The ladder was fixed into the concrete wall at the end of the passage — iron rungs, close-set, a hatch at the top Leon couldn't see clearly in the low light. He stopped at the base and turned back.
Marvin had stopped walking.
Not fallen. Stopped — the distinction still mattering, still his to make. He was against the wall, one hand flat on the concrete, the other pressed into his side. His breathing had changed character somewhere in the last twenty meters. Not worse in degree. Different in kind.
Leon crossed back to him.
Marvin looked at the ladder. Then at Leon.
He didn't say anything. He didn't have to.
Leon crouched in front of him and looked at the hand on his side and looked at his face and did the accounting quickly and didn't like the numbers. He turned to the girl.
"The bag. Medical wrap."
She was already opening it. Found the wrap and held it out without being asked twice. He took it and turned back to Marvin and Marvin's hand came down on his wrist.
Not hard. Just there. Just final.
"Don't."
"Marvin—"
"Save it." Flat. Command. The hierarchy still holding even here. "You need it more."
Leon looked at the wrap. At the completely insufficient inventory of what he had and what it could do.
He put it back.
Marvin released his wrist.
The passage held its silence around them. No ventilation this deep. No city. Just the three of them and the iron ladder and the hatch above.
"Don't lose it," Marvin said.
Leon looked at him. "Lose what?"
"…Hope." A breath that didn't come entirely clean. "That's what gets people through."
He looked at Leon with the direct, undecorated attention he'd been using since the shutter.
"You did alright tonight," he said.
Leon's jaw moved once. He didn't trust his voice enough to do anything complicated with it.
"Yeah," he said. "You too."
Marvin almost smiled. The shape of what one meant.
Then his eyes moved past Leon to the girl.
She was standing a few feet back, watching Marvin with the still attending focus she brought to everything — like she'd already understood this moment required something different from her than anything the night had asked of her before.
Marvin looked at her. When he spoke his voice had changed register. The command in it gone.
"Stay with him," he said.
She held his gaze.
"He's good." A breath that took longer than the ones before it. "You'll be alright."
His eyes stayed on her. The focus behind them shifting — not vacant, not yet. Two images overlapping. Present and somewhere else at the same time.
"You weren't supposed to be out," he said.
Quieter now. A different frequency entirely.
"Kendo's place." A breath. "I told you to wait there."
Leon looked at him. Then at the girl. Then back.
Marvin's hand had stopped pressing into his side. The effort of it had quietly exceeded what was available.
His hand moved instead. Slow. Not reaching for his side anymore — reaching outward, toward the girl. His fingers found her wrist before she could decide what to do about it.
She didn't pull away.
She let him hold it. Stood there with his grip around her wrist — loose, barely there, the strength behind it almost nothing — and didn't move.
"Last thing I said…"
A pause.
"I shouldn't have."
His eyes didn't move from her face.
"You know that."
He stopped. Waited for a breath that arrived slower than he'd asked it to.
"Right?"
The girl had moved closer without Leon seeing it happen. Just close enough. Watching Marvin with the still quality she used when she was understanding something — not performing it. Actually with it.
Marvin's eyes drifted.
"…Meryl."
His breath cut.
His eyes stayed on her.
Then they didn't focus on anything.
Leon didn't move for a long moment.
He'd known before it stopped. He stayed crouched and kept still and let it be what it was.
One breath in. Controlled. One out.
He reached forward and lowered Marvin's hand from where it had drifted. Set it at his side. Straightened the jacket where it had pulled. Small things. The only things available.
He did them carefully.
He reached up and closed Marvin's eyes. One motion. Careful.
The girl was beside him.
She was still looking at Marvin. After a moment:
"He stopped."
Quiet. No inflection. Just the fact of it.
Leon looked at her.
Her hand moved. Not fast. Not uncertain. Just movement — she reached out and caught his wrist, the one Marvin had held, and her fingers closed around it.
Not tight. Just there.
Leon looked down at it.
He let it stay..
She looked back at him.
Leon opened the girl's waist bag and found what was left of the wrap. He worked it around his shoulder one-handed, teeth and good arm, pulling it tighter than was comfortable because tighter than comfortable was the only setting that was going to be useful. It didn't fix anything. It contained it. That was enough.
He put the bag back on her without explaining why he was doing that instead of carrying it himself.
He stood. Looked at the ladder. Looked at her.
"We're not done," he said. "You hear me?"
She looked at him.
"We keep moving."
Leon turned to the ladder.
He looked up at the hatch — dark at the edges, whatever was above it unknown, the distance between here and there something he was going to cover without Marvin knowing the layout and without a map and with a shoulder that had stopped pretending to be functional.He'd figure it out. He'd figured out everything else tonight by moving through it rather than around it and this wasn't different.
He looked at her.
"Can you climb?"
She looked at the rungs. Then nodded.
"Stay here," Leon said.
He reached for the ladder and started up.