The city moved slower that night, like even the asphalt had grown tired of pretending everything was fine. Nora sat at the corner of a restaurant she hadn't stepped foot in since her first day at Westbridge. Outside, traffic drifted past in measured glows headlights smearing across glass like the memory of motion. Inside, the lighting was dim, the jazz low, the voices softer than usual. For once, the scent of antiseptic was replaced by sea salt and rosemary. No pagers. No monitors. Just the quiet clink of silverware and the hum of people who didn't carry ghosts in their pockets.
She felt like an intruder in her own life.
Across from her, Rowan sat with a glass of untouched wine, one hand resting near his plate, the other tucked under his chin. His scrubs were replaced by a collared shirt and blazer, but the weariness didn't change. It clung to him in the angle of his shoulders, in the faint shadows under his eyes. Still, he looked at her like she wasn't the woman who had walked into that closed-door meeting ready to take the blame for someone else's crime. He looked at her like she was something he could trust.
Nora wasn't sure what unnerved her more: the peace in the room or the fact that she was the one who had said yes to this.
"You don't talk much when you're not interrogating someone," Rowan said, his voice gentle, a hint of amusement curling beneath the words.
She took a slow sip of water, eyes flicking over the rim of her glass. "Neither do you."
That earned her a faint smile. "I guess that's why this works."
She didn't smile back, not quite. But she let her spine ease against the seat. For a moment, the air between them was easier like she could slip off the mask and leave it beside the candlelight. They spoke of little things, ordinary things: the worst cup of coffee on the third floor, the vending machine that took money and gave nothing in return, the way interns panicked when you raised an eyebrow. She even laughed once quiet, unguarded, as if she'd forgotten how to brace for recoil.
But Rowan's eyes held something heavier beneath the levity. And when he set down his glass and leaned in slightly, she knew the question before it left his mouth.
"Do you ever regret it?"
She didn't answer right away. She watched the candle between them flicker, watched its shadow stretch along the tablecloth like a silent echo.
"Regret what?" she asked eventually.
He met her gaze. "Becoming this version of you."
The words didn't land like an accusation. They landed like concern. Honest. Open. And it caught her off guard.
She could have deflected. She was good at that. But something about the stillness of the room, the weight of his voice, made lying feel more painful than the truth.
"I don't regret what I'm doing," she said, her voice softer than usual, as if testing the shape of honesty. "But I regret why I have to do it."
Rowan didn't press. He just nodded, the silence between them deepening, no longer uncomfortable but reverent.
"I had a sister," Nora continued, her eyes fixed on the glass in her hands. "She used to laugh with her whole body. Even when it hurt. Even when breathing was work."
She paused, her fingers tracing the rim of her glass like it could keep her grounded.
"She died in a hospital room that no one bothered to monitor properly. Her vitals were dismissed. Her symptoms misread. Her dosage was wrong. The attending on her case never noticed."
Rowan's face shifted pain, recognition, fury, all trying to settle in one expression.
"Was it here?"
She didn't answer. But she didn't need to.
"I'm sorry," he said, quiet but certain.
She gave a faint nod. Then, like a breath finally released, she added, "That's why I don't sleep much."
They walked afterward. The restaurant faded behind them, and Westbridge loomed ahead, lights glimmering like watchful eyes in the distance. The air had cooled, but Nora didn't notice. Her body was too used to sterile chill, too used to silence that pretended to be peace.
They stopped near a bridge that crossed a narrow canal. The water below was still, only slightly disturbed by the occasional wind. Rowan leaned against the railing, his gaze fixed on the ripples.
"You're not what I expected," he said.
Nora's lips lifted in the faintest curve. "That's the point."
But he didn't smile. "No. I mean it. You're sharp, focused, brilliant when you're in control… but I see the cracks. You're holding yourself together with barbed wire."
She didn't respond right away. Her hands rested on the railing, the metal cool beneath her palms. The truth was he wasn't wrong.
When she finally looked over, his eyes hadn't left her.
"Let me help you," he said.
The words weren't romantic. They weren't calculated. They were raw, offered without condition.
"I don't need help," she replied. Her voice wasn't cold, just tired. Honest in its refusal.
"I know," he said. "But maybe you deserve it anyway."
That silence between them stretched again, this time gentler. A quiet not filled by explanation, but by the simple act of being seen.
Back in her apartment, she stood in front of the mirror for longer than she meant to. The face looking back was familiar and foreign all at once sharp lines, tired eyes, lips pressed into calm that no longer felt natural. She looked like someone who had survived a war, not someone still fighting one.
From the bottom drawer of her desk, she pulled a folder. She hadn't opened it in months. Inside were things no one else had seen: Lily's final report, scribbled over by multiple hands. A hospital band, still stained with faded ink. A photo, frayed at the edges, two sisters on a beach, their hair wind-tangled and their smiles real.
Nora traced Lily's face with a fingertip, slow, as if memory could be recalled by contact.
"I'm trying," she whispered. "I promise."
Behind her, the laptop screen blinked.
One light.
Connected.
Watching.
And somewhere, far from the safety of dinner and bridges and folded silence, someone else watched her war begin to bloom again.