Considering how late it was when they were done, Harper told them to stay the night. There were folding beds for guests, and Danny's room was vacant tonight.
Alex woke up to cramps at two in the morning. She glanced over at Magnus sleeping soundly from exhaustion on the other folding bed, decided sleep was probably not coming back on its own, and got up to find water.
The light in the dining area was already on. Harper was sitting at the table with a mug, not reading, not on her phone. Just sitting. She looked up when Alex appeared in the doorway.
"Can't sleep?" Harper asked.
"Cramps," Alex made a face.
Harper stood without a word and went to put the kettle on. Alex sat down at the table and didn't argue. A few minutes later, Harper set a mug of herbal tea in front of her and settled back into her own chair.
They sat in companionable silence for a while. The apartment was quiet around them. Outside the window, the city did whatever it was that cities did at two in the morning.
Then Harper said, almost idly: "You know, you got your dad's brain. And his charisma."
Alex glanced at her.
"You could probably direct a whole room of people if you put your mind to it," Harper continued. Alex didn't confirm or deny that. Harper took her silence as the answer it was. "Mm. You have." She wrapped both hands around her mug. "But it's actually your boyfriend who reminds me more of your dad."
Alex turned to look at her fully.
Harper laughed softly, like something had surfaced from a long way back. "Do you know why I ultimately decided to give you two a chance to explain yourselves today?"
Alex shook her head.
"Something your father said once." Harper's expression was thoughtful, unhurried. "He said anyone can learn to be charismatic, to different degrees. But that only gets you so far. Genuine trust gets you much further." She tapped her temple briefly. "Because one thing comes from here." Then her hand moved to rest over her chest. "And the other from here."
She huffed a quiet laugh. "Everyone at the office used to tease him for being an idealist and a romantic. And yet we all would have died in his place if we'd been given the chance. Because that was just the kind of man Nathan Locke was. Genuine to a fault."
She looked at Alex. "And Magnus is the same. But I think you already knew that."
The silence that followed had more pressure than before.
"You see why I'm so scared of losing him," Alex said finally. It came out quieter than she intended. "He's reckless. He believes in the same things my dad did. Which is probably what made me fall for him, but now it…"
"Scares you to death?" Harper finished for her.
Alex nodded. Harper considered her for a moment before speaking again.
"Here's the thing, though. You only knew your dad the way a child sees her father. And given how he died, you and your mom probably have complicated feelings about the way he saw the world." She paused. "But I worked with your father, Alex. He wasn't reckless."
Alex opened her mouth. Harper wasn't finished.
"And from what I've seen so far, Magnus isn't either."
"…What do you mean?"
"The scariest thing about your father," Harper said, "was how fast he could read someone. Not just emotionally — he could tell almost immediately whether someone deserved his trust, or whether they were going to earn it. And he made that call instinctively. Never had much of an explanation for it beyond hunches." She turned her mug slowly in her hands. "And yes, he died. And James and I both suspected foul play. But neither of us ever thought, not for a single second, that it happened because your father trusted the wrong person."
Alex went still.
"You're saying Magnus does the same thing?" she asked slowly.
Harper was quiet for a moment. "Yes," she said. "He probably doesn't even realize he's doing it. But I suspect he'd likely already understood how to behave around me the moment he walked into this apartment on Wednesday. Maybe even before that."
Alex stared at her. Harper continued before she could respond.
"The test I gave you two earlier — the one that got you into that argument — that was my way of checking whether he was really what I thought he was. He would have come out of it alive either way, because I'd already believed you both by then. But the choice he made, as irrational as it looked to you? That was what confirmed it. He'd already read me correctly. He just didn't know that's what he was doing."
"Couldn't that have backfired?" Alex asked. "If he'd already assessed you and was acting on it, wouldn't that feel manipulative?"
"It would have," Harper said. "If he'd done it consciously. If he'd deliberately calculated and performed accordingly." She shook her head. "But that's not what happened. The thing about people like your boyfriend — and it was the same for your dad — is that they genuinely believe they're taking a leap of faith every time. They can't explain their trust in people beyond gut feelings. To them, they're just hoping. Trusting that people will do the right thing." A small smile. "They're not strategic. They're just right more often than seems reasonable."
Alex winced slightly. Because she had known this, or started to suspect it: the way Magnus's hunches always seemed so random and borderline reckless in the moment, and then somehow paid off anyway.
"How could you tell?" she asked.
Harper laughed. "Alex, I'm twelve years older than you both, and I'm a single mother who deals in politics for a living. Why did you think your plans didn't work on me back on Wednesday?"
Alex stared down at her tea. Harper reached across the table and covered Alex's hand with hers briefly. "All I'm saying is: place a bit more trust in your boyfriend's hunches, even if you don't agree with them, even if they seem irrational or illogical."
"But what if I do and they get him killed?" Alex pushed back.
"I'm not telling you to step back and let him do whatever he wants. People like your dad, like Magnus — they're idealists. They need people like us, the more pragmatic ones, to help keep them grounded. To turn their hunches into something actionable. To be the reality check." She squeezed once, then let go. "Just as pragmatists like us need people like them in our lives, to show us the beauty of life, and the best in people."
"But what if I help," Alex said quietly, "and it still gets him killed anyway?"
Harper looked at her for a moment. "Then you'll know you gave him what he needed to make the choices he believed in. And that's not nothing."
"But honestly, remember what I said earlier? You two are so dramatic!" She stood and picked up her mug. "Like seriously, Alex. You two are not alone in this. I'm just a phone call away if you need me." She paused at the kitchen doorway. "Try to get some sleep."
She was almost to her bedroom when Alex said: "Thanks, Harper!"
Harper turned back slightly. "I didn't mean to drive a wedge between you and your boyfriend."
Alex started to say something.
Harper held up a hand. "Don't. I know why you two fought. And I know why you've been walking on eggshells around each other. Even if I wasn't the root cause, I was still the trigger. This is just me making amends for something that happened partly because of me."
"Also," she added after a moment, "I think you'd eventually have come to the same conclusion with or without my help. I just sped up the process instead of letting you two idiots spend weeks agonizing over it."
She went to bed. Alex sat at the table a while longer, hands wrapped around her cooling mug, watching the city through the window.
***
Magnus woke up at four in the morning to the deeply confusing realization that Alex was somehow on his bed — his folding guest bed, which was not large to begin with — and clinging to him like he was a human-sized body pillow.
For several long seconds, his brain simply failed to process the situation.
The room was still mostly dark, lit faintly by the city glow filtering through the curtains. One of Alex's legs was tangled with his. Her head was tucked against his chest. One arm was wrapped around his waist possessively, like she was worried someone might try to steal him in the middle of the night.
Magnus had absolutely no idea how this had happened. Which meant he also had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to do next.
On one hand, he probably should get up. Because this was confusing and dangerous and emotionally complicated.
On the other hand, this actually felt really nice after the past few days. He'd missed this: being this close to Alex, smelling the shampoo, bodywash, and other familiar scents he'd come to associate with her. All the fighting, cold shoulders, keeping distance, and tension between them since Wednesday had been exhausting.
And then there was the third mutated hand he thankfully did not possess: the possibility that moving too much might wake Alex up and create an entirely new category of awkwardness he was not mentally equipped to deal with at four in the morning.
So, naturally, Magnus did the only thing he could think of. He closed his eyes and pretended to still be asleep. Which worked perfectly for almost seven full seconds.
Then his alarm went off. The sound shattered the silence like a gunshot.
Magnus nearly had a heart attack. His eyes snapped open as he lunged for his phone with all the panic of a man trying to defuse a bomb before it detonated. Usually this was when he woke up to get ready for Jordan's training.
Half asleep and internally dying, he managed to silence the alarm after several catastrophic seconds of fumbling.
Then he slowly turned back toward Alex, who was already awake… and staring directly at him.
Magnus's brain promptly decided to blue-screen.
"It's not what it looks like!" he blurted instinctively. "I wasn't trying anything!"
Alex continued staring at him silently.
"We're on my bed, see?" he added desperately, gesturing helplessly around them like the mattress itself was critical legal evidence.
Still silence.
"I mean… I'm not accusing you of anything either," Magnus continued, now digging himself deeper with every word. "This is probably just some kind of misunderstanding."
Alex stared at him for another few seconds. Then, finally:
"It's not a misunderstanding."
Magnus stopped breathing.
"I know why I climbed onto your bed."
His brain blue-screened again.
Alex sighed quietly and shifted slightly closer against him instead of away.
"You should probably call Jordan and cancel training today," she said. "We need to talk."
That somehow terrified him more than Jordan's workouts did. Heck, that line scared him more than missing Jordan's workouts did.
"…Okay," Magnus answered carefully.
But neither of them moved immediately. Because despite everything, this was still the first time in days they had held each other without anger sitting in the middle of it. And apparently neither of them was quite ready to let go yet.