Work Text:
The timefall hit just as she ducked beneath the shelter’s frame, its hum kicking in. Glint stood near the pole of the structure, arms crossed, breathing through her nose. She was quite done with the day, honestly. Mud crusted at the edge of her boots. Above her, the shelter’s roof shimmered, filtering the timefall. She could hear the hiss of the rain hitting the shield.
At the distance, a figure drifted closer.
The rain didn’t help when she tried to assess who was coming her way. Everything was too blurred, soft at the edges. Even though the world felt smaller now, in more ways than one, the land was still vast—open in a dangerous kind of way. Seeing someone out in the wild was still a game of roulette. No rules or guarantees now. You could never be sure what people wanted from you anymore. Out here, intentions didn’t matter until it was already too late. And she’d had her fill of unlucky encounters already, so to speak.
The BB pod made it quite clear for her, though. Sam.
He broke into view through the blur of rain, his silhouette unmistakable—hunched under the weight of the pack, hood pulled low. There was something relentless in the way he always moved forward. Maybe that was the difference between him and everyone else, to be fair. He didn’t believe things would get better. He just kept going anyway.
Sam slipped under the arc just before the worst of it caught him. His suit was soaked, BB unit quiet. His eyes flickered toward her, unreadable as always.
“You again,” she said, a tired smile painted on her face.
Sam gave a small nod, acknowledging her. He stayed a step back—respecting space, or maybe just keeping to habit.
Glint didn’t know quite what to make of him yet. Their paths crossed a few times, awkward deliveries followed by quiet nods. They’d never talked beyond necessity, but there was something in him she recognized. She’d read about him once, too. The miraculous porter, stitching America back together. It sounded like a huge burden to carry.
“Didn’t know you took this route anymore.”
“Didn’t plan to.”
The rain struck the roof harder, hissing now. One drop could age your skin in seconds. She’d seen it happen. She pulled her hood tighter, tucking her face deeper into it.
“Thank you, by the way,” she said suddenly. “For the generator.”
He didn’t answer.
One of her cables lifted slightly, twitching like a cat’s tail in thought. It hovered for a second before coiling back. “Still making deliveries?”
After a moment, he replied. “Pretty much.”
“And does it help?”
He shrugged. “Helps someone.”
She let that sit. Felt like honesty, coming from him. More than she was used to lately. “Not you?”
Another shrug. This one was tighter, less sure.
She shifted her stance, and her knee gave a small groan at that. They both stared out at the warped horizon past the shelter. The timefall hit the rocks beyond with a hiss, everything it touched aging and splitting.
“Do you ever think about stopping, Sam?”
That caught him off guard. It took him so much time to reply she almost thought she wouldn't get one. “...Sometimes.”
She was pushing it now. “And?”
“I don’t.”
Her mouth ticked up with the barest hint of a smile. “Good answer.”
That earned a look from him, if just for a second. He wasn’t one for socializing. That worked for her. There was a kind of symmetry to that—two people trapped in the same loop, orbiting different planets. Sam adjusted the strap of his pack, his fingers twitching. A nervous habit, maybe.
“You don’t talk much,” Glint said after a moment, observing.
Sam grunted as a reply.
She watched the distant horizon split into threads of aged ground. Life and death. “Rare these days.”
She wondered, then, what it meant to keep meeting like this. Coincidence didn’t feel right, and fate felt too heavy. But the world was getting smaller and smaller. Maybe some people were meant to find each other in the hollow spaces, the ones no one else lingered in.
There was something about the stillness in her—the way she carried it—that made people mistake it for coldness. It wasn’t. It was observation—the learned skill of many years of research and choosing when to give a piece of herself away, or when to keep it buried deep beneath her skin. It was easier to watch. To catalog.
The truth was, she longed for connection the way old machines longed for a second life. But she’d been alone long enough to convince herself that longing and needing weren’t the same thing.
When the rain began to thin, Sam shifted his pack and said, “You good getting back?”
She glanced toward the ridge behind her. It was steep. “Good enough.”
He gave her a slow nod. “Take care.”
“You too, Bridges.”
He paused a beat longer than necessary before walking back into the world. She watched him until he vanished into the distance, steady as always. The hum of the shelter stayed with her long after she left, and so did the feeling of meeting someone who might understand her struggles.