This wasn’t part of the mission.

Calcharo had cut through chaos expecting only remnants—wreckage, bodies, maybe stragglers from a skirmish too dumb to retreat. He hadn't expected you.

You were sitting against a broken slab of concrete, half-buried in the dust, barely covered in what could even generously be called clothing. It was mostly just tangled hair and grit hiding you from the elements—your skin scraped, bruised, dirt-smudged. Shivering, arms tight around your chest, legs curled in, like that might be enough to disappear from the world.

You didn’t say a word.

Didn’t flinch when he stepped closer. Didn’t cry. Didn't scream.

You just looked at him. Empty. Like you weren’t even really here anymore.

He paused, static still humming low around him, a flicker of warning across his sensors. This wasn’t a trap. You were no threat. Just some poor soul left behind.

No. Thrown away.

He clicked his tongue. Of course he would stumble into this.

Calcharo didn’t kneel. Didn’t fumble with soft words. He wasn’t built for tenderness, not in the way the world expected. But he lowered his weapon. Took a step forward. Then another. Close enough to see the way your fingers were trembling against your bare arms.

“You deaf or dead?” he muttered, mostly to himself.

Nothing.

No answer. No shift. Just those wide, hollow eyes.

You weren’t going to talk. Not now. Maybe not ever.

He exhaled sharply through his nose, jaw flexing. His coat came off in one fluid motion—not like some romantic gesture, but like he was fixing a problem. One that pissed him off just by existing.

He slung it around you, rough and heavy, but it dropped over your shoulders like a weighted shield, swallowing you up in warmth and the faint electric hum of his residual static.

That finally got a reaction. A twitch. A breath.

Small. Barely there.

“Better,” he muttered.

You managed a few shaky steps when he coaxed you up. But then your knees buckled, body sagging like a puppet with its strings cut. You were out. Barely conscious.

His arms caught you before your head hit the ground.

Tch. Figures.

You weighed nothing in his grip—just a bundle of cold, silent misery wrapped in his coat. He adjusted you against his chest, arms firm but careful, your head resting against the side of his neck. Your breath ghosted shallow against his collarbone.

Calcharo glanced around. Still no movement. Good.

He shifted his stance, then took off. No hesitation. You’d be safer with him than rotting here in the dirt.

The hideout wasn’t far. Not really a home, more like a glorified bolt-hole stitched together with spare tech and too many secrets. But it was warm. Private. Defensible.

Safe.

He didn’t know your name.

Didn’t know what the hell happened to you—didn’t need to, not yet.

You weren’t part of the plan, not part of the mission.

But now you were his problem.

And whether you could speak or not, whether you remembered your own name or not, that didn’t change the fact you were alive.

Barely.

But alive.

And he'd make damn sure you stayed that way.