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The camp has long since settled into its usual evening as the light fades behind the tree line. Fires burn lower, conversations quiet, and the constant movement of people working, arguing, or planning slowly gives way to silence. Arkadia is never truly peaceful—there's always someone on watch or repairing something that broke during the day—but for a little while, the chaos loosens its grip.
Murphy sits on the edge of a supply crate near the outer fence, a stone in one hand and a knife in the other as he slides the blade slowly along it. The metal makes a dull, repetitive scrape that blends easily with the other small noises around camp. The knife doesn't need sharpening. it stopped needing it about ten minutes ago.
But it gives him something to do with his hands. Something to focus on.
Something that isn't you.
Unfortunately, you make that difficult.
You're sitting halfway down the old metal ramp of the chunk of metal called home, elbows resting on your knees, you attention fixed somewhere out past the rough fences that mark the edge of Arkadia. From here, Murphy can't see your expression clearly, but he doesn't need to. He has always been better at reading people from a distance than listening to the words coming out of their mouths, and the way you hold yourself now tells him more than enough.
You used to take up space without even trying. You laughed easily, talked with your hands when you got excited, leaned closer when someone said something interesting as if to let them know you care about what they're saying. Murphy would never admit it out loud—not even if someone put a gun to his head—but there had been something irritatingly warm about that kind of openness. Like sunlight that had found its way under doors and through cracks no matter how carefully you tried to shut it out.
Now, you barely speak unless someone addresses you first.
And when they do, you answer politely, quickly, and slip away before the conversation can stretch long enough to mean anything.
Murphy noticed the pattern forming long before you did, which is probably why watching ikt finish settling into place bothers him so much.
Across the yard, a few of the others stand near one of the last remaining fires, their voices rising briefly in laughter before fading again into quieter conversation. Someone passes close to the ramp and slows when the notice you sitting there. Murphy watches the moment unfold with a familiar kind of resignation. The guy hesitates, offers a greeting, lingers just long enough that the silence between you could turn into something more, if you let it.
