Discoveries | TMR | Three

5:7

Daniel was gone by the time Adeline woke up.

A breeze slipped through the balcony doors, cool and steady, carrying the tang of salt and rust from the harbour below. It lifted the curtains and fell with every breath of air, whispering against the wall as the sunlight, sharp and golden, poured through the gaps and spilled across her skin until she stirred.

For a while, she lay still, trying to trick herself into believing this was just another morning, but the emptiness told her otherwise - it told her Daniel was out there, risking his life to save their friends.

It wasn't that she doubted his ability, because she didn't. If anything, she knew with absolute certainty that he could handle himself. That wasn't the issue. The problem lay in the way his jaw tightened whenever the prospect of a fight loomed, the way his eyes dimmed at the thought of raising a weapon. He hated violence. Loathed it down to the marrow of his bones.

And yet, he hated something else almost as much: the thought of being useless, of standing on the sidelines while others shouldered the burden. That quiet desperation to contribute, to matter, pushed him forward even when every part of him recoiled.

To Adeline, that wasn't enough. She respected it, of course - she respected almost every decision Daniel made, but it still wasn't enough to justify the risk. Not enough to warrant throwing himself into danger he didn't believe in. Watching him prepare to put himself in harm's way, not out of conviction but out of guilt, left her with a knot in her chest.

"Are you alright, my darling?"

A knot that she spent the entire morning trying to untangle.

"Yeah," Adeline mumbles lowly, her brows furrowed and head hunched down to the map in front of her.

She sits out in the open, settled on the bench along the deck of Jeff's boat. It's close enough that she can still hear if he is in distress, still feel tethered to the room below where he lays, yet far enough that she doesn't have to risk the sight of him as he is now, risk the sight of seeing him is the wake of her mistake.

From here, the air feels manageable: the wind rolls over the water and reaches her in gentle currents, brisk enough to cool her skin but never so strong that it unsettles her. The sun spills across her shoulders in soft warmth, and when it becomes too much she only has to shift slightly to claim the strip of shade that stretches across the bench.

It's a balanced place, a fragile pocket of comfort carved from circumstance, and she clings to it without quite realising why.

That is where Lily saw her hours ago, and that is where she still finds her now.

"You have been here an awfully long time, petal," the older woman comments, standing on the pier just next to her with that familiar look of worry on her face.

Adeline looks up and gives her a brief smile, brows knitted and nose scrunched in the glare of the sun. "I'm just trying to figure out this map." She shrugs. "It's keeping me busy... and it's keeping me hidden from Chuck."

Lily's mouth twitches, half torn between amusement and sympathy. "He means well, you know," she tells her. "He's just trying to make sure you're alright."

Adeline exhales, running a finger along one of the faded creases on the map. "I know, I know."

"Perhaps you should indulge him," she suggests. "Just a little bit?"

Adeline's gaze lingers on the inked lines, the scrawled notes that mean less and less the longer she stares. "I will... when I've finished this."

Lily stands steady on the pier for a few more seconds, the boards creaking beneath her feet as she starts to lean forward over the gap. "Give me a hand please, darling," she calls, her arm stretching out and hand open in invitation.