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[ He's lit no lights down here. It felt better to stay in the dark, to smell the cool earth and just exist here. Sometimes, Carver can see his ghosts lingering in the corners. He thinks it's a kindness that he never sees Grayson among them, though he wonders - quietly and unhappily - whether that will last. And he just tips his head back as Vanessa sits down next to him, and exhales.

These things happen. ]

Always knew it could happen, [ he says finally. ] Should've been ready, but I wasn't.

What reason did any of us have to think it was possible?

[ He's not the first person to speak of Grayson in similar terms — the man had been, and still is, for she refuses to consider him in the past tense, a force of nature, a presence so grand and all-encompassing that it was difficult to fathom the possibility of something like this occurring.

But she should have considered it sooner, knowing her own history, her own not-so-distant memories of love and loss, waking to discover that the people she cares for most have slipped away while she was unawares, leaving nothing behind but her own recollections of them. ]

I am sorry. [ And then, because she feels she needs to: ] I cannot imagine he'd be very pleased to know he'd left without warning.

It's just what happens.

[ He meets her eyes. Mostly, he just feels tired. ]

You lose people. I'm sorry too, Vanessa.

It is, but that doesn't make the pain of it any less acute.

[ She looks up, and she finds she does not want to look away from him — he's become an anchor of sorts for her in ways she could never have predicted, and in the immediate aftermath of such a gaping absence, she doesn't think she can be blamed for wanting to reach for something that still remains steady.

After a moment, she stretches out a hand across the space between them, settling it over his. ]

If you would rather not speak on it directly right now, I understand. We don't even have to speak at all, we can just... [ She trails off, rather than coming up with an alternative. ]

[ He shifts slightly, just enough that he can take her hand and squeeze gently. Sometimes he can't stand to be touched at all. Sometimes he cannot endure other people in his orbit.

Not now. Now, something in him settles. He breathes out. ]

Would you sit with me, for a bit?

[ Her hand is cool against his, that distinct temperature that would indicate her as being not quite human, no longer full of the life that the pulse of blood contains, but it doesn't mean she can't perceive the intricacies of a simple touch.

Grayson had given that gift back to her, endured the strange consequences that had befallen him on her behalf. Without that, she thinks, with a reflective, sad smile, she wouldn't necessarily know what Carver's hand feels like in her own, wouldn't be able to sense more than a muted pressure from him taking hold of her. ]

I would like that. [ It doesn't matter how long they sit; there's no risk at all of her becoming uncomfortable, of experiencing any stiffness from maintaining her seat here. She can remain as long as he needs her to, and perhaps as long as she needs. Having him close is a comfort now, one she isn't prepared to surrender yet. ]

[ They hold like that, Carver breathing, Vanessa not. They sit there in the quiet, down there in the dark. And they hold hands.

It's a quiet, aching sort of grief. But it is not a lonely one, not this time. Not here.

Carver closes his eyes. For a while, he simply breathes. ]

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