Chapter 18
REID
Noah’s bad mood arrived before sunrise.
He woke beside me with a frown already set between his brows.
I felt it before I opened my eyes—the tension in the body pressed against mine, the stillness where there was usually a sleepy adjustment closer.
“Headache?” I asked.
“Morning.”
“That is not a pain scale.”
“Four.”
I opened my eyes.
Pale light edged the curtains. Noah lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. His left arm rested across his stomach, free of the brace now but still guarded.
“Nightmares?”
“No.”
“Hip?”
“Fine.”
“Memory?”
“No.”
Every answer was short.
I did not force more.
“Coffee?”
“Yes.”
I got up before my body could make the closeness awkward. Desire had become a regular morning complication again, which felt both encouraging and wildly inconvenient.
In the shower, I let cold water finish what restraint had begun.
By the time Noah entered the kitchen, coffee waited beside his medication.
He wore one of my old work shirts over loose sweatpants. The shirt hung loosely from his shoulders and made him look smaller than he had before the accident.
He drank without speaking.
I made toast.
He ate one piece.
The familiar morning irritation usually softened after coffee.
Today it did not.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Your nothing appears hostile.”
His gaze lifted.
“I don’t want to do the puzzle.”
“Then don’t.”
“I don’t want to watch television.”
“All right.”
“I don’t want to sleep.”
“That may be harder.”
He looked toward the harbor.
“I don’t want another day upstairs.”
There it was.
I leaned against the counter.
“What do you want?”
“To go to work.”
“You’re not cleared.”
“I know.”
“To be downstairs?”
“Yes.”
“That we may be able to arrange.”
He gave me a skeptical look.
“Sit in the corner while everyone pretends I’m helping?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know yet.”
He looked away.
The despair in his face was worse than anger.
Maeve arrived at nine.
I met her near the bottom of the stairs.
“You have grease on your forehead,” she said.
I wiped at it.
“Other side.”
I tried again.
“Better?”
“No, but less.”
She looked toward the apartment.
“How is he?”
“Physically, improving.”
“And otherwise?”
“Low.”
“What does low mean today?”
“He doesn’t want another day on the couch. Says he wants to work.”
“Has he said anything about hopelessness? Not wanting to be alive?”
“No.”
“Worthlessness?”
“He said he doesn’t know who he is if he isn’t useful.”
Maeve’s expression became serious without turning alarmed.
“That’s common after sudden disability, especially when work is central to identity.”
“He remembered a real scene yesterday. Cooking in his old apartment.”
“That’s good.”
“It was. Then he started asking about the yard.”
“Also good.”
“I told him enough to make him feel responsible.”
“You told him the truth?”
“In stages.”
“Then you did not make him responsible. He is responding to information.”
I looked through the open bay.
Caleb had begun setting up for the ferry work. Coils of cable waited on the staging table. Test equipment charged along the wall.
“What if he came down for an hour?”
“To visit?”
“To do something.”
“What kind of something?”
“Low risk. Seated. No live systems. No weight.”
Maeve considered.
“He may tire faster in the workshop. More sound, movement, conversation.”
“We can use the sail loft.”
The loft sat above the repair bay at the rear of the building, separated by thick fire doors. We used it for clean electrical work, canvas repairs, and anything that did not mix well with grinding dust.
“What task?” she asked.
I looked toward a covered crate near Noah’s old bench.
“A decommissioned switch panel from the harbor patrol launch. It’s dead. We’ve been meaning to salvage the meters and trace the original circuits.”
“Can he damage anything important?”
“No.”
“Can it damage him?”
“No.”
“Would he feel insulted if he knew you chose it because it was safe?”
“Yes.”
“Will he realize that anyway?”
“Immediately.”
Maeve smiled.
“Then tell him the truth. It is safe and useful.”
“He’ll overdo it.”
“Set a clear stopping time before he starts.”
“He will negotiate.”
“Then you negotiate before he is exhausted.”
She touched my arm.
“You cannot return his old life to him. You can help him participate in the one he has now.”
I carried that sentence upstairs.
Noah sat at the dining table, moving puzzle pieces without looking at the picture.
Maeve examined him, checked his healing arm, reviewed medication, tested balance, and asked the questions she always asked.
When she finished, she joined me in the kitchen while Noah wrote in the journal.
“He is physically doing well,” she said quietly. “The low mood needs watching, but he is not describing self-harm. He feels disconnected.”
“I have an idea.”
“Good.”
“Tell him it came from you.”
“No.”
“He respects medical authority.”
“He should practice trusting your judgment too.”
I disliked how often professionals said things that made sense.
After Maeve left, I sat opposite Noah.
He did not look up.
“I have a proposition.”
“No more puzzles.”
“Not that kind.”
His fingers stopped.
“There’s an old control panel downstairs.”
“What kind?”
“Harbor patrol launch. Late eighties. Navigation lights, bilge alarms, auxiliary pumps. The labels are damaged and half the terminals are corroded.”
Interest brightened his face despite himself.
“What do you need done?”
“Circuit traced. Components tested. Anything usable cataloged.”
“Live power?”
“No.”
“Useful?”
“Yes.”
“Or therapy useful?”
“Both.”
He looked at me.
“At least you admitted it.”
“You would know.”
“How long?”
“One hour.”
“Two.”
“Ninety minutes.”
“Until lunch.”
“No.”
His eyebrows rose.
“That was fast.”
“You become exhausted before you notice it.”
“So do you.”
“I’m not recovering from brain trauma.”
“You’re recovering from me recovering from brain trauma.”
The accuracy of that nearly made me smile.
“Ninety minutes,” I repeated. “Then food and rest.”
“Tomorrow too?”
“If today goes well.”
His expression changed.
Hope arrived carefully.
“I can actually do it?”
“Yes.”
“Not just watch?”
“You will have tools in your hands.”
He pushed his chair away from the table.
“Why are we still talking?”
We used the stair lift because I refused to let the morning begin with him spending half his energy on steps.
Noah complained about the mechanical hum.
At the bottom, Caleb looked up from the cable table.
“Look who escaped.”
“I was released under strict supervision.”
“Tragic.”
Owen opened the rear loft door.
“We prepared your throne.”
Inside, an adjustable worktable had been lowered to chair height.
The old control panel lay on a padded mat. Its black faceplate was scratched and sun-faded. Toggle switches filled the center rows. Analog gauges lined the top. A nest of disconnected wires spread from the back.
Noah stared.
The sadness left his face.
Not completely.
Enough.
He rolled closer.
“Who removed this?”
“Owen,” I said.
“No labels on the wiring.”
“He photographed everything.”
Noah looked at Owen.
“You learned.”
“I fear you.”
“Good.”
A tray of insulated tools waited beside the panel.
Noah picked up the meter.
He checked the leads.
Adjusted the dial.
The movements came without hesitation.
Procedural memory.
His body knew the sequence.
I watched him test continuity across the first switch.
The meter sounded.
Noah smiled.
It transformed him.
Not into the man from before.
Into himself.
“I need tags,” he said.
Caleb brought them.
“Fine marker.”
Owen placed one beside his hand.
“Wiring diagram?”
“Missing.”
Noah’s smile widened.
“Perfect.”
I left him to work.
Not alone.
Caleb remained in the loft replacing a canvas hatch cover. Owen came and went with parts. I moved between the ferry preparations and the doorway, pretending not to check every few minutes.
Noah traced circuits.
He muttered to himself.
He discovered one bilge-alarm relay had been bypassed with a direct bridge.
“Whoever did this should be denied access to tools,” he said.
Caleb glanced over.
“You said that about Reid once.”
“I was right.”
I looked in through the doorway.
“You have no evidence.”
Noah held up the damaged relay.
“I have a lifetime of evidence.”
The words slipped out naturally.
He froze.
So did I.
Lifetime.
He looked at me.
A flicker of something passed through his face, but no full memory followed.
I did not ask.
Neither did he.
Instead, he set the relay aside and continued.
At seventy minutes, his speech slowed.
At eighty, he rubbed his eye.
At ninety, I entered the loft.
“Stop.”
“No.”
“Ninety minutes.”
“I have one circuit left in this branch.”
“Tomorrow.”
“It will take five minutes.”
“It will take fifteen because you are tired.”
His mouth tightened.
I pointed to the labels he had already written.
The last two slanted sharply.
Noah saw it.
Frustration darkened his face.
“I hate that you can tell.”
“I know.”
“I’m still working.”
“You are stopping while the day still feels good.”
His gaze sharpened.
“That sounds like therapy language.”
“Maeve is influential.”
He looked at the panel.
Then at me.
“Tomorrow morning?”
“Yes.”
“Same time?”
“Yes.”
He put down the meter.
The surrender cost him.
But he stopped before he collapsed.
That mattered.
Caleb rolled the table away from the edge and covered the panel.
“No one touches it,” Noah said.
“Terrifying,” Caleb replied.
At the stair lift, Noah’s legs trembled when he stood.
I held his waist.
He looked exhausted and alive.
“Worth it?” I asked.
“Yes.”
The answer came without pause.
At the top of the stairs, he remained close after I helped him onto the landing.
His eye dropped to my mouth.
“Reid.”
“Yes?”
“Kiss me.”
I did.
Noah caught the front of my shirt and pulled me closer.
The kiss began with gratitude and turned quickly into want. His mouth opened, warm and eager. He leaned into me with more trust than balance.
I slid one arm around him.
His left hand, still weak, rested against my chest.
The contact sent heat through me.
He made a low sound when my tongue touched his.
I nearly forgot the stairwell, the yard, every rule I had made.
Then his body sagged.
I broke the kiss and held him upright.
“Bed.”
“Couch.”
“Either.”