Corrupted Bonds
Chapter 102: Salt and Silence

Chapter 102: Chapter 102: Salt and Silence

The lights in the cafeteria were low, the overhead panels dimmed to mimic early evening. Warm tones painted the metal walls in soft golds and bronzes, just enough to make Zarek’s utilitarian mess hall feel like something more human.

Rowan stepped in first, still walking a little stiffly, his shoulder brushing Lucian’s as they moved. Behind them, Ari and Quinn flanked either side—more relaxed now, a subtle ease in their gait despite the bandages and bruises.

"God," Ari murmured, rolling her shoulders with a wince. "I forgot what real food smells like."

"You’re calling this real food?" Quinn replied, eyeing the steam rising from one of the automated dispensers with theatrical suspicion.

"I’ll take anything that isn’t adrenaline and guilt," Rowan muttered. He rubbed the back of his neck, letting his other hand briefly brush Lucian’s arm—a grounding gesture they barely noticed now.

Lucian didn’t respond right away. His eyes were flicking across the room, slow and quiet, scanning the tables like someone not quite used to being above ground again. He looked pale but steady. Grounded. Less like someone unraveling, more like someone trying to remember what normal felt like.

A familiar laugh cut through the ambient hum.

"Speak of the devil," Ari murmured, nudging Quinn’s elbow and gesturing toward the far side of the room.

Zora and Jasper were already seated—half-slumped at a corner table, surrounded by scattered trays and open ration packets.

Zora was sipping something hot and acidic-smelling from a mug the size of his head, while Jasper had three different nutrient bars open in front of him and was mid-rant.

"—and then the corridor folded, Zora. Folded. Not figuratively. Like someone took reality, snapped it like a Twizzler, and forgot which end went where."

Zora took a long sip from his mug. "Yeah. And whose fault was that again?"

"Okay, to be fair," Jasper said, holding up a finger, "I said not to touch the glyph. Ren dared me to touch the glyph."

Zora deadpanned. "And you touched it anyway."

"It glowed, Zora! I’m only human!"

The others approached mid-exchange, their arrival drawing glances but no surprise.

"Mind if we join?" Rowan asked.

Jasper immediately gestured at the seats around them. "Only if you’re not here to confiscate my snacks."

"No promises," Ari muttered, already reaching for one of the opened bars.

Lucian took the seat across from Zora, moving slow but deliberate. Zora studied him for a beat—then gave a small nod. The quiet kind that meant: I’m glad you’re breathing.

Lucian nodded back. Nothing more needed.

"You missed it," Jasper said, biting into one of his bars. "Zora tried to explain the difference between gravity compression and emotional baggage."

"And?" Quinn asked, arching an eyebrow.

"And it turns out they’re the same thing," Zora replied without missing a beat. "They both warp the field around you and make things fall apart."

That actually drew a soft laugh from Lucian. He lowered his head slightly, a curl of hair falling across his forehead.

Rowan nudged him gently. "You okay?"

Lucian glanced at him. "Honestly? I don’t know. But... I’m hungry. So I think that’s progress."

"I’ll take that as a win," Rowan said, offering a half-smile.

Ari stood and moved to the dispenser, pulling out two trays—one for her, one for Lucian—and brought them back. "Here. Eat. If you pass out again, I’m not carrying your ass twice."

"I didn’t ask you to carry me the first time."

"You looked unconscious. That’s basically consent."

"Pretty sure that’s not how that works," Quinn murmured.

They all settled into a rhythm after that—eating in fragments, talking between bites.

The mood slowly lightened, the battle and trauma pushed to the edges for just a little while.

Conversations drifted from mission chaos to rumors—someone claimed they saw Vespera yelling at a board member, someone else heard Ren was trying to recalibrate the medbay pillows because "dream symmetry" mattered.

Zora added dryly, "If he tries to loop my REM cycle again, I’m putting his chrono watch in a blender."

At one point, Lucian reached across the table for the salt.

Rowan handed it to him without looking.

Their fingers brushed. Lucian paused.

Then he murmured, voice low, "Thanks... for everything."

Rowan didn’t smile. But he didn’t look away. "You don’t have to say it yet. Just... stay here."

Lucian looked down at the salt shaker in his hand.

And for the first time in what felt like forever, the world didn’t feel like it was slipping away.

The quiet lull of low conversation was just beginning to settle when the cafeteria doors hissed open again.

Elias Vane stepped inside, flanked by the slow, composed figure of Alexander Hawke.

It took only a second for the room to shift.

Elias was still dressed in his deep-charcoal field jacket, undone at the collar, the edges dusted in faint grime from wherever he’d just come from. His expression, as ever, was carved from silence and caution. But his eyes—always watching, always reading—swept across the gathered team with a flicker of something softer than usual.

Alexander followed behind, stiff but calm, one hand adjusting the cuff of his shirt where the sleeve had been torn during the last operation. His eyes immediately found Rowan, then Lucian, then drifted over the rest—checking for damage like it was instinct.

"Well," Elias said, tone dry but not unkind. "Didn’t expect to find the entire tragedy ensemble still vertical."

Rowan half-laughed into his tray. "Barely."

Lucian, head still bowed slightly, glanced up from where he was picking at his food. "You always show up when the soup’s cold?"

Elias’s mouth twitched. "That’s why I bring my own." He held up a thermos—char-black with a strange glyph etched near the base.

"Please tell me that’s not recycled Rift rations," Ari said warily.

"Better," Elias replied. "It’s coffee. Real. Not synth. Don’t ask how I got it."

"You definitely stole it," Quinn said.

Elias didn’t confirm. He didn’t need to.

Alexander stepped forward and placed a hand lightly on the back of Rowan’s chair, grounding his presence. "You look better than the reports suggested."

"I feel worse," Rowan replied. "But at least I’m sitting upright."

Alexander’s gaze drifted to Lucian, who still hadn’t spoken again. His violet-glow had faded to embers now—still visible behind his eyes, but quiet.

"Lucian," Alexander said, nodding slightly. "Good to see you back."

Lucian didn’t lift his head right away. But when he did, the look he gave Alexander wasn’t wary—it was grateful. Tentative, but real.

"Still finding the edges," Lucian said. "But I’m not gone."

"Close," Elias said, quietly. "Too close."

The weight of those words landed heavy. Even Zora straightened a little.

The cafeteria’s warmth flickered around the gravity of what had almost been lost.

"I felt you all fall out of sync," Elias continued. "Like a severed tether. It registered across the entire sector’s resonance net."

Lucian grimaced. "It wasn’t just me. The system—Vaughn_00—he gave something up. A transfer. I felt it hit every part of me. Like I wasn’t just waking up. I was replaced."

Rowan went still beside him.

Elias studied them both, then slowly sat down at the far end of the table, unscrewing his thermos. "That’s not replacement. That’s succession. Whatever Vaughn_00 gave you... it wasn’t meant to overwrite. It was meant to restore."

Lucian’s hands curled around his tray. "Then why do I still feel like part of me is missing?"

"Because something always is," Alexander said softly. "Every time we come back, we leave a piece behind. The trick is choosing what gets to stay."

Silence stretched between them again, but it was a different kind—heavier, yes, but laced with understanding.

Jasper tried to break it with a cough. "So... not to interrupt the existential trauma circle, but is anyone else starving or am I the only one metabolizing grief like protein?"

Zora flicked a piece of bread at him. "You’re always metabolizing something. Doesn’t mean it’s food."

A chuckle spread, brief and welcome.

Vespera appeared quietly behind them, a fresh pot of synth-tea in her hands. She poured a few cups wordlessly, placing one near Lucian, one near Rowan, then another beside Elias.

"Your field was sparking again," she murmured to Lucian, eyes sharp but kind. "Tether fluctuation. Slow, but steady."

Lucian looked at the tea. Then up at her. "It’s stabilizing."

"It’s because you’re anchored again," Vespera replied.

Rowan blinked. "Wait. You mean—?"

"She means you," Elias said, glancing at Rowan. "You’re still the constant."

Rowan looked down at his hands. Then at Lucian.

Lucian just nodded. Once. Enough.

Lucian turned the teacup slowly in his fingers, watching the faint tendrils of heat curl upward. "I don’t know what I’m supposed to be now," he said, voice low. "I’ve had pieces of myself torn out, overwritten, sacrificed. I’m not the version that started all this. I’m not even sure I’m the one that deserves to finish it."

Rowan shifted beside him, posture tense. "Don’t say that."

Lucian’s eyes flicked toward him, tired but searching. "Rowan—"

"No," Rowan interrupted, firmer this time. "You don’t get to decide that alone. Not anymore. You’re not just someone who was built from recursion and resonance and whatever nightmare Vaughn_00 walked out of. You’re—" He faltered. "You’re mine. Ours."

Lucian blinked, caught off guard by the rawness in his voice.

"I mean," Rowan added, voice cracking slightly, "we need you. Not because of your powers, or what you might become. Just—because you’re still here."

For a breath, the table fell quiet again. But this time, it felt like a heartbeat was shared between them all.

Quinn leaned forward slightly, pushing aside his tray. "You remember when we first started? Back before we even had proper anchor protocols? Lucian didn’t even talk to half the team."

"I remember," Ari muttered with a smirk. "He almost shoved me into a wall during the first sync trial."

Lucian groaned. "That was an accident."

"You growled."

"That wasn’t a growl."

"You snarled," Ari corrected. "Like a territorial cat."

"Hold on," Elias interjected dryly. "That was you? Evelyn said the floor sensor glitch was from an Espershock."

"It was," Lucian muttered. "I was overstimulated."

Rowan tried—and failed—to suppress a grin.

"You were flustered. Because Ari called you ’handsome’ while calibrating her tether gauge."

"I meant it," Ari said.

Lucian dropped his face into his hands. "I’m going to dissolve into the floor now."

Jasper raised a fork. "Permission to memorialize this conversation in the next ops report."

"Denied," Lucian mumbled through his fingers.

Across the table, Alexander smiled faintly, the edge of something long-hidden softening in his expression. "You know... seeing this—hearing this—it matters. The war changes us. But these moments... they’re what prove we’re still fighting for something worth returning to."

Zora leaned back in his seat, arms crossed, one brow raised. "You always this poetic, or is this the painkillers talking?"

Alexander’s smile widened, faint but genuine. "Little of both."

"I like him," Jasper said around a bite of bread. "Can we keep him?"

"Already did," Elias said quietly. He nodded at Alexander with something like fondness, and in his voice, just for a moment, was warmth unburdened by duty. "He’s still here. We all are."

Lucian looked up again, his expression more grounded now—less hollow, more alive.

"Thanks," he murmured. "All of you."

Rowan placed his hand quietly over Lucian’s, and didn’t let go.

Vespera glanced toward the wall-mounted chronometer. "Recovery teams should finish syncing field logs by end of cycle. You’ll both be cleared for command review by morning."

Quinn raised an eyebrow. "Already?"

"We don’t get to stay broken forever," Elias said, quietly. "But maybe this time, we get to choose how we rebuild."

The absence in her eyes

The hallway leading from the cafeteria was quieter now, the laughter fading behind them like a memory trying not to dissolve.

Lucian walked beside Rowan, his steps still heavy with recovery, though he moved with a steadiness that was returning day by day. Ari trailed slightly behind, sipping from a juice carton she’d pilfered off a distracted logistics cadet. Quinn walked beside her, quiet but watchful.

They were headed to the West Wing — the quieter side of Zarek HQ where temporary recovery suites had been set up for off-grid reintegrations.

Where Kira was.

The room was unmarked. Rowan hesitated at the door, hand hovering just inches from the panel. "She’s awake now, right?"

Lucian gave a slow nod. "Since yesterday. But she hasn’t... said much."

Quinn spoke gently. "She asked for space. But I think she’s waiting. For you."

Rowan drew a steady breath and tapped the panel.

The door hissed open with a soft sigh of hydraulics.

Inside, the lights were low. A dim amber wash spilled from a single wall lamp, casting long shadows across the room. Kira sat curled in the corner seat by the window, wrapped in a blanket too large for her frame. Her gaze wasn’t on them—it was far beyond the glass, toward nothing in particular.

But she spoke first.

"You came."

Rowan stepped in, Lucian close behind. "Course we did."

Kira turned her head slowly. Her eyes weren’t red with tears—they were dry. Too dry. Her voice, too, was steady. Controlled. Which somehow made it harder to bear.

"Is everyone... alright?"

Lucian was the one to answer. "Most of us. Battered, scraped, but breathing..."

The silence that followed was like glass — fragile, sharp.

Kira gave a small nod, but her hands curled tighter around the blanket.

Rowan stepped closer, kneeling by her seat.

Her jaw twitched.

She blinked once, slowly. "Back when I was entrapped... I remember everything. Every loop they ran on me. Every echo they forced me to relive. I saw the world rewritten a hundred times. In most of them, Haru didn’t make it to the end. In some, I didn’t either."

Lucian sat on the edge of the bed. "You were in the recursion lattice. The Veil’s neural containment field."

"I was inside it," she confirmed, softly. "But not just that. I could see the seams in the system. The false timelines. The recursive threads trying to learn from us." She paused. "I saw versions of you both. Dying. Breaking. Restarting."

Rowan’s throat tightened. "Did... we ever win?"

Kira looked him in the eye. "Only when you chose each other. Every time you tried to sacrifice yourselves without letting the other in — the world ended faster."

Lucian exhaled, something tight loosening behind his ribs.

Ari broke the silence with a half-hearted groan as she leaned against the doorway. "Can we all just agree recursion sucks?"

Quinn smirked faintly. "Seconded."

Kira gave the smallest smile. It barely lasted a second. But it was real.

Rowan placed his hand gently over hers. "We’re not asking you to be okay yet. Just... don’t carry it alone."

Kira looked down at their joined hands. Her voice was almost a whisper. "He called me his anchor. Even in the end, he was thinking about keeping me steady." A pause. "What if I wasn’t worth that?"

Lucian leaned forward, his voice calm but firm. "You were. You are. You’re not the only one trying to find meaning after all this."

Another silence — but softer, this time.

Kira finally looked at all of them. "I want to help. Whatever’s coming next... I need to be part of it."

"You already are," Rowan said quietly. "We wouldn’t be here without you."

Lucian added, "And Haru didn’t save you so you’d fade into the background."

Kira’s eyes shimmered. But the tears didn’t fall.

Ari cleared her throat, awkwardly cheerful. "Okay, well, now that we’ve confirmed emotional devastation and heroism for the day—how about some caffeine and non-military food before Quinn gets all serious again?"

Quinn tilted his head. "I was going to suggest tea."

"I rest my case," Ari deadpanned.

Kira actually laughed. A real one this time, small and raspy, but genuine.

Lucian stood and offered her his hand. "Come on. We’ll walk slow."

She hesitated only a moment—then took it.

And just like that, the world felt a little lighter.

Lucian lingered near the window after helping Kira to her feet. The silence between the five of them had softened into something else—no longer avoidance, but presence.

The kind you hold when the wounds haven’t healed, but the bleeding’s stopped.

Lucian’s hand reached into the inner pocket of his jacket. From it, he drew a small, smooth data slate—no markings, no embellishment. Just black glass.

He hesitated.

Then stepped forward and placed it gently in Kira’s hands.

"Before going for coffee, i thought you’d want to see this. We found this when the system began to purge after the reflections collapsed. It was embedded in the backup logs—labeled for you. Encryption matched Haru’s biometric code."

Kira stared at it.

"It’s Haru’s," Lucian added.

Everything in her stilled. Even breath.

Lucian didn’t move closer. "Encrypted. Biometric-locked. Only someone he tagged as primary could access it."

"And that’s me?" Her voice came out too soft.

Lucian nodded. "Yes."

Kira took the slate in shaking hands. She cradled it like it might break, like it might vanish if she looked too long, "Why didn’t you tell me earlier?".

Lucian’s reply was soft. "Because I wasn’t sure you were ready."

"And now?"

Rowan stepped beside her, eyes kind but firm. "Now we trust you to decide."

Kira swallowed hard.

She turned the slate over once, twice. Then tapped the surface. The room dimmed automatically as the interface flared to life.

Haru’s voice filled the air.

Not broken. Not afraid.

Just... him.

"Hey, Kira. If you’re seeing this... then I finally made a choice that matters."

Kira’s hand covered her mouth.

"I never really believed in legacy stuff. Not like Sloane or Quinn or Elias. But if I had to leave something behind, I wanted it to be you."

"You were always better than you thought. Stronger. Smarter. And maybe... maybe the only reason I ever became someone worth remembering."

"So when it came down to it—between your life and mine—there was no choice at all."

A pause.

"So don’t waste time blaming yourself for my choice. I made it for you. For all of you."

"Live, Kira. Live hard. Live messy. Live loud. And don’t you dare think this was your fault."

"I’d do it again. A thousand times."

Silence.

Then—quietly:

"If there’s another version of me out there... I hope he finds you too."

The slate dimmed. The recording ended.

Silence followed. The kind that held breath. The kind that broke it.

Kira stood frozen, eyes wide, lip trembling. Then her knees buckled.

Lucian caught her. She didn’t fall hard—but like someone finally letting go.

Tears slipped down her cheeks—silent, steady.

No sobs. Just the slow unraveling of weight she’d carried too long.

She whispered, "Why would he leave something like this?"

Rowan moved beside them, gently placing a hand on her back. Quinn stepped forward and wordlessly offered a flask of water. Ari looked away, biting her lip—but she reached out and squeezed Kira’s shoulder.

The team didn’t speak.

They didn’t need to.

In that silence, they made space for grief. For memory. For love.

And in that space, something healed.

Eventually, Kira looked up. Her voice rasped, raw. "Thank you. All of you."

Lucian nodded once. "He wanted you to live."

Kira exhaled, shaky but solid. "Then I will."