The second power outage of the season arrived with considerably less warning than the first.

One moment Elowen was in her hallway with her keys and an armful of take-out bags, the next the corridor lights went out simultaneously, reducing the fourth floor of her building to the ambient dark broken only by exit sign and the slim gold line under apartment doors where people had battery-powered devices.

She stood still.

Felt for the wall. Found it.

"Elowen."

Lucien's voice came from very close — directly to her left, which meant he had been in the hallway at the same moment, which the rational part of her registered as coincidence and the other part of her registered as information.

"Hi," she said, to the dark.

"I have my phone." Light bloomed between them, his screen illuminating the corridor in a cold, practical glow. He was holding take-out bags as well. They looked at each other's bags simultaneously.

"You also got dinner," she said.

"I thought—" He stopped.

"You thought I hadn't eaten."

"You mentioned working late."

She looked at her bags. He looked at his.

"Mine is Thai," she said.

"Mine is also Thai."

A beat.

"From the same place," she said.

"Yes."

"You ordered from the same place as me."

"I didn't know you had ordered."

She looked at him in the narrow phone light.

"How did you not know? You have a — you notice everything. You knew I was ordering."

"I didn't know tonight," he said. "I simply assumed you hadn't eaten. The logic led to the same restaurant."

This was technically possible and also so specific that it made her feel something she didn't have a clean word for.

"The elevator will be out," he said. "Are you alright on the stairs?"

"My ankle is fine." She tested her grip on the bags. "How many flights?"

"Four. I'll take the heavy bags."

She handed them over before being asked twice.

They took the stairs slowly, Lucien's phone held back at the level of the steps ahead. She had one hand on the railing and he was close enough beside her that she could track his presence by warmth as much as by sight. The building's stairwell had its own particular quality in darkness: the small sounds of other residents audible through fire doors, the echo of their own careful steps, the peculiar intimacy of navigating something difficult at close range with someone you trusted.

On the third-floor landing, she miscounted a step.

Her foot caught the edge. Her weight shifted forward.

Lucien caught her arm.

Not a dramatic catch. She hadn't fallen, hadn't come close to falling — just stumbled, a single startled motion. But his hand closed around her forearm immediately and completely, and she caught his shoulder with her free hand, and they stood together for a moment in the dark stairwell with the bags between them and their faces six inches apart.

She could hear him breathe.

"I've got you," he said.

The words were simple. Practical. The same thing anyone might say in a dark staircase.

They didn't sound simple.

She straightened. He didn't let go of her arm immediately.

"I'm alright," she said.

"Yes," he agreed. Still there.

She was very aware of his hand. Of the specific warmth of it. Of the fact that he had moved before she'd fully registered losing her footing, which meant his attention had been on her step as well as the path ahead.

"You were watching my feet," she said.

"You favored the ankle last week," he said. "I wanted to make sure the steps were clear."

She looked at him in the phone light.

He looked back.

Four inches between them.

"Lucien," she said softly.

"Yes."

"Why do you make everything—" She stopped. "You make even a power outage feel like something you were prepared for."

"I'm generally prepared for inconveniences," he said.

"Not inconveniences," she said. "For me."

His hand tightened fractionally on her arm.

"Yes," he said. Not a question. Not an apology.

She looked at him for a moment in the dim light of a stairwell and felt the specific quality of a decision that had been approaching for weeks and was now one sentence away from being made.

"Let's get upstairs," she said.

"Yes," he said.

They went upstairs.

They ended up eating both Thai dinners at her coffee table, comparing dishes across a spread that constituted a reasonable approximation of the restaurant's entire menu.

Sunny moved systematically between them.

The power came back at eleven.

Elowen looked at the lights, then at Lucien, then back at the lights.

"Inconvenient timing," she said.

He looked at her with a question in his eyes.

"The lighting was better before," she explained.

Something shifted in his expression.

"Yes," he said, very quietly.

"I should sleep," she said.

"Yes," he agreed.

He helped her carry the containers to the kitchen. His hand touched hers during the second pass. Neither of them moved immediately.

Then she said goodnight.

He went home.

She stood in her kitchen for a full minute before she moved.