Chapter 466: 466. She’s Confused, But At Least She’s Back Being Professional

She sat with the problem for a moment. The kitchen continued its warm, unhurried presence around her.

Outside, the morning was slowly transitioning into daytime.

"He won’t—" Elizabeth started. "Rex... He isn’t going to—"

"Make it complicated?" Marceline offered.

"I was going to say, ’make unreasonable demands,’" Elizabeth said. "But that also."

"He won’t," Mara said, with the certainty of someone who had already navigated that specific territory. "He’s excellent at understanding what a thing is and what it isn’t."

"He doesn’t try to make it into something different than what it is."

Elizabeth thought about the canyon. About what things were and what they weren’t and about a man who had been entirely clear-eyed about both without making it into a production.

"Right," she said.

She sat for another moment.

"It would be extremely premature to be concerned," she said, in a tone of someone making a policy statement for her own benefit.

"Extremely," Marceline agreed.

"In all likelihood, this is a normal morning, and nothing of consequence has occurred beyond the consumption of coffee and some information I wasn’t expecting."

"That’s one way to characterize it," Mara said.

"It’s the accurate way," Elizabeth said. "Professionally speaking."

Mara made the sound that wasn’t quite a laugh again, warm and without mockery.

Elizabeth straightened in the chair and pulled herself back to her usual posture, which was that of someone who had decided what she was doing next.

"We have a standing room for that," Mara said, as if the conversation had arrived there naturally. "If you need somewhere to do the analysis work from."

"It’s quieter than the main rooms, and it has a good desk."

"And it’s close to Rex’s room," Marceline said. "For the proximity."

"The professional proximity required for the work is essential."

"Thank you," Elizabeth said, her tone reflecting the hesitance of a woman accepting an offer she questioned whether she should accept.

It felt as though the people around her were also uncertain about her decision but were determined to be welcoming nonetheless.

Marceline poured herself another cup of coffee, and then, as if it were second nature, she refilled Elizabeth’s cup without asking. Elizabeth accepted the gesture because she noticed her cup was emptier than she had realized.

"Does it bother you?" Elizabeth asked after a moment, speaking in a way that felt unfamiliar to her. "Not—I mean, knowing that he—"

She stopped and considered the sentence and decided it was not going to get better if she continued it and left it where it was.

Mara perceived the intent behind the unfinished sentence. She possessed a rare comfort with topics that many found challenging to discuss—not due to indifference, but because she had reconciled herself with the particular nature of her circumstances in a way that most had not.

"No," Mara said simply. "It doesn’t bother me."

"I’m asking because it should," Elizabeth said, her tone emphasizing the logic and convention behind her statement. "Logically. Conventionally."

"Probably," Mara said. "Conventionally."

"But it doesn’t," Marceline said. "Which sounds strange from the outside, I know."

"It sounds like something people say when they’re trying to convince themselves."

"But it’s—" she paused and seemed to be looking for the accurate word rather than the comfortable one. "It’s just true, and it’s genuinely true."

"He’s not trying to replace anyone," Mara said. "That’s the thing I couldn’t quite explain if you asked me to explain it."

"There’s nothing—there’s no competition in it."

"Not from him and not from us, between each other. It just doesn’t have that shape."

Elizabeth glanced at both of them, contemplating the concept of shape—specifically, the shape of the situation she had found herself in last night and whether she could categorize something that didn’t fit the shape she had anticipated.

Mara said, very practically, "Are you actually all right?"

Elizabeth looked at her. "Yes," she said.

"You’re sure?" Mara said.

"I’m sure," Elizabeth said. "I’m—I’m fine."

"I’m standing in a kitchen at five in the morning, having a conversation I didn’t anticipate having, but I’m fine."

"Those are sometimes the better conversations," Marceline said.

"They’re rarely the more comfortable ones," Elizabeth said.

"No," Marceline agreed. "But ’comfortable’ and ’better’ aren’t always the same category."

Elizabeth looked at her coffee.

"He’s still asleep," she said, which was not quite a question.

"He’ll sleep until he decides not to," Mara said. "He does that."

"He sleeps like a person with an absolutely clean conscience, which is either genuinely true or the most impressive performance of it I’ve ever seen."

"I can’t determine which," Elizabeth said.

"Neither can we," Marceline said. "We’ve stopped trying."

"It doesn’t change much in practice."

Elizabeth glanced at the door to the corridor that led back to the stairs, then at her cup, and finally at the window, where the morning light was transitioning from twilight to full day, no longer lingering at the threshold.

"I should go back up," she said.

"The coffee pot will still be here if you want another cup," Marceline said. "The pot doesn’t have anywhere to be."

"Thank you," Elizabeth said. "For the coffee."

"And for—" she gestured slightly, an unusual mode of communication for her, a subtle indication that she couldn’t find the right word.

"The company," Mara said.

"Yes," Elizabeth said. "The company."

She carried her cup to the counter and rinsed it in the basin, a gesture not strictly necessary but typical of someone raised to be considerate of others’ kitchens. After drying it, she placed it back where she had found it.

Marceline called out, "Elizabeth," when she was at the door.

Elizabeth stopped.

"You need to trust him on this one, even if he is rough at first; you’ll eventually get used to it and come to believe that he has been right all along," Marceline said. "And that’s not nothing."

’I just thought you should know that we noticed, and we support you for it."

"Also, don’t forget to bring more coffee because Rex needs one when he wakes up." Mara said while giving her two cups of coffee.

Elizabeth grabbed the cups and held them for a moment. She looked at Marceline and then at Mara, and then she said, "I noticed too," and went back up the stairs.

The corridor was still quiet. The door to Rex’s room was as she’d left it, pulled almost closed but not latched.

She pushed it open, and the room was the same: the curtain not quite closed, the pale morning light, Rex still asleep in the same position, breathing with the same settled evenness.

She crossed to the table, glanced at the document she needed, and set down the two cups of coffee before picking one up.

She looked at Rex.

He was going to wake up entirely alert; she already knew that. He would be present and coherent within seconds of waking because she had learned enough about him over the past several days to understand that he did not experience a transitional state between sleep and wakefulness.

He would surface, and the room would already be fully formed in his awareness before he had even opened his eyes.

She sat down at the edge of the bed.

She had the document, the coffee, and the question of how to handle Valentina. All three were manageable in the next few hours if she could determine the right approach while the morning remained quiet enough for clear thought.

She read the document while contemplating her thoughts about Valentina.

She thought, briefly and precisely and then not anymore, about the kitchen downstairs and two women who had looked at her with the matter-of-fact warmth of people who were not particularly surprised by anything and had decided she was acceptable company regardless.

She thought, with the same briefness and precision, about the word "both."

She did not dwell on either thought for an extended period.

After about twenty minutes of this, she reached over and knocked twice on his forehead with a single knuckle, which was the most efficient available option, and waited.

Tap! Tap! Tap!

"Rex, please wake up!"

"We have something important to discuss early today."