Aiden has my spare car key, and he texts me to say that he’ll pick me up. I’m dying to hear what happened with Raj, Mel, and Noosh, anyways, he says.

I’m dying to tell him, so this plan suits me just fine. I wait by the front door and look through the window, watching impatiently for the bright blue of my car.

Raj comes padding downstairs, his dark curls damp from the shower. His eyes are ringed with exhaustion, but he’s got a radiant smile on his face. He spots me, comes over to join me by the door.

We stare at each other for a moment, and then I break into a wide grin. Raj matches it, and we both start to laugh.

“Jamie,” Raj groans, when he pulls himself together, “How am I ever gonna thank you?”

“Seeing the three of you like this is thanks enough,” I tell him, absolutely beaming.

“I feel so bad that we left you down here all night, and then I was so distracted this morning, I don’t even think I said-”

“Raj.” I squeeze his arm. “Seriously, it’s okay. It was worth it.”

Raj grins again, then shakes his head in disbelief.

“I’m fucking floored that it went so well,” he admits, running a hand over his face. “Mel asked Noah to promise that he’d hear us all the way out, and - he did. Even though he seemed ready to bolt, at first.”

“Honestly, I think if this had happened like, even a few days ago, he might have.”

Raj’s deep brown eyes glow with affection. “He’s really come a long way, hasn’t he?”

“Yep.” I hug myself, resisting the urge to start bouncing with excitement again. “And now you, and him, and Mel - and Nik, of course!”

Raj nods at me, thoughtful.

“You know,” he says, “I’ve been worried about Nik, because she doesn’t laugh or smile. Aside from that one time at the hospital, she only smiles in her sleep. So I looked it up, and apparently it’s normal. It takes a while for babies to start. They don’t smile or laugh because they think something’s funny. They do it because they see us doing it. Noah... he’s always making us laugh. Me and Mel both. It’s just one small example, but - I can’t help but think that all of this is going to be good for Nik.”

I take that in for a second, smiling to myself.

“Knowing the kind of father you are, Raj, I’m sure you wouldn’t have done it if that wasn't the case.”

Raj’s expression softens even further, and he clasps my shoulder.

My phone buzzes with a text from Aiden.

“Oh - Aiden’s here, so I’m gonna roll. See you at the exhibition space!”

Raj grabs my arm as I turn to leave.

“Really, Jamie,” he says, very seriously. “Thank you. For everything.”

I cast him a bright smile. Then I leave him with his Companion Plants, and head outside to be with mine.

~~~~

I’m finding that love is contagious. The second I see Aiden - leaning against my car, an unruly chestnut strand escaping from his snapback - I basically leap into his arms.

He staggers, but catches me, laughing.

“What-?” he begins, and I cut him off with a long, enthusiastic kiss.

I’m wearing a slightly oversized flannel, and the sleeves come over my palms. The fabric brushes Aiden’s stubbled cheeks as I hold his face still, leaning into him. His warmth instantly overtakes the chill of the outside air, and I smile against his mouth, kissing him so hard that I half expect to bruise him.

Secure in the strong grip of his arms, I take a deep breath of vetiver, and think: home.

Aiden lifts me higher into the air, and I break off the kiss, laughing, smacking his arm. He sets me down gently, a blush rising in his bronze cheeks.

“You seem happy,” he says, nuzzling his nose against mine. “Does that mean it went well with Raj, Noah, and Mel? You have to tell me everything.”

“Let’s go to my place, I’ll tell you on the way. I need to shower. I didn’t get to, last night.”

“Wow, one whole night without a shower, and you survived?” Aiden straightens out my t-shirt for me, nods his head like he’s impressed. “You’re tougher than I realized, Keane.”

“Stop it! The point is, I have a lot to tell you. A lot.”

“Ugh, just tell me now,” Aiden groans, pushing his forehead into mine.

The movement is more forceful than I anticipated, and I stumble backwards.

“Come on, dummy,” I laugh, clinging to his arm for balance. “Let’s get moving. I have a thousand things to tell you, we need to get to the exhibition space, and Kasey should be back tonight with the intel for the next Ghost Office mission.”

“Man, she hasn’t even checked in.” A troubled crease appears between Aiden’s eyebrows. “I’ve been wondering if we should be worried.”

I look up at him, my love swelling and growing and expanding around me, to the point that I’m surprised all the snow doesn’t melt.

“Babe, she’s a ghost.” I take two handfuls of Aiden’s sweater, the fabric warm from his body heat. “And also, she’s Kasey. Every time I’ve tried to rush to her rescue, she solves the problem before I get there.”

“True. Good point.”

“Yeah, like - once, we went to a concert together, and this creep started following her around. Kasey was super drunk, so I was keeping an eye on him for her. Eventually he tried to grab her, and - you know what Kasey did, before I could even get there to help? She turned around and threw up on his shoes. Then she looked him in the eye, wiped her mouth off, and smiled at him.”

“Jesus Christ!” Aiden sputters. “Okay. I take back what I said. I’m not worried about her. Clearly she’ll be fine.”

“Mhm,” I answer, tracing my fingers over his cheek.

He didn’t shave this morning. I guess he didn’t have time before he picked me up. That makes two days in a row, which means he’s already got the start of a close-cut beard darkening his jaw. His cheeks are still tinted a rosy color from the kiss I treated him to, and he's wearing the snapback he got for his birthday.

It’s an overall very cute look, and I stare up at him with giant heart eyes. But my smile falters as his abruptly drops away.

He winces, his shoulders tensing like he’s suddenly been hurt.

“Hey.” I give his sweater a gentle tug, concerned. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, just heard a weird - a weird… energy jump…” He tips his head to the side, staring blankly over my head, listening. “It’s nothing, it - might- might not be anything…”

He draws in a shuddering breath, and a pulse of white-blue light flashes through his eyes.

Oh, no.

“Aiden?” I whisper, and he looks down at me. My heart sinks when I see his expression. “Right now?”

“Soon,” he says, his voice hoarse.

I snatch the keys out of his hands, then rush to the driver’s side of the car. Aiden stands frozen, rooted to the spot.

“Aiden!” I call, yanking the door open. I snap my fingers at him, then slap my hand on the roof of the car, so hard that it hurts. He flinches and turns to face me, blue eyes wide. “Let's go!”

Aiden swallows, then slips into the car without another word.

~~~~

My car tears over crushed-down snow, crunches on road salt. At one point I speed over a fallen branch without slowing down. The dry sound of the break reaches us in the car - or at least, reaches me. Aiden is having trouble hearing anything but what’s going on in his head.

I have a feeling that this is going to be a tough rescue. Even with Aiden’s powerhouse build, his strength and stamina, that speed and grace of movement that’s only his - he’s reduced to a shivering, nervous wreck by what he hears.

I leave my hand on his thigh, and he clings to it tightly. My palm is turning scarlet where I smashed it into the car to get his attention, and I feel my pulse beating in my fingers. Still, I don’t let Aiden go.

His jaw is locked and tense, his eyes shut tight, sweat glazing his forehead as he tries to focus.

I’ve been talking and talking, trying to give him a steady noise to hold onto. But we’re coming to a turn in the road, and I have to ask.

“Aiden - do I keep going straight?”

His blue eyes flutter open, swimming with frustration.

“I don’t fucking know, it sounds like it’s coming from the river, but that can’t be right. It’s frozen, no one should be drowning.” Aiden makes a soft, agonized sound, then presses his hands over his ears. “It’s too fucking loud, I can’t narrow it down, I can’t-”

I take the turn - at a clip I would never attempt under normal circumstances - then say, in what I hope is a firm voice:

“Okay, well, I trust you. If that’s where it sounds like it’s coming from, that’s where we’re go-”

“I fucking hate this,” Aiden interrupts, anger roughening his voice. “I fucking hate - you were so happy, and I show up, and now you’re dragged into some fucking disaster - and I don’t even think we’re going to get there in time, it’s too loud already - will you stay in the car? I don’t want you to see-”

“Stop it,” I say sharply. “I knew what I was signing up for.”

“Yeah, but I wish-” Aiden bites his lip, a pained look on his face. “I wish that you could choose me without having to choose this, too.”

“Aiden.” I give his thigh a squeeze. “I love you for who you are. I love you as a Heliomancer, an archivist, a ghost hunter, a Guardian, as my Companion Plant - as you. If I can be here to make this part easier on you, I would choose to every time, okay? Don’t worry about me, right now, just - forget everything else. Just listen.”

Aiden lets out a trembling breath, reaching for his focus. For a moment, he listens in silence.

The white-blue fire in his eyes sparks and flares.

“I think we’re close,” he says.

We’re far past the town limits by now. The last house we saw was some twenty minutes back the way we came. Forest rises up on either side of the car, bare branches shivering and bending in the wind. It’s a brutally cold morning, but I put down both of the front windows, get Aiden some air.

“Should I park?” I ask, and Aiden makes a helpless sound.

“I don’t know! It sounds like we’re right near it, but there’s nothing out here besides the river!”

I ease up on the gas pedal, frantically trying to think of an answer. This isn’t a place where we might find a lost hiker, and there are no other cars on the road, so I don’t think we’re trying to prevent an accident.

“Well, I’m playing Final Destination over here,” I tell Aiden. “Is a road sign going to fall on someone, or-?”

His eyes widen, and he jolts upright. “Right here, stop!”

I swerve the car to the side of the road. Aiden scrambles out, and I’m two seconds behind him.

He stops and turns in a slow circle, his eyes scanning the trees, the street, everything - looking for a hint. I join him, do the same.

A handful of precious seconds slip by, and we don’t see anything.

Aiden lets out a heavy breath, then takes my face in his hands.

“Please stay in the car,” he whispers, looking earnestly into my eyes. “Whatever it is, I don’t want you to see.”

“We are not giving up,” I tell him, struggling to keep the panic out of my voice. “We’re not - there must be… look, you said it sounds like it’s coming from the river? Then - fuck it, that's where we'll go. It’s better than standing here.”

Aiden’s eyes flit back to the road, uncertain. “But - what if-?”

I’m already hopping the guardrail. “Let’s just go!”

I'm fucking terrified, making a decision like this. If we leave the road and come back to find that someone died on the asphalt while we were checking the river, that’s -

That’s on me.

The realization makes my breath come up short.

My heart suddenly twists for Aiden. It’s so unfair that he has to make these huge decisions all the time, that he’s had to since he was a kid. I know that when they turn out badly, they haunt him. They even follow him into his dreams.

But I refuse to believe that this is a mistake. I meant what I told Aiden: I trust him. Following his instincts - even if it doesn’t make immediate sense - has to be the right call. It has to.

I don’t look back as we weave together through the barren trees, slipping on snow, tearing downhill towards the water.

This is the same river that passes by the Ghost Office. It’s narrower there, but this far from town, it spreads out, settles into the grooves and curves of the landscape. It’s deep here, and wide. But as Aiden said, no one could be swimming in it. Not at this temperature, even with the sun shining brightly.

Aiden calls out something I can’t hear well enough to understand. In finding paths through the blanket of snow, we’ve accidentally put some distance between ourselves. I climb a snowbank and run closer to Aiden, though neither of us breaks our trajectory towards the river.

“What?” I shout, my breath misting around my mouth.

“I said - do you have your inhaler?” he shouts back. “Are you gonna be okay, running this much?”

“Oh - yeah, I’m okay! Getting used to it, honestly!” I leap a fallen tree, only a few seconds behind Aiden. “Dating you is basically signing up for cross country! S’all good though - who needs to breathe, right?”

“You!” Aiden somehow manages to use that firm, inarguable voice, even while yelling. “You need to breathe, dude!”

Before I can answer, we make it to the river.

We burst through the treeline and stop on an exposed section of the riverbank. Gasping for air, we stand and stare out over the water.

The surface is hard and frozen. Where there isn’t snow, there’s slick grey ice, reflecting the morning sunshine. The trees that line the river’s edge are heavy beneath their white coats, bent low.

Everything is still and silent, only our labored breaths breaking the hush.

“Jamie.” Aiden’s voice sends a chill down my spine. “Any - any second now-”

“No,” I say desperately, pressing my hands to my cheeks. “No, come on-”

I cut myself off as something snags my attention from the very corner of my eye.

Aiden turns to follow my gaze. Together, we watch as someone steps out of the treeline.

The person is further down the river, but close enough that we can discern a few things. This isn’t someone we know. He's a scrawny teenager, weighed down by the huge, heavy backpack on his shoulder.

He appears to be taking a shortcut to wherever he’s going by walking directly across the frozen river.

I open my mouth to ask Aiden what to do, but before I can say a word, a strange sound echoes through the air.

Midway across the river, the kid out on the ice pauses and looks up, listening.

The sound is somehow both muffled and powerful, like it’s coming from deep beneath the water’s surface. Like - a whale song, almost.

I realize about a second later that what we’re hearing is the eerie reverberation of ice cracking somewhere up the river.

About one second after that, there comes the much sharper sound of ice fracturing nearby. It isn’t all that loud, but it is startling and sudden: an icy crunch, followed by a snap, the sound of rushing water.

Aiden moves automatically and grabs my arm. We twist to check on each other, then turn back to the place where the stranger stood.

He’s gone, along with the ice he was standing on.

We have just enough time to see his hand reaching out for help before he disappears completely beneath the water.