Three days before, she finalized the team with Darro.
The conversation was short. River said she was going, what she was carrying, how fast she expected to move. Darro said what she was bringingâher own pack, her weapons, her knowledge of the eastern approaches. Neither of them made it ceremonial. They were both people who'd learned that ceremonies about survival didn't make survival more likely.
"One rule," River said.
Darro held her gaze.
"You tell me if you disagree," River said. "You tell me directly. You don't act on it without telling me."
"And if you disagree with me," Darro said.
"I'll tell you directly," River said. "And then I'll make the call, and you follow it."
Darro held her gaze for a moment.
"Fair," she said.
---
Two days before, Lia ran the antibiotic interaction test.
River was in and out of the medical room four times that dayâonce in the morning to drop off water for the test, once midday to see the early results, once in the afternoon when Lia flagged a complication in the interaction data, and once at evening for the final assessment.
The final assessment: the antibiotics could be used as adjuncts at twenty percent of the base dosage. Not ideal. It extended the compound timeline by approximately ten days. Better than nothing by the specific margin of ten days.
"Ten days of margin," River said.
"Ten days," Lia said.
"That's something," River said.
"Yes," Lia said. "It's something."
River looked at the data.
"You've told Marcus," she said.
"This morning," Lia said. "He said 'good.' Went back to his route review."
River held that.
"He's doing well," Lia said. "Better than the numbers suggest he should feel. He'sâ" She paused. "He's not letting himself be slowed down by it."
"He wouldn't," River said.
"No," Lia said.
River looked at the data one more time.
Ten days.
She went back to the route planning.
---
The day before, she did the rounds.
Not a formal goodbyeâshe'd decided against that early. The Station didn't need to frame this as a departure it might not come back from. So she moved through the day doing the things the day required, and the conversations were the ones she would have had anyway if she'd been staying. Just with an extra layer underneath.
She checked the east wall foundation section with Ramos. He walked her through the repair timeline he had in mind. She approved it, made two small modifications, signed off.
She went over the documentation distribution schedule with Gabe. The southern route runners would continue on their normal cycles. If a runner encountered a situation where the documentation felt like a liabilityâRider presence, a hostile settlementâthey were to cache the documents and report back. No heroics.
"I'll manage the cache locations," Gabe said. "Keep the network moving."
"Yes," she said.
She ate lunch with Efrain and they talked through nothing importantâa trade the Station had made two weeks ago, whether the Year 14 seeds were going to yield better than expected, the structural question of whether the main storage building needed a second floor or a second building. Things that required conversation but not decisions.
It was the best lunch she'd had in a week.
In the afternoon she ran Kael's training session. Last one before she left. She showed him the full seventh form, the real version, moving slow so he could follow the mechanics. He watched carefully.
"I won't have this before you're back," he said.
"No," she said. "But you'll have it before I'm back."
He looked at her.
"That's the same thing," he said.
"It's not," she said. "The first version is about what you'll have when I return. The second version is about what you'll build while I'm gone." She held his gaze. "When I come back, you'll have something you built yourself. That's different from having something I taught you."
He held that.
He ran the seventh form. Badly, as expected. But the framework was there.
At the end of the session, he stood up straight and held out his hand.
She took it.
"Come back," he said.
"Yes," she said.
---
The evening she packed.
The pack was already mostly assembledâshe'd been doing it in stages over the past week, learning the weight of it, adjusting. Medical supplies in the top compartment where they'd be fastest to access. Food and water in the mid-section. The documentation copiesâroute notes, network contacts, the information that mattered to carryâin the water-sealed inner pocket. The maps Marcus had marked.
And the folded Rider route record with *YN x2*.
She put that in her jacket pocket, not the pack.
She was almost done when Cal came in. He'd been finishing his own packâhis weapons check, the supply allocation. He put his pack against the wall beside hers and sat on the bed.
She looked at the two packs against the wall.
"Ready," she said.
"Ready," he said.
She sat beside him.
They were quiet for a moment.
She was thinking about all the things she'd thought through over the past weekâthe route, the treatment timeline, Marcus's numbers, the Rider patrol movement, Darro's sister, the photograph she didn't have yet. The things she'd decided and the things she'd accepted and the things she was still working on.
"Tell me something that has nothing to do with the route," she said.
He thought.
"There's a bird that's been building a nest in the west wall gap," he said. "Ramos keeps checking it. I think he's planning to fix the gap but he's waiting for the eggs to hatch."
She looked at him.
"Ramos," she said.
"I saw him looking at it," Cal said. "Very intently. Like he was calculating whether the eggs were structural."
She breathed.
She laughed.
A real laughâthe kind that surprised her. She hadn't laughed in a while.
Cal looked at her with the small expression that meant he'd been waiting to see that.
"The bird is going to be fine," he said. "The wall can wait."
She breathed.
She looked at the wall of their room.
The spring night was coming in through the window. Tomorrow they'd be on the road. Tonight was still the Station.
She turned to face him.
She kissed himânot urgent, not the way grief had made her the night of Lia's numbers. This was different. This was: I want to be here with you right now, while I still can.
He understood the difference. He always understood.
They moved the packs to one sideâpractical to the endâand she pulled him down with her, and he moved over her with the same patience he always had, the same unhurried knowing, and she held him closer than she needed to for warmth.
This wasn't about processing anything. This was just the two of them in the last hours of the Station, doing something that belonged entirely to them.
She watched his face above her in the near-dark. The way he looked when he was right here and nowhere else.
After, she lay against him and listened to the Station soundsâthe watch rotation, the creak of the east building, the spring wind.
"I'm glad you're coming north," she said.
"I know," he said.
She held his hand.
"You don't say that enough," she said. "That you know things. It's a strange quality."
"It's efficient," he said.
"It's annoying," she said.
"Also efficient," he said.
She breathed.
She felt him smile against her hair.
She let herself be there, just there, for a long time before she let her eyes close.
---
Marcus came before dawn.
She was awakeâshe'd been awake for an hour, lying still in the dark, not needing to be anywhere but needing to be conscious of the last of it. When she heard his knock on the door frame she was already sitting up.
Cal was awake too. He made room on the end of the bed. Marcus sat.
The lamp wasn't lit. The three of them sat in the dark.
"I remembered something," Marcus said.
She waited.
"The Warden Gate has expanded," he said. "Not just the main highway checkpoint. In the last six monthsâbased on what the runner from Parnell described about patrol movements, and a report Gabe showed me yesterdayâthey've added a secondary watch post on the western valley entrance." He held her gaze in the dark. "The alternate route. The first forty kilometers."
She went still.
"A watch post," she said.
"Possibly a rotating checkpoint," he said. "I don't have detail. It may be informalâa Rider patrol that runs through the western entrance as part of a broader circuit. Or it may be a fixed post." He paused. "If it's fixed, and they're checking travelersâ"
"Then the alternate route has the same problem as the main route," she said.
"Yes," he said.
She held that.
Cal was still beside her.
"How confident are you in this information," she said.
"Gabe's report is secondhand," Marcus said. "A trader who came through the western valley two months ago mentioned seeing a Rider patrol at the entrance. He didn't go through. He went around." He paused. "Two months ago. Things could have changed."
"Or they could have gotten worse," she said.
"Yes."
She breathed.
"So we plan for both possibilities," she said. "We go the alternate. If we hit a checkpoint at the entrance, we have documentation and a stated destination that holds under questioningâtraders heading for Talsen's market season." She held his gaze. "You don't go through the checkpoint. Darro and I present. You and Cal and Lia stay back until we're through."
"And if they're specifically looking for me," Marcus said.
"They're not looking for you specifically," she said. "You're a former patrol rider who left service fifteen years ago. There are hundreds of those. You're only remarkable if they have your file current." She held his gaze. "How current is your Rider file."
"I don't know," he said.
"Neither do I," she said. "So we plan as if it's not current and we're prepared if it is." She held his gaze. "This is solvable. We solve it at the checkpoint if we hit one."
He was quiet.
"You're not wrong," he said.
"I know," she said.
He stood up.
He looked at herâor in the direction of her, in the darkâand she could hear in the small sounds of him the thing he wasn't going to say, which was the thing he'd been carrying since she was seven years old on the road and he'd recognized her mother's name and decided to keep it for twelve years.
"You know," she said.
"I know," he said.
He went out.
She sat in the dark.
Cal's hand found hers.
"Dawn in an hour," he said.
"I know," she said.
She sat with that.
The packs against the wall. The mountains north. The checkpoint that might be there and might not.
An hour.
She got up to get dressed.
