"It's one in the morning." Lucien Legion rubbed a hand over his face, still half tangled in sleep, staring at her like she might be joking. She clearly wasn't. "The grocery store closest to us closes at midnight." "Then find one that doesn't." Clarice said it with the same unshakeable conviction, crossing her arms over her stomach. "I looked it up already while you were asleep. There's a twenty four hour place about fifteen minutes from here. I'd go myself, but you made me promise, very formally, with an actual handwritten rule, that I wouldn't drive alone at night anymore given everything going on." "I did make that rule." Lucien Legion groaned, dragging himself fully upright, old exhaustion warring visibly with something that looked suspiciously like reluctant amusement at being cornered by his own carefully constructed system. "You're using my own rules against me." "I'm using them exactly as intended." Clarice said it primly, though a small, satisfied smile tugged at the corner

The evening settled in quiet and unhurried, the kind of ordinary domestic calm Lucien Legion hadn't fully registered the absence of until it finally returned. He stood at the stove making dinner, something simple, pasta with the sharp cheddar Clarice had taken to melting into nearly everything lately, while she sat at the kitchen table sorting through invoices for one of her remaining clients, the soft murmur of a cooking show playing low on the television in the background.Neither of them spoke much, though the silence carried none of the earlier morning's tension, something easier and more comfortable settling between them instead, the particular, companionable quiet of two people who had grown genuinely used to sharing space.Lucien Legion caught himself humming along faintly to whatever song had come on between the cooking segments, stirring the pot without really thinking about it, and realized, somewhere in the middle of the ordinary, unremarkable moment, that an entire evening

Lucien Legion ended the call and stood alone in the hallway for a long moment, Stacy's words still ringing uncomfortably in his ears, the particular, familiar weight of her leverage settling heavy over the earlier evening's hard won peace. He hadn't realized how loudly he'd been talking until he turned back toward the kitchen and found Clarice standing just inside the doorway, clearly having heard considerably more of the conversation than he'd intended for her to catch."Sorry." She said it quickly, something apologetic in her expression despite having done nothing wrong beyond simply existing within earshot of a conversation he hadn't bothered to fully muffle. "I wasn't trying to listen. The apartment's small, and you were, well. Not exactly quiet.""It's fine." Lucien Legion rubbed a hand over his face, exhaustion settling deep into his shoulders. "You were bound to hear something eventually, living here. Might as well have been tonight.""Is that your ex wife?" Clarice asked it ca

Lucien Legion spent the following evening hunched over his laptop at the kitchen table, a legal pad covered in notes beside him, working through the problem with the same methodical, patient focus he brought to every mechanical puzzle that crossed his workbench. Security cameras for the apartment's exterior. A better lock system for the front door. A list of private security firms he'd started compiling after a few careful phone calls to contacts from his hospital days who'd dealt with similar threats protecting patients from dangerous exes or stalkers."You don't have to do all this." Clarice watched him from across the table, her own laptop forgotten beside her, something equal parts touched and uneasy in her expression. "I can hire someone myself. I do actually have money, despite everything Vivian's trying to take from me.""I know you do." Lucien Legion didn't look up from his notes, cross referencing two different security companies' response times. "I'm not doing this because I

The ordinary Saturday morning unfolded exactly like most of their recent weekends together, unhurried and easy, Clarice moving around the kitchen in search of a mixing bowl she swore existed somewhere in his cabinets despite his repeated insistence that he owned exactly one, currently occupied by the oatmeal he'd made for breakfast."It has to be up here somewhere." She stretched up onto her toes, reaching for the highest shelf of the cabinet above the refrigerator, one hand braced against the counter for balance, her loose cotton sleep shorts riding up slightly with the motion.Lucien Legion, passing behind her with his coffee, caught sight of it almost by accident, a small, delicate heart shaped tattoo inked high on her thigh, mostly hidden beneath the hem of her shorts except for this one unguarded moment of reaching.Something in his chest went suddenly, strangely still.A flash of memory surfaced without warning, disjointed and half formed the way all his fragments from that reck