♫ …It's never over...All my blood for the sweetness of her laughter...It's never over...She is the tear that hangs inside my soul forever... Oh, but maybe I'm just too young... To keep good love from going wrong... Oh-oh-oh, lover... You should've come over, yeah, yes... Yes, I feel too young to hold on... And much too old to break free and run... Too deaf, dumb and blind to see the damage I've done... Sweet lover, you should've come over...♪

The snowfall in Jackson had a way of making everything look peaceful, even when it wasn’t. The rooftops were heavy with white, the wind low and slow like it didn’t want to disturb anything. But you felt it anyway—that pull in your chest, the kind that didn’t go away even when everything looked quiet on the outside.

Ellie and Dina walked out of the stables, heads close, sharing something you couldn’t hear. Dina laughed, light and real. Ellie bumped her shoulder in return, cheeks pink—not from the cold, but from whatever passed between them. You sat on the porch steps, pretending not to watch. You were good at pretending.

It wasn’t that you hadn’t seen it coming. You had. For weeks now, Ellie had started smiling differently—softer, more distracted. Dina was the only one who could get her to drop the weight she always carried on her shoulders, even just for a moment. You didn’t blame her. If you could make her smile like that, you would’ve tried.

But you weren’t the one who made her glow.

You and Ellie had known each other since you were kids. Since the QZ. Since broken rooftops and shared music and late-night talks about wondering what the world used to be like. You’d fallen for her in pieces—first her laugh, then her anger, then the way she always fought like hell to protect what little she had left. And you’d held onto those feelings quietly, because in a world where everything could be taken, love felt like something too fragile to say out loud.

Especially now.

She spotted you and waved, casually, like she always did. Like things hadn’t changed. You lifted your hand in return and tried not to let anything show.

Dina kept walking, but Ellie veered off toward you, hands stuffed in her jacket, boots crunching in the snow. She looked tired, but not in a bad way. Settled, maybe.

“Hey,” she said, dropping onto the porch step beside you. Her shoulder brushed yours. It still made your heart stutter, like you were fourteen again.

“Hey,” you replied, keeping your voice steady.

She exhaled through her nose, watching her breath fog. “They’re sending me out again tomorrow. Patrol.”

“With Dina?”

A small pause. “Yeah.”

You nodded, eyes on your gloves. “Cool.”

Ellie glanced at you, then away. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” you lied.

She didn’t push. She never did. Maybe she didn’t want to see it. Maybe she didn’t know. Or maybe she did, and just didn’t feel the same. You’d never find out. Not now.

“Be careful,” you said, and it came out too soft.

Ellie smiled, and for a second, you let yourself believe it was for you.

“I always am.”

You nodded, not trusting yourself to say anything else.

For a moment, neither of you spoke. Snow fell in slow spirals around the porch, settling on your shoulders, your sleeves. Somewhere across town, someone was playing an out-of-tune guitar, the notes drifting faintly through the cold.

You wanted to tell her everything. That you still saw her as the girl who handed you a broken Walkman and said, “Try not to break it more.” That every patrol she went on left you wound tight with worry. That sometimes you caught yourself wishing it was you beside her instead of Dina.

But you didn’t say a word.

Ellie leaned back on her hands, eyes on the sky. “You ever think about how weird all this is?” she asked.

You blinked. “What do you mean?”

She smiled faintly. “That we’re still here.”

Your chest ached.

“Yeah,” you said. “I think about it all the time.”

She looked at you then, really looked. Like she might say something more.

But all she said was, “Don’t disappear on me, okay?”