QT UK - Chapter 13 (WIP 3)

Here's the latest update. I ended up taking a hatchet to the last section on CorruptingPower's advice after I got into this latest scene and realised the pacing and focus was all wrong, so that's included here along with the penultimate section of the chapter.

It's still not Ethan and Aoife hooking up, not just yet, but it's the final narrative hurdle I needed to get myself over and everything from here on is what we've all really been waiting for. I'm already 2000 words into that however, and you have no idea how good it is to write the words "I love you" coming from Ethan's lips towards her. This is the easy stuff to write, so chances are I'll probably have something to share with you all by this time next weekend hopefully, even if it's just the first draft.

After that I'll probably be giving the whole thing a bit of a pass to tighten everything up, punch up a few places and work out whether I'm labelling it as 1 chapter or 2.

Lemme know if you spot anything you like or that's not working while I can still give things tweaks. Enjoy

******

The pill bottle rattled as Nia shook a capsule free and for a moment, the familiar white shape looked back up at her from her hand, almost gloating at her. Outside the production office, rain had begun to lash over Taymont, and as she stood at the door, the drumming white noise as it beat against the prefabricated walls only added to the rushing sound that already filled her ears.

It was the first time since meeting Ethan that her anxiety had been bad enough to leave her feeling like she needed the beta-blocker, something that had been an almost daily occurrence before she’d been vaccinated. Hell, she was barely even smoking as a way to deal with stress anymore, while the controlled drumming of her fingers she used to keep her nerves beneath the surface had started to feel more like a foolish habit than a necessity. In just over a week, the never ending feeling of fighting herself, and years of panic attacks had almost entirely gone and instead been wrapped up in something warm and soothing and helpless any time she was near him. But she was making herself avoid him right now, despite how ridiculously tenuous her reasons were starting to feel, and she didn’t want any first impressions to be coloured by the lingering smell of smoke. So what did that leave her…

‘Slow down. Breathe. Focus. You are stronger than this.’

Nia tossed the capsule back before her hands could start to tremble, swallowing it without water. She could feel her heartbeat racing, the pressure building, and her eyes closed as she willed the medication to help it all slow down. When she’d heard Aoife had been rescued, she’d wanted to give Ethan the space and time he needed with the green haired woman, and had brought herself to the temporary building, across the lawn from the Hall itself, to try and work. But all she’d managed to do was put more on her own shoulders, and it was only speaking to Evie that had stopped her from spiralling. Nia had known what she needed to do, but it had taken her partner listening to her as she’d paced back and forth on the office’s barely there carpet to help her resolve to actually do it.

Exhaling, slowly, she gave the same tug on the bottom of her jacket that she always did. She knew any effort on her appearance was pointless, given the rain was about to soak her through anyway, but the action of straightening her outfit habitual enough to feel like a tick and right now it was all she could do to reach for her mask, and do her best to fool herself into confidence.

Nothing about the situation came easy to Nia. She had already spent too much of her life being told that who she was wasn’t good enough to afford being vulnerable. From her first week at private school being told her hair was unacceptable to the way she was talked across by peers at university; with every promotion she was passed over for some ego with the right connections and every failed relationship. Right back to how her mother would push and expect, living her own lost opportunities through her daughter, never able to tell her she loved her, only that she was proud.

Nia was only ever allowed to feel like she mattered when she fought to show her worth, and now she had the chance for something different and she loathed herself for forgetting how to be anything else.

Despite what some people thought, she hadn’t asked for where she found herself. Most of the rest of Averna’s board had been vaccinated weeks ago, their partners given the US serum on the initial stabilisation rounds, but she’d demurred. It had taken her that long to overcome the worry that something would rob her of herself  that enough of her mind would be rewritten that she’d wake up from imprinting as someone different, an imposter in her own skin. She’d argued that it was poor optics if she was running PR for the launch of a drug she hadn’t even taken herself and that she would wait for Gemivax to be ready, but in truth she’d simply been terrified.

The last few weeks had changed her of course, but it would have changed anyone, and there was no point along the way where she’d stopped being her as she’d feared. But that fear had been the reason why, when the company had pushed for her to be designated as the team’s focus on Delphi, she’d eventually accepted. Not for herself, but for the other women she was going to be bonded with. She’d heard one or two horror stories from the US and Nia had reasoned that if things were going to happen with or without her, it was at least better to take what influence she was being offered. It might well have been ego talking, but if she could make herself even a little bit responsible for what happened to those joining her team, no matter what hand they were dealt, that was better than nothing.

She had told herself she could make sure things were perfect for them. But then things weren’t even close to perfect, were they?

‘Your responsibility. Your mistakes. Your fault.’

It was barely fifty metres from the office to the hall itself, but it was still far enough to leave her dreading the effect on her hair and from the instant she stepped outside she was cursing whoever’s idea the arrangement was, followed by herself for not thinking of an umbrella. There were already several figures outside, soaked through as they worked hurriedly on a spill of cables that ran to a cluster of trailers that sat dark without power. The third cut to Studio 1 in as many days, and with less than an hour to go until the evening news. Since Aoife had gone missing, it had quickly become obvious just how many miracles she had been performing with barely anyone noticing. She gave them a wide berth, the presumptive parking of the Special Branch cars leaving her dodging puddles on the grass as she made her way towards the Hall’s main entrance, only for her to stop and consider turning back as she got nearer.

Collingwood stood beneath the awning that covered the front steps, taking shelter as drew on a lit cigarette, radiating judgement even at her most casual. Nia saw too much of herself looking back in the other woman’s eyes for anything but wary respect, but the officer was still one of the last people she wanted to be dealing with at that moment. Collingwood had spotted her first however, leaving Nia no choice but to slow her steps, and to try and project her own authority as she approached. Collingwood allowed her the distinct impression she was waiting for her, despite how implausible it felt that she’d have known to expect her, something it was hard not to concede was a good trick. More pressing however was the feeling that she’d been caught out without knowing what for, and any hope she might be allowed to pass with nothing more than a nod disappeared as the police woman reached into her coat and held out a pack of cigarettes.

“Care to join me?”  

It took Nia longer than she wanted to shake her head, the offer drawing her attention back to the looming, cliff-edge agitation clawing inside her chest and how the beta-blocker hadn’t begun to kick in yet, if it was going to at all. But Nia knew herself, and she knew that probably wasn’t going to go away. At least not as long as she felt responsible for all the ways the next few hours could go so badly wrong. Aoife was her problem, and a quick hit of nicotine was only going to come at the price of feeling more exposed when Collingwood started asking questions.

The police woman held the pack out just long enough to feel pointed, before returning them to her pocket, seemingly satisfied enough that Nia knew she had business with her. Taking another drag of her own, she blew smoke into the air.

“I know you’re protecting her.”

The covering over the porch was small enough that Nia was forced to step much closer to Collingwood than she’d have liked in order to get out of the rain. From a distance, it would have looked as if the pair were conspiring, standing close enough together to whisper, but Nia would have preferred anything else and she was forced to settle for folding her arms as a way to keep herself as closed off as possible.

“I had just enough questions between this and what happened to Ms McNamara to get authorisation to do some digging. Project Upstart’s Delphi data makes for interesting reading.”

Nia had enough practice at remaining impassive, despite how much she wanted to glare back at Collingwood. “It’s been challenging, for a lot of reasons. There were good people we wanted to have on board and working around that almost meant the planning had to start again from scratch.”

“I can imagine there were a lot of difficult feelings to navigate.” The detective’s statement was outwardly sympathetic, but Nia could tell how probing it was, like a fencer trying to open up her guard.

Difficult was an understatement. Of the three men who Nia had originally contacted to work on Project Upstart, two had passed away from DuoHalo before they could be vaccinated. The first, an experienced tv journalist called Nick Hastings had been hard enough to replace with Rhys, but it was losing Tom Warrick that had really left everything in tatters.

Tom was meant to have been her partner. When Nia had tentatively allowed the algorithm to compare her to potential candidates at Taymont, it had given her two possible team arrangements and it was the older Welsh producer that she’d chosen. The conversations she’d had with him had gone more to persuading her past her fears than anything else and hearing that he’d died after collapsing was the closest she’d come to backing out. But things were too far along, and it had left her with her second choice, the inexperienced leap of faith with the compatibility score high enough to scare her shitless.

“It was harder for the handful of people who knew enough to start having expectations,” Nia said, simply. Or at least it had been that way at first.

Reworking things around two new Teams had meant ripping everything up. There had been a world where she and Nell Armstrong might have been the first members of Team Warrick together, where Aoife and Farah could have been good matches for Nick, and where Evie hadn’t been on the project at all. Nia was sure that had been tough for people like Armstrong who’d known and had watched the numbers suddenly change, but it was part of why she’d barely thought twice about Ethan and Aoife. Neither had disclosed their feelings for each other and they were just one of several maybes and almosts that hadn’t come to pass, but she had missed what was there. Despite the promises she’d made to herself, she was still chasing the ghosts of a story they hadn’t told.

Collingwood continued. “I did notice that Aoife Ryan wasn’t on any of those team allocations, in fact there was no suggestion she was seriously being considered for the project, until less than a week ago.”

“I have a level of discretion with staffing and chose to use it,” Nia’s voice turned firm, but not aggressive. “I assume you’re going somewhere with this?”

“Don’t try and sell me that, I’ve seen the numbers, she has a compatibility with Team Barclay ten points lower than any other pairing you’ve allowed on the entire project. Her answers to simple questions could barely be less consistent with yours if you tried and there are more red flags around the data on her hard drive than really I care to count.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, I assume she’s been through a lot and I’ve already said I will take full accountability for any information breaches from the project, but I’m not answerable to you on how I run it.”

“Her compatibility with Ethan Knight has nothing to do with anything then.”

At the mention of Ethan’s name, Nia’s finger’s clenched as a hot wave of anxiety swept up through her, and she had to pause and force her words to stay level. “Are you actually expecting me to answer that?”

“You know this is going to be much easier if you work with me here.”

“Is it?” Nia’s eyebrows quirked upwards, showing her incredulity. She had no doubt that Collingwood could make this very unpleasant if she wanted, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t do the same. She had come so close to never having Ethan and Evie in her life, but now they were she couldn’t imagine anything else, and she would fight for either of them, no matter the cost to herself. “This is my problem. What will be easier if you back off and let me handle it and I’ll happily shoulder the consequences.”

As if spotting the coming confrontation, the officer softened, her shoulders dropping with something approaching exasperation. She blew smoke again, and Nia’s cravings almost caused her to miss how Collingwood was using it to take a beat and keep her own composure.

“Allow me to reframe this. I am good at my job, Nia. Not the sort of box ticking crap that passes for competence with some people, actually good. And now, more than ever, part of that means recognising when I’m pushing against something that’s better being left well alone. Between what’s happened here and Delphi being manipulated with Alex McNamara, I have enough to drag things out kicking and screaming into the light if I choose to. But right now I can’t quite shake that the consequences from doing that to Project Upstart aren’t going to be in anyone’s interests.”

Things still felt heightened enough for Nia that with every word the other woman spoke she was looking for the obvious trap, wondering exactly what she wanted that was going to be used against her. She knew what her gut told her, but that was all the more reason to make herself slow down and check with her head, but Collingwood mistook the hesitation for reluctance.

“I know when I’m being lied to. You have an engineer who’s stolen and then leaked state secrets, you’re defending her, and I need you to look me in the eyes and give me a reason to be good at my job.”

Nia breathed.

‘What’s one more leap?’

“Early on, a little after I got here,” she started, “one of my colleagues gave me a piece of advice. He told me that I’d never have all the answers, so I should work out which of my choices I could bear to live with, and then live with them.”

The dynamic reversed, and she watched as suddenly Collingwood was the one scrutinising her, trying to puzzle out where things were going.

“I thought I understood what he meant, but I didn’t. I’ve been hedging my bets. I had enough rose-tinted hubris to think that as long as I was a step ahead I could find some way to make sure everything was perfect no matter what happened. But when I saw the look on Ethan’s face when I told him that we could match Aoife to Rhys…”

The memory felt too big to put into words, so, against character, Nia didn’t even try. It had only shown for the briefest moment before he’d buried it, but the hurt Ethan had felt had been so vivid that Nia never wanted to see it again. Even making it clear that it was just as ruse hadn’t quite been enough and had left Nia asking her how she would manage if she actually was the one thing standing between them. The further this went the more it was obvious how deeply Ethan felt, and it kept bringing her back to one answer; she didn’t think she could. Maybe that had changed about her too?

It was why she was avoiding him. Her mind was made up, and she hated the idea that he might be selfless enough to try to do or say something that put her feelings back in the equation.

“By all accounts Aoife Ryan is reckless, she’s stubborn and she is incredibly lucky this doesn’t seem to have caused more problems than it has, but I’m not doing this for her. I’m doing it for him. Whatever happens, that is the one choice I can live with myself making.”

The sound of the rain punctuated the declaration as Collingwood listened. Nia understood the question being asked was whether the police officer was best to accept what had happened and walk away, but there was nothing to her reaction to suggest whether she’d been given the answer she wanted or not. Even the half-smile Collingwood gave, self-satisfied in the corners, could be read one of two ways.

If she had even planned to reply, the officer was interrupted before she could, as the walkie talkie on her belt sprang to life, and garbled something that she seemed to understand but that Nia missed.

Collingwood flicked the remaining ashes, clinging to the end of her cigarette away, before bringing the radio to her mouth. “I’ll be right there.”

She stepped down from the porch, out towards the rain, and the black sedan parked closer to the entrance than anything else had dared. It was only as she approached the car door that she bothered to turn towards Nia.

“I’m needed back at the station. That’ll be all for now.”

Frustration simmered inside her, but Nia refused to debase herself by demanding more. She didn’t have the energy for aloof and inscrutable. Instead, all Nia felt was relief that it was one less concern for now, if it was even still an issue at all, and the instant the car pulled off the drive, she unfolded her arms, letting her hands shake.

She turned, pushing the door open and trailed water behind her as she finally made her way into the hotel’s reception where the polished wood panels and freshly cut flowers showed Palisade’s contractually mandated priorities.

Nia had half expected vocalising things might have made the weight feel lighter, but it hadn’t, just making it feel even more real. She had pushed and fought and stressed over getting things right, lost herself in rose-tinted hubris, been found wanting. Her own baggage had made her so sure that it was her responsibility to shoulder every possible outcome that she’d missed what should have been obvious, but she still had time to fix things, or at least to try. Her legs didn’t want to move, but she took a second to collect herself, and made them anyway.

‘Breathe. Focus. You’re stronger than this. For them.’

Stepping towards the hotel’s grand staircase, her eyes followed it upwards, step by step, towards where she knew Aoife’s room and the source of her anxiety waited.

It was time to build a bonfire for her expectations, and to find something good in the ashes of perfect.

*****

Aoife tipped her head back, and stood beneath the spray, letting the heat of the water trace its way across her skin. She ached in more ways than she thought possible and the shower was taken more out of a stubborn refusal to do nothing than any sort of expectation it might help, but the physical knots had eased at least. And somewhere, between washing the days old mud off her legs and starting the process of retouching green in her hair, part of her had begun to feel a little more human. A pissed off, raw, splintered excuse for a human, sure, but it was still better than the sickening numbness that had stuck to her after Ethan had left, and the cops had come to question her.  

She wanted to be more angry, she should have been furious, but it just wasn’t there, and it felt worse every time she went looking. Ethan wouldn’t even let her have that, but when she tried to hate him for it the emotion felt even harder than the rage did. The only thing that really stirred anything, was thinking about what had happened to Hayley, and that was even less bearable than being empty. Trying to work out if she’d ever felt like this before, the only thing that came close was being a kid, getting told her dad had died; and one English prick had made her feel like she was 12 years old again, with the world dropping away beneath her. Maybe she was grieving, but if she was, she wished she knew what for.

Her hand strayed between her legs, running through the increasingly untamed bush of dark hair that had been growing there. Aoife normally kept it trimmed for her own benefit, rather than anyone else's, and the impulse was to grab a razor and make herself tidy things like she was everything else, but the sudden thought that it might not just be for her, and might never be again, made her stop. That was one particularly fucked up mess of feelings she wasn’t ready to confront directly. However, her fingers had still grazed low enough to come with a guilty pang of heat and reminded her how long it had been since she’d gotten off.

Considering that she might be more pent up than she realised, or that feeling something, anything, had to be better than how she was, Aoife experimentally brushed her hand against her clit. She definitely wasn’t a stranger to rubbing one out, snatched and exasperated, in the shower, but the touch did nothing, and she quickly hated herself for even trying. Instead, she reached for the shower’s controls and turned up the heat, searing her body beneath the jets until she couldn’t stand any more.

She was interrupted by the sound of knocking on her hotel room door, insistent enough to be heard over the running water. It continued, even as she reluctantly shut off the shower, prompting her to shout back tersely that she was coming. The bath towel was just large enough to protect her modesty and she wrapped it around herself to answer, barely giving a fuck how much of her tattooed thighs were on show as she inched the door open.

The dark skinned woman that stood in the corridor would have been pristine were it not for the rain drying on her cream coloured suit, with serious eyes that, after the briefest scan downward at Aoife’s own attire, remained fixed forward with a sense of smooth discipline. Her voice was clipped and measured, and the moment she opened her mouth she managed to leave Aoife feeling inadequate.

“Hello Aoife.”

The woman attempted to seem sympathetic, offering a faltering smile before continuing, but Aoife didn’t particularly want her understanding, or for her to be here at all.

“I’m-”

“I know who you are.” The leap was easy enough to make, and she didn’t need introductions or the offered out ID badge to confirm it for her. With Nia Clarke-Mills in front of her, suddenly feeling pissed off felt a little less difficult.

“I thought we should probably talk.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I don’t have much I want to say,” Aoife snapped back, bitterly. She glared at Nia, daring the other woman to blink first, but the executive remained impassive, and left Aoife feeling foolish. Eventually, she relented, stepping back from the door. “Fine. Just, I don’t know, give me a minute to get dressed or something.”

Slipping back inside, Aoife took her time finding the last clean pair of jeans in her wardrobe and deciding which shirt from her laundry pile had the fewest creases, not about to rush for the woman who felt like an embodiment of all her issues, settling for one with a faded print and the words Final Girl barely readable on the front. There was a single, solitary can of IPA left on her desk and, while she didn’t feel much like drinking, she cracked it anyway as Nia entered, needing to make a show of hostile indifference to her.

“Can we just get this over with,” she said, taking a sip while taking the desk chair, deliberately leaving the other woman without a seat. “I know this is where you come to mark your territory and tell me how I’m fired or you’re sending me off to some arsewipe I’ve never met.”

Nia’s fingers tapped against her arm. “Actually, I wanted to see if we could fix this. But I was going to ask you how you were doing before anything else?”

The executive’s tone made Aoife more nervous than if she’d just come out swinging, but she couldn’t believe that Nia was actually worried about her and the question was stupid enough to be annoyed at.

“Me? I’m peachy. How the fuck do you think I’m doing?”

“Pretty badly I imagine? I’m sorry that you’ve gone through all of this.” The other woman refused to rise to the bait and her tone caught Aoife off guard with how genuine it seemed. Moving further into the room, Nia set to one side a towel which had been discarded on the bed so that she could sit down, the poised way she crossed her legs made slightly ridiculous by the presence of the Daario Argento poster and plush bulbasaur behind her.

“You and everyone else,” Aoife mumbled. She knew how childish she was being, but was also too worn out to care, and was desperate to stop herself finding anything likeable in the other woman.

“I’m happy for you to be angry at me, if you need to be, but you do know that it’s not going to actually help anything?”

“Well, nothing’s going to help, is it? At least this makes me feel better.” But it wasn’t making her feel better, and Aoife took another long sip from the can, trying her best to ignore that fact.

Nia waited for her, the sort of coached, loaded pause that was designed to tease things out, but Aoife didn’t know what she wanted, and only spoke rather to avoid the hollow feelings sneaking back up on her.

“What do you want me to say to you? What you’re doing is fucking wrong.”

“I know.”

The two words were said simply enough that Aoife had to stop and check she’d heard them properly. And even though Nia said them as if they were blindingly obvious, they still carried the weight of something too complicated to unpick. She let them hang, then seemed to will herself to keep going as her fingers drummed faster.

“Though which part are we talking about exactly? The part where I’m complicit in an algorithm that’s making women chemically dependent on men? Or that part where I’m sitting by while we cover up the deaths of millions and not even allowing them the comfort of knowing what’s going on?

Nia’s tone was sardonic, with a heavy edge of bitterness at herself that was all too easy for Aoife to recognise. But the honesty still stunned the Scottish woman and she grappled with how Nia could reconcile what she was saying.

“Believe me, I’ve been where you are and I’ve had a lot longer to think about how wrong what I’m doing is. Given the circumstances, I actually think you’re taking this better than I did. You think you want someone to justify this, but they won’t, not in a way that actually makes it easier, and I’m not going to try.”

Aoife set aside her drink. She had always hated when people had told her things would get easier with time, it always left her wanting to scream about how shit things were now. No matter what Nia might be, she could at least be grateful that someone else seemed to get that. But it still wasn’t an excuse. The tension remained, and her thoughts wandered to Layla, wondering if Nia actually understood the reality of what she was saying.

“Then if you know it’s wrong, why haven’t you done anything?”

“Why haven’t you?” The other woman looked towards the door, matter of factly.  “Last I checked no-one was keeping you locked in here. You’re smart and resourceful, what’s stopped you from walking out that door and doing something appropriately dramatic?”

The implications made Aoife bristle. “Yeah? Well what if I’m just trying to work out what I can do that’s going to change things for the better?”

“And if you don’t? What if you find that there’s no good answer and whatever you do is going to be wrong? Are you just going to sit here?”

That wasn’t something she had a good answer to. The question had been lurking across her thoughts like a shadow, with everything else left dimmer because of it. It should have been easy, righteous clarity wasn’t exactly something she struggled with and, although this was different, she was still telling herself that she just needed to clear her head and the solution would come eventually. But what if there wasn’t one?

“Take it from someone who’s lived their life wishing the world was different to how it was, there are some things you can’t change. Some of this is happening whether I like it or not. But that doesn’t mean I can’t shape it. Sometimes you just have to be arrogant enough to be the upstart bitch who walks into a room and tells herself things will be better with you there than they would be if you weren’t.”

“Maybe I don’t think like that,” Aoife insisted, but she could hear her own uncertainty. Nia wasn’t trying to argue.

“Then that’s your choice too.”

“And if people decide you were wrong?”

For the first moment since she’d opened the door, Aoife saw Nia truly hesitate, the executive unable to hide the tension in her body language, or the way she shut her eyes before answering. “They probably will,” she said, finally. “No-one gets to see how else things might have gone. When this is all over, there’s going to be enquiries and investigations about how any of this happened. And if there comes a time where people want to blame me for my part in things then I’m ready for that.”

There was doubt there as Nia spoke, but oddly it made her more convincing as Aoife found something humanising in the attempt. She was familiar enough with trying to lie to herself after all. Glancing aside, she caught the reflection of herself in the mirror on the open wardrobe door, and realised she was frowning.

“Why are you even here?”

Nia stood, reaching into her jacket to produce a soft case, the size of a large purse, in black with the Averna logo printed upon it. Aoife was reminded of a diabetic friend when she was at school who’d carried her insulin in something similar, with a cool pack keeping the syringes at a suitable temperature. It took her a second to connect the dots, and by the time she did, Nia was already alongside her, carefully resting the case down upon the desk.

“I don’t want that,” she said, her words coming out agitated.

She really didn’t want the vaccine near her. Everything suddenly felt more real with it there as a physical thing she could touch. It made it harder to forget the DuoHalo that was almost certainly building inside her and how it had carved Hayley out, leaving a cold empty space where a person used to be. Or how trapped she felt between that and a solution that terrified her and left her furious with the world. But most of all it reminded her of him and how he was making her feel.

“Ethan-” Nia started.

“Ethan’s an arsehole.” Aoife meant it, but she meant a lot of other things too, half of which she didn’t want any nearer to her than the vaccine.

“He’s an idiot. But then there’s a few of us that could apply to. He would certainly have saved a lot of heartbreak if he’d worked out he loved you sooner.”

A crack appeared in Nia’s mask large enough for Aoife to see the hurt she was trying to hide, but she couldn’t tell why. Ethan had chosen her, and whether Nia meant it or not the L-word felt like she was slapping her with it.

“Don’t say that.”

“Which part? That he loves you?”

“He doesn’t love me,” Aoife insisted, as if, if she said it hard enough, she could make herself want it to be true.

Nia sat back down, but this time she didn’t bother to cross her legs, instead leaning her hands back on the mattress to look up at the ceiling. Oddly the relaxed gesture only managed to make her seem more uptight. “You can believe that if you want, but I can’t. I’ve seen over the last few days what the thought of losing you has done to him. He’s not had any answers, but he’s kept pulling himself apart trying to find them anyway. Ethan’s tried to find a way to be fair to me, but I can see how much he loves you.”

She glanced up, and her eyes met Nia’s, something she’d been doing her best to avoid, and saw sympathy alongside the resentment. Could she really let herself believe that? Would this feel less fucked if she did?

“If you wanted him to yourself, you do know there’s no-one who would have been able to give that to you?”

“It’s not that simple,” Aoife protested, half-heartedly, needing to accept this was how the world was before she could accept that.

“You just wish it was.”

She almost told Nia to fuck off. She’d only just met the woman, and she had no right to be inferring her feelings like that. But this conversation wasn’t going how Aoife had expected, Nia kept putting out her attempts at emotional arson. Besides, she was right, and it felt easier admitting that to a stranger than it had been herself.

“Yes.”

Nia sighed. “You’re not the only one. This is hardly what I wanted, and no amount of apologising for my part in this is going to make things simpler. You have choices to make now, and you don’t have forever to make them.” She gestured towards the black case that Aoife was still doing her best to pretend wasn’t there. “This is mine. I’m not prepared to keep doing this to him. But I can’t make the rest of them for you.”

Aoife returned to her beer, but this time it wasn’t an attempt to hide behind the garish colours splashed on the can, and she sank what was left, the gas briefly forming a knot in her chest. The other woman was right, and she forced herself to pick up the case and confront what was in front of her, although opening it to look still seemed too hard. It was lighter than she expected and the neat blue A of the Averna logo looked up at her from the surface, mirroring the one that had been staring at her from the ID badge hung around Nia’s neck. It was enough to make her remember exactly who Nia was, and how many questions that still left her with.

“What about your algorithm? You’re just going to expect people to keep on with it while ignoring it yourself?”

“If I have to,” Nia said with certainty. Aoife wondered if she knew what the success rate of the algorithm was, and tried to work out if the executive was simply arrogant enough to believe she was one of the people it was wrong about, and that she knew better. But Nia seemed to read her mind. “I’d rather be wrong and live with the consequences than know I’m doing that to him.”

“What if I redid it?” Ever since she’d learned what the questionnaire was, Aoife had been trying not to listen to the voice that said her inability to be honest with how she felt had finally fucked her life up, but thought became loud enough to voice. “I didn’t know what I was filling out the first time, I don’t think I was honest, with it…or myself, or whatever. If I was then, fuck, I don’t know, maybe something would be different.”

What surprised her was that she was even considering it. The whole system still seemed unjust and wrong, that hadn’t changed, but suddenly it felt like she was trying to negotiate with it and that felt oddly like a betrayal. Her eyes strayed down, fixating on the case resting between her fingers, and tried to find a reason to push it back, but ended up simply staring at it instead, as if she was hoping it might transform into something else if she wished hard enough.

A careful brush of Nia’s hand against her own drew her attention back, finding the other woman leaning closer as she tried to meet Aoife’s gaze.

“It’s a number. Is having it say something different suddenly going to answer the real questions you have?”

Her voice was low, husky with reassurance, and for the first time, there was nothing being guarded.

“Because it didn’t answer any of mine.”