Nyx tilted her head slightly to the left without reducing her pace, and his feet adjusted before his mind caught up, which was either instinct or habit pretending to be instinct. The sound of water reached him a beat later, and the delay quietly informed him of the difference between her implants and his ears, a fact he chose not to articulate because acknowledging it would give it importance it didn't need.
The stream was narrow, cold, and moved over flat stones like it had decided not to care.
Proxy crouched at the bank and washed the mud from his face and hands.
Nyx pulled back the torn sleeve from her left shoulder, inspected the graze in the available light as if confirming a minor detail, and began rinsing it without ceremony.
He watched the tree line instead, which was his version of not watching her.
"It's fine," she said.
"I didn't say anything."
"You didn't have to. You had the look."
"I have several looks."
"You have two," she said. "The thinking one and the other one."
She pulled the sleeve back down and stood without hurry.
He kept his attention on the tree line for a few seconds longer, more out of principle than necessity, and then they followed the stream as it curved away.
A cabin sat on a small rise, half-claimed by overgrowth that had been working at it patiently for years, the way nature claims ownership.
Proxy pushed the door open and ran a passive scan, receiving the same unhelpful consistency the jungle had provided since they left the resort, which was to say nothing actionable.
He treated it as expected and stepped inside.
It was a small room.
An old cast iron stove against the far wall, the potbelly type built with permanence in mind, its firebox entirely unconcerned with aesthetics.
A stack of split wood beside it, arranged with care and never used.
A cot against the near wall.
A rough table.
Two empty shelves.
One window facing the stream.
"Our cabin," Nyx said.
He opened his mouth, already preparing a correction.
She turned and looked at him with a calm that felt preemptive. The conversation path closed before it began.
He adjusted.
"There's a stove," he said.
"There is," she agreed, as if this detail was perfectly within expectations.
He was looking at the window.
"The light goes straight into the tree line. Anyone at range would see it."
She considered that, which in her case meant she accepted it immediately and chose not to argue.
Then she looked at the jacket draped over her arm, the one that had clearly resigned from being a jacket somewhere around the golf course, and she moved to the window.
Using it and a bracket pulled from the wall shelf, she covered the frame, pressing the fabric flat until the light was fully blocked.
Then she turned back.
"Done," she said.
"How practical."
"I'm a practical lady."
She tilted her head.
"And you were concerned about the window."
He sighed, aware that the exchange had already reached its conclusion before he caught up to it.
"Thank you," he said.
She smiled, a warm and genuine smile, and turned toward the stove.
She crouched in front of it, opened the door, checked the flue, and began arranging the wood without performance.
He watched her with mild curiosity, aware that he might need to update what he knew about her further.
The fire caught on the first attempt, and the room shifted around it, becoming smaller, warmer, and more like a house than a building.
She sat across from him at the table and placed a ration block in front of him with the weight of a properly served course.
He looked at it.
"Hmm. It's like we are newlyweds. I'm the wife bringing dinner," she said.
"I see that."
"In our cabin."
She folded her hands on the table and looked around with genuine satisfaction, taking in the stove, the window covered with her jacket, the amber light filtering through the seams of the firebox door.
"I would have liked candles."
"If only this battle royale thought about setting up an atmosphere."
"Oh," she said. "So you know what kind of mood to set up."
He ignored her, picked up the block and read the label.
"Modified protein compound."
"That's an ugly name."
"It's printed in four languages. They are quite throughout."
"Forget that," she said, "it's our cozy cabin dinner."
She was already eating hers, unhurried and entirely comfortable.
"The best places serve compounds."
"Do they."
"The atmosphere defines the meal."
She gestured lightly with her ration block toward the cabin, indicating the stove, the warmth, the improvised curtain, then resumed eating with the joy of someone entirely satisfied with their surroundings.
He ate the compound.
It tasted exactly like what it was labeled as, which was both accurate and disappointing.
The stove made small, contented sounds.
"There's no network tonight," she said after a pause.
"Indeed there isn't."
"Nothing for you to monitor."
"That's correct."
She watched him from across the table, chin resting in one hand, with the attentive patience she reserved for things she found worth it. Namely him.
"You don't seem to like it."
"I might be lazy," he said. "But that doesn't mean I enjoy the feeling of being useless."
"Mm," she said, which conveyed her understanding of both what he said and what he chose not to say, and then she left it there without pressing further, which in itself was a kind of caring.
He finished the block.
She finished hers.
The fire set up a mood even without candles, and he was aware of the warmth, the quiet, and the absence of any network requiring his attention.
He was also aware of her watching him with those particular eyes she used when she was content but chose not to press it further for more.
"The way you set up the fire, in your first attempt," he said.
Her expression brightened instantly.
"Pretty good, mm?"
"I made a note you surprisingly have survival training."
"You could also say I did well."
"You set up the fire correctly," he said.
"That's almost the same," she said, smiling down at the table with the warmth that appears when she is praised.
He looked at the stove to avert his case, then looked for something to busy himself. The medical kit from the pack was placed on the table without comment.
She looked at it.
Then at him.
"The shoulder," he said.
She made a mildly inconvenienced sound and took the kit, treating the shoulder herself while he finished his water.
He didn't make a point of watching her, and she didn't make a point of being watched, and the fire continued its steady work in the stove.
The cot was narrow in a way that made the word feel insufficient.
He stood beside it and reviewed his options.
Cot, narrow.
Floor, stone and cold.
She was already lying on it, snuggling against the wall with her backpack as a pillow, watching him with the patience of someone who already knew how this would end.
"There's room," she said.
He looked at the floor.
Then at the cot.
"There's room," she repeated, without urgency, as if repetition would wake him up.
He lay down.
She snuggled against his side with the unhesitating comfort she always applied to that position, her head finding its usual place, her hair still damp at the ends from the stream.
The cabin was warm.
The stove ticked quietly behind them as the fire reduced to coals.
He reached for the cyberware, watched its passive loop that returned nothing and would continue to do so regardless.
He accepted that result and did not check again.
No feeds to cycle.
No door to secure.
No alert to configure on an elevator shaft.
The space normally occupied by those tasks was quiet, and he noticed the quiet the way one notices silence when it is unfamiliar, with a focused attention that suggests uncertainty about how to respond to it.
Nyx's breathing slowed against his shoulder.
The stove ticked.
Outside, the jungle remained entirely indifferent to both of them, which he recognized as the most favorable reaction.
He looked at the ceiling for a while, not thinking so much as noticing the absence of thought.
Then, without making a decision about it, he was asleep.