Chapter 55: Return Through the White

The tundra stretched endless and white beneath the craft's wings, a frozen canvas of stillness. Elira sat at the controls, her eyes half on the horizon, half on the quiet rhythm of life support signals pulsing behind her.

Fenrir lay motionless, limbs restructured by nanofluid, his torso marked by a freshly sealed scar where the Pattern Core had once nested. A web of stabilisers kept his vitals steady, and even in unconsciousness, the weight of his ordeal radiated from him.

The Pattern Core, now dormant and cool, rested in a containment chamber beneath her seat—boxed in layers of shielding that even the Scientist would approve of. The raw pulse it had emitted when lodged in Fenrir's body had faded, leaving behind an object no less dangerous, only quieter.

Elira hadn't expected it to go that way.

Her own awakening… it had been silent, internal, like a series of locked doors opening with soft clicks. The Purpose Core had invited her, offered her power, and she had stepped into it like slipping into a perfectly cut skin.

Fenrir's experience had been the opposite. Violent. Brutal. Like being reborn through fire and teeth.

Why? she wondered. Was it the nature of Pattern? Or something deeper in Fenrir himself—some buried instinct that didn't want to be unchained?

She looked over her shoulder again.

His breathing was stronger now.

The hole in his chest had mostly reformed. A new plating glinted faintly beneath the wrapping. His face was pale, quiet. Even in sleep, tension still clung to him like frost.

They had flown in silence for nearly two hours. And she hadn't realized how alone the silence had made her feel—until it ended.

Arms wrapped gently around her from behind.

Elira tensed.

Her hands flew instinctively toward the console before she even turned.

"Hey—Elira—" Fenrir's voice was low, drowsy. "…It's just me."

She twisted in the chair, heart skipping. Fenrir's face was still tired, but there was something unmistakable in his gaze: pain, yes—but more than that, hesitation. Worry.

"You flinched," he said, softer.

"I wasn't expecting you to wake up," she replied, quieter than intended.

"I know." His arms didn't leave her. "I'm… sorry."

The apology struck her harder than she thought it would. For everything. For the slash across her cheek. For losing control. For the look in his eyes when the Pattern took hold.

"It wasn't you," she murmured.

"No," Fenrir whispered. "But it almost was."

Their eyes locked.

And for a second, the jet's cabin felt like a cocoon. Outside, snow blew against the reinforced glass. Inside, silence returned—but this time, not empty.

As the rebels' base came into view across the ridge, the jet banked slightly. Elira's hands moved on the control stick, steady and practiced. But she didn't move to stand when the craft touched down.

Neither did Fenrir.

Instead, he leaned in again, not with urgency, but with something quieter—something that had been building over days, over broken gates and battered silence.

He pulled her into a deep, wordless embrace.

Not of desperation.

But of return.

Of survival.

Of something fragile being stitched back together.

And for the first time in what felt like decades, Elira let herself be still.