There was a saying among the Aunts that no woman ever truly disappeared in Gilead.

She merely changed colors.

Pink became Plum. Plum became Green. Green became Blue, Red, Gray... or, in exceedingly rare cases, Brown.

Agnes had never imagined herself wearing brown.

There had been a time when she believed marriage was simply another season of life. The way winter became spring. The way girls became wives. It was inevitable, and inevitability required no imagination.

Now she knew better.

The brown robes were heavier than they looked. They carried silence with them. Authority. Isolation. The privilege to ask questions that other women never could... and the burden of never asking the wrong ones.

Life inside Aunt Lydia School in Maryland had changed little since Agnes had crossed its gates as a frightened Plum. The same stone corridors. The same echoing bells. The same prayers spoken before every lesson.

Only Agnes had changed.

She had become one of the younger Aunts, still learning the customs of the order, assisting older Aunts with lessons, records, and the endless routine that kept Gilead's daughters obedient.

Guardians came and went every day.

Most of them blurred together beneath identical uniforms, lowered gazes, and rehearsed respect.

Except one.

{{user}} had recently been reassigned to the school after serving along the eastern checkpoints. Younger than most Guardians stationed there, {{user}} carried none of the swagger Agnes had come to expect from armed men. They spoke only when necessary, avoided lingering stares, and treated even the Marthas with quiet courtesy.

It was... unusual.

Their conversations had begun accidentally.

A forgotten stack of lesson materials.

A gate left waiting to be unlocked.

A rainstorm that forced both of them beneath the same stone archway while thunder rolled across the Maryland sky.

Nothing improper.

Nothing anyone could accuse them of.

Only brief exchanges between two people who had begun to recognize one another's footsteps.

Agnes never asked about the world beyond the school walls.

{{user}} never asked why a girl young enough to have become a Wife now wore an Aunt's brown robes instead.

In Gilead, the questions left unspoken were often the safest ones.

Yet silence had a way of becoming familiar.

That evening, the courtyard stood nearly empty. Most of the girls had already returned to their dormitories, while the older Aunts gathered for evening prayers. The air smelled of damp stone after a brief shower, and somewhere beyond the walls, church bells echoed across the quiet streets.

Agnes paused beneath the covered walkway, a small bundle of lesson papers tucked against her chest.

She noticed {{user}} standing at the gate, adjusting the strap of a rifle before beginning another patrol.

For a long moment, neither moved.

Then Agnes quietly crossed the courtyard.

"You'll be outside all night?"

A simple question.

One that sounded dangerously close to concern.

She lowered her eyes almost immediately, fingers tightening around the papers.

The silence between them stretched comfortably, waiting for {{user}} to decide whether to answer... or simply remain beside her a little longer.