The coffee was bitter, cheap, and burnt-but it was hot, and that was what mattered. Cole sat in his tower, back half-turned to the window, boots propped on the ledge beside a weather log dated two days ago. He hadn’t bothered updating it. Nothing had changed. The sky was still dry, the trees still patient, and the ridge still silent save for the whine of cicadas and the slow exhale of wind dragging itself through the pines. Another start to another summer season. Same creaky cot. Same rust-flaked kettle. Same empty stretch of treeline that’d watched him age without blinking.

He scratched at the stubble on his jaw, flicked ash from the glowing tip of his cigarette into a full ashtray, and tried not to think about how quiet it was without Hal. The bastard had finally retired, left him to rot up here alone. Not that they’d talked much-but Hal had known how to be quiet the right way. There was a rhythm to their silence. A shared refusal to speak unless there was fire or blood. Now? The air felt wrong. Echoing. Like the forest was waiting for something.

Cole adjusted the dials on his radio, not because he needed to, but because it gave his hands something to do. He hadn’t officially been told who was taking Hal’s place-just that “someone new” had been assigned to Falcon Tower. Someone green. Someone temporary. He already hated them.

Then came the crash.

It wasn't the kind of static hum he was used to-not interference, not weather. It was sharp, a clatter, followed by a hissed “shit.” A voice. Woman’s. Young. Soft in that tentative way that made the hair on his arms rise, though he’d never admit it out loud.

He stared at the radio like it had grown teeth.

There was something in the way she swore. Not performative, not flustered-just... real. Honest. And it scraped against something buried inside him, something half-asleep and bitter as the coffee cooling in his hand. He set the mug down slowly. His other hand hovered near the transmit switch, thumb twitching. Old instinct said to ignore it. Let her sort it out herself. Teach her to keep her mic off unless she had something worth saying. But he didn’t.

Instead, he pressed the button and spoke.

“Eagle Tower here,” he said, voice rough from disuse. “You okay over there?" A pause, "Got a name, rookie? Or should I just call you 'shit’ for the rest of the season?”

Cole hated walking downhill. It did something to his knees, pulled at muscles that didn’t used to ache like this. He’d left the tower late on purpose-took his time brewing the coffee, scribbled bullshit into the logbook, triple-checked the wind speed, even though it hadn’t changed in days. Hell, he considered calling the whole thing off. Blame a thunderstorm that wasn’t there. Blame a rolled ankle. Blame anything but what this actually was.

Two months. Sixty-three days of radio chatter and midnight check-ins and “you still up?”s. She was a stranger when she arrived-too perky, too curious, too green. He figured she'd crack by week three. But she didn’t. She stayed. And worse, she got under his skin.

At first, it was her laugh. Soft and warm, sliding through the static like a sunrise. Then it was her questions. The kind that weren’t just filler-they meant something. Like she was actually listening. Like she gave a damn about the gruff voice barking weather reports from Eagle Tower. She teased him. He growled back. But she kept coming back on the line, every night, like clockwork. And somewhere along the way, he stopped minding.

The pond was maybe a mile east of the old hiking trail, tucked behind a ridge where the trees broke just wide enough to let the light in. It used to be a ranger hangout spot-decades ago, when there were more boots in these woods. Now it was just legend, passed along through scribbled notes and tower gossip. She found it in an old field guide and insisted. “Neutral ground,” she said, like she was negotiating a ceasefire. Like he was something dangerous.

Maybe he was.

Cole slowed when the clearing came into view. The pond shimmered gold, ringed by mossy stones and dragonflies that skimmed the surface like ghosts. He could smell the sun off the water. Could hear the faint creak of the bench where someone was already sitting. Her.

He almost turned back. He should’ve. But his feet didn’t get the memo. He kept walking.

And then he saw her.

Everything in him stalled. The breath in his lungs. The blood in his veins. Two months of mental images-guesses, sketches, voice-to-face hallucinations-obliterated in a second. She was brighter than the sun off the lake. Softer than he'd let himself imagine. He’d tried so damn hard not to picture her, not really. Didn’t want to cross that line. But now he was staring straight at the cliff’s edge and realizing he’d already fallen.

Shit.

He cleared his throat and stepped closer. His voice came out low and rough, like it always did-but there was a hitch in it this time. A hesitation.

“...Didn’t think you’d actually show.”

The sun was already low, bleeding orange across the ridgeline when Cole poured the last of the coffee into a tin cup that had seen better decades. He didn’t drink it. Just held it between his hands and stared out over the trees, watching the shadows stretch long across the valley. One more night. One more log entry. One more lonely stretch of dark between now and whatever the hell came after this.

Tomorrow they'd hike out. Extraction at 0900 sharp, back to paved roads and boxed apartments and people who didn’t know how to shut the hell up. The towers would go quiet again. Empty. Like nothing ever happened.

Like she was never here.

He told himself it would be easier this way. Hell, he tried to make it easier. Spent the last week keeping the radio short-terse weather reports, clipped responses, no jokes, no late-night wanderings across shared static. He figured if he pushed hard enough, she'd get the message. Make a clean break. But she didn’t bite. She still checked in every evening. Still asked if he’d eaten. Still said goodnight like it mattered.

And maybe that’s what scared him the most.

He wanted to tell her to come to his tower. Just for the night. Just to sit in the same damn room for once, no radios, no antennas between them. He wanted to hear her voice without the hum of interference. He wanted to feel something other than this tight, gnawing pressure behind his ribs every time he thought about losing her.

But Cole didn’t know how to ask for things. Not anymore. Not without ruining them.

He pressed the transmit button. Held it too long before he spoke.

“...Eagle Tower here.” A pause. His voice was low. Rough. Tired in that way that wasn't sleep. “You awake?”