiped her hands on her jeans again.
“Okay,” she said, almost to herself. Then louder: “Okay. For now, this is clean enough.”
Her eyes met Jane’s. Met Weller’s. Flicked to Rich. To Afreen.
Then landed on Tasha, steady and intent, like she was anchoring a line in the middle of a storm.
“For now,” Patterson repeated.
And for the first time since Yonkers, the room let itself be quiet.
***
The first aid kit hit the table with a dull thud.
It wasn’t dramatic. No one announced it. Jane just reached into the cabinet above the sink, pulled it down, and set it between the phones and the Faraday bags like this was a thing that happened in apartments all the time.
Which, lately, it kind of was.
“Sit,” Jane said, not sharply, not gently. Just… factually.
Rich looked at the couch like it had personally offended him. “I don’t want to sit. Sitting implies we’re done.”
“No,” Jane said. “Sitting implies you’re bleeding.”
He glanced down at his sleeve, now stiff with something dark and flaky. “Okay, when you put it like that.”
He collapsed onto the far end of the couch with exaggerated care, legs stretched out awkwardly because there wasn’t enough room for dignity. When he leaned back, the cushions gave a sad little sigh.
“Wow,” he muttered. “This couch is aggressively judgmental.”
Weller ignored him and dropped into one of the kitchen chairs, forearms braced on his thighs. Jane crouched in front of him without asking, already peeling back the sleeve of his jacket.
“You’re concussed,” she said.
“I’m fine.”
“You hit your head.”
“I always hit my head.”
Jane tilted her head, eyes narrowing just enough. “You blacked out.”
He hesitated.
“…briefly.”
She gave him a look that said they were absolutely having this conversation later and reached for gauze.
Weller caught her wrist gently before she could move on.
“Hey.”
Jane paused, just long enough to register the contact. “I’m fine.”
“You hit your head,” he said. Not accusing. Just factual.
She exhaled through her nose, annoyed more at being caught than at the check itself, and leaned back enough to let him look. He brushed dust out of her hair, fingers careful as he checked for blood she might have missed.
“It’s nothing,” she said.
“Uh-huh.”
He tipped her chin slightly, met her eyes, waited for the focus to lock in properly. When it did, he nodded once.
“Later,” he said quietly.
Jane’s mouth curved, just barely.
“Later.”
Afreen hovered at the edge of the table for a moment, then moved closer to Patterson without comment. She picked up a packet of burn cream, read the label, and slid it across the table instead of handing it over. Patterson nodded once, took it, and immediately forgot to thank her.
Tasha stood near the hallway, one shoulder braced against the wall, arms folded tight across her ribs like she could hold herself together if she just applied enough pressure. Every small movement sent sparks of pain down her side. She catalogued them distantly and shoved them aside.
She was fine.
She’d been worse.
Patterson noticed anyway.
“Sit,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. Not a command. A concern.
“I’m fine,” Tasha said automatically.
Patterson turned fully this time, burn cream forgotten in her hand. She looked Tasha up and down in a way that had nothing to do with assessment and everything to do with knowing her body almost as well as her own.
“You’re shaking.”
“It’s adrenaline.”
“You were pinned.”
“So were a lot of things.”
Patterson didn’t argue. She stepped closer instead and reached out, fingers gentle as they pressed just below Tasha’s ribs.
Tasha sucked in a breath so sharp it made Rich flinch from across the room.
“Okay,” Patterson said quietly. “So not fine.”
Jane glanced over. “Ribs?”
“Bruised at least,” Patterson said. “Maybe cracked. Again.”
Tasha laughed once, short and humorless.
“I’m collecting them.”
Patterson’s mouth tightened. She shifted her grip, careful now, and guided Tasha toward the kitchen chair opposite Weller.
“Sit,” she said again.
This time, Tasha didn’t fight it.
The chair was hard and unforgiving, and lowering herself into it made her vision blur at the edges. She gripped the seat until it passed, breathing shallow, refusing to give the pain any more space than it already had.
Beside her, Jane worked methodically. Gauze. Tape. A quick check of Weller’s pupils that he tolerated with visible annoyance.
Across the room, Rich peeled his jacket off and immediately regretted it.
“Oh no. That’s… that’s not great.”
Jane didn’t look up.
“You’re fine.”
“I am bleeding through my shirt.”
“You’re alive,” Tasha pointed out as Patterson pasted a band aid over a cut over her eyebrow.
He considered that.
“Fair.”
Afreen opened another packet and slid it toward him.
“Hold this here,” she said, indicating a cut on his forearm.
He stared at her for a beat, then obeyed.
“You’re very calm. It’s suspicious.”
She glanced at him. “So are you.”
“Me?” Rich asked, feigning surprise. “I’m in shock.”
“I think we all are,” Afreen replied as she finished patching up his injuries.
Patterson finished wrapping the last of Tasha’s injuries and straightened back up. Her gaze swept the room, counting automatically.
Jane. Weller. Rich. Afreen. Tasha.
Their injuries outnumbered them but at least they were alive.
Alive.
The word sat heavy and fragile in her chest.
Jane’s voice cut through her thoughts.
“No one’s sleeping on the floor,” she said. “We’ll figure something out.”
Rich raised a finger.
“I volunteer the couch. I think I’ve already emotionally bonded with it.”
“It’s a pullout,” Patterson said.
“And uncomfortable,” Tasha added, remembering the one night a few years earlier when she’d spent the weekend at Patterson’s while the heat was out in her own building.
Weller grinned at Rich.
“You’re sharing,” Weller said.
Patterson barely noticed when Afreen stepped in front of her with a pile of gauze. She’d been watching the interaction between Weller and Rich when she noticed Tasha quietly pad off toward the bedroom without saying a word.
“Hold still,” Afreen said, already taking Patterson’s hand.
Patterson blinked.
“I’m fine.”
Afreen didn’t look up. She cleaned the scrape with quick, practiced motions, and wrapped it before Patterson could pull away. While she worked, Patterson’s eyes stayed on the doorway, half expecting Tasha to return at any moment.
“You didn’t notice this bleeding?” Afreen asked.
“I noticed,” Patterson replied automatically.
Afreen gave her a look that said she didn’t believe her, finished the wrap, and moved on without comment.
Patterson stared at the bedroom door for a few moments. She waited, counting in her head without meaning to.
When the door didn’t open again, she exhaled slowly and straightened from the counter.
“I’ll be right back,” she said, already moving.
***
Tasha didn’t mean to go to the bedroom.
She just… drifted that way. Past the couch, past the kitchen, past the low hum of voices that suddenly felt too loud. The door clicked shut behind her before she realized she’d closed it.
The bedroom was dimmer. Quieter. Familiar in the way that only came from being there every day.
She stood there for a second, hands on her hips, breathing like she’d just finished running even though she hadn’t gone anywhere.
Then she reached for the dresser.
The photo was still crooked.
She stared at it longer than she meant to — her and Patterson, caught mid-laugh, both of them leaning slightly toward each other without even realizing it. She turned it face-down, then immediately turned it back again like she couldn’t quite commit to not seeing it.
“Idiot,” she muttered, though she wasn’t sure who she meant.
She pulled an old NYPD hoodie out of the drawer instead. It was two sizes too big and soft from too many washes. She pressed it to her face without thinking and inhaled.
The sound of the door opening and the closing softly made her pause.
“Tash,” Patterson said quietly.
Tasha didn’t look at her.
“I’m fine.”
Patterson hummed, unconvinced, and moved closer anyway. She leaned back against the dresser, close enough that Tasha could feel her there without being touched.
“You’ve been ‘fine’ for like… fifteen minutes straight,” Patterson said. “I’m almost starting to believe it.”
That got a huff of a laugh out of her.
Tasha dropped onto the edge of the bed instead, elbows braced on her knees, hoodie bunched in her hands.
“He came because he thought I needed him,” she said suddenly.
Patterson didn’t interrupt.
“I didn’t,” Tasha went on. “I didn’t call. I didn’t text. I didn’t—” She stopped, shook her head. “I didn’t need him. And he came anyway.”
Her voice started speeding up, words tripping over each other now.
“And I keep thinking about Andy, which I haven’t done in years, like really thinking about him, not just… you know….brain background noise. And then Ricky. And now Mick. And it’s like…” She laughed once, sharp and humorless. “It’s like I’m cursed or something.”
Patterson slid down beside her without a word.
Tasha leaned into her immediately, shoulder pressing into Patterson’s chest like it had always belonged there.
“I keep outliving them. Everyone,” she said. “And I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that.”
Patterson wrapped an arm around her, warm and solid, hand rubbing slow circles against her back.
“I found you on the floor,” Tasha said, quieter now. “And my brain just—” She exhaled hard. “It didn’t even consider another option. I just thought, okay. This is it. This is how it happens. This is how I lose her. Because of course I’m going to lose you like that. That’s just how the world works, right? That’s how it happens for us. For me.”
Patterson’s hand stilled.
“I can’t do that, P, ” Tasha said. “I can’t lose you. I can’t— I don’t want a world where you’re not in it.”
She tipped her head back just enough to look at Patterson, eyes wet and earnest and terrifyingly sure.
“I don’t want anyone else,” she said. “Ever. I don’t care how dramatic that sounds.”
Patterson stared at her for a long second.
Then she smiled — soft, crooked, completely undone — and pressed her forehead to Tasha’s.
“Good,” she said, smiling faintly. “Because you’re kinda it for me, too.”
Tasha laughed, shaky and breathless, and finally let herself melt all the way into her.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
They stayed like that for a moment, breathing each other in, the room holding them like it always did.
Eventually, Tasha sniffed and wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of the hoodie.
“We should probably go back out there,” she said. “Before Rich decides to reorganize my entire kitchen.”
Patterson snorted. “Too late. He’s absolutely touching things.”
Tasha leaned in and kissed her — slow, grounding, familiar.
Then she rested her forehead against Patterson’s one last time.
“I love you,” she said.
“I know,” Patterson replied easily. “I love you more.”