Chapter 23 （Another） Unlikely Truce
(Another) Unlikely Truce
Theo
Theo's office was small enough that she could touch both walls if she stretched her arms out, which she'd done exactly once on her first day to see if it was true and had immediately reported back to Natalie, who had said that was either charming or concerning and she hadn't decided which.
It faced the building's interior courtyard, which meant it got good light in the mornings and a kind of afternoon quiet that she'd come to rely on.
Someone had painted the walls a warm peach at some point in the building's history, though faded now, it was still the kind of color that made the room feel like it was on your side.
The whiteboard above her desk was covered in the accumulated logic of three concurrent projects: the gala timeline (a living nightmare), intake restructuring (problem central), and the new outreach pilot she was building with the street medicine team (please, she thought, just let this one work).
She liked looking at it anyway. Liked the density of it, the sense of things in motion.
Her desk held a coffee mug that said World's Okayest Doctor, a gift from Natalie that she'd laughed at for longer than was strictly dignified, and a framed photograph that Mary had pressed into her hands at dinner two months ago with the instruction not to argue about it. Lucy had taken it at The Mission’s annual fall BBQ, the one that spilled out of the building into the backyard and filled the space with staff, volunteers, the people they helped, and their families, plus anyone else who needed somewhere to be on a Saturday afternoon.
Theo stood in the middle of it, hair loose, laughing at something just out of frame.
She looked like someone who was exactly where they were supposed to be. She was starting to feel that way, too.
That was the thing about working at The Mission that she hadn’t quite anticipated—not just that the work was good, but that she was good at it.
Good in ways that felt earned rather than performed, that didn't require her to leave something of herself at the door.
Josiah had told her, in his characteristically matter-of-fact way, that she had a gift for building trust with people who had every reason not to extend it.
She'd gone home and sat with that for a long time.
Had let herself feel proud of it, which was something she was practicing.
She exhaled slowly and reached for her phone, more out of habit than need.
10:33
Fuck.
The volunteer meeting was in the main hall on the ground floor, which meant Theo had to walk through the entire building to get there, and she arrived, as usual, having collected three separate conversations along the way.
Marcus from intake had a question about the new client forms. Diane from the recovery program wanted to confirm catering numbers for the gala.
And Sandra, the woman who ran the Friday afternoon support group, had stopped her in the corridor to say, with the coiled intensity of someone who had been waiting, that the new scheduling software was, and she wanted Theo to know this, an absolute nightmare.
By the time Theo made it to the hall at 10:46, Josiah was at the front setting up chairs, sleeves rolled to the elbow, looking like a man who'd been there since six and was only mildly resentful about it.
"You're late," he said, without looking up.
“By one minute.”
"You're the one who scheduled an eleven o'clock meeting."
"I scheduled an eleven o'clock meeting, yes." Theo took the stack of chairs from him and started unfolding them. "I didn't schedule Marcus, or Diane, or —"
"Sandra?"
"Sandra.”
"She hates the new software, you know.”
"Everyone hates the new software."
"You bought the new software."
"The old software was from 2007, Josiah."
He handed her another chair. “And that’s why Sandra liked it.”
Theo took it from him, trying her best to stifle a grin.
Around them, the hall was beginning to settle into the softer rhythm of a Saturday morning. People filtered in by twos and threes, drifting instinctively toward the refreshments table at the back when they spotted the coffee.
"We’ve got good numbers for this," Josiah said, glancing down at his clipboard. "You’ve done the welcome remarks before?"
Theo stepped up beside him at the front of the hall. "Mhm. Twice."
"Good. Keep it under ten minutes, otherwise they get restless." He made a note. "And don't do the thing where you list every single program we run. Just focus on the gala."
"I know how to run a volunteer meeting."
"You also told me you knew how to use the new scheduling software."
Theo pointed at him. "That is genuinely not fair."
He laughed, and she shook her head and went to get the information packets from the table by the door.
Behind her, the room was beginning to fill. Chairs scraped against the floor as people chose their seats. Some glanced around with the tentative energy of those who had committed to doing something good with their Saturday without being entirely certain what it would require of them.
Theo had come to love that atmosphere. There was something quietly hopeful in it. In people showing up before they had any real reason to.
She was saying something to Josiah about the running order when the door opened again.
She didn't look up immediately. She was halfway through a sentence, hands moving as she spoke, riding the familiar rhythm of it. She finished the thought, or at least she thought she did, but somewhere in the middle of it, she glanced toward the door, and the second half simply ceased to exist.
Because there, framed in the doorway like some deeply unhelpful festive apparition, was Catherine. The angel of Christmas past. Impeccable. Uninvited. Entirely real.
Seven months. And there she was. Pale hair, dark coat, one hand resting on the door frame.
She was looking directly at Theo with an expression that was almost composed and not quite, the way a piece of music hovers before its final chord, suspended in the moment before it resolves.
And then she smiled. Small, slightly uncertain, lifting one hand in a wave, and Theo's brain did something she could only describe as stopping.
Not dramatically. Not visibly, she hoped.
Just a brief, total cessation of whatever had been running a moment ago, replaced by a single fact: Catherine was here.
She had thought she'd made a kind of peace with never seeing her again.
Not a complete peace, she wasn't going to lie to herself about that, but a functional one.
The kind you build out of new routines and meaningful work and the slow, purposeful reconstruction of a life that belonged entirely to you.
She had thought about Catherine the way you think about a place you loved and left.
With a tenderness that didn't require any resolution.
She understood now that she'd been wrong about that.
Because seeing her was like seeing your first love across a room.
The recognition that goes all the way down before your brain has caught up.
The wound reopening, clean and sudden, and not caring, not even a little, because she was there. Pain be damned.
Beside her, Josiah had gone quiet. She was aware of him turning his head, taking in whatever was on her face right now, and then looking toward the door, and then back at her again. She felt rather than saw the small, knowing smile that crossed his face.
"I'll finish setting up," he said, and moved away with the tact of a man whose mother had trained him well.
Catherine stepped fully into the room, navigating around the rows of chairs with the composure she brought to every space she entered.
She stopped in front of Theo, and for a moment they just looked at each other.
Then, they both opened their mouths at the same moment.
"Hi —"
"Hi —"
They stopped. Catherine laughed first, a short, genuine sound, and Theo felt it land in her chest the way it always had.
"Hi," Theo said again, properly this time.
"Hi," Catherine said.
Up close, she looked different. Theo's brain searched for the word and landed on brighter, which wasn't quite right but was close.
"You look good," Catherine said, her voice softer than Theo had remembered. "Out of scrubs, I mean."
Catherine's eyes widened, her pale skin pinking as she realized the unintended implication.
"I meant—not that I've seen you without—I mean, I have obviously, but—" She pressed her lips together, composure cracking at the edges.
"I had an entire speech prepared, and somehow that's the sentence that came out. "
Theo looked at her for a moment. "Wow."
Catherine closed her eyes briefly. “Please, don’t.”
"No, I mean it genuinely," Theo said, a wide smile breaking through before she'd finished the sentence.
"I had myself fully prepared to be the one who made this weird.
I had a whole plan for how I was going to recover from it and everything.
And then you just—" she gestured vaguely at the situation "—went ahead and did it for me. "
"Yes, thank you, I was there," Catherine said. The pink hadn't quite left her cheeks. After a moment, the corner of her mouth lifted. "But the day is young. I'm sure you'll catch up."
Theo shook her head, still smiling. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm here to volunteer."
Theo raised an eyebrow. "Really? Did Mary send you?"
"No." Catherine shook her head, smiling. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
Theo looked at her for a moment, at the smile, at the slight color in her cheeks, at the hands buried in her coat pockets, which Theo had learned meant she was more nervous than she was letting on.
Josiah cleared his throat beside them with the apologetic expression of a man who was very aware of what he was interrupting and very sorry about the timing of it.