# Chapter 1 — The Setup The safehouse was quiet. Not silent. Never silent. There was always something. The low electrical hum in the walls. Traffic pressing faintly through reinforced glass. The old plumbing complaining somewhere deep inside the building, like it had survived Night City out of spite and wanted credit for it. But compared to most evenings? Quiet. Almost suspiciously quiet. Panam Palmer should have noticed that sooner. She sat on one end of the couch with one boot hooked against the table leg, a half-finished drink in one hand and her jacket thrown over the armrest beside her. Shammy occupied the other end, long legs folded with impossible ease, silver-white hair catching the low safehouse light whenever she moved. Officially, they were doing different things. Panam was pretending to look through route notes Dakota had sent over. Shammy was pretending to watch some old documentary Kiro had apparently recommended with the words _it starts normal and then commits data crimes_. Unofficially? Neither of them had paid much attention to anything on the screen for the last twenty minutes. Across the room, Ace sat in an armchair with a coffee mug balanced in both hands. That alone should have been warning sign number one. Ace did not simply sit. Ace coiled. Ace waited. Ace looked relaxed in the same way a knife looked relaxed when left on a table. Mai sat at the dining table, one elbow resting near an agent projection while she reviewed something with the detached patience of a woman who had already decided the evening was someone else’s problem. Normal. Familiar. Routine. Which was exactly why Panam missed the first crack in the surface. Ace’s agent chimed. Ace glanced down. A smile appeared immediately. Small. Sharp. Dangerous. Panam narrowed her eyes. “What?” Ace looked up with perfect innocence. “Hm?” “That face.” “I have many faces.” “That one.” “Very specific.” Ace returned her attention to the agent. Panam stared at her for another second. Then two. Nothing happened. Mistake number one. Because the message on Ace’s screen was short. **Busy?** Reyes. Of course. Ace typed back with one thumb. **Maybe.** The reply arrived almost instantly. **Want company?** Ace’s smile widened. **Sure.** A pause. Then: **Bring coffee.** Several seconds passed. **I knew there was a catch.** Ace laughed quietly into her mug. Panam’s suspicion sharpened. “Ace.” “Panam.” “What are you doing?” “Messaging.” “I can see that.” “Then we’re making progress.” Panam opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Decided, with great personal restraint, not to throw anything. Yet. At the dining table, Mai’s agent chimed. Mai glanced down. Paused. Read the message. Then read it again. Panam sat up a little. That was not normal. Mai almost never read anything twice unless the second reading was for evidence. “Problem?” Panam asked. “Possibly.” “Work?” “No.” “Then what?” Mai sighed. Not dramatically. Mai never wasted effort like that. It was the precise, economical sigh of a woman who already knew exactly where the next ten minutes were going. “Kiro.” Panam blinked. “What did she do?” “Nothing yet.” “That is somehow worse.” “Correct.” Mai turned the screen slightly. The message read: **Where are you?** Mai had answered: **Safehouse.** The reply beneath it had arrived immediately. **Incorrect.** Panam stared. Then looked at Mai. Then back at the message. “What?” Another message appeared. **Get over here.** Panam pointed at the projection. “That is not a request.” “No.” “You’re okay with this?” “Not particularly.” “You’re going anyway.” “Almost certainly.” Another message arrived. **ETA 12 minutes.** Mai rubbed the bridge of her nose. Panam pointed harder. “See? That’s a threat.” “Technically it is a schedule.” “Mai.” “Yes?” “You have a very strange girlfriend.” “I am aware.” Across the room, Ace looked extremely entertained. That was warning sign number two. The really alarming thing was that neither Ace nor Mai looked surprised. Not even slightly. Panam slowly looked from one to the other. Then toward Shammy. Then back again. Something was happening. She did not know what. But something was absolutely happening. “Okay.” Nobody answered. “No, seriously.” Still nobody answered. Panam looked at Ace. Ace looked back with a face so innocent it should have required a license. Panam looked at Mai. Mai was very carefully not looking amused. Worse. Much worse. Then Panam looked at Shammy. Shammy had lifted her mug just enough to hide the lower half of her face. Traitor. Absolute traitor. “Not you too.” “I haven’t said anything,” Shammy said. “You don’t need to.” Shammy’s eyes brightened above the rim of the mug. Panam pointed at her. “That. Exactly that.” “What?” “That face.” “I have many faces.” Panam froze. Then slowly turned toward Ace. Ace smiled into her coffee. Panam looked back at Shammy. “You spend too much time around her.” “Possible.” “Very possible.” “Probably.” Panam groaned. The safehouse settled into a strange rhythm after that. Messages arrived. People pretended not to notice messages arriving. Everyone noticed messages arriving. Panam noticed most of all. Ace finished her coffee ten minutes later. Stood. Collected her jacket. Panam immediately pointed. “Where are you going?” “Out.” “Where?” “Outside.” “Ace.” “Panam.” “Be serious.” “I am serious.” “That’s the problem.” At the dining table, Mai closed her agent. A second warning siren activated inside Panam’s skull. “Wait.” Mai stood. Collected her jacket. Panam stared at her. “You too?” “Apparently.” “Apparently?” “Kiro has opinions.” “This feels coordinated.” “Interesting theory,” Ace said. “It isn’t a theory.” “Then congratulations on your discovery.” Panam looked toward Shammy. Seeking support. Seeking allies. Seeking literally anything. Shammy gave a small shrug. “I think they’re being weird.” “Thank you.” “I did not say they were wrong.” Panam turned on her. “Why would you add that?” “Accuracy.” “Terrible habit.” “I’ve heard.” The door buzzer sounded. Everyone froze. Well. Everyone except Ace. Ace looked delighted. “That’ll be Reyes.” Panam pointed immediately. “See?” “See what?” “That.” Ace walked to the door and opened it. Reyes stepped inside carrying a cardboard coffee tray and the expression of someone who had absolutely expected this to be funny but had not expected an audience. “Delivery.” “Accepted,” Ace said. Reyes handed her the tray. Then finally looked up. Saw Panam. Saw Shammy. Paused. “Oh.” Ace pointed at her without looking. “Don’t.” “Wasn’t going to.” A complete lie. An absolute lie. A professional-grade lie. Panam felt something in her increasingly suspicious brain click into place. This was not random. Not even a little. The door had barely closed behind Reyes before the buzzer sounded again. Panam pointed immediately. “No.” Ace looked at her. “No what?” “Whatever this is.” “You should be more specific.” “I absolutely should not.” Mai glanced at the clock. Then sighed. “Right on schedule.” “Stop saying things like that,” Panam snapped. Nobody listened. Naturally. The buzzer sounded a second time. Ace opened the door. Kiro walked inside carrying a backpack, three data tablets, and the unmistakable energy of someone who had been awake entirely too long and considered that everyone else’s problem. She stopped. Looked around. Took inventory. Panam. Shammy. Ace. Mai. Reyes. A pause. Then: “Finally.” Mai closed her eyes. “Kiro.” “What?” “No.” “I literally said one word.” “You knew exactly what you were doing.” “Correct.” Panam stared at her. “What is wrong with all of you?” Kiro looked genuinely confused. “That is a very broad diagnostic category.” Reyes lost the fight against laughter first. Ace followed immediately. Even Mai’s mouth betrayed her for half a second. The safehouse descended into chaos for approximately thirty seconds. Panam remained the only person not enjoying herself. Which somehow made everyone else enjoy themselves more. A terrible system. A completely unfair system. And one she had somehow become trapped inside. Kiro dropped her backpack near the door and pointed directly at Mai. “Let’s go.” “That was not a request,” Mai said. “I know.” “You cannot simply order people around.” “Watch me.” “Kiro.” “Mai.” A beat. Then Mai asked, “Traffic?” “Twenty minutes.” “Traffic says thirty-two.” “Then traffic should try harder.” Panam physically covered her face. “How do you live with this?” Mai considered the question with alarming seriousness. “I adapted.” Reyes immediately pointed. “That’s relationship language.” “You are not helping,” Mai replied. “I wasn’t trying to.” “Lie.” “Correct.” The laughter returned. Even Shammy. Especially Shammy. Panam noticed. Dangerous. Very dangerous. Because every time Shammy laughed, Panam’s irritation became significantly less effective. Which felt like a design flaw. A serious one. Several minutes passed in a blur of coffee, jackets, muttered accusations, and entirely too much silent coordination. The orbit was preparing to leave. Panam knew it now. Nobody was even pretending anymore. Ace moved toward the door with Reyes beside her. Mai followed, with Kiro practically orbiting around her like an impatient moon. Panam pointed one final time. “You planned this.” “No,” Ace said instantly. “Lie.” “Correct.” “All of you planned this.” Nobody answered. Which was answer enough. A long silence followed. Then Reyes finally said, “To be fair—” Everyone looked at her. Ace narrowed her eyes. “Don’t.” “I wasn’t going to say anything.” “Lie,” Mai said. “Correct.” The room erupted again. Panam looked ready to throw something. Unfortunately, she was also trying not to laugh. A losing battle. The worst kind. Finally, everyone reached the door. Coats. Coffee. Bags. Girlfriends. Everything accounted for. Almost. Ace stopped with one hand on the handle. Turned. Looked directly at Panam. Then at Shammy. Then back again. A small smile appeared. Not sharp this time. Not teasing exactly. Knowing. Entirely too knowing. “Goodnight.” Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. Ace’s smile widened by one dangerous millimeter. “See you in the morning.” Complete silence. Panam froze. Reyes looked away immediately and failed to hide a grin. Kiro looked away immediately and failed even harder. Mai simply gave up. “Ace.” “What?” “You know exactly what.” Ace opened the door with an expression of supernatural innocence. The orbit flowed out into the Night City night. One by one. Reyes. Ace. Kiro. Mai. The last thing Panam heard before the door closed was Kiro’s voice. “Told you she’d figure it out eventually.” Then— Click. Silence. The safehouse suddenly felt much larger. Much quieter. Much emptier. Only two people remained. Panam stared at the closed door. Then at Shammy. Then back at the door. A long pause. Finally: “They planned that.” Shammy looked into her mug. Then back at Panam. “Definitely.” Panam slowly turned toward her. “You knew.” Shammy’s expression remained perfectly calm. Perfectly warm. Perfectly guilty. “Little bit.” Panam stared. Then pointed at the closed door again. “I am surrounded by criminals.” “Frequently.” Panam opened her mouth. Closed it. Looked at the door. Looked at Shammy. And despite every instinct telling her to stay annoyed on principle— she started laughing. --- # Chapter 2 — No More Roads Panam laughed longer than she expected. That annoyed her slightly. Not because the laughter felt bad. It did not. That was the problem. It came too easily. Too naturally. The kind of laugh that should have belonged to people who were not currently the victims of a coordinated social ambush carried out by friends, girlfriends, mercs, netrunners, and one extremely smug short menace with violet eyes. Panam pointed at the closed door while still laughing. “They planned that.” Shammy, still sitting at the far end of the couch, nodded with the solemn gravity of a witness giving sworn testimony. “They did.” “All of them.” “Yes.” “Even Mai.” “Especially Mai.” Panam stared at her. That one hurt. Not deeply. Not truly. But enough to be insulting. “I trusted her.” “Interesting choice.” “Shammy.” “Panam.” The laughter threatened to return. Panam fought it. Heroically. For almost three seconds. Then failed. The safehouse seemed to relax around the sound. Not dramatically. The walls did not shift. The lights did not dim. No hidden music started playing from some cursed speaker Kiro had definitely installed somewhere and then forgotten to mention. It was just a room. A couch. A coffee table. A kitchen with abandoned mugs. A closed door. And Shammy. That last part became very noticeable once the laughter faded. Panam became aware of it slowly. Not like danger. Not like trouble. Worse. Like quiet. The kind of quiet that did not ask permission before becoming meaningful. She glanced toward the door again. Nothing happened. No one came back. No second wave of conspiracy members burst through the entrance with snacks, insults, or emergency excuses. No message arrived from Dakota. No call from Saul. No sudden Aldecaldo disaster. No Maelstrom idiot trying to shoot the lock off because apparently tonight had not yet been ridiculous enough. Just the door. Closed. Panam stared at it. The door stared back. Completely unhelpful. Finally she lowered her hand. “Well.” Shammy lifted an eyebrow. “Well?” Panam looked around the safehouse. The room had changed. Which was stupid, because it had not. Same couch. Same table. Same lights. Same kitchen. Same faint hum in the walls. Same distant Night City noise pressing against the windows. But the room had definitely changed. Or maybe the room had stopped hiding behind people. That was worse. Much worse. Panam slowly sat back down. Not exactly where she had been before. A little closer to the middle of the couch. Not intentionally. Obviously not intentionally. She was simply choosing a more practical seating position. For tactical reasons. On a couch. A very tactical couch. Shammy said nothing. That was suspicious. Panam narrowed her eyes. “What?” “I didn’t say anything.” “You were going to.” “I was not.” “Lie.” Shammy smiled. Small. Warm. Infuriating. “Maybe.” Panam pointed at her. “That. That right there. You all learned this from Ace.” “Probably.” “No shame.” “Not much.” Panam shook her head and leaned back, one arm stretching across the back of the couch. She meant to look casual. She was not sure whether she succeeded. Probably not. Shammy seemed too amused. That was becoming a pattern. A dangerous one. For a while neither spoke. The safehouse settled into the kind of silence Panam usually did not trust. Silence, in her experience, meant one of three things. Something was broken. Something was about to explode. Or someone was waiting for her to say something first. The third was clearly the worst. She glanced at Shammy. Shammy was not waiting like that. Not pushing. Not steering. Not wearing the expression people used when they had already prepared their next sentence and were only pretending to listen. She was simply there. Present. Patient. Comfortable in the quiet. Panam found that unfair. “Do you ever get tired of doing that?” Shammy blinked. “Doing what?” “Being calm.” “I’m not always calm.” “Could have fooled me.” A faint electric-blue glimmer caught behind Shammy’s eyes, gone almost as soon as it appeared. “People usually notice the outside first.” Panam looked at her. The answer was simple. Too simple. Not a complaint. Not a defense. Just a fact. That made it harder to joke around. Annoying. Very annoying. Panam looked away first. A rare event. She pretended to examine the coffee table. It had not become interesting. Not even slightly. Still, she gave it a thorough inspection. “Yeah,” she said finally. “I guess people do that.” Another silence. This one felt different. Less like a trap. More like a space somebody had left open on purpose. Panam was not sure what to do with that. Her instincts suggested movement. Movement usually solved things. Drive somewhere. Fix something. Start an argument. End an argument. Check the engine. Call someone. Leave before the room got too honest. That had always worked before. Mostly. Often enough to become a habit. Tonight there was nowhere to go. No route to check. No convoy to lead. No road humming under the tires. No horizon holding the next excuse. Just the safehouse. Just Shammy. Panam did not like how clearly she understood that. She stood abruptly. “Coffee?” Shammy looked up. “Is that a real offer?” “Don’t push your luck.” “Then yes.” Panam went to the kitchen before the room could get any worse. The coffee machine sat where it always did, ugly and reliable, which were two qualities she respected. She started it with more force than necessary and immediately felt marginally better. Some people meditated. Some people prayed. Panam made coffee like she was negotiating with a hostile machine. The machine hissed. Steam rose. Civilization survived another day. Behind her, Shammy moved quietly. Not sneaking. Shammy never really sneaked. She simply existed with a strange kind of softness for someone so tall, like the air rearranged itself rather than making room. Panam heard her settle onto one of the stools by the counter. Not the couch. Closer. Not too close. Just enough to be noticeable. Panam focused very hard on the coffee. Extremely hard. The mugs were filled. One was placed in front of Shammy. The other remained in Panam’s hand. She leaned back against the counter, pretending this had all been a normal idea and not a tactical withdrawal disguised as hospitality. Shammy wrapped both hands around the mug. “Thank you.” “Don’t sound surprised.” “I’m not.” “You looked surprised.” “I looked appreciative.” “That’s worse.” “Is it?” “Yes.” Shammy smiled again. Panam pointed with her mug. “You are enjoying this.” “A little.” “Criminal.” “Frequently, apparently.” That broke her. Not loudly. Just enough. A short laugh escaped before she could stop it. Shammy’s smile deepened. Warm. Not smug. Not victorious. Just happy to have made her laugh. That was dangerous. Panam took a sip of coffee and nearly burned her tongue. Served her right. The kitchen lights were softer than the ones in the living room. Warmer. They fell across the counter, across the old cabinets, across the small marks and scratches that proved the safehouse had survived people actually living in it. That was another thing she had not noticed properly before. The safehouse did not feel like a hideout anymore. Not tonight. Not exactly. There were boots near the wall that probably belonged to Ace. Mai’s spare tools arranged with terrifying neatness near the far cabinet. A blanket folded over the couch back, too carefully to be Ace’s work and too casually to be Mai’s. Kiro’s data cable abandoned beside an outlet. Reyes’s empty coffee cup from some previous visit sitting upside down in the drying rack, because apparently even mercs could be trained eventually. Small things. Human things. Orbit things. Panam stared at them longer than she meant to. “What?” Shammy asked. Panam blinked. “What what?” “You made that face.” “I did not.” “You did.” “I don’t make faces.” “Panam.” “Fine. I make one face.” “One?” “Several, but they are classified.” Shammy laughed softly. The sound did something unpleasantly effective inside Panam’s chest. Not unpleasant. Wrong word. Unexpected. Also worse. Panam looked down into her coffee. “I was just thinking.” “Dangerous.” “Extremely.” Shammy waited. No push. No demand. Panam hated how well that worked. Eventually she sighed. “This place is weird.” “The safehouse?” “Yeah.” “How?” Panam looked around again. The kitchen. The living room beyond it. The door. The abandoned orbit debris. The small signs of people who had not just passed through, but returned often enough to leave pieces of themselves behind. “It looks like a base,” she said. A pause. “But it doesn’t feel like one.” Shammy’s expression softened. “No?” “No.” Panam frowned at the mug in her hand, because the mug had done nothing wrong and therefore made an excellent target. “It feels like…” She stopped. Dangerous sentence. Very dangerous. The kind that could not be taken back once completed. Shammy did not complete it for her. That was unfair too. Most people would have tried. Most people hated unfinished thoughts and rushed in to fill them with their own. Shammy simply let the sentence breathe. Panam took another sip. This time it did not burn. “Like people actually come back,” she finished quietly. The room became still. Not dramatic. Not tense. Just still. Shammy looked at her over the rim of the mug. “They do.” Simple. Of course. No big statement. No emotional ambush. Just two words, placed exactly where they needed to be. Panam looked away again. “Yeah.” The silence after that was not empty. That was becoming a problem. A serious one. Panam was used to silence as absence. In the Badlands, silence could be vast enough to swallow thoughts whole. It could stretch from horizon to horizon, broken only by wind, engines, distant coyotes, and the occasional crackle of a camp radio that had seen better decades. In Night City, silence barely existed. It hid under machines. Under traffic. Under voices. Under violence. Under electricity. You could feel the city trying to talk even when nobody was speaking. This silence was different. Small. Contained. Shared. It did not swallow anything. It held things. Panam did not know whether she liked that. Then, with mild horror, she realized she did. She set the mug down. Not because she was done. Because she needed both hands free to be annoyed at herself. Shammy noticed. Of course she noticed. “What?” Panam looked at her. “Stop doing that.” “What?” “Noticing.” Shammy’s mouth curved. “I can try.” “You won’t.” “No.” “Terrible person.” “I’ve heard.” Panam leaned back against the counter again and crossed her arms. For armor. Obviously. The gesture helped a little. Not much. “You know,” she said, “this is all still Ace’s fault.” “Probably.” “And Mai’s.” “Definitely.” “And Kiro’s.” “Absolutely.” “And Reyes.” “Little bit.” Panam narrowed her eyes. “Little bit?” “Reyes looked like she joined late.” “That makes her an accessory.” “Fair.” “And you.” Shammy blinked. “Me?” “You knew.” “Little bit.” “That is becoming a very irritating phrase.” “I noticed.” Panam groaned and covered her face with one hand. “I am surrounded by criminals and smug people.” “Those may overlap.” “They absolutely overlap.” The laughter came back. Not as loud this time. Warmer. Easier. Panam let it happen. That was new. She usually fought laughter when she felt exposed. Treated it like giving ground. Like letting someone see too much. Tonight she was tired. Not physically. Not exactly. Tired of pretending every feeling had to be wrestled into place before it was allowed to exist. The thought startled her. She looked down at the counter. Shammy did not ask this time. That was worse. Because she knew Panam had noticed something. And she gave her room for it. Panam took a breath. Slow. Careful. “Okay.” Shammy waited. “I am going to say something.” “That sounds dangerous.” “It is.” “Should I brace?” “Probably.” Shammy’s smile was small now. Not teasing. Ready. Panam glanced toward the door again. Still closed. Still no rescue. Rude. Extremely rude. She looked back at Shammy. “I thought I was going to leave tonight.” The words came out quieter than she intended. Not weak. Just honest. Shammy did not look surprised. That was both comforting and insulting. “Did you?” “Yeah.” Panam shrugged, trying to make the admission smaller than it was. It did not work. “I figured Ace and Mai would do their thing. Kiro would eventually drag Mai into some data-hole. Reyes would show up or not. You’d stay here, maybe. Or go with somebody. I don’t know.” She stopped. The sentence had become more revealing than planned. A familiar problem tonight. “I thought,” she continued, more carefully, “there would be a point where I could just… go.” “Back to Dakota’s?” “Maybe.” “To the Badlands?” “Maybe.” “Anywhere else?” Panam looked at her. The answer was waiting right there. Obvious. Annoyingly obvious. “Yeah.” Shammy nodded once. Not judging. Not hurt. Just understanding. That made Panam feel worse for about half a second. Then better. Another confusing development. “I do that,” Panam said. “I know.” “Of course you know.” “I notice things.” “I said stop that.” “No.” A smile tugged at Panam’s mouth despite herself. Shammy saw it. Did not comment. Wise. Very wise. Panam picked up her mug again, mostly so her hands had something to do. “I leave before things get complicated.” Shammy’s voice stayed gentle. “Is this complicated?” Panam almost answered automatically. Yes. Obviously yes. This was extremely complicated. This was Night City plus safehouse plus orbit plus Shammy plus Ace knowing too much plus Mai knowing everything plus feelings that had apparently been sneaking around for weeks without filing the correct paperwork. Complicated. Very complicated. Except the word caught before it reached her mouth. Because the room did not feel complicated. The situation did. The implications did. Tomorrow might. The orbit absolutely would, because Ace existed and therefore peace was impossible. But this? Standing in a warm kitchen with coffee between her hands and Shammy watching her like there was nowhere else more important to look? No. Not complicated. Panam hated that realization. On principle. She sighed. “No.” Shammy’s expression softened. “No?” “No.” Panam looked irritated with herself. Then with the coffee. Then with reality in general. A familiar and healthy sequence. “That is the problem.” “How?” “Because if it were complicated, I could be annoyed.” “You are annoyed.” “Not properly.” Shammy laughed. Panam pointed. “See? This is why I blame Ace.” “For you not being properly annoyed?” “Yes.” “That seems unfair.” “I am from the Badlands. Fairness is flexible.” “Interesting legal framework.” “Thank you.” The laughter faded into another quiet stretch. This one felt easier. Panam noticed that too. She was noticing far too many things. Usually, after a road job, the return felt like a collapse. Engine off. Door shut. Bag dropped. Body still vibrating with phantom motion. Mind still half on the highway. The road always stayed inside her for a while after she stopped. Tonight it was fading. Not gone. Never gone. The Badlands did not leave a person just because they entered a building. But the road was no longer pulling at her with the same force. No more miles. No more route. No more next fuel stop. No more excuse hidden inside motion. Panam looked toward the living room. Then toward the hallway. Then toward the door again. She became aware, slowly and unwillingly, that she was not planning an exit. The realization hit quietly. Hard. She lowered the mug. “Huh.” Shammy tilted her head. “Huh?” Panam stared at the door for a long moment. Then laughed once. Softly. Almost disbelieving. “I’m not thinking about leaving.” The words landed in the kitchen. Simple. Too simple. Shammy did not smile immediately. Did not tease. Did not say _good_ too quickly. She just let Panam hear herself. That was probably the kindest thing she could have done. Also deeply irritating. Panam looked at her. “I mean, not in the dramatic sense.” “Of course.” “I could leave.” “Yes.” “If I wanted.” “Yes.” “I have a vehicle.” “You do.” “Multiple routes.” “Probably memorized.” “Definitely memorized.” The old rhythm returned for a second. Comforting. Panam held onto it just long enough to breathe. Then let it go. “But I don’t want to.” There it was. The real sentence. No ornament. No joke. No tactical smoke. Just truth. It sat there between them, surprisingly calm for something that should have kicked harder. Panam waited for panic. It did not arrive. That was new too. Shammy’s smile appeared then. Small. Warm. Careful. “Good.” The word was so simple it ruined several defensive responses before Panam could deploy them. She stared. Opened her mouth. Closed it again. The arguments died unused. A rare event. Finally she shook her head. “You are annoyingly good at that.” “At what?” “Saying one word and making me lose a fight.” “I didn’t know we were fighting.” “I was.” “With me?” “No.” Shammy’s eyes softened. “With yourself?” Panam looked down. The coffee had gone slightly too cool. Still drinkable. Like most things in Night City, technically acceptable if one lowered expectations. “Maybe.” Shammy did not answer. Panam appreciated that more than she wanted to admit. A dangerous amount more. For a while they drank their coffee in silence. The kitchen hummed. The city murmured outside. The safehouse held. Panam slowly became aware that her body had relaxed. Not dramatically. Nothing cinematic. No grand collapse. Just a gradual reduction of tension around her shoulders. Her fingers loosening around the mug. Her breathing settling into something that did not sound like she was waiting for the next problem. Small things. Important things. Terrifying things. Eventually she pushed off the counter and walked back toward the living room. Not to escape. Just because the couch looked more comfortable now that it had stopped being evidence. Shammy followed a few moments later, carrying her mug. Panam sat down first. The same couch. Same room. Same distance as before. Almost. Shammy sat at the other end again. Not crowding. Not assuming. Just there. Panam noticed the space between them. Not too much. Not too little. A careful space. A respectful one. She looked at it for half a second too long. Then looked away. Shammy noticed. Naturally. Of course she noticed. She said nothing. Panam leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “I hate all of you.” “Still?” “More now.” “That seems like progress.” “It is not.” “It might be.” “No.” Shammy smiled into her mug. Panam tried not to smile back. Failed. The city lights shifted faintly beyond the windows. From this distance, Night City almost looked beautiful. That was one of its cruellest tricks. From far enough away, everything ugly learned how to glow. Panam usually distrusted the view. Tonight, she tolerated it. Maybe more than tolerated. She glanced sideways at Shammy. The silver-white of her hair caught the city glow, blue and gold bending through it like light through weather. Weather. That was what Shammy always felt like. Not a storm exactly. Not unless something pushed too hard. More like the pressure change before clarity. Like air becoming easier to breathe without asking permission. Panam looked away before the thought became too poetic. She had limits. “Shammy.” “Hm?” “This better not become a thing where everyone acts smug tomorrow.” Shammy blinked. Then smiled. “Oh.” “What?” “You mean when Ace acts smug.” “And Mai.” “Mai will not act smug.” “She will think smug.” “Definitely.” “That’s worse.” “Much worse.” Panam groaned. “I knew it.” “Everyone knew it.” “Not helping.” “Sorry.” “Lie.” “Little bit.” Panam pointed at her. “There it is again.” “What?” “That phrase.” “I can stop.” “You won’t.” “No.” Panam laughed despite herself. The sound came easier now. Too easy. No. Not too easy. Just easy. A strange distinction. A good one. She let the laughter fade slowly. Then the room settled again. Not empty. Not expectant. Just calm. Panam looked around the safehouse one more time. The couch. The kitchen. The door. The scattered signs of the orbit. The life built here without anyone formally declaring it built. She thought of the Badlands. Campfires. Engines. Dust. Saul arguing about risk like risk ever asked permission. Mitch leaning over repairs with hands covered in grease. Dakota’s garage network and its particular smell of old rubber, metal, and routes that always needed someone reliable. She thought of all the places that had held parts of her. Then she looked at Shammy. Not home. Not like the Badlands. Not like the clan. Not like the road under familiar tires. Not even like Dakota’s place, practical and useful and tied to work. Something else. Not home. But close enough to be dangerous. Close enough that leaving did not feel urgent. Close enough that returning already made sense. Panam exhaled slowly. The thought did not need to be said yet. Not tonight. Not fully. But it was there. Almost. That word stayed. Almost. Shammy looked at her. “What?” Panam smiled faintly. A real smile. Small enough to deny if necessary. Though she suspected denial would not work anymore. “Nothing.” Shammy’s expression said she did not believe that for a second. But she let it pass. Again. Panam appreciated that. Again. Terrible pattern. For several minutes neither spoke. The silence became something they shared rather than endured. The safehouse was quiet. Not silent. Never silent. There was always something. The hum of electronics. The distant traffic. The old plumbing. The city pressing against the walls. But for once, Panam did not hear any of it as a reason to move. She sat there on the couch with Shammy across from her, the door closed, the road outside, and no immediate excuse left within reach. And instead of panic— instead of restlessness— instead of the familiar pull toward motion— she felt something far more dangerous. She liked where she had stopped. --- # Chapter 3 — Home Panam liked conversations better when they had engines. That sounded stupid. She knew that. But it was true. Conversations on the road had rules. The tires made noise. The engine filled gaps. The horizon gave people somewhere to look when the words got too honest. You could talk about things without staring directly at them. You could say half a truth, let the road carry the rest, and if it became too much— well. There was always another turn. Another fuel stop. Another radio call. Another problem. The safehouse offered none of those mercies. The safehouse simply sat there around them. Warm. Quiet. Annoyingly patient. Panam leaned back into the couch and stretched one leg out, boot heel resting lightly against the edge of the coffee table. Shammy sat at the other end, mug balanced between both hands, the city glow catching faintly along the silver-white fall of her hair. Neither of them had turned the documentary back on. The screen had gone dark at some point. Panam had noticed. Shammy had definitely noticed. Neither of them mentioned it. That felt like a conversation all by itself. Panam hated how many conversations the room was having without consulting her. She glanced toward the door one more time. Still closed. Still no rescue. Still no return of the smug conspiracy squad. Ace was probably somewhere laughing into coffee. Mai was probably pretending not to be pleased. Kiro was probably talking too fast. Reyes was probably pretending she had not enjoyed every second of it. A truly terrible collection of people. Unfortunately, Panam liked them. That made everything worse. Shammy watched her expression change and tilted her head slightly. “What?” Panam sighed. “I was thinking about Ace.” “That explains the face.” “I don’t make faces.” “You do.” “Classified faces.” “Very classified.” Panam pointed at her. “Don’t encourage yourself.” “I’ll try.” “You won’t.” “No.” The smile came again. Small. Warm. Too easy. Panam looked away before she smiled back too obviously. A tactical delay. Probably useless. Still worth attempting. The silence returned. This time it did not bother her as much. That bothered her. A lot. The safehouse hummed around them with its ordinary noises, and for several minutes Panam simply sat inside the quiet like she was testing whether it would bite. It did not. Suspicious. Very suspicious. Eventually Shammy shifted slightly, not closer, just enough that the couch made a soft sound under her weight. “How is Saul?” Panam groaned immediately. The sound came from deep in her chest. A true groan. Earned. “You really know how to ruin a good evening.” Shammy smiled into her mug. “That bad?” “No.” A pause. “Yes.” Another pause. “Maybe.” “That is a wide operational range.” “I contain multitudes.” “I noticed.” Panam gave her a look. Shammy’s expression remained innocent. Entirely fake. Panam respected the attempt. She looked toward the windows, where Night City glittered in layered distance. Towers. Lights. Corporate teeth disguised as architecture. Roads like veins, full of traffic that never truly stopped. “Saul is Saul,” she said finally. “That sounds like a diagnosis.” “It might be.” Shammy waited. Of course she did. Panam dragged one hand down her face. “He worries.” “I know.” “He plans.” “That seems useful.” “It is.” She hated how quickly the answer came. Because it was true. Saul planned because somebody had to. Saul worried because people died when nobody worried. Saul argued because silence could turn bad decisions into tradition. Panam knew that. She had always known that. Knowing it had never made him less infuriating. “He’s not wrong most of the time,” she said. Shammy looked at her carefully. “That sounds like the problem.” Panam gave a short laugh. “Yeah. Exactly.” She leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees, hands loosely clasped in front of her. The posture was not defensive. Not entirely. Maybe partly. Fine. Mostly. “People think I hate when Saul is right,” she said. “I don’t.” A pause. “I hate when being right becomes the whole answer.” Shammy did not interrupt. Panam stared at the floor for a moment. The old safehouse flooring had scratches in it. Boot marks. Furniture scars. A dark line where something heavy had clearly been dragged and nobody had bothered to repair the mark because in Night City, if the floor was still under you, it counted as functional. She liked that. More than she expected. “Sometimes,” Panam continued, “Saul looks at a problem and all he sees is survival.” “That matters.” “It does.” Her voice sharpened a little. Not at Shammy. Never quite at Shammy. At the old argument. At the shape of it. At the way it followed her even into rooms where Saul was not present. “But survival isn’t the same thing as living.” The sentence landed harder than she expected. Not because it was new. Because it was not. She had thought it before. Said pieces of it before. Fought around it for years. But in the quiet of the safehouse, with Shammy listening and no road noise to hide behind, the words arrived whole. That was inconvenient. Shammy’s expression softened. “No,” she said. “It isn’t.” Panam laughed once. Dry. “See? That. You just say things like that.” “Like what?” “Like they’re simple.” “Some things are.” “Not helpful.” “It might be.” “Also not helpful.” Shammy smiled faintly. Panam shook her head, but the irritation did not reach very far. It was more familiar than real. A gesture. A reflex. Something to do with her hands while the conversation walked too close to the truth. She picked up her mug from the table. Cold now. Barely drinkable. She drank anyway. Because she was Panam Palmer and had survived worse liquids. “Saul thinks roots matter,” she said after a while. “And you don’t?” Panam frowned. That answer should have been easy. No. Of course not. Roads mattered. Motion mattered. The clan mattered, yes, but not fences. Not being told where to stand because someone else decided the map for you. Except that was not the full answer. She hated when answers had layers. Layers were for netrunners, corpo contracts, and food Kiro should not be trusted to order. “I do,” Panam admitted. Shammy waited. Panam glared gently at the coffee table for failing to intervene. “I just don’t like when people confuse roots with chains.” There. That was better. Truer. Sharper. More hers. Shammy nodded slowly. “That makes sense.” “It does?” “Yes.” “Damn.” Shammy blinked. Panam waved one hand. “I was hoping it sounded unreasonable. Easier to be annoyed that way.” “That must be difficult for you tonight.” “You have no idea.” “I might.” Panam looked at her. Shammy’s expression was warm, but there was something underneath it now. Not sadness. Not exactly. Recognition, maybe. The kind of recognition that came from someone who also knew the difference between staying and being trapped. Panam remembered, suddenly, that Shammy was not just calm because calm was easy for her. That she had arrived in the Triad like a storm learning what hands were for. That she had places she belonged now because belonging had been built after the fact, not assumed from birth. Ace had given her a place to stay. Mai had given her structure. Together they had given her a reason to stay. Panam remembered those words from earlier. They settled differently now. A little heavier. A little closer. “You get it,” Panam said. Not a question. Shammy looked down at her mug for a moment. Then back up. “Yes.” That was all. One word. Enough. The room quieted again. This silence was different from the others. Less awkward. Less funny. More honest. Panam leaned back slowly and looked toward the ceiling. “Great.” “Great?” “Now I can’t even pretend this is a normal conversation.” “Was that still an option?” “Barely.” “Sorry.” “Lie.” “Little bit.” That phrase again. This time Panam laughed before she could be annoyed. The laughter loosened something in the room. Not the truth. That stayed. But the sharp edges around it. For a while they let the moment breathe. Panam found herself talking after that. Not all at once. Not dramatically. She did not suddenly pour out her entire life like some cheap BD confession with soft lighting and bad music. She talked the way people talked when they did not realize they had been waiting for someone to listen properly. A little at first. Then more. A story about an old Aldecaldo convoy route that had been abandoned because the road turned soft after rain and swallowed two vehicles up to the axles before anybody admitted the map was lying. A story about Mitch fixing a fuel line with wire, profanity, and what he insisted was “structural optimism.” A story about Carol winning an argument with Saul by pretending to agree with him so thoroughly he grew suspicious and reversed his own position out of self-defense. That one made Shammy laugh hard enough that Panam had to stop for a second. Not because she lost the thread. Because she liked the sound. Dangerous. Very dangerous. She continued anyway. The stories came easier than expected. Small things. Ordinary things. People arguing over spare parts. Terrible food eaten beside vehicles that should have been retired. Dust in hair. Heat inside metal cabins. The particular silence before a storm in the Badlands, when even the engines seemed to know better than to sound too loud. She talked about Dakota too. Not much. Enough. Dakota’s practical kindness. The way her work never felt like charity because she would rather insult you than make gratitude awkward. The routes. The jobs. The quiet trust in being handed something valuable and told: get it there. No speech. No ceremony. Just work. Respect wrapped in logistics. Panam liked that. Understood it. Needed it, maybe. That thought slipped out before she could stop it. “Dakota doesn’t try to own people,” Panam said. Then stopped. Shammy heard the weight in that sentence immediately. Of course she did. “She lets them return?” Panam looked at her. The words hit too neatly. Too directly. She almost made a joke. Almost. Instead she nodded. “Yeah.” A pause. “That.” The safehouse seemed very quiet. Panam looked down at her hands. She had not realized she was turning the mug slowly between them until the motion stopped. “That’s what I like,” she said. “About the road. About courier work. About the Badlands, when people aren’t being idiots.” “Only when?” “Don’t push it.” Shammy’s smile flickered. Panam let the silence settle before continuing. “You can leave. You can come back. The leaving doesn’t erase the coming back.” The sentence surprised her. Not because she disagreed with it. Because it felt like something she had been trying to say for years, badly, usually during arguments, often with shouting involved. Here it was. Quiet. Clear. Shammy did not pounce on it. Did not label it. Did not say, _and that is why this matters_. She simply nodded. “That sounds important.” Panam laughed softly. “Yeah.” A pause. “Annoyingly important.” “Most important things are.” “I hate when that is true.” “I know.” The conversation slowed. Not stopped. Slowed. Like a vehicle easing off acceleration after too much open road. Panam became aware of how long she had been talking. The realization arrived with mild horror. She glanced toward the clock. Then stared. “Wait.” Shammy looked over. “What?” “I have been talking for…” She did the math. Did not like the result. “A long time.” “Yes.” “That is not normal.” “No.” “You could have said something.” “Why?” “Because.” “Because?” Panam opened her mouth. Closed it. Fine. That argument had nowhere to go. She set the mug down and rubbed at her forehead. “Sorry.” Shammy looked genuinely confused. “For what?” “Talking too much.” The confusion deepened. “Panam.” “What?” “Don’t be.” Simple. Immediate. Completely sincere. The apology died instantly. Panam stared at her for a second. Then away. Because looking directly at her suddenly felt unfair. Not dangerous exactly. Too direct. Too much like standing in open ground with no vehicle nearby and no cover except trust. Which was a ridiculous combat doctrine. Completely unreasonable. She did not say that out loud. Probably for the best. “You say that like it’s easy,” Panam muttered. “Listening?” “Letting somebody talk.” “It can be.” “For you.” “Sometimes.” That made Panam look back. Shammy’s smile was quieter now. Not hidden. Just less bright. “Not always.” The room shifted. Subtly. Panam felt it. This was not only about her anymore. Good. That was good. A little terrifying. But good. She studied Shammy for a moment. The way she held the mug. The calm in her posture. The stillness that did not quite hide the pressure underneath it. People noticed the outside first. Shammy had said that. Panam understood it better now. The calm was real. But it was not empty. There was weather inside it. Maybe there always had been. “What do people get wrong?” Panam asked. Shammy blinked once. “About me?” “Yeah.” The answer did not come immediately. Panam waited. For once, actually waited. No interrupting. No joking. No engine noise. Just patience. A full six seconds. Possibly a personal record. Shammy looked toward the dark screen where the documentary had died unnoticed. Then toward the window. Then back to Panam. “They think calm means unaffected.” Panam absorbed that. Slowly. “That sounds annoying.” “It can be.” “Is it?” “Sometimes.” Panam nodded. No joke came. She let that be enough. Shammy continued after a moment, voice still quiet. “When people panic, I can make the room easier to breathe in.” “That sounds useful.” “It is.” “But?” Shammy’s smile returned faintly. “You hear those now.” “I am adapting.” “Dangerous.” “Extremely.” A little laugh. Then Shammy looked back into her mug. “But sometimes people forget I am in the room too.” Panam did not answer immediately. Not because she did not understand. Because she did. Far too well. Different shape. Same bruise. The reliable one. The brave one. The difficult one. The useful one. The one people called when something needed fixing and then acted surprised when she had needs attached. Panam leaned back slowly. “Yeah,” she said. “That is annoying.” Shammy looked at her. Panam held the look. Did not retreat. Then added, “For the record, I noticed you.” The words came out before she could dress them in sarcasm. There they were. Plain. Unarmored. Useful, maybe. Shammy’s expression changed. Not dramatically. Just enough. Something softened. Something warmed. Something in the room seemed to settle around the sentence like it had been waiting for a place to land. “Good,” Shammy said. Again, one word. Again, unfairly effective. Panam groaned. “You have to stop doing that.” “What?” “Winning with one word.” “I didn’t know we were competing.” “We are always competing. I just keep losing tonight.” Shammy laughed. The sound filled the safehouse differently now. Less like amusement. More like trust becoming audible. Panam liked that thought. She immediately regretted how poetic it sounded. Absolutely not. She was not becoming that person. Probably. The conversation drifted again. Slower this time. More balanced. Shammy told her small things too. Not grand stories. Not origin speeches. Just fragments. How the safehouse had felt too full at first because everyone inside it carried pressure in different directions. How Ace moved like a decision even when half-asleep. How Mai organized chaos without ever admitting that some kinds of chaos made her smile. How Kiro had once tried to explain an entire data anomaly to Shammy using three screens, two noodles, and a spoon as “visual aids,” and somehow the explanation had worked. How Reyes pretended not to care where she left things, but always remembered exactly where Ace set down her blades. Panam listened. Actually listened. Not waiting for her turn. Not forming a rebuttal. Not planning the next exit. Another disturbing personal development. She was getting a lot of those tonight. Eventually Shammy paused. Panam noticed the pause because she wanted her to continue. That realization landed quietly. Then stayed. She looked at Shammy for a moment. “You do love them.” “The Triad?” “Yeah.” Shammy’s answer came without hesitation. “Yes.” No spectacle. No performance. Just truth. Panam nodded slowly. “That’s good.” “It is.” “Terrifying, probably.” “Also yes.” Panam laughed. The laugh faded into something gentler. She looked around the room again. Noticing the same things as before. The signs of people. The signs of return. The life hidden inside practical objects. The safehouse was not like the Badlands. It was not a camp. Not a clan. Not a road. Not hers in the way those things were hers. But she could see why people came back. She could see why Shammy stayed. She could see, with increasing and deeply inconvenient clarity, why she herself had been finding reasons to come here more often. Not for the walls. Not for the couch. Not for the coffee machine, although it had earned some respect. For the people. For one person in particular. That thought tried to become too clear. Panam, wisely, set it aside. Not denied. Set aside. There was a difference. Progress. Possibly. Shammy noticed the shift but did not chase it. Panam appreciated that enough that it became another problem. The list was growing. Eventually Panam leaned her head back against the couch and exhaled. “Okay.” Shammy looked over. “Okay?” “I think I understand something.” “That sounds dangerous.” “It is.” “Do you want to say it?” Panam considered that. The old answer would have been no. The safer answer would have been not yet. The funny answer would have involved blaming Ace, because that remained valid in all contexts. But the actual answer was simpler. “Yes.” Shammy waited. Panam looked around the safehouse one more time. Then toward the windows. Then finally back to Shammy. “I don’t think staying is the part that scares me.” Shammy’s expression grew very still. Attentive. Panam continued before she could overthink. “I think it’s what staying means to other people.” The words came slowly now. Carefully. “But maybe that’s not the same thing.” Shammy did not answer right away. Good. Panam wanted the sentence to exist by itself for a second. It deserved that. Staying could be a chain. But it could also be a return. It could be being trapped. But it could also be choosing a place again and again without losing the road. It could mean someone else putting their hands around your life. Or it could mean finding someone who did not need to. Panam looked at Shammy. The answer was becoming obvious. Too obvious. Almost rude. Shammy’s voice was soft when she finally spoke. “No,” she said. “It’s not the same thing.” Panam smiled faintly. There it was again. One word. One sentence. A quiet demolition of several bad defenses. “You’re really annoying.” “I’ve heard.” “Frequently?” “Frequently.” The laughter came back. Soft. Warm. Shared. And when it faded, Panam did not feel exposed in the same way anymore. Still exposed. Yes. But not unsafe. That difference mattered. A lot. The safehouse remained quiet. Night City glowed beyond the windows. The road waited somewhere outside, as it always would. Panam knew it would still be there tomorrow. The Badlands would still be there. Dakota. The Aldecaldos. Saul and his arguments. The routes. The work. The motion. None of it had vanished because she had spent one evening sitting still. That realization should not have felt revolutionary. It did anyway. Panam turned her mug slowly on the coffee table. Then stopped. She looked at Shammy and let herself say the thing she had been circling since the door closed. “I like being here.” The sentence landed quietly. No drama. No fireworks. No grand declaration. Just truth. Simple enough to be terrifying. Shammy’s smile appeared. Not triumphant. Not relieved exactly. Just warm. “I like you being here.” Panam stared at her. The reply was immediate. Too immediate. Too honest. A direct hit. Critical systems damage. She looked away first, but only because she needed to laugh. Not because she was running. Important distinction. Very important. “Unfair,” she muttered. “What is?” “That.” “Very specific.” “You know exactly what I mean.” “Maybe.” Panam pointed without looking. “There it is again.” Shammy laughed. Panam joined her. The sound settled into the room like it belonged there. Maybe it did. For a while after that, they said nothing. The silence no longer needed testing. It had passed. The safehouse was quiet. Not silent. Never silent. And for once, Panam did not hear the quiet as a warning. She heard it as space. Room. A place where something could exist without being chased down, solved, named, or driven away from too quickly. She looked toward Shammy. Shammy was already looking at her. Of course she was. Panam smiled despite herself. This time she did not hide it fast enough. This time she was not sure she wanted to. Shammy noticed. Of course she did. But she did not tease. Not this time. She just smiled back. And somewhere inside Panam Palmer, stubborn, restless, road-marked and argument-built, one more old defense quietly lost its footing. Not gone. Not yet. But weaker. Much weaker. Good. It had been annoying anyway. --- # Chapter 4 — Shammy’s Turn The silence after that lasted longer than Panam expected. Not because either of them had run out of things to say. That would have been too convenient. It lasted because the room no longer seemed to need filling. Panam sat with one shoulder angled against the back of the couch, one hand resting near the empty mug on the table, the other still loosely draped over her knee. The city lights moved faintly across the windows. Night City kept breathing outside, all neon and engines and distant trouble. Inside, the safehouse had become its own small weather system. Warm air. Low light. Old walls. The aftertaste of coffee. Shammy sitting across from her with the kind of calm that no longer looked simple. That was new. Earlier, Panam would have called it calm and left the thought there. Easy word. Useful word. Wrong word. Or not wrong, exactly. Incomplete. Shammy was calm the way the sky was calm before a storm decided not to happen. Not empty. Not passive. Holding something. Choosing what to do with it. Panam noticed that now. Which immediately became another problem. The list remained very long. She rubbed one hand over her face and let out a small breath. Shammy looked over. “What?” Panam lowered her hand. “I just realized something.” “That has been happening a lot tonight.” “Don’t sound smug.” “I didn’t.” “You thought smug.” “Maybe.” Panam pointed at her. “There it is.” “What?” “That.” “Very specific.” “You know exactly what I mean.” Shammy smiled. The small one. The warm one. The one Panam was starting to recognize with alarming accuracy. That recognition itself should have bothered her more. It did not. Also alarming. Panam looked toward the ceiling for a moment. Then back at Shammy. “I’ve been talking for a long time.” “Yes.” “That was not a denial.” “No.” “Rude.” “Accurate.” Panam stared. Then laughed despite herself. The laugh was easier than it should have been. Or maybe exactly as easy as it should have been, and that was why it still surprised her. She leaned forward, elbows resting against her knees, and studied Shammy properly. Not the way people studied a threat. Not the way she watched a road. Not the way she measured a room for exits, angles, mistakes, and possible stupidity. Just looked. That felt stranger than it should have. “You said something earlier,” Panam said. Shammy tilted her head slightly. “I said several things.” “Don’t get clever.” “I’ll try.” “You won’t.” “No.” Panam smiled before she could stop herself. Fine. Let it happen. “You said people usually notice the outside first.” Shammy’s expression shifted. Not much. Enough. Panam saw it. A small stilling around the eyes. A fraction less humor. A little more attention. Good. Important. Panam did not rush. Another personal development that probably required documentation. “Your turn,” she said. Shammy blinked. “My turn?” “Yeah.” “For what?” “To talk.” “There’s not much to tell.” Panam laughed once. Short. Immediate. “Lie.” Shammy’s smile returned, but this time it looked defensive around the edges. Interesting. Very interesting. “Panam.” “Nope.” “Nope?” “Nope.” Panam leaned back again, more comfortable now that she had something to push against. A role. A direction. A problem that was not really a problem but gave her hands something to do. “You listened to me talk about Saul, Dakota, the Aldecaldos, roads, roots, chains, probably three separate complaints about Ace, and at least one philosophical breakdown caused by bad coffee.” “Two complaints about Ace.” “Minimum three.” “One was implied.” “That counts.” “Does it?” “It does in the Badlands.” “Flexible legal framework.” “Exactly.” The smile between them widened. Then softened. Panam held onto the seriousness before it could slip away. “So now it’s your turn.” Shammy looked down at her mug. Empty now. She turned it once between her hands. Slowly. Not nervous exactly. Thinking. Choosing. Panam recognized the difference because she had been doing it all night. That also annoyed her. Empathy was deeply inconvenient. “There is not one clean version,” Shammy said eventually. Panam nodded. “Good.” Shammy looked up. “Good?” “Clean versions are suspicious.” That earned a small laugh. Panam liked that. Too much. She ignored the thought. Professionally. Shammy looked toward the dark television screen, then toward the windows, where Night City blurred itself into gold and electric blue. “I listen because rooms get loud,” she said. Panam did not interrupt. Shammy’s gaze stayed on the window for a moment. “Not always with sound.” That made sense immediately. Too immediately. Panam thought of the safehouse full after bad jobs. Ace quiet in a way that sharpened every corner. Mai too composed by half, which was worse than anger because it meant she was holding too much structure in place by force. Kiro vibrating between exhaustion and discovery. Reyes pretending a wound was nothing because admitting pain gave someone else information. Panam herself walking into rooms like motion could keep feeling from catching up. Rooms did get loud. Even when nobody spoke. “Pressure,” Panam said. Shammy looked back at her. “Yes.” No surprise. No need to explain the word. Good. Panam liked that too. Another problem. “I can feel when people are about to push too hard,” Shammy continued. “Not always clearly. Not like Mai maps things. Not like Ace reacts. It is not a plan.” “What is it?” Shammy considered. “Air before lightning.” Panam smiled faintly. “That sounds like you.” “It is inconvenient.” “I bet.” “Sometimes useful.” “Also you.” That made Shammy look at her. Not sharply. But fully. Panam held the look. No retreat. No joke. Not yet. Shammy’s expression warmed, then turned thoughtful again. “When Ace compresses too far, the room changes. Everything points inward. Even silence becomes sharp.” Panam could picture it. Easily. Too easily. Ace in an armchair, coffee untouched, small body folded into stillness that did not read as rest. Shadow-pressure at the edges of perception, even if no visible darkness moved. Not a power display. Not drama. Just Ace becoming too dense inside herself. Panam nodded. “Yeah.” “Mai notices the structure first. She knows where the collapse will happen.” “And you?” “I notice when breathing changes.” The answer settled quietly. Panam looked at Shammy’s hands around the mug. Long fingers. Still now. Capable of calling storm into a room, probably. Choosing not to. Always choosing. That was the part Panam had not understood before. Calm was not the absence of force. It was force deciding not to become damage. “Must be tiring,” Panam said. Shammy looked faintly surprised. Not much. Enough. Panam felt something twist gently behind her ribs. Not pain. Not pity. Recognition again. The annoying kind. “The noticing?” Shammy asked. “All of it.” Shammy’s smile was small. “Yes.” That one word hit differently. No joke. No softness around it. Just yes. Panam sat with that for a moment. She wanted to say something sharp. Something like _then stop doing it_. But that was stupid. People did not stop being themselves because it cost them something. Panam sure as hell never had. So she waited. Shammy seemed to appreciate that. Or maybe Panam hoped she did. Same thing tonight, apparently. “I do not mind helping,” Shammy said. “I didn’t think you did.” “No.” A pause. “I mind when people think helping means I need nothing.” There it was. Quiet. Precise. No drama. Direct hit. Panam felt the sentence land with uncomfortable accuracy. She knew that shape. Different body. Different life. Same old bruise. Reliable people became furniture if nobody was careful. Strong people became roads. Useful people became tools. Calm people became weather everybody expected to behave. Panam looked down at her hands. “Yeah,” she said. Then again, quieter: “Yeah.” Shammy did not look away. Panam appreciated that. She also hated it. Not really. Mostly not. “You should say that more,” Panam said. Shammy’s mouth curved. “To whom?” “People.” “Very specific.” “Fine. Ace.” A soft laugh. “Ace knows.” “Mai?” “Mai knows too.” “Kiro?” “Kiro notices when told three times and shown a diagram.” Panam laughed. That one came out sudden and bright. “Accurate.” “Reyes pretends not to know and then adjusts without mentioning it.” “That also sounds accurate.” “Marco notices socially.” “Of course he does.” “Lena notices before I do.” Panam blinked. “Really?” Shammy nodded. “Lena notices rooms differently.” Panam thought of Lena, quiet and measured, keeping spaces livable without turning herself into decoration. She had not spent as much time with her as the Triad had, but enough to understand the comment. “Yeah,” Panam said. “I can see that.” The orbit made more sense when described through how people noticed each other. Ace noticed danger. Mai noticed structure. Shammy noticed pressure. Lena noticed continuity. Marco noticed the social temperature of a room. Kiro noticed patterns and occasionally forgot people had bodies attached. Reyes noticed weakness and decided whether it mattered. Panam noticed roads. Routes. Exits. People who might leave before they realized they wanted to stay. She frowned. That last one was suspicious. Shammy noticed the frown. Of course she did. “What?” “Nothing.” “Lie.” Panam groaned. “That is less fun when you do it.” “It seemed effective.” “Too effective.” “Sorry.” “Lie.” “Little bit.” The rhythm returned. Easier now. Less like hiding. More like breathing between truths. Panam looked at Shammy again. “Okay. So you notice pressure. You make rooms easier to breathe in. People forget you might need something too.” Shammy’s expression turned amused. “That sounds like a report.” “I am summarizing.” “Professionally?” “Extremely.” “Should I be concerned?” “Probably.” The smile widened, then faded slowly as Panam held onto the question underneath. “What do you need?” Shammy went still. Not badly. Not defensively. Just still. Panam felt the room change around that question. Not colder. Not heavier. More focused. Like the air had leaned in. For a second she wondered if she had pushed too hard. Then Shammy looked down at the mug again. The answer, when it came, was quieter. “Not to be asked only when I am already breaking.” Panam said nothing. Good. She had enough sense for that. Shammy kept her gaze lowered. “I need people to notice before the storm. Not after.” Panam absorbed that. Slowly. The words were simple. The kind of simple that did not mean easy. “Yeah,” Panam said. “That makes sense.” “I know.” The answer was not arrogant. Not sharp. Almost tired. Panam heard that too. The outside first, Shammy had said. People noticed the outside first. Tall. Calm. Atmospheric. Almost impossible. Easy to mistake for inexhaustible if you were stupid enough. Panam had been stupid about many things in her life. She was trying very hard not to add this one to the list. “Have I done that?” she asked. Shammy looked up. “Done what?” “Used you as… calm furniture.” The phrase was ugly. Good. It needed to be. Shammy did not answer quickly. Panam appreciated that less. Then more. Because a fast answer would have been mercy. This was honesty. “No,” Shammy said. Panam exhaled before she realized she had been holding the breath. “But,” Shammy added. Panam froze. “Ah. There it is.” The smile returned faintly. “You are very good at arriving and leaving.” Panam stared. That hit hard enough to be rude. Shammy did not soften it. Good. Panam had asked. “And when you are between those things,” Shammy continued, “you are usually already preparing for the next one.” Silence. Panam looked toward the door. Then the windows. Then down at her hands. The accusation was not cruel. That made it harder to fight. If Shammy had sounded hurt, Panam could have defended herself. If she had sounded angry, Panam could have argued. But Shammy sounded like someone describing the weather accurately. Infuriating. Devastatingly effective. Panam laughed once. Quiet. Mostly at herself. “Yeah.” Shammy waited. Panam nodded slowly. “Yeah, that’s fair.” “I did not say it to blame you.” “I know.” “I mean it.” “I know.” She did. That was the thing. She knew. The sentence did not feel like a trap. It felt like a door opened gently and left open. Panam leaned back and let her head rest against the couch. “I leave before people can ask me to stay.” The words escaped. Not planned. Not polished. Not disguised. There they were. Shammy did not move. Did not interrupt. Panam laughed again. Softer. “Damn.” “What?” “That was annoyingly true.” “Yes.” “You could pretend otherwise.” “I could.” “You won’t.” “No.” Panam smiled at the ceiling. The old safehouse lights cast a faint halo around a water stain no one had bothered to fix. Beautiful. Ridiculous. Somehow appropriate. “I think,” she said slowly, “I got used to leaving being the safer option.” Shammy’s voice stayed gentle. “Was it?” “Sometimes.” A pause. “Sometimes no.” That was the honest answer. The road had saved her more than once. Movement had kept her alive. Distance had stopped arguments from becoming wounds. Leaving had given her control when staying would have meant being pulled apart by other people’s decisions. But leaving had also become easy. Too easy. A tool used for too many jobs until every problem started looking like something to drive away from. She turned her head and looked at Shammy. “You’re not doing that.” “Doing what?” “Asking me to stay like it’s a chain.” Shammy shook her head. “No.” “Why?” The answer came without hesitation. “Because I would rather you come back.” Panam stared. No defense. None. The sentence slipped past every wall she still had standing. Not because it was dramatic. Because it was exactly right. Because it understood the thing she had been trying to explain earlier about Dakota, and roads, and roots, and chains. Leaving did not erase coming back. Only people made it feel that way. Shammy was not. Panam looked away first. This time not because she wanted distance. Because the room had become suddenly, dangerously bright. Not visually. Emotionally. Which was worse. Much worse. “Unfair,” Panam muttered. Shammy’s smile was audible in her voice. “What is?” “That answer.” “It was honest.” “That’s what makes it unfair.” Shammy laughed softly. Panam let the sound settle. Then, after a moment, she looked back. “Okay.” “Okay?” “I’m going to need you to stop being perfectly reasonable.” “I am not perfectly reasonable.” “You are being reasonable at very inconvenient times.” “I can try to be less reasonable.” “Lie.” “Little bit.” Panam laughed again. The laugh felt like surrender. Not defeat. There was a difference. She was starting to understand that tonight too. The safehouse grew quiet again. This time Panam let herself stay inside it. No rushing. No immediate joke. No exit. She thought about what Shammy had said. Not to be asked only when I am already breaking. To be noticed before the storm. That mattered. Not as an abstract thing. As a task. Not obligation. Not burden. Care. Panam understood care better when it had shape. Routes. Checkpoints. Repairs. Food handed over before someone admitted hunger. Fuel before the tank ran dry. Weather watched before it became lethal. Maybe this was not as unfamiliar as she had thought. Maybe she simply needed a different map. She looked at Shammy. Really looked. The calm. The warmth. The pressure underneath. The way the air around her seemed slightly easier when she was relaxed, though Panam could not have proven that with instruments and would deny noticing if Kiro ever asked. She noticed. Before the storm. A small start. But a start. “You went quiet earlier,” Panam said. Shammy tilted her head. “When?” “When I asked what people get wrong.” A pause. “Before answering.” Shammy’s eyes softened. “Yes.” “Was that bad?” “No.” “Was it hard?” “A little.” Panam nodded. Then, after a moment: “Thank you for answering anyway.” The words surprised both of them. Panam could tell. Shammy’s face changed again. Small changes. Easy to miss, maybe. Panam did not miss them now. “Thank you for asking,” Shammy said. That landed too. Softer. Still dangerous. Panam laughed under her breath. “I am having a very strange night.” “Yes.” “You are not supposed to agree that fast.” “I noticed.” “I am growing as a person.” “I noticed that too.” “Stop noticing.” “No.” Panam smiled. This time openly. The quiet that followed no longer felt like something to overcome. It felt like something earned. Outside, Night City continued glowing. Inside, the safehouse seemed less like a place that had trapped her in honesty and more like a place where honesty could sit without being attacked on sight. A subtle difference. A large one. Panam shifted on the couch. Not closer. Not quite. But the angle changed. Her body turned more toward Shammy than toward the room. She noticed. Shammy noticed. Neither commented. Progress came in suspicious little movements. The conversation drifted again. Not backward. Deeper. Panam asked about the Triad. Not the operational version. Not the obvious version. The real one. “When did you know you were staying?” she asked. Shammy did not pretend not to understand. “With them?” “Yeah.” Shammy looked toward the hallway for a moment, as if the answer lived somewhere in the rooms beyond. “Not at first.” Panam waited. “At first, Ace was a place.” “That sounds like her.” “It was not comfortable.” “That also sounds like her.” Shammy smiled. “She gave me somewhere to exist without explaining why I existed.” Panam let that sit. It sounded strange. But she understood it more than she expected. People could do that sometimes. Not solve you. Not fix you. Just make space without asking for a full report first. “And Mai?” Panam asked. “Mai gave that space edges.” Panam smiled faintly. “Structure.” “Yes.” “That sounds like Mai.” “It is.” Shammy’s gaze softened. “Ace said yes before knowing the consequences. Mai learned the consequences and stayed anyway.” Panam did not speak. That was too clean. Too true. A good kind of pain moved through the sentence. The kind that came from people choosing each other after the first instinct had already passed. “And together?” Panam asked. She already knew part of the answer. She wanted to hear it anyway. Shammy looked back at her. “Together, they made leaving feel less necessary.” Silence. Panam absorbed that one slowly. It was not the same as the earlier version. Not place to stay. Not reason to stay. This was closer to tonight. Closer to the road. Closer to Panam’s own problem. Leaving feel less necessary. She looked down. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “I get that.” Shammy’s expression warmed. “I know.” Panam lifted her eyes. “You do?” “Yes.” No elaboration. No performance. No smugness. Just certainty. Panam did not know what to do with the tenderness that followed that answer. So she did the only reasonable thing. She blamed Ace. “This is still Ace’s fault.” Shammy laughed. “Of course.” “And Mai’s.” “Definitely.” “And probably Kiro’s.” “Kiro will accept credit for anything if it sounds interesting.” “Reyes too.” “Reyes will deny involvement.” “Which proves involvement.” “Correct.” Panam nodded with satisfaction. “Good. We have suspects.” “A complete investigation.” “Very professional.” “Extremely.” The laughter returned and gave the room back some air. When it faded, Panam felt lighter. Not finished. Not solved. But lighter. That was enough. For now. She looked at Shammy over the quiet space between them. It no longer felt like distance. Not exactly. More like something still being respected. Something they could cross when crossing made sense. Panam noticed that thought and did not immediately panic. Another small miracle. She took a slow breath. “Can I ask one more thing?” Shammy’s mouth curved. “You can ask.” “Terrible answer.” “Frequently.” Panam rolled her eyes, but the smile stayed. She looked down at her hands, then back up. This question felt different. Not bigger. Closer. “And me?” Shammy went still. Panam heard the words after she said them. Heard how direct they were. Heard how little cover they gave her. The old instinct twitched. Make a joke. Clarify. Pretend she meant something else. Turn the question into something safe. She did none of that. She held Shammy’s gaze. For once, without flinching. “And me?” she repeated, quieter. “What did I become?” The room became very still. The city hummed outside. The safehouse held its breath in its own ordinary way. Shammy looked at her for a long moment. Not searching for an answer. Choosing one carefully enough that Panam understood it mattered. Finally, Shammy smiled. Not the teasing smile. Not the easy one. The real one. “You became someone I hoped would come back.” Panam stared at her. The words landed softly. Then deep. No spectacle. No grand confession. No dramatic music. Just a sentence that moved through the room and changed the shape of it. Panam inhaled. Slow. Careful. The joke did not come. The deflection did not come. The road did not appear under her feet and carry her away. Good. She was not sure when she had decided that. But she had. “Yeah,” she said. Her voice came out rougher than expected. “That’s…” She stopped. Shammy waited. Panam laughed once. Softly. Helplessly. “Damn.” Shammy’s smile warmed. Panam looked away for half a second, then back. Not fleeing. Just breathing. “You are really good at making one sentence a problem.” “I thought it was an answer.” “It is. That’s the problem.” Shammy laughed. Panam joined her, but the laughter did not erase what had been said. Nothing erased it. It stayed. Warm. Certain. Dangerous in the best possible way. For a while they said nothing. Panam sat with the answer. Someone I hoped would come back. Not someone trapped. Not someone claimed. Not someone added to a list of responsibilities. Someone hoped for. That was different. That was worse. No. Better. Much better. Which was why it felt dangerous. She looked around the safehouse again. The room had shifted one more time. Not physically. Nothing had moved. But something inside her had stopped treating the walls like temporary cover. Not home. Not like the Badlands. Not like the clan. Not like Dakota’s routes. But almost. Almost, because Shammy was here. Almost, because returning no longer sounded like surrender. Almost, because the road outside did not feel betrayed by the idea of staying for one night. Panam smiled faintly. Shammy noticed. Of course she did. This time Panam did not tell her to stop. The safehouse remained quiet. Not silent. Never silent. There was always something. The city. The walls. The old pipes. Two mugs going cold. A door that stayed closed. And between Panam and Shammy, a question answered so honestly that neither of them could pretend the evening had not changed. Panam leaned back slowly. Still looking at her. Still smiling a little. Still not running. That last part mattered. A lot. “Okay,” she said. Shammy tilted her head. “Okay?” Panam nodded once. “Your turn was worse.” Shammy blinked. Then laughed. Warm. Bright. Caught off guard. Panam grinned. A small victory. Finally. “I mean it,” Panam said. “Mine had Saul. Roads. Emotional damage. Very respectable.” “And mine?” “One sentence and critical damage.” “Efficient.” “Too efficient.” Shammy was still laughing softly. Panam watched her. Really watched her. The warmth. The weather. The pressure. The patience. The need underneath the calm. The person, not the atmosphere. That mattered too. Maybe most. The laughter faded. The quiet returned. And for the first time all evening, Panam did not feel like the conversation had trapped her somewhere. She felt like it had brought her somewhere. Not the end of the road. Not yet. But close enough to see where it might lead. Close enough that leaving would have felt absurd. Close enough that staying no longer felt like losing. She looked at Shammy. Shammy looked back. No one spoke. Neither needed to. Outside, Night City kept glowing. Inside, one more old excuse quietly ran out of road. --- # Chapter 5 — Turn Up The Heat The quiet after that did not feel empty. That was becoming a theme. Panam was not sure how she felt about themes. Usually, when life started developing themes, it meant someone was about to die, betray someone, or ask her to sit through a plan that involved too many moving parts and not enough ammunition. This theme seemed to involve coffee, silence, and Shammy looking at her like leaving had become optional. Which was worse. Probably. Maybe. Panam leaned back into the couch and let the thought sit there without immediately punching it into a safer shape. Progress. Suspicious progress. The safehouse light had shifted while they were talking. Not because the lights themselves had changed, but because the city outside had deepened into late-night glow. The windows no longer reflected the room clearly. Instead, they held pieces of it. The couch. The table. Two mugs. Shammy’s silver-white hair catching faint blue at the edges. Panam’s own shape beside her, darker, smaller against the glass, more still than she was used to seeing herself. That last part bothered her. Not badly. Just enough. She looked away from the reflection and found Shammy looking at the same window. Not at her. The window. The room inside it. The two of them caught there like evidence. Panam cleared her throat. “That reflection is smug.” Shammy blinked. “The reflection?” “Yes.” “What did it do?” “Sat there making things obvious.” Shammy looked back toward the glass. Her mouth curved. “I see.” “No, you don’t.” “I might.” “You absolutely do, and that is the problem.” The smile widened slightly. Not much. Enough. Panam pointed toward her without much force. “Don’t.” “I didn’t say anything.” “You were going to.” “I was not.” “You were thinking it.” “That is harder to prove.” “I don’t need proof. I have instincts.” “Very reliable instincts.” “Exactly.” A pause. Then Panam added, “Mostly.” Shammy laughed. Softly. The sound moved through the room with less force than before, but more warmth. It did not break the quiet. It belonged to it. Panam noticed that. Of course she did. She was noticing everything now. Terrible habit. Probably contagious. Shammy’s fault. Maybe Ace’s. Definitely Ace’s. The thought made Panam smile before she could stop it. Shammy looked over. “What?” Panam immediately looked annoyed. “Nothing.” “Lie.” “That word has become overused.” “Accurate.” “I hate when accuracy is inconvenient.” “I noticed.” Panam groaned. The groan lacked conviction. That was unfortunate. She shifted on the couch, partly because she needed to move and partly because the cushion had apparently decided to betray her spine. Her shoulder angled more toward Shammy than before. Not deliberately. Obviously. Furniture-related. A structural necessity. Shammy did not move. Did not comment. Did not make the smile bigger. Which somehow made the whole thing more noticeable. Panam stared at the dark television screen across the room. It had become a black mirror. Also smug. Everything in this room was apparently smug now. The couch. The window. The dead screen. The coffee mugs. Probably the refrigerator too. Night City could develop sentient vending machines and murderous advertisements, but Panam drew the line at judgmental furniture. She leaned forward abruptly and picked up both empty mugs from the table. Shammy watched her. Panam stopped halfway upright. “What?” “You don’t have to clean.” “I know.” “You’re cleaning.” “I am relocating evidence.” “Evidence?” Panam held up the mugs. “These witnessed things.” Shammy’s expression turned very carefully neutral. A terrible sign. Panam narrowed her eyes. “If you laugh, I am blaming you for everything.” “That seems broad.” “I contain multitudes.” “I remember.” Panam carried the mugs to the kitchen. The walk was short. Too short to count as an escape. Barely enough to count as a retreat. A minor repositioning. Strategic. She placed the mugs in the sink and ran water over them longer than necessary. The sound helped. Water. Metal. Small ordinary noise. Something to put between her and the fact that she had just used _evidence_ as a reason to stand up. Behind her, Shammy remained in the living room. Not following. Not waiting in any demanding way. Just there. That patience was going to kill her. Not dramatically. Not all at once. Just wear down every defensive mechanism until she became a functional person with emotional range. A horrifying future. Panam turned off the water. The kitchen fell quiet again. She stood there for a moment with both hands on the edge of the sink. The old counter was cool under her fingers. The light above it hummed faintly. Night City muttered through the walls. She could still leave. That thought arrived without panic. Important. She could pick up her jacket, make a joke, blame Ace, say she had an early route, walk out, get into her vehicle, and be gone before anyone returned. The road would take her. It always had. But the thought did not pull. It only existed. A door she did not need to open. That was new. Panam let out a quiet breath and turned back toward the living room. Shammy was still on the couch, one arm resting along the back, her posture easy in a way that made her height seem less imposing and more like space had simply accepted her terms. She looked comfortable. Not passive. Not waiting for Panam to decide everything alone. Just comfortable enough to let the room remain honest. Panam walked back. This time, when she sat down, she did not return all the way to her original end of the couch. There was still space between them. A respectable amount. Mostly respectable. Somewhat. The kind of distance that could be explained if anyone asked. No one did. Good. Shammy looked at the space. Then at Panam. Said nothing. Panam pointed at her. “Don’t start.” “I didn’t.” “You were about to.” “I looked at the couch.” “With intent.” “That is a new accusation.” “It is accurate.” “Is it?” “Yes.” Shammy smiled. Panam felt herself smile back. Not fully. Enough. The room warmed. Maybe emotionally. Maybe literally. With Shammy, one could never be entirely certain. A faint static softness moved along the edge of the air, barely there. Not the crackle of danger. More like the feeling before summer rain when the sky had not decided whether to break open or stay kind. Panam noticed it along her forearms. Tiny lift of skin. A breath of pressure. She looked at Shammy. Shammy’s expression shifted. “I can pull that back.” Panam blinked. “What?” “The air.” Of course. Of course Shammy noticed her noticing. Panam glanced down at her own arm, then back up. “No.” A pause. Then, because the answer had come out too fast, she added, “It’s fine.” Shammy studied her. “Fine?” “Comfortable.” That word had not been approved for release. It escaped anyway. Panam froze for half a second. Shammy did not smile in victory. Good. Very good. Instead she simply nodded. “All right.” The static remained. Soft. Barely present. Not claiming the room. Not filling it. Just existing at the edge of awareness, like Shammy herself had stopped hiding one more small piece of herself. Panam sat with it. Her body did not tense. That mattered. A lot. She stretched one arm along the back of the couch again, mostly because it had nowhere else to go, and let her fingers rest near the seam between cushions. Not near Shammy. Not exactly. Nearer than before. The distance had become measurable now. That was ridiculous. She was a woman who could estimate vehicle speed from engine strain, map routes through hostile territory, and identify bad roads by the way dust gathered in the distance. She was not going to be defeated by three inches of couch cushion. Probably. Shammy shifted slightly. Not toward her. Not away. Just enough that the cushion dipped. The movement carried through the couch into Panam’s side. Small. Ordinary. Devastating. Panam looked at the television screen again. The screen remained smug. She exhaled. “You know what I hate?” “There are many options.” “Correct.” “Do I guess?” “No.” “Good.” “I hate that this is not actually difficult.” Shammy looked at her. Panam kept her gaze on the black screen. “That came out wrong.” “Did it?” “Yes.” A pause. “No.” She frowned. “I don’t know.” Shammy waited. Panam hated how useful that was. She rubbed her thumb lightly over the couch seam under her hand. “I mean,” she said slowly, “I made it difficult.” The words were quieter than before. Not confession-level. Not yet. More like an observation made after too long staring at a broken machine and finally realizing the obvious part. “I made this whole thing—” A vague gesture. The couch. The safehouse. The hours of talking. The road behind them. The space between them. “—huge.” Shammy’s voice stayed soft. “And now?” Panam looked at her. That was a dangerous question. But it did not feel like a trap. It felt like a hand held near a ledge without pulling. “Now it feels simple.” The room went still. Not frozen. Not tense. Just clear. The answer had landed exactly where it needed to land and now neither of them could pretend it had not. Panam expected embarrassment. It arrived. A little. Then passed. That was also new. Shammy’s gaze remained steady. “Simple is not the same as small.” Panam gave a quiet laugh. “See?” “What?” “That. You do that.” “Do what?” “Say things that are obvious only after you say them.” “I can stop.” “No.” The answer came before Panam could decide whether to say it. She heard herself. So did Shammy. The word stayed there between them. No. Don’t stop. Not tonight. Maybe not tomorrow either. Panam looked down. Her hand still rested on the back of the couch. Closer now than it had been. Shammy’s arm was stretched there too, not touching, but near enough that Panam became aware of warmth. Not skin exactly. Presence. Pressure. The sense of another person occupying space without demanding it. Three inches. Maybe less. Ridiculous. Completely ridiculous. Panam had driven through dust storms with less attention than she was giving that distance. She started laughing. Quietly. Almost helplessly. Shammy smiled. “What?” Panam shook her head. “I am having a very stupid problem.” “Do you want help?” “No.” A pause. “Maybe.” Another pause. “Absolutely not.” Shammy’s smile deepened. Panam pointed with the hand not currently betraying her by remaining near Shammy’s. “Don’t look at me like that.” “How?” “Like you understand.” “I do.” “That is exactly the problem.” Shammy looked down at their hands. Not touching. Almost. Then back up. “I can move.” Panam immediately frowned. “No.” Another too-fast answer. Great. Perfect. Excellent operational discipline. She closed her eyes for a second. “Okay. Apparently I have opinions.” “I noticed.” “Stop noticing.” “No.” Panam opened her eyes and looked at her. There was humor in Shammy’s face. Yes. But not only humor. Care. Patience. Something warmer underneath. Something that had been there for a while, probably. Panam had been too busy inventing exits to name it. She lowered her pointing hand. Her other hand remained where it was. On the couch. Close. She could move it. She did not. For several seconds nothing happened. The city hummed. The safehouse breathed its tiny old-building sounds. Somewhere behind the wall, a pipe clicked and immediately regretted joining the conversation. Panam looked at it. “Even the plumbing has timing.” Shammy laughed. The moment loosened. Not broke. Loosened. Enough for Panam to breathe normally again. Enough to keep going. She turned more fully toward Shammy, one knee drawing up onto the couch without quite meaning to. Now she faced her properly instead of pretending the room required equal attention. Shammy matched the shift slowly. Not mirroring exactly. Responding. That was worse. Better. Both. The space between them changed shape. It stopped being distance and became invitation. Panam felt that with such clarity it almost annoyed her. “Okay,” she said. Shammy tilted her head. “Okay?” “I need to say something.” “That sounds dangerous.” “Very.” “Should I be worried?” “Probably not.” A small smile. “That is new.” “Don’t get used to it.” “I’ll try.” “You won’t.” “No.” Panam let the familiar rhythm settle her. Then she looked down at the couch between them. At their hands. At the ridiculous three inches. At the fact that the world had not ended. At the fact that she did not want more space. Not even a little. “I’m not good at this part,” she said. Shammy did not ask what part. Good. “I can do jobs,” Panam continued. “Routes. Convoys. Angry people with bad plans. Worse people with guns. Saul being Saul.” “All difficult.” “Some more than others.” “Saul?” “Saul.” That earned a small laugh. Panam let it pass, then continued. “This is harder.” Her fingers flexed slightly against the couch seam. Not toward Shammy. Not away. Just movement. A signal she had not meant to send. Shammy saw it. Did not take advantage. Did not rescue her either. Panam appreciated both. “This?” Shammy asked softly. The word did not sound like teasing. It sounded like permission to define. Panam looked at her. “The part where nobody is making me choose.” The admission sat quietly. There it was. The heart of the thing. Maybe not the whole heart. But close. “Nobody is forcing anything,” Panam said. “Nobody is giving me orders. Nobody is telling me what staying means. Nobody is taking the road away.” Her voice tightened once, then steadied. “So if I stay, that means…” She stopped. The rest was obvious. Too obvious. Shammy finished nothing for her. Perfect. Infuriating. Perfect. Panam laughed softly and shook her head. “It means I chose it.” “Yes,” Shammy said. One word. Again. Panam looked at her. The answer had not been soft enough to let her hide. Not sharp enough to cut. Just true. The air between them moved slightly. A subtle pressure. Warm. Blue at the edge of perception. Panam looked at Shammy’s hand near hers. Three inches. Possibly two. Ridiculous. She moved before she could talk herself out of it. Not much. Just enough. Her fingers slid across the couch cushion and touched Shammy’s. Lightly. No drama. No music. No sudden thunder. Just skin. Warm. Real. The simplest contact in the world. Panam stopped breathing for one stupid second. Shammy did not move. Then her fingers turned slightly under Panam’s. Not grabbing. Not claiming. Just answering. Panam looked up. Shammy was already looking at her. Of course she was. The smile on her face was small. Careful. Deep enough to hurt if Panam let it. So she let it. A little. “Hi,” Shammy said softly. Panam laughed. Actually laughed. Because after all that, after roads and coffee and Saul and staying and leaving and all the ridiculous careful words, that was what finally broke something open. “Hi?” “It seemed appropriate.” “You are impossible.” “I’ve heard.” “Frequently?” “Frequently.” Panam looked down at their hands. Still touching. No disaster. No panic. No immediate need to move away. Her thumb brushed once, barely, against Shammy’s finger. Testing. Not the contact. Herself. She did not flinch. Good. Shammy’s fingers shifted again, fitting more naturally against hers. Still no pressure. Still no claim. Just return. Panam exhaled. Long and slow. The kind of breath that felt like setting something down without realizing she had carried it all night. Maybe longer. The room felt smaller now. Not cramped. Not closed. Intimate. Different thing entirely. She looked at the joined hands for another moment, then back to Shammy. “You know what’s annoying?” “That list is still active?” “Always.” “What?” Panam smiled. Not the defensive one. Not the sharp one. Something quieter. “I thought this would be more terrifying.” Shammy’s expression softened. “Is it not?” Panam considered lying. Out of habit. The lie did not come. “It is,” she said. “But not in the way I thought.” “How?” Panam looked at their hands again. Then around the room. The couch. The old walls. The dark screen. The window holding their reflection. “It doesn’t feel like falling off a cliff.” A pause. “It feels like realizing I’ve been standing on the ground the whole time.” Shammy was quiet for several seconds. Then her hand tightened very slightly around Panam’s. Just enough to be felt. Not enough to interrupt. Panam felt it everywhere. Unfair. Deeply unfair. She kept smiling anyway. The static in the air softened further. Not stronger. Closer. Like the room had stopped bracing. Panam’s shoulders eased without permission. She leaned back a little, but her hand stayed where it was. Connected. Shammy leaned back too, matching the new shape of the moment. They were not quite side by side. Not fully. But closer. The distance between them was no longer theoretical. It was alive. Negotiated. Chosen. Panam could work with chosen. Chosen made sense. Chosen was not a chain. Chosen was a route picked with eyes open. She looked toward the window. Their reflection had changed. Subtly. Enough. The two figures on the couch no longer looked like people waiting on opposite ends of a question. Panam nodded toward the glass. “Still smug.” Shammy followed her gaze. “The reflection?” “Yes.” “It does look satisfied.” “Criminal.” “Frequently.” Panam laughed, then gently squeezed Shammy’s hand before she could think too hard about doing it. Shammy’s eyes flicked back to her. Something passed across her face. Not surprise. Something softer. A little vulnerable. There. Panam saw it. She really saw it. Not the storm. Not the atmosphere. Not the impossibly calm figure everyone leaned on because breathing got easier around her. Shammy. The person who had waited. The person who had noticed. The person who had said _I would rather you come back_ and meant it. Panam’s smile faded into something quieter. “You okay?” Shammy blinked. Panam knew immediately that the question had landed. Good. Maybe overdue. “Me?” Shammy asked. “Yes, you.” “I am.” “Real answer.” The smile that appeared was small. A little stunned. A little warm. Very real. “I am,” Shammy said. “More than I expected.” Panam nodded. “Good.” The word was simple. It felt good to give it back. Shammy noticed that too. Of course she did. This time Panam let her. For a while they sat like that. Hands together. No rush. No sudden need to define every inch of what happened next. The conversation returned in small pieces. Soft pieces. Not because they needed distraction. Because words were easier now that they no longer had to carry the whole room. Panam told Shammy about a stretch of desert road where the stars looked fake because there were too many of them. Shammy told her that she liked the moment before rain reached the ground, when the air knew first. Panam said that sounded exactly like her. Shammy said terrible coffee had probably changed the course of several lives. Panam said that was Kiro’s fault. Shammy said Kiro would consider that a professional achievement. The laughter came and went. Each time it returned, they were a little closer after it faded. Not deliberately. Not accidentally. Simply because neither of them moved away. At some point Panam’s shoulder touched Shammy’s arm. Lightly. Barely. The contact registered. Stayed. Neither commented. A personal record in restraint. Probably for both of them, though Panam suspected Shammy had better numbers. The air between them shifted. Not pressure this time. Warmth. The quiet kind. The sort that did not ask what came next because it trusted there would be a next. Panam rested her head back against the couch and looked at the ceiling. Her hand remained in Shammy’s. Shoulder against her arm. Knee angled closer than before. The world remained intact. A stunning development. She spoke without looking over. “You know what the stupid part is?” “There is a stupid part?” “There are many. I am choosing one.” “All right.” “I spent weeks thinking the hard part would be figuring out what this was.” Shammy’s thumb moved once against her hand. A tiny motion. Devastating. “And?” Panam turned her head. Looked at her. Really looked. The answer was obvious now. So obvious it almost made her angry. Almost. “The hard part was admitting I already knew.” The room went very quiet. Not empty. Full. Shammy’s gaze held hers. No surprise there. Maybe she had known that too. Probably. Panam did not even feel like accusing her. Progress. Or exhaustion. Maybe both. She expected Shammy to say something. She did not. Instead, Shammy simply stayed. Hand in hers. Arm warm against her shoulder. Eyes steady. Letting the truth remain exactly as large as it was. Panam smiled faintly. “You are not going to make that easier, are you?” “What?” “Pretending.” “No.” “Good.” The word slipped out again. Panam heard it. Shammy heard it. The room heard it. No taking it back. Not that she wanted to. That was becoming the more alarming part. She shifted slightly, turning more fully toward Shammy. This time the movement was intentional. Small. But intentional. The couch cushion dipped. Their hands adjusted without separating. Panam’s knee brushed Shammy’s leg. Another contact. Another small point of truth. She watched Shammy notice it. Watched her not move away. Watched the tiny change in her breathing. There. Again. Not calm as absence. Calm as choice. Panam felt something in her chest steady. Not race. Steady. That was unexpected. She had expected want to feel like acceleration. Engines. Heat. A road opening under the wheels. This felt like arrival. Not the end of anything. Just arrival at a place that had been waiting inside the evening. Maybe inside her. Annoying. Beautiful. Unfair. She leaned a little closer. Not far. Not enough to turn the moment into a demand. Enough to ask without words. Shammy’s gaze dropped briefly. To Panam’s mouth. Then back to her eyes. That small movement nearly ended Panam’s ability to think. Good. Thinking had been overrepresented tonight. She smiled. The dangerous one. The one Ace always claimed meant trouble. This time it meant something softer. Still trouble. Probably. But softer. “What?” Shammy asked. Panam shook her head. “No idea.” “Lie.” “Completely.” Shammy laughed. The laugh was quieter now. Closer. It warmed the space between them. Panam’s hand tightened around hers. Not accidentally. Shammy answered. Not with words. Just fingers closing more fully. For several seconds nothing moved except their breathing. The safehouse seemed to fade at the edges. Not disappear. The old walls remained. The window. The couch. The city. But the rest of the world stepped back politely for once. A rare and suspicious courtesy. Panam decided not to investigate. Not tonight. She looked down at their hands again. Then up. “I’m still here.” The sentence surprised her. Shammy’s expression changed immediately. Softened. Deepened. Like the words mattered more than Panam had realized when saying them. “Yes,” Shammy said. Panam swallowed. Not nervously. Not exactly. “There’s probably a smarter way to say that.” “I like that one.” “Of course you do.” “I do.” The simplicity of it made Panam’s throat tighten. Rude. Deeply rude. She laughed quietly to cover it, but the laugh was not a shield anymore. Just a sound. A way to breathe. “I’m still here,” she repeated, softer. This time it was not surprise. It was choice. Shammy’s hand tightened around hers again. “I know.” Panam leaned closer by one more small degree. Close enough now that the air felt different for reasons that had nothing to do with Shammy’s atmosphere and everything to do with bodies sharing space. Heat. Breath. Quiet. The barest trace of coffee between them. The faint clean-static scent that seemed to cling to Shammy whenever she had been in one room too long and the air started learning her. Panam noticed every detail. She did not hate that. She did not hate any of it. That was the real problem. No. Not problem. Not anymore. Shammy watched her with remarkable stillness. Not frozen. Not passive. Waiting because waiting was part of care. Panam understood that now. Or was beginning to. She could meet it. Maybe not perfectly. Definitely not smoothly. But honestly. That would do. For now. She lifted her free hand. Stopped halfway. Laughed once under her breath. Shammy’s eyes warmed. Panam gave her a look. “Don’t.” “I didn’t.” “You were thinking something.” “Yes.” “At least you admit it.” “Frequently.” Panam smiled, then finished the motion. Her fingers touched the edge of Shammy’s hair where it fell near her shoulder. Lightly. Carefully. The silver-white strands were softer than she expected, carrying a faint static lift against her fingertips. Shammy went very still. Not with discomfort. With attention. Panam felt that attention like heat. “Okay?” she asked. Shammy’s answer came quietly. “Yes.” Good. The word settled through Panam’s hand, through the space between them, through every old instinct still standing guard and looking increasingly unnecessary. She let her fingers slide once through the edge of Shammy’s hair. Nothing more. Small. Careful. Intimate enough to count. Shammy’s eyes half-lowered for a second. Just a second. Panam saw it. Felt something in herself answer. Not panic. Not rush. Something warmer. Clearer. The room had become very quiet again. This time, the quiet carried heat. Not pressure. Not urgency. Heat. The kind that did not need to sprint anywhere. The kind that could sit beside honesty and wait. Panam let her hand fall back slowly, not because she wanted less contact, but because she needed to keep the pace human. Hers. Theirs. Shammy seemed to understand. Of course she did. Panam smiled faintly. “You know what?” “Hm?” “I think this is the first time all night I haven’t wanted to blame Ace.” Shammy’s eyebrows lifted. “Historic.” “Don’t tell her.” “She would be unbearable.” “She already is.” “More unbearable.” Panam considered that. Grimaced. “Terrifying concept.” The laughter returned. Soft. Close. A little breathless now, if Panam was being honest. She had no intention of being honest about that part yet. Probably too late. Shammy definitely noticed. Naturally. Of course. Panam did not tell her to stop. Another historic achievement. The laughter faded. Their hands remained together. Panam’s shoulder remained against Shammy’s arm. The distance between them, once a tactical matter involving couch geometry and personal denial, had become almost nothing. Almost. There was that word again. Almost. It had followed her through the evening. Almost home. Almost saying it. Almost touching. Almost staying. Almost done running. Panam suddenly disliked the word. Not because it was wrong. Because it was tired. She was tired of it. She looked at Shammy. The decision did not feel like an explosion. It felt like the next breath. “Shammy.” “Hm?” “I’m getting very tired of almost.” The room changed. Not loudly. Not dramatically. But it changed. Shammy’s expression became very still. Very soft. Very present. Panam held her gaze. No escape route. No joke ready. No old road roaring up under her feet. The words had said exactly what she wanted them to say. Good. Shammy’s answer was quiet. “So am I.” That was enough. More than enough. Panam leaned in. Slowly. Not because she was uncertain. Because the slowness mattered. Because neither of them had been pushed here. Because every inch of distance removed was chosen. Because she wanted to remember that. Shammy met her halfway. Not all at once. Just enough. The first kiss was soft. Careful. Almost impossibly gentle for something that had spent weeks hiding inside road noise, coffee, jokes, and one stubborn nomad’s refusal to stand still. Panam stopped thinking. Not because she could not. Because she did not need to. Shammy’s hand remained in hers. Warm. Steady. The other rose slowly, not to hold her in place, but to touch her shoulder with the lightest possible pressure. A question. Panam answered by staying. By leaning in a fraction more. By letting the kiss deepen only enough to become real instead of fragile. The safehouse did not vanish. The city did not vanish. The road did not vanish. None of it needed to. Everything stayed exactly where it was. And so did Panam. When they finally eased apart, it was not far. Forehead almost to forehead. Breath close. The room warm around them. Panam opened her eyes and found Shammy already watching her. Of course she was. Panam laughed softly. Not awkward. Not defensive. Just because the entire universe had somehow become absurdly simple. “What?” Shammy asked, voice low. Panam smiled. The real one. The one she did not hide. “I’m still here.” Shammy’s smile answered slowly. “Yes,” she said. “You are.” For once, Panam had no argument. No correction. No better line. No deflection. She only nodded. Stayed close. Kept Shammy’s hand in hers. And let the quiet hold them without needing to move. Outside, Night City kept burning in neon and hunger. Inside, the safehouse held its small pocket of warmth. The road was still out there. Waiting. Patient. Familiar. But for the first time in a very long while, Panam was not listening for it. She was listening to the person beside her breathe. And that, somehow, felt more important than distance. --- # Chapter 6 — Almost Home For a while, neither of them said anything. That was becoming less surprising. Panam still noticed it, of course. She noticed everything now. The quiet. The warmth. The way Shammy’s hand fit against hers without pressure. The way the safehouse seemed to hold itself around them, old walls and soft lights and distant Night City noise all settling into the background like the room had decided, for once, not to be annoying. A rare act of mercy. Possibly suspicious. She would investigate later. Not now. Now required too much attention. Not because something was happening too fast. Because nothing was. That was the strange part. There was no rush. No panic. No sudden need to define the next five years, draw maps, notify Saul, avoid Ace, threaten Kiro, preemptively blame Mai, or identify which of the orbit criminals had started the betting pool. Although there was definitely a betting pool. Panam was sure of that. She could feel it in the bones of the universe. The thought made her mouth twitch. Shammy noticed. Of course she did. “What?” Panam looked at her. Close. Still very close. Close enough that looking at Shammy required less turning than before, and that small fact registered with ridiculous force. “Nothing.” “Lie.” Panam laughed softly. “Yeah.” Shammy’s eyebrows lifted slightly. Panam sighed. “I was thinking about the betting pool.” “The what?” “The betting pool.” A pause. Shammy’s smile appeared slowly. “Ah.” “Don’t ‘ah’ like that.” “There probably is one.” “There absolutely is one.” “Who started it?” Panam did not hesitate. “Kiro.” Shammy considered that. “No.” “No?” “Kiro would build a spreadsheet. She would not start the pool.” Panam stared. Then pointed. “Mai.” “Mai would observe the pool without participating.” “That’s worse.” “Yes.” “Reyes?” “Reyes would deny caring and then ask for odds.” “True.” “Ace.” Panam closed her eyes. Of course. Of course it was Ace. The answer had been there the whole time. “Damn it.” Shammy laughed. Panam opened her eyes and looked at her. The laugh hit differently now. Not new. Not safe exactly. Closer than safe. Familiar, maybe. That word did something inside her she was not prepared to examine too closely. Familiar. Shammy’s laugh. The couch. The safehouse hum. The city outside. The hand in hers. Panam had spent years trusting things that moved. Vehicles. Convoys. Routes. Engines. Weather patterns. People, sometimes, but carefully. Places less often. Places had rules. Expectations. History. People attached meaning to them and then acted surprised when the meaning became heavy. Panam did not mind weight. She minded being trapped under it. That was the difference people kept missing. The kiss had not trapped her. Neither had the hand in hers. Neither had the couch, the safehouse, the quiet, the ridiculous warmth in her chest, or the fact that she did not want to stand up and leave. None of it felt like a chain. That should have been impossible. At minimum, suspicious. She looked down at their hands. Shammy’s fingers were relaxed around hers. Not loose enough to feel uncertain. Not tight enough to feel possessive. Just there. Present. Answering. Panam’s thumb moved once without permission. A tiny stroke across Shammy’s knuckle. She noticed herself doing it. So did Shammy. Neither spoke. Good. Some things got worse if someone tried to narrate them. Especially Ace. Panam would not survive Ace narrating this. She looked toward the door. Still closed. “Do you think Ace is behaving herself?” Shammy gave her a look. Panam nodded. “Right. Stupid question.” “Historic question.” “Don’t mock me.” “I would never.” “Lie.” “Little bit.” The familiar rhythm returned, but softer now. Less armor. More shared language. Panam liked that. She really did. The realization did not even startle her as much this time. Progress. Alarming progress, but progress. She let her gaze drift across the safehouse. The living room looked different after the kiss. Again, nothing had changed. No furniture had moved. No light had altered. The city had not rearranged itself outside the windows, though Night City probably would if someone monetized the concept. But the room had shifted anyway. Or maybe she had. That was the annoying part about feelings. Terrible engineering. No clear schematics. No maintenance manual. No warning lights except the ones that arrived much too late. The couch had become evidence. The kitchen too. The closed door. The mugs in the sink. The dim hallway. The old blanket over the couch back. The shape of the room had gathered the evening into itself and refused to let it disappear. Panam had passed through the safehouse often enough before. Dropped in. Stayed late. Borrowed coffee. Argued with Ace. Watched Mai dismantle three layers of bad logic with a single look. Seen Shammy sitting here like she belonged in the quiet spaces between everyone else’s noise. But tonight was the first time the safehouse did not feel like somewhere she had visited. Not exactly. That thought made her breathe differently. Shammy noticed. Her hand shifted slightly. “You okay?” Panam looked back at her. There it was. The question she had asked Shammy earlier. Returned. Not automatically. Not because politeness demanded it. Because Shammy had noticed something change. Panam smiled faintly. “Yeah.” “Real answer?” Panam’s smile widened. “You remembered.” “I notice things.” “You absolutely do.” A pause. Then Panam looked around again. “I think I am okay.” Shammy waited. Panam appreciated the lack of immediate correction. People often wanted certainty too quickly. As if feelings were cargo to be checked, tagged, and delivered with a signature. Panam preferred routes where the terrain could be read as it appeared. “I’m just trying to figure out what changed,” she said. “The kiss?” “That changed things.” “Yes.” “Obviously.” “Good to confirm.” Panam gave her a look. Shammy’s expression remained mostly innocent. Mostly. “But not just that,” Panam continued. She leaned back slightly, not away from Shammy, just enough to see more of the room. Their hands stayed joined. That mattered. “I’ve been here before.” “Yes.” “A lot.” “Yes.” “I’ve slept here.” “Yes.” “Eaten here.” “Yes.” “Argued here.” “Many times.” “Rude.” “Accurate.” Panam smiled despite herself. Then the smile softened. “But tonight it feels different.” Shammy did not answer immediately. Good. Panam wanted to find the words herself. She owed herself that much. Maybe Shammy too. “It’s not home,” she said slowly. The sentence came out sharper than intended. She immediately looked at Shammy. “I don’t mean—” “I know.” Panam stopped. Shammy’s voice was gentle. Certain. No hurt. No panic. No misunderstanding waiting to become a problem. Just understanding. Panam exhaled. “Yeah?” “Yes.” The answer gave her enough room to continue. “It’s not the Badlands,” Panam said. “It’s not the clan. It’s not a camp. It’s not Dakota’s place. It’s not the road.” She looked toward the window. The city beyond it looked distant tonight. Still ugly underneath the lights. Still dangerous. Still Night City. But distant. Not in a way that made the safehouse fake. In a way that made the room feel protected from it. Small. Temporary. Real. “I don’t want it to be those things,” Panam continued. “I don’t want anything replacing them.” Shammy’s hand remained steady in hers. Not tightening. Not pulling. Just there. Panam looked at it. That helped. “I have places,” she said. “People. Routes. Work. Things that are mine because I chose them and because I keep choosing them.” A pause. “I don’t want to become someone who has to explain why she leaves.” Shammy’s answer came quietly. “You shouldn’t have to.” The sentence landed with such simple force that Panam had to look away for a second. No argument. No negotiation. No hidden disappointment disguised as understanding. Just acceptance. Panam let out a breath. “Damn.” “What?” “You keep saying the right thing.” “I’m not trying to.” “I know. That’s what makes it worse.” Shammy smiled. Panam looked back and found herself smiling too. No defense. No real one. The old part of her kept waiting for a cost to appear. Fine print. A condition. An expectation that had not yet shown its teeth. But none came. That did not mean none would ever appear. Panam was not naive. People were complicated. Relationships were complicated. Lives were complicated. Night City could make a simple grocery run complicated if it smelled profit. But this moment was not complicated. That was the point. That was what kept undoing her. Shammy was not asking her to stop being Panam. Not asking her to park permanently inside a room and call that love. Not asking her to trade the road for walls. She was simply here. And if Panam left, Shammy would rather she came back. That sentence returned. Soft. Devastating. Maybe that was why the safehouse felt different. Not because it had become home. Because it had become returnable. That word settled into her like a key turning. Returnable. Panam looked at the room again. The safehouse. The couch. The kitchen. The door. The hallway. The signs of the orbit scattered everywhere. Ace’s jacket over the back of a chair from some previous day. Mai’s exactness in the placement of tools. Kiro’s cable. Reyes’s cup. Shammy’s presence, not as an object in the room but as the reason the room had started to matter. Almost home. The phrase rose in her mind before she could stop it. This time she did not push it away. Almost. Not because it failed to be home. Because it should not pretend to be more than it was. Almost home meant it could be important without becoming a cage. Almost home meant she could return without surrendering the road. Almost home meant Shammy. Panam’s smile changed. She felt it happen and, for once, did not immediately try to control it. Shammy noticed. The expression on her face softened in answer. “What?” she asked. Panam shook her head. Not to refuse. To buy one more second. Then she said it. “I think this place is becoming dangerous.” Shammy’s mouth curved. “The safehouse?” “Yeah.” “How?” Panam looked around, then back at her. “It keeps making sense.” Shammy laughed quietly. Panam kept going before she lost the nerve. “Not as home-home. Not like that.” “I know.” “But…” The word stayed unfinished for a moment. Panam looked down at their joined hands. Then up. “But close.” The room went still. Warmly still. Shammy did not interrupt. Did not ask for more. Did not make the sentence bigger than Panam had made it. Panam appreciated that so much it almost became unbearable. She squeezed Shammy’s hand once. Small. Deliberate. “This place,” Panam said, “it’s not why I keep coming back.” Shammy’s eyes softened. Panam held the look. There was no point pretending now. Not after everything. Not after the road. Not after the kiss. Not after _almost_ had started feeling like a word she was done with. “It’s you.” There. Simple. Clean. Terrifying. True. Shammy went very still. Not shocked. Not surprised exactly. Moved. Panam saw it. She saw the tiny shift in Shammy’s breathing. The way her fingers tightened around Panam’s. The way the static in the air changed, not stronger, but clearer. The room felt easier to breathe in. Not because Shammy was doing it for her. Because Shammy had heard her. Really heard her. “Panam,” Shammy said softly. That was all. Just her name. But it landed like more. Panam laughed under her breath because apparently that was how her body handled direct emotional damage now. “Yeah.” Shammy smiled. The real one. The one Panam trusted most. “Good,” Shammy said. Panam stared. Then groaned. “There it is again.” “What?” “One word. Critical damage.” “I could use more words.” “Do not threaten me.” Shammy laughed. Panam joined her. The laughter loosened the moment enough for both of them to breathe, but it did not erase what had been said. Nothing erased it. Not now. Panam leaned back, still holding Shammy’s hand, and let the truth sit beside her. It was strange how calm it felt after being spoken. She had expected more fear. More resistance. More of the old machinery grinding to life and demanding escape. Instead, she felt almost relieved. Annoyingly relieved. Like she had set down a tool she had carried long after the repair was finished. She looked at the hallway. Not for any particular reason. A glance. Harmless. Mostly harmless. Shammy noticed. Naturally. Of course. Panam immediately pointed at her with her free hand. “Don’t.” “I didn’t say anything.” “You were about to.” “No.” “Lie.” “Maybe.” Panam narrowed her eyes. “I am learning that smile.” “Are you?” “Yes.” “Good.” That word again. Panam shook her head. “You’re impossible.” “I’ve heard.” “Frequently?” “Frequently.” The room settled again. This time the silence carried something different. The kiss had changed the air. The confession had changed the room. But this thought—almost home—changed something deeper. Panam understood it now. Not fully. Not in the way people pretended to understand things after one emotional evening and too much coffee. But enough. She would still leave. She knew that. Shammy knew that. The road would call again, because the road was not a rival. The Badlands would need her. Dakota would send work. Saul would argue. The Aldecaldos would remain stitched into the parts of her nobody got to replace. She would drive out of Night City with dust waiting beyond the asphalt and sunlight burning across the horizon. She would be Panam Palmer. Still. Always. But now, when Night City appeared ahead again, ugly and glowing and impossible to trust, there would be one place inside it that did not feel like just another stop. One couch. One kitchen. One old, half-complaining safehouse. One person who made returning feel like choice instead of compromise. Almost home. Because Shammy was there. The realization did not frighten her as much as it should have. That was probably the most frightening part. She smiled. Small. Private. Shammy looked at her. “What?” Panam turned her head toward her. For once, the answer came easily. “I think I’m going to come back.” Shammy’s expression softened so completely that Panam nearly looked away. She did not. “From where?” Shammy asked. “Wherever.” That answer did something. Panam felt it in the way Shammy’s hand tightened around hers. In the way the quiet deepened. In the way the whole damn room seemed to understand the sentence before either of them tried to explain it. Wherever. The road. The Badlands. Dakota’s routes. Aldecaldo camps. Courier jobs. Distance. Time. Whatever shape leaving took. Panam would come back. Not always immediately. Not always predictably. Not because anyone owned her return. Because she wanted to. Because somewhere along the way, Shammy had become someone she came back to. Shammy’s voice, when it came, was very quiet. “I would like that.” Panam swallowed. “Yeah?” “Yes.” No joke followed. No deflection. No attempt to make the moment smaller. Panam simply let herself hear it. I would like that. Good. She leaned back into the couch, but not away. Her shoulder found Shammy’s arm again. This time with no pretense. Shammy shifted just enough to let the contact settle naturally. The movement was small. The meaning was not. Panam closed her eyes for a moment. Not sleeping. Not hiding. Just feeling the strangeness of being still and not wanting to be anywhere else. The safehouse sounds returned. Electronics. Old pipes. Distant traffic. Night City breathing outside. Inside, the air carried faint static warmth and the aftermath of words that could not be unsaid. Almost home. Panam opened her eyes. The reflection in the window showed them closer now. Not dramatic. Not performative. Just close. That was enough. For now. Maybe more than enough. She looked at the reflection and shook her head. “What?” Shammy asked. “The window is still smug.” Shammy laughed softly. “It might have earned it.” “Don’t encourage the architecture.” “I’ll try.” “You won’t.” “No.” The laughter came easily. Then faded. Leaving something steady behind. Panam rested her head lightly against the back of the couch and looked toward the ceiling. The ceiling did not look any wiser than before. Still stained. Still old. Still safehouse-grade ugly. She liked it anyway. Another suspicious development. She glanced sideways. Shammy was watching her. Not with expectation. Not with pressure. With quiet affection so open it almost hurt. Panam let it. A little more this time. “You know,” Panam said, “I was very prepared to be annoyed tonight.” “I noticed.” “I had a whole mood ready.” “It was impressive.” “Thank you.” “Not necessarily praise.” “I’m taking it.” Shammy smiled. Panam turned her hand inside Shammy’s, linking their fingers more fully. The gesture happened before she could overthink it. Then stayed because she did not want to undo it. The old part of her waited for alarm. Nothing. Just warmth. Just Shammy. Just the room. Just almost home. Panam breathed out. “Damn.” “What?” “I think Ace was right.” Shammy’s eyes brightened. Panam pointed immediately. “No.” “I didn’t say anything.” “You looked amused.” “I was.” “Criminal.” “Frequently.” Panam groaned. “If she says one word tomorrow, I’m leaving.” “No you’re not.” Panam opened her mouth. Closed it. Considered lying. Decided against it. “Fine. I’m not.” Shammy’s smile widened. Panam narrowed her eyes. “Do not make that face.” “What face?” “The one that says you like that answer.” “I do.” There it was again. Direct. Unapologetic. Warm. Panam should have had a comeback. She did not. She only smiled and shook her head. “Unfair.” “Honest.” “Same problem.” Shammy laughed. Panam looked at her and thought, not for the first time tonight, that the room was no longer large enough to pretend there was distance between them. The thought did not scare her. Not anymore. It warmed something instead. The kind of warmth that made staying feel less like a decision and more like the natural next step after a long road. She tilted her head slightly. Shammy noticed. Of course. “What?” Panam smiled. “Nothing.” “Lie?” “No.” That made Shammy pause. Panam liked surprising her. A lot. Another useful discovery. “Not a lie,” Panam said. “Just nothing I need to explain yet.” Shammy’s expression softened. “All right.” No demand. No push. The freedom of that answer moved through Panam more deeply than she expected. She could leave. She could return. She could speak. She could wait. She could choose. That was why this almost felt like home. Not because it held her. Because it did not have to. Panam looked toward the hallway again. This time she knew exactly why. The glance was not innocent. Not entirely. Shammy followed the direction of her gaze. Then looked back. For a moment neither spoke. The air changed. Subtly. Warmth gathering under the quiet. Panam felt it and did not run. A personal victory. Possibly the biggest of the night. She squeezed Shammy’s hand once. Not a question. Not quite an answer. A signal. The kind that said the road was still out there, but not tonight. Not yet. Shammy’s thumb brushed over her knuckles. Slow. Steady. Answering. Panam’s breath caught. Just a little. Shammy noticed. Panam did not tell her to stop. The safehouse seemed to narrow around them. Not closing in. Making room. There was a difference. A beautiful one. Panam looked back toward the room. The couch. The window. The kitchen. The old walls. The signs of orbit life. The place she had thought of as a stop. The place that had become almost home before she noticed. Then she looked at Shammy. No. Not before she noticed. Before she admitted it. There was a difference there too. She smiled. The dangerous one. Softer now. Less like trouble. More like choice. “Almost,” she said quietly. Shammy tilted her head. “Almost?” Panam looked around once more. Then back to her. “Almost home.” The words settled into the safehouse. Soft. Certain. Not too much. Not too little. Exactly what they were. Shammy’s face changed in a way Panam knew she would remember. Not because it was dramatic. Because it was not. Because it was genuine. Because for once, the calm cracked just enough to show the warmth under it. Shammy did not say anything immediately. When she did, her voice was quiet. “I like almost.” Panam smiled. “Yeah?” “Yes.” A pause. Then Shammy added, “Almost can come back.” That one went deep. Panam looked down at their hands. Then up again. The sentence did not ask her to become less herself. It did not ask her to make promises too big for the night. It simply understood the shape of her. Roads. Returns. Almost. Enough. Panam leaned closer and kissed her again. Not as tentative as the first time. Not rushed. Not hungry enough to break the quiet. Just honest. The kind of kiss that said _I heard you_ without making the words do the work. Shammy answered with the same care. The same warmth. The same patient certainty that had undone Panam piece by piece all evening. When they parted, Panam stayed close. Their foreheads nearly touched. The room held around them. Panam smiled. “Okay.” Shammy’s breath warmed her cheek. “Okay?” “Almost home.” Shammy’s smile answered against the quiet. “Yes.” Panam closed her eyes for one second. Just one. Long enough to let the words settle. Long enough to feel the road outside without needing it. Long enough to understand that leaving tomorrow would not undo tonight. Then she opened her eyes. Still there. Still close. Still Panam. Still free. Still choosing. That was the difference. That was everything. Outside, Night City continued glowing like a lie told beautifully from far away. Inside, the safehouse stayed warm. Almost home. Not because of the walls. Because of Shammy. --- # Chapter 7 — About Us Almost home. The words stayed in the room after Panam said them. Not loudly. Not heavily. They did not demand ceremony. They simply settled into the safehouse the way certain truths did when they finally found the correct shape. Panam remained close to Shammy for a while after the second kiss, forehead nearly touching hers, one hand still held, breathing slowly because apparently her body had decided calm was an option tonight. A suspicious decision. A very suspicious decision. She would normally investigate. Maybe accuse someone. Probably Ace. But Shammy was close enough that investigation seemed less urgent than usual. That was new. Or maybe not new. Maybe just finally obvious. The safehouse held around them. Old walls. Low light. Night City outside, burning itself alive with neon and bad intentions. Inside, the room felt warmer than before. Panam knew some of that was Shammy. Not all of it. Some warmth belonged to the room now. Some belonged to her. That was also suspicious. She smiled faintly. Shammy noticed. Of course she did. “What?” Panam shook her head. “Nothing.” A pause. Then, because lying had become less useful tonight: “Okay. Not nothing.” Shammy’s smile appeared slowly. “Progress.” “Don’t sound proud.” “I am a little proud.” “That’s worse.” “Is it?” “Yes.” “No.” Panam laughed softly. The laugh stayed close between them. It would have been easy, dangerously easy, to let the moment keep drifting without naming anything. Panam could have done that. She had built entire emotional survival strategies around not naming things until the road, the job, the argument, or the next emergency made naming unnecessary. Not tonight. The road had run out of patience. So had she. She leaned back slightly, not enough to break the contact entirely, just enough to look at Shammy properly. Their hands remained joined. Important. Shammy did not hold tighter. Also important. Panam looked down at their fingers for a moment. Then up. “I need to ask something.” Shammy’s expression sharpened gently. Not alarm. Attention. “All right.” Panam smiled despite herself. “No warning? No ‘dangerous opening’?” “I thought this one might need room.” That answer hit too accurately. Panam groaned. “You are terrible.” “I’ve heard.” “Frequently?” “Frequently.” The small familiar rhythm gave Panam enough balance to continue. She looked toward the windows, where their reflection sat close together on the couch, no longer even trying to look accidental. The reflection remained smug. Extremely smug. But maybe it had earned some of that. Panam drew a breath. “I don’t want tomorrow to be stupid.” Shammy blinked. Then her mouth curved. “Tomorrow?” “Yes.” “Specific.” “Important.” “How stupid?” Panam pointed at her with her free hand. “Don’t make me define stupidity in a house where Ace lives.” “Fair.” “Very fair.” The smile between them flickered, but Panam held the real thought steady. “I mean,” she said, more quietly, “I don’t want this to turn into one of those things where everybody pretends nothing happened because nobody wants to make it complicated.” Shammy’s expression softened. Panam kept going before nerves could dress the sentence in jokes. “I don’t want to spend three weeks dodging the obvious.” “Would you?” Panam looked at her. The question was gentle. Not accusing. That made it harder to avoid. The honest answer arrived before the proud one. “Before tonight?” A small laugh. “Probably.” “And now?” Panam looked down at their hands. Now was different. That was the entire problem. Now had a shape. A couch. A safehouse. A kiss. A person she wanted to come back to. The thought moved through her without panic. She looked back at Shammy. “Now I don’t want to.” Shammy nodded once. “That matters.” “I know.” The answer came easily. That surprised her. She knew it mattered. She was not arguing with herself about that anymore. The old machinery had not vanished, but it had lost power somewhere between the first kiss and almost home. The road could still call. Work could still call. Dakota could still call. Saul could call too, unfortunately. But none of that changed this. That mattered too. Panam shifted slightly on the couch. The movement brought her knee against Shammy’s leg again, this time unmistakably intentional. Shammy looked down at the contact, then back up. No pressure. No retreat. Just acknowledgement. Panam let it stay. “I also don’t want this to become…” She stopped. Shammy waited. Panam frowned, searching for the correct enemy. The wrong version. The thing she needed to reject before it could grow teeth. “Some kind of cage,” she said finally. Shammy’s answer came immediately. “No.” One word. Firm. No hesitation. It stopped Panam more effectively than a speech would have. Shammy’s fingers tightened around hers once. Not hard. Enough. “I don’t want that either,” Shammy said. Panam studied her. “You sure?” “Yes.” “Because I leave.” “I know.” “I mean really leave. Days. Weeks sometimes. Routes go bad. Jobs stretch. Dakota sends something that should take three days and suddenly it’s ten because somebody decided to make logistics personal.” “I know.” “Aldecaldos need things. Saul argues. Mitch calls. Carol calls. Sometimes the road calls and I answer because that is who I am.” “I know.” Panam looked at her for a long second. Shammy did not flinch. Did not soften the truth into something easier. Did not pretend she loved some imaginary version of Panam who stayed within predictable range and became emotionally convenient. She only held Panam’s gaze. Steady. Warm. Certain. Panam’s chest tightened. Rude. Extremely rude. “And that does not bother you?” she asked. Shammy was quiet for a moment. Not because she did not know. Because she was choosing honesty carefully. “It can,” she said. Panam stilled. Good. That answer was better than easy reassurance. Shammy continued, her voice calm but not distant. “Not because you leave. Because sometimes you leave before saying what the leaving means.” The sentence landed cleanly. No cruelty. No accusation. Just the exact place where truth had teeth. Panam looked away for half a second. Not fleeing. Taking the hit. “Yeah.” Shammy’s thumb moved over her knuckles. Slow. Patient. “I don’t need you not to leave,” Shammy said. “I need to know whether you are leaving the room, the city, or the conversation.” Silence. Panam absorbed that. The distinction was so clear that she hated herself a little for not seeing it earlier. Leaving the room. Leaving the city. Leaving the conversation. Different things. She had treated them too often like one tool. One engine. One escape. Shammy had noticed. Of course she had. Panam let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “Damn.” “What?” “That is a very reasonable thing to ask.” “Yes.” “You could sound less correct.” “I could try.” “You won’t.” “No.” Panam smiled. The smile faded into something steadier. She looked at Shammy again and nodded once. “Okay.” “Okay?” “I can do that.” Shammy’s gaze searched hers. “Can you?” Panam almost said yes immediately. Reflex. Pride. The usual. Instead she stopped. Thought. Actually thought. Could she? Not perfectly. Probably not smoothly. She would still be Panam Palmer, which meant mistakes came with the weather. There would be days when she got angry too fast. Days when road dust settled over her common sense. Days when Saul called at exactly the wrong moment and she answered with fire because that was easier than fear. But this? This was not impossible. It was a route. A difficult one maybe, but readable. She could learn the difference. More importantly, she wanted to. That was what mattered. “I can try honestly,” she said. Shammy’s expression softened so much that Panam almost regretted the phrasing because it had apparently been too effective. Almost. “I like that answer,” Shammy said. “You would.” “Yes.” Panam shook her head. But the warmth in her chest stayed. Trying honestly. Not promising perfection. Not selling herself as someone she was not. Not handing over the road. Just not turning every departure into disappearance. That felt possible. More than possible. Worth doing. She looked at their hands again. “You get one thing too,” she said. Shammy tilted her head. “I do?” “Yes.” “Should I be concerned?” “Probably.” A faint smile. Panam held onto the seriousness underneath. “When you need something, say it.” Shammy’s expression grew still. Panam squeezed her hand. “I mean before the storm.” The words returned from earlier. Shammy heard them. Panam watched her hear them. The calm did not break. But it opened. Just a little. Enough. Panam continued, quieter now. “I am not Mai. I don’t map people perfectly. I’m not Ace either. I don’t react before I know why. Half the time I barely know what I’m doing until after I’ve done it.” “A very Panam process.” “Don’t interrupt my emotional growth.” “Sorry.” “Lie.” “Little bit.” The smile helped. Panam kept going. “But I can learn. If you tell me. If you don’t decide you have to be fine because being fine is easier for everyone else.” Shammy did not answer immediately. The safehouse seemed quieter around them. Panam realized, with some surprise, that she was not uncomfortable with the quiet this time. She had said what she meant. Now she could wait. Shammy looked down at their joined hands. Then at Panam. “I can try honestly,” she said. Panam froze. Then laughed softly. “That was dirty.” “What?” “Using my own line.” “It was useful.” “It was mine.” “You shared it.” “I did not authorize theft.” “Frequently criminal, apparently.” Panam laughed harder. The sound eased the tightness around Shammy’s eyes. Good. That mattered. Panam noticed the easing. Noticed that she cared. Noticed that caring did not feel like losing ground. Another strange miracle. She leaned closer and touched her forehead briefly against Shammy’s. Not a kiss. Not yet. A resting place. A contact that asked for nothing except presence. Shammy breathed out softly. Panam felt it against her skin. For several seconds neither moved. The quiet warmed. Then Panam pulled back just enough to meet her eyes. “So.” Shammy’s mouth curved. “So.” Panam narrowed her eyes. “Don’t make me do all the work.” “You started.” “That is not how this works.” “What is this?” There it was. Not a trap. Not a challenge. A door. A very obvious one. Panam stared at her. Shammy’s expression stayed calm, but Panam could see the attention underneath. The care. The risk. Not fear exactly, but something near enough to deserve respect. Shammy was not just waiting for Panam to figure herself out anymore. She was here too. In the question. In the choice. In whatever came after almost. Panam sat back slightly. Not away. Just enough to give the words room. “This.” She gestured between them. Not vaguely. Not hiding. The space between their bodies. Their hands. The couch. The evening. The thing that had been happening for weeks and had finally run out of camouflage. “Us.” The word entered the room quietly. Us. Smaller than it should have been. Bigger than it looked. Panam heard it after she said it. Felt it. The old instinct twitched. Make a joke. Pretend she meant something lighter. Accuse Ace. Escape into sarcasm. She did none of that. She let the word stay exactly where it was. Shammy looked at her for a long moment. Then smiled. Not the teasing smile. Not the gentle deflection. The real smile. “Yes,” Shammy said. Panam blinked. “That’s it?” “You wanted more?” “I don’t know. Maybe.” “What kind of more?” Panam opened her mouth. Closed it. Scowled. “You are making me sound dramatic.” Shammy’s smile warmed. “You are dramatic.” “I am not.” “You absolutely are.” “Rude.” “Accurate.” Panam tried to look offended. Failed almost immediately. The laugh came out helpless and soft. Then faded into something more serious. “Yes?” she asked. It came out quieter than intended. Shammy heard the question under the question. Of course she did. “Yes,” Shammy said again. “Us.” Panam let that settle. No fireworks. No formal declaration. No dramatic shift in lighting. Just a word returned. Us. It felt less like a cage than she had feared. Less like a cliff. Less like surrender. It felt like a route marked on a map they could both choose to follow, with exits, weather, fuel stops, bad coffee, arguments, returns, and maybe one extremely intolerable short woman acting smug in the morning. That last part was unfortunate. But survivable. Probably. Panam looked down. Their hands were still linked. Us. It looked less terrifying from that angle. “Okay,” she said. Shammy’s eyebrows lifted. “Okay?” Panam nodded. “Us.” The word came easier the second time. Not easy. Easier. That mattered. Shammy’s smile softened. “Us.” A tiny silence. Warm. Full. Then Panam groaned. Shammy blinked. “What?” “I just realized Ace is going to say something awful.” “Probably.” “And Mai will say nothing, which will be worse.” “Definitely.” “Kiro will have statistics.” “Yes.” “Reyes will pretend she didn’t care.” “Correct.” Panam looked horrified. “Do we have to tell them?” Shammy laughed. The sound was bright and startled enough that Panam immediately grinned. “Do you think they do not know?” Shammy asked. Panam pointed at her. “Do not weaponize reality against me.” “They know.” “I know they know.” “Then?” “That is not the point.” “What is the point?” Panam considered. Then sighed. “The point is I would like one hour of dignity before Ace destroys it.” Shammy smiled. “One hour?” “Minimum.” “You may get seven minutes.” “Criminal.” “Frequently.” Panam leaned back, still smiling. The humor did not undercut the word. Us remained. It sat beside them now, not fragile, not demanding attention, just present. Panam found she could breathe around it. Maybe that was the sign. Not that saying it made everything simple forever. Not that tomorrow would be smooth. Not that she would stop being stubborn, or Shammy would stop being infuriatingly patient, or Ace would stop being a menace, or Mai would stop knowing things before everyone else. But Panam could breathe around us. That mattered more than she had expected. She looked at Shammy. “You know what I don’t want?” “Another list?” “This is a good list.” “All right.” “I don’t want this to become everyone’s project.” Shammy’s expression changed immediately. Understanding. “Yes.” “I mean it.” “I know.” Panam squeezed her hand. “We can survive Ace being Ace.” “Can we?” “Maybe.” “Optimistic.” “Recklessly.” Shammy smiled. Panam continued. “But I don’t want the orbit turning this into a performance. I don’t want everyone watching to see if I run or if you wait or if the road wins.” The words sharpened near the end. Panam heard it. So did Shammy. The road wins. Strange phrase. Wrong phrase. The road was not the enemy. Panam corrected herself before Shammy needed to. “No. Not that.” Shammy waited. “The road is not against this.” That felt important. She looked toward the windows. Night City beyond them. The unseen roads beyond Night City. The Badlands beyond those. “The road is mine,” Panam said. “But that does not mean this isn’t.” Shammy’s fingers tightened around hers. Panam looked back. Shammy’s face was soft in a way that made the room feel almost too warm. “Yes,” Shammy said. “Exactly.” Panam smiled faintly. “Good.” Shammy’s eyes brightened. Panam caught it immediately. “What?” “You used it.” “What?” “Good.” Panam stared. Then pointed. “No.” “Yes.” “I am taking it back.” “Too late.” “Criminal.” “Frequently.” The laughter returned. The old pattern. The new warmth. Together now. That seemed to be happening a lot. Panam could live with that. For a while they talked about smaller things because the bigger one had been said and did not need constant handling. What tomorrow might look like. Not in detail. Not with rules. Just shapes. Panam would not sneak out before morning out of embarrassment. That was apparently worth saying aloud. Shammy would not pretend nothing had happened just to make Panam comfortable. That was also worth saying aloud. Ace would be given exactly one warning before Panam threatened furniture. Mai would be watched carefully because quiet smugness was more dangerous than Ace’s open smugness. Kiro would not be allowed to present data. Reyes would absolutely be accused of accessory behavior. These were practical matters. Operational stability. Relationship logistics, apparently. Panam found that framing helpful. Possibly ridiculous. Still helpful. At some point, the conversation slowed again. Not because it had run out. Because the important things had places now. Panam leaned against the couch with Shammy close beside her. Not merely across. Not far. Beside. The transition had happened gradually enough that neither had needed to comment. Panam noticed anyway. Then chose not to make a joke. A personal sacrifice. Historically significant. Shammy’s shoulder was warm against hers. Their hands remained joined. The air carried that faint electric softness, no longer something Panam had to decide whether to accept. It was simply part of being close to Shammy. Part of the room. Part of this. Us. Panam let the word pass through her again. Still strange. Still new. Not bad. Not even close. She looked toward the hallway again. This time the glance was not accidental. Not innocent. Not tactical. Shammy followed it. Then looked back. The room changed. Quietly. A familiar warmth gathered, but different now from Chapter 5’s first heat. Less discovery. More recognition. The next step existed. Neither needed to rush toward it. Neither could pretend not to see it. Panam did not look away. That alone felt like a victory. Shammy’s voice stayed low. “What are you thinking?” Panam laughed softly. “Dangerous question.” “Yes.” “You asked anyway.” “Yes.” Panam looked down at their hands, then back up. “I’m thinking that I am very tired of talking around things.” Shammy’s eyes softened. “Are we still talking around them?” “Less.” “Less?” “Much less.” “That sounds like progress.” “It is.” A pause. Panam smiled. “But I think I’m done with progress for a minute.” Shammy’s expression shifted. Not surprise. Understanding. Heat moved through the quiet between them. Still patient. Still careful. But present. Very present. Panam leaned closer. Not all the way. Just enough that the space became a question. Shammy answered by meeting her halfway. The kiss this time was not first contact. Not testing. Not fragile. It carried the word they had just said. Us. Not ownership. Not urgency. Not a promise too large for the night. A shared answer. Panam’s free hand found Shammy’s shoulder, then the edge of her hair again, silver-white strands lifting faintly against her fingers. Shammy’s hand touched Panam’s side with the same careful pressure as before, but there was less question in it now. Still respectful. Still waiting for answer. But warmer. Clearer. Panam answered by staying close. The kiss deepened slowly. Naturally. No rush. No need to turn the moment into something it was not ready to become. But also no pretending. No almost. No hiding behind furniture, coffee, road metaphors, or Ace-related legal complaints. When they finally parted, Panam remained close enough that speaking felt optional. She spoke anyway. Quietly. “Us.” Shammy smiled against the small space between them. “Yes.” Panam nodded once. Not to Shammy. To herself. To the room. To whatever old part of her still needed evidence. Fine. There it was. Evidence. Their hands. Their breath. The safehouse. The road outside not calling loudly enough to matter. The almost-home warmth around them. The word us, still standing. Panam smiled. The dangerous one. The real one. This time there was no difference. “I think,” she said, “I’m done pretending this is confusing.” Shammy’s answer came softly. “Good.” Panam laughed under her breath. “One word.” “Still works?” “Unfortunately.” Shammy’s smile widened. Panam leaned in and kissed her again before either of them could turn it into another discussion. Good choice. Very good choice. The safehouse stayed quiet around them. Not silent. Never silent. Old walls. Distant traffic. Faint static warmth. Night City beyond the glass. But none of it interrupted. The room had carried them from conspiracy to confession, from road to return, from almost to us. For once, Panam did not feel the need to move faster than the moment. For once, she did not feel the need to move away from it either. When the kiss ended, she rested her forehead lightly against Shammy’s and let the quiet hold them there. Tomorrow could be stupid. Ace could be unbearable. Mai could think smugly enough to bend light. Kiro could threaten statistics. Reyes could lie professionally. The road could wait outside. All of it could wait. Panam kept her hand in Shammy’s and breathed. Still here. Still free. Still choosing. Us. The word no longer felt like a trap. It felt like a place to return to. --- # Chapter 8 — No More Excuses Us. The word stayed with Panam longer than the kiss. That surprised her. A little. Not because the kiss had been small. It had not. Not because it had been forgettable. It absolutely had not. But because the word had done something the kiss only confirmed. Us had entered the room quietly and then refused to leave. Not as a cage. Not as a claim. Not as a new set of rules someone else got to write around her. As a place. A return point. Something she could leave from without erasing. Something she could come back to without surrendering. Panam kept her forehead near Shammy’s and breathed slowly, because breathing seemed like the kind of basic skill worth maintaining during a night that had already caused several system failures. Shammy’s hand remained in hers. Warm. Steady. The other rested lightly at Panam’s side, not holding her in place. Never that. Just there. Present. Answering. Panam liked it. The realization did not even bother knocking this time. It simply walked in, sat down, and made itself comfortable. Rude. Very rude. She smiled against the quiet. Shammy noticed. Of course she did. “What?” Panam closed her eyes. “If I say nothing, you’ll call it a lie.” “Yes.” “If I say the truth, you’ll do that thing.” “What thing?” “The thing where you look at me like the truth is allowed to exist.” Shammy was quiet for half a second. Then Panam felt the smile before she saw it. “That sounds terrible.” “It is.” “Should I stop?” “No.” The word came immediately. Honest. Simple. Barely even a decision. Panam opened her eyes. Shammy was watching her with that same impossible patience, except now Panam knew better than to mistake it for passivity. The patience had weight. Choice. Desire held carefully enough not to become pressure. That mattered. A lot. Panam lifted her free hand and brushed her fingers once more through the edge of Shammy’s hair. Silver-white strands lifted faintly, soft and static-warmed against her skin. Shammy’s breath changed. Slightly. Enough. Panam noticed. A smile tugged at her mouth. “There.” Shammy’s eyes softened. “There?” “You make faces too.” “I do not.” Panam stared. Then laughed. “Oh, that is absolutely a lie.” “Maybe.” “No. Definitely.” Shammy smiled wider. Panam felt absurdly proud of herself. A successful counterattack. Small, but meaningful. The safehouse remained quiet around them, though the silence had changed shape again. Earlier, it had been space. Then shelter. Then heat. Now it felt like a threshold. Not a cliff. Not a trap. A doorway. A place where the next step existed whether either of them rushed toward it or not. Panam became aware of the hallway again. Not as an escape route. Not as architecture. As possibility. The thought should have startled her more. It did not. That was almost alarming enough to be funny. Almost. She glanced toward it. This time she did not pretend the glance was innocent. Shammy followed her gaze. The room seemed to draw one slow breath. Panam looked back at her. No joke came. No immediate retreat. No old instinct slamming every door shut and demanding motion, noise, distance, road. Instead there was only the quiet pressure of choice. Hers. Theirs. Shammy’s thumb moved once across her knuckles. A question without words. Panam answered by not looking away. “You know,” she said softly, “this is usually the part where I make an excuse.” Shammy’s voice stayed low. “Usually?” “Yes.” “What kind?” Panam considered that. The list was impressive. Long. Professionally maintained. “I have work early.” “Do you?” “No.” “Vehicle needs checking.” “It always does.” “Does it need checking now?” “No.” “Dakota might call.” “She might.” “Did she?” “No.” “Saul?” Panam made a face. “Do not summon him.” Shammy laughed quietly. Panam smiled despite herself, then let the humor fade before it could carry her away from the real point. “I could make one,” she said. “A good one.” “I believe you.” “I have experience.” “I noticed.” “Stop noticing.” “No.” The old exchange warmed the edge of the moment. Did not break it. Panam looked toward the hallway again. Then back. “I don’t want to.” The words were soft. Plain. No decoration. No dramatic announcement. Just the thing itself. I don’t want to make an excuse. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to turn this into another almost. Shammy’s expression changed with the careful slowness of someone receiving something fragile and choosing not to grip too tightly. “Good,” she said. Panam gave a breathless little laugh. “There it is.” “One word?” “Critical damage.” “Still?” “Worse now.” Shammy smiled. Panam leaned in and kissed her again. Shorter this time. Not because she wanted less. Because the kiss had become punctuation rather than translation. They both already knew what it meant. When Panam pulled back, she stayed close enough that the next breath was shared. Her hand slid from Shammy’s hair to her shoulder, then rested there. Solid. Warm. Real. Shammy’s fingers at Panam’s side remained light, but the air around them had changed. The faint static-softness deepened into something warmer, fuller, almost like the room had moved closer without actually shrinking. Panam felt it along her skin. In the quiet behind her ribs. In the place where motion usually started. No motion came. Only decision. She swallowed once. Not from fear. From the weight of finally not running. “I’m still here,” she said. Shammy’s eyes warmed. “I know.” “No, I mean…” Panam stopped. Frowned. The words were trying to become complicated again. Old habit. Unnecessary. She shook her head. “No. Actually, that is what I mean.” Shammy’s smile was very small. Very real. “All right.” Panam stared at her. “You are making this dangerously easy.” “I thought it was simple.” “It is.” A pause. “That is the problem.” “Still?” “Less.” The answer surprised her. Again. She kept surprising herself tonight. At some point that would become exhausting. Not yet. Right now, it felt like air clearing. She looked toward the hallway one more time. Then stood. Not abruptly. No sudden escape. No tactical repositioning. Just stood. Their hands separated naturally. Not because the contact ended. Because the moment changed shape. Shammy stayed seated for one breath longer. Looking up at her. Waiting. Panam knew that waiting now. Not passive. Not hesitant. Respectful. Giving her the last chance to turn the moment into a joke if she needed one. She did not. Instead she held out her hand. Shammy looked at it. Then at her. Panam smiled. The dangerous one. Softer now. More honest. “Come here.” The words entered the room without force. No command edge. No performance. Not the old Panam snapping orders because movement was safer than feeling. This was different. Invitation shaped like certainty. Shammy’s expression softened so completely that Panam almost had to look away. Almost. She did not. Shammy placed her hand in Panam’s and rose. Tall enough that the familiar difference in height reasserted itself immediately, but it did not make Panam feel small. Not tonight. Tonight, Shammy’s height felt like weather rising around her. Warm. Electric. Careful. Panam tipped her head back slightly and gave her a look. “Don’t loom.” “I am standing.” “You are standing vertically with intent.” “That is difficult to avoid.” “Try harder.” Shammy laughed. The laugh eased the heat just enough. Good. Panam needed that. Not because she wanted the heat gone. Because she wanted to stay herself inside it. She led Shammy toward the hallway. Or maybe they led each other. Their hands remained joined, and Panam became very aware of the old safehouse floor beneath her boots, the shift from living room light into the softer dimness beyond, the way the city glow fell weaker here. The hallway was not long. It felt longer tonight. Not in a bad way. In a way that made each step count. Panam had walked this hallway before. To grab a jacket. To find a bathroom. To yell at Ace through a door. To avoid a conversation. To sleep after too much road and not enough sense. Tonight the hallway did not feel like passage. It felt like answer. Halfway down, Panam stopped. Shammy stopped with her. No question. Not aloud. Panam turned. The hallway light caught Shammy’s hair in pale blue, silver edges lifting faintly with static. Her eyes seemed brighter here, not glowing exactly, but carrying that charged-blue depth that made Panam think of storms deciding to be kind. For a moment, Panam forgot whatever she had meant to say. Shammy smiled. “What?” Panam narrowed her eyes. “Don’t.” “I didn’t say anything.” “You knew I forgot something.” “I suspected.” “Terrible.” “Frequently.” Panam laughed softly, then stepped closer. The laughter faded on its own. No need to kill it. No need to force the moment serious. It became serious because they did. Panam looked at her. Really looked. The person who made rooms easier to breathe in. The person who needed to be noticed before the storm. The person who had said _I would rather you come back_ and meant it. The person who had become almost home without asking to replace the road. Panam lifted their joined hands slightly. “I need one more thing clear.” Shammy’s attention sharpened. “Yes.” Panam drew a breath. “If I leave tomorrow—” “You will come back.” Panam stopped. The answer had come immediately. Not hopeful. Not demanding. Certain. Panam stared at her. Shammy’s expression remained steady. “You just told me,” she said softly. Panam felt the words settle. Yes. She had. I think I’m going to come back. Wherever. She had said it. Meant it. Still meant it. The hallway felt very quiet. Panam’s throat tightened in a way she chose not to be embarrassed about. Growth, apparently. Annoying but useful. “Yeah,” she said. A small smile. “Yeah, I did.” Shammy’s thumb brushed across her hand. “Then I believe you.” That hit harder than any demand could have. Trust. Not blind. Not careless. A real thing. Offered with eyes open. Panam let it land. Let herself feel it. Then nodded once. “All right.” “All right?” “Yes.” A pause. Then, because she was still Panam, “If Ace makes that face tomorrow, I am throwing a pillow at her.” “Only a pillow?” “First warning.” “Fair.” “Very fair.” Shammy smiled. Panam stepped closer and kissed her in the hallway. Not to avoid the feeling. To answer it. The kiss was deeper now. Still not rushed. Still not careless. But the carefulness had changed. It was not uncertainty. It was attention. Panam’s hands found Shammy’s waist, then paused there, asking through stillness before pressure. Shammy answered by touching Panam’s shoulders, then sliding one hand gently to the back of her neck. Warm. Steady. No force. Panam leaned into it. Chose it. The old fear did not disappear. Not completely. It did something better. It became irrelevant. When they broke apart, Panam was breathing harder. Not dramatically. Enough. Shammy’s eyes had darkened with warmth, the blue in them deep and charged. Panam saw the desire there. Not hidden. Not pushed onto her. Held with the same care Shammy had shown all evening. That mattered so much it almost hurt. “You okay?” Shammy asked. Panam smiled. A little crooked. A little breathless. “Real answer?” “Yes.” “Yes.” Shammy’s face softened. Panam touched her cheek briefly with the back of her fingers. “Your turn.” The smile that answered was small and unmistakably vulnerable. “Yes.” Good. Good. The word belonged to both of them now. Panam took her hand again and continued down the hallway. The room they reached was not dramatic. A safehouse bedroom. Plain. Practical. A bed that had probably seen more exhausted collapses than romance. A side table with a lamp. A folded blanket. A window with the blinds half-closed against Night City’s glow. Nothing staged. Nothing perfect. That helped. Panam did not want perfect. Perfect was suspicious. Perfect belonged to corps, ads, and liars with money. This room was ordinary. Lived-in. Safehouse ugly. Good. She stepped inside first and turned on the small lamp. Warm light spread across the room. Soft. Low. Enough. Shammy remained at the doorway. Not because she was uncertain. Because she was letting Panam choose the room too. Panam noticed. Of course she noticed. She was getting dangerously good at that. “Still waiting?” Panam asked. Shammy’s expression stayed warm. “Still letting you choose.” Panam’s chest tightened. Again. Ridiculous. Useful. She walked back to the doorway, took Shammy’s hand, and pulled her gently inside. “Choice made.” Shammy entered. The door remained open behind her for a moment. Panam looked at it. Then at Shammy. Then back at the door. A small laugh escaped. “What?” Shammy asked. “I was thinking.” “Dangerous.” “Extremely.” Panam reached past her and closed the door. Not loudly. Not theatrically. Just a soft click. The sound settled into the room. A boundary. Not a lock. That difference mattered. Panam rested her hand against the door for a second. The hallway was on the other side. The living room beyond that. Night City beyond the walls. The road beyond the city. Everything still there. Nothing erased. Nothing lost. She turned back. Shammy stood in the warm light, silver-white hair falling over one shoulder, expression open in a way that made Panam understand just how much trust this moment held. Not only hers. Shammy’s too. Panam crossed the space between them slowly. No need to hurry. No more almost. No more excuses. When she reached her, she took Shammy’s face gently between both hands. The gesture surprised her. Not because she did it. Because it felt natural. Shammy’s hands came to rest lightly at Panam’s waist. Again, waiting for answer. Panam gave it. A kiss. Then another. The second slower. The third warmer. The kind of warmth that deepened without needing to be described too closely, because some things belonged to the room that held them and nowhere else. Panam felt Shammy’s fingers shift against her, careful even now. Always careful. She broke the kiss just enough to speak. “You don’t have to hold back so hard.” Shammy’s breath caught. Panam saw it. Felt it. The blue in Shammy’s eyes sharpened, brightened, then steadied. “I don’t want to push,” Shammy said. “You’re not.” “I know.” “But?” Shammy smiled faintly. “You hear those now.” “I am adapting.” A small laugh between them. Then Panam’s voice softened. “Ask.” Shammy looked at her. Panam held her gaze. “If you’re not sure, ask. If you need something, say it. If I need something, I’ll say it.” She paused. Then added, with a faint edge of Panam back in the mix: “And if I get stupid, you can tell me.” Shammy’s smile warmed. “Only if?” “Don’t push your luck.” “Frequently.” Panam laughed, then kissed her again before the laughter could carry them too far from the heat. This time Shammy answered with more of herself. Still careful. Still listening. But not hidden. Panam felt the shift in the room immediately. The static-soft air warmed, the faint pressure of Shammy’s presence becoming more intimate than atmospheric. Not storm. Not force. Not power. Trust becoming physical. Panam stepped closer until there was no practical distance left between them. Shammy’s arms came around her with a care that nearly broke something open in Panam’s chest. Not ownership. Not restraint. Shelter. Panam closed her eyes briefly against the feeling. Then opened them. Still here. Still free. Still choosing. The old sentence returned, and this time it no longer sounded like proof. It sounded like home. Almost home. Us. No more excuses. She touched her forehead to Shammy’s. “You know what?” “Hm?” “I was going to have a speech.” Shammy smiled. “A speech?” “A good one.” “I believe you.” “You should.” “What happened to it?” Panam glanced toward the closed door. Then back. “Turns out I don’t need it.” Shammy’s smile softened. “No?” “No.” Panam kissed her again. That was answer enough. The night moved after that in small, chosen things. A jacket set aside. Boots pushed away from the bed. Soft laughter when one of them bumped the side table and the lamp nearly staged a dramatic suicide. A whispered insult aimed at the furniture. Shammy laughing against Panam’s shoulder. Panam’s hands learning the difference between patience and hesitation. Shammy’s calm turning warmer, less guarded, more human in the dim light. No hurry. No performance. No need to prove anything to the room, the road, the orbit, or tomorrow. Only breath. Warmth. Quiet. The old safehouse holding one more secret inside its walls. At some point Panam stopped thinking about whether she was doing this correctly. That might have been the final miracle of the evening. There was no correctly. Only honestly. Only with care. Only with Shammy. And that was enough. More than enough. The city remained outside the window, blurred behind half-closed blinds. The road remained beyond it. Waiting without resentment. It would still be there tomorrow. So would Dakota’s work. So would the Aldecaldos. So would Saul’s arguments. So would every part of Panam’s life that made her Panam. None of it vanished because she stayed. None of it vanished because she chose this. When the lamp finally went dark, it was not because the night had ended. It was because the night no longer needed witnesses. The safehouse settled around them. Quiet. Not silent. Never silent. There was always something. A breath. A laugh, soft enough to disappear into skin. The rustle of sheets. A whispered _hi_ that made Panam laugh again for reasons she would deny under interrogation. Then even the words faded. The door stayed closed. The road stayed outside. And for once, Panam Palmer had no excuse left. No need for one. The night belonged to them. --- # Epilogue — Morning Conspiracy Morning arrived badly. Not because anything had gone wrong. That would have been familiar. Panam Palmer understood bad mornings. Bad coffee. Bad roads. Bad calls. Bad weather. Bad news delivered by people who should have known better than to start a sentence with _so, funny thing_. This morning was different. This morning arrived with sunlight creeping through half-closed blinds, old safehouse pipes clicking somewhere in the wall, and Shammy breathing quietly beside her. That last part was the problem. Not a bad problem. Not even close. A dangerous problem. A warm problem. A problem with silver-white hair, one long arm resting loosely near Panam’s waist, and the faintest trace of static-soft warmth still held in the air like the room had not quite finished remembering the night. Panam opened one eye. The ceiling stared back. Same safehouse ceiling. Same faint stain near the corner. Same ugly practical lamp on the side table. Same city noise pressing through the walls. Different world. That was dramatic. She hated that. It was also true. She hated that more. Beside her, Shammy shifted slightly. Not waking all at once. Just enough that her hand settled more naturally against Panam’s side. Panam looked over. Shammy’s hair had fallen partly across her face, silver-white strands catching weak morning light. Her expression was softer in sleep than Panam had ever seen it awake. Less storm. Less atmosphere. More person. The thought hit quietly. Deeply. Panam did not move for a moment. She only watched her breathe. That should have felt invasive. Instead, it felt like being trusted with something. Great. Now the morning was being emotionally competent. Unacceptable. Shammy’s eyes opened slowly. Blue. Warm. A little unfocused at first. Then she saw Panam. The smile came before full wakefulness did. Panam felt that smile under her ribs like a direct hit. “Morning,” Shammy said, voice low and rough with sleep. Panam stared at her. Then immediately frowned. “No.” Shammy blinked. “No?” “You are not allowed to sound like that before coffee.” A slow smile spread across Shammy’s face. “Like what?” “Dangerous.” “I said one word.” “One dangerous word.” Shammy laughed softly. The sound was warm, close, and entirely unfair. Panam rolled onto her back and covered her face with one hand. “I have made several errors.” Shammy propped herself slightly on one elbow. “Have you?” “No.” A pause. “Maybe.” Another pause. “No.” Shammy’s smile widened. Panam lowered her hand and pointed at her. “Do not look pleased.” “I am pleased.” “That is exactly what I told you not to do.” “I heard.” “And?” “I am still pleased.” Panam stared. Then laughed because there was no defense against honesty that simple. Not a good one. Not this morning. Maybe not anymore. She shook her head and sat up slowly, the sheet sliding around her waist. The room felt warmer than it should have. Not hot. Not uncomfortable. Just inhabited. That word mattered. The bedroom had been practical last night. A safehouse room. A place with a bed, a lamp, a window, and no expectations beyond function. Now it had become evidence too. Panam glanced toward the door. Closed. Still closed. The road was outside. Night City was outside. The orbit, unfortunately, was probably about to be outside and then very much inside. Her expression changed. Shammy noticed immediately. “What?” Panam looked at her. “They’re coming back.” “Yes.” “They know.” “Yes.” “They probably knew before we did.” Shammy considered that. “Maybe not before.” Panam gave her a flat look. “Shammy.” “All right. Maybe before.” Panam groaned. “I hate all of them.” “No you don’t.” “I am willing to test it.” Shammy laughed again and sat up beside her. The morning light caught along her hair, turning the silver-white almost blue at the edges. She looked calm, but not distant. Warm. Open. And proud. That made Panam pause. Not because she disliked it. Because she recognized it before Shammy said anything. Shammy looked proud of her. Not possessive. Not smug. Not triumphant. Proud. As if Panam had done something braver than simply staying in a room with someone she wanted. Which was irritating. Because maybe she had. Panam looked away first. Then immediately looked back, annoyed with herself. “No.” Shammy’s mouth curved. “No what?” “I am not doing the embarrassed thing.” “I noticed.” “Good.” Panam said the word like a challenge. Shammy’s eyes warmed. “Yes,” she said softly. “Good.” There it was again. One word. Critical damage. Panam narrowed her eyes. “You are enjoying that word now.” “I liked it before.” “Of course you did.” “More now.” “Criminal.” “Frequently.” The laughter that followed was quiet and easy. Panam let it happen. No flinching. No shrinking. No frantic search for clothes, excuses, exit routes, or emergency calls from Dakota that did not exist. She sat there in the warm, messy aftermath of her own choice and discovered, to her surprise, that she did not want to hide from it. Not from Shammy. Not from the safehouse. Not even from Ace. That last one was probably hubris. But still. A few minutes later, dressed enough for the morning and dangerous enough to face the orbit, Panam opened the bedroom door. The hallway seemed too bright. Too ordinary. Deeply suspicious. Shammy followed behind her, hair loosely pulled back, expression calm enough to fool most people and far too proud to fool Panam. Panam glanced over her shoulder. “You are glowing.” “I am not.” “You are emotionally glowing.” “That sounds difficult to prove.” “I have instincts.” “Very reliable instincts.” “Exactly.” Shammy smiled. Panam shook her head and walked toward the living room. The safehouse was still quiet. For approximately eight seconds. Then the front door opened. Of course. No warning. No mercy. Just the sound of the universe deciding Panam had received enough peace. Ace entered first, carrying coffee. That alone was an act of war. Reyes came in behind her with a paper bag that smelled like breakfast and the expression of a woman already preparing to deny involvement in anything. Mai followed with calm precision, removing her jacket as if returning from a perfectly ordinary morning errand. Kiro came last, balancing two data tablets, one drink, and far too much interest in the room. Everyone stopped. Panam stood near the hallway entrance. Shammy stood behind her, slightly to one side. The silence lasted one beautiful, doomed second. Ace looked at Panam. Then at Shammy. Then at Panam again. Her face did not change much. That was the problem. Ace had a way of becoming most dangerous when she looked innocent. “Morning,” Ace said. Panam pointed at her immediately. “No.” Ace blinked. “I said one word.” “You selected that word with intent.” Mai walked past them toward the kitchen. “She did.” Ace looked betrayed. “Mai.” “It was tactically chosen.” Reyes set the breakfast bag on the table and looked anywhere except directly at Panam. That lasted almost half a second. A personal best. Kiro, unfortunately, had no survival instinct. “So,” she said brightly, “for the record—” Panam turned her finger on her. “No statistics.” Kiro froze. Then looked offended. “I had not even opened the file.” “You had a file?” Mai said, without looking over, “She had three.” “Kiro.” “What? One was emotional progression, one was probability modeling, and one was just for jokes.” Reyes muttered, “Never admit the third file.” Kiro pointed at her. “You knew about the third file.” “I deny everything.” “Professionally?” “Always.” Panam stared at all of them. Then she laughed. Not despite herself. Not accidentally. She laughed because the whole thing was absurd, because Ace looked like a small violet-eyed war criminal holding coffee, because Mai was pretending she had not architected half the universe into place, because Kiro had absolutely prepared charts, because Reyes was somehow both guilty and innocent in a way only mercs and old dogs could manage. And because Shammy was behind her, warm and quiet and unmistakably pleased. Panam’s laughter made the room shift. Ace’s expression sharpened with interest. Mai glanced over. Kiro paused mid-protest. Reyes lifted one eyebrow. Panam saw them all notice the same thing. No shame. No retreat. No flushed denial. No frantic threat shouted over her shoulder while she tried to escape into the kitchen. She stood there and laughed like someone who had already decided the room could survive the truth. Ace’s smile changed. Less teasing. More satisfied. Dangerous, but not cruel. Panam pointed at her again. “Don’t.” “I’m being very mature.” Mai placed a mug on the counter. “Statistically false.” Kiro gasped. “You said no statistics to me.” “Mai used one without data visualization,” Reyes said. “That’s allowed.” “No it is not.” Ace stepped farther into the room, handed Shammy one coffee, then offered the other to Panam. Panam looked at the cup. Then at Ace. “What did you do to it?” “Nothing.” “Lie.” “Correct.” Ace held the cup out a little farther. “Coffee. No sabotage.” Panam took it carefully. Ace’s face remained innocent. Too innocent. Panam narrowed her eyes. “If you say anything, I throw the coffee.” Ace looked personally wounded. “At me or generally?” “Yes.” Reyes nodded. “Fair answer.” Shammy accepted her own cup from Ace and took a slow sip. Her eyes stayed on Panam over the rim. Still proud. Shamelessly proud, if Panam was reading her correctly. Which she was. Apparently she was doing that now. Panam gave her a look. Shammy smiled. Small. Radiant. Absolutely impossible. Ace saw that too. Of course she did. Her smile sharpened by one fatal degree. “So,” Ace said. Panam turned immediately. “Ace.” “What?” “You have exactly one chance to survive breakfast.” “I understand.” “No, you don’t.” “I understand enough.” “That is not reassuring.” Ace took a sip of her coffee. Then said, with the calm of a professional assassin: “Did the safehouse furniture behave itself?” The room died. For one second, nothing moved. Then Reyes made a sound that was not quite a cough and not quite a laugh. Kiro clapped one hand over her mouth. Mai closed her eyes. Shammy looked down into her coffee with the expression of someone making no attempt whatsoever to help. Panam stared at Ace. Long. Flat. Deadly. Then she set her coffee down. Carefully. Very carefully. Ace’s eyes flicked to the cup. “Panam.” “No.” Ace stepped back once. Small. Instinctive. Correct. Panam picked up the nearest pillow from the couch. Ace immediately lifted one hand. “First warning?” “First warning.” The pillow hit Ace in the chest. Not hard enough to hurt. Hard enough to make a point. Ace caught it on the rebound and looked almost delighted. “That was very restrained.” Panam pointed. “I am growing as a person.” Mai, from the kitchen, said, “Debatable but promising.” Panam turned. “You too?” Mai looked at her over one mug. “I said promising.” “That was smug.” “Yes.” Kiro leaned toward Reyes and whispered, far too loudly, “This is better than the spreadsheet.” Panam spun back. “Kiro.” “What? I am being emotionally supportive.” “You are being a menace with documentation.” “Also true.” Reyes finally gave up pretending she was not amused. She leaned against the table, arms crossed, grin sharp and lazy. “For what it’s worth,” she said, “you look less like you want to jump out a window than expected.” Panam stared at her. “That is what you consider supportive?” “For me? Very.” Ace nodded. “Actually, yes.” Mai added, “Accurate.” Kiro raised a finger. “Statistically—” “No.” “Fine.” Panam looked at all of them. Her people, somehow. Criminals. Menaces. Conspirators. Family-adjacent disasters with terrible timing and no respect for dignity. She should have been furious. She was furious. A little. On principle. But the fury had no teeth. Not this morning. Not with coffee in the room and Shammy beside her and the night still warm in her bones. Panam picked her cup up again. Took a sip. Then looked directly at Ace. “Yes,” she said. The room went quiet. Ace blinked. Kiro blinked. Reyes blinked slower. Mai did not blink at all. Shammy looked at Panam, and the pride in her face became impossible to miss. Panam held Ace’s gaze. “Yes,” she repeated. “Whatever you are trying to be smug about. Yes.” Ace stared. For once, fully caught. Panam lifted the coffee slightly. “Yes, I stayed. Yes, Shammy stayed. Yes, you all planned this like criminals with too much free time. Yes, it worked. No, I am not embarrassed. No, I am not discussing details. And if any of you make this weird, I will personally rearrange the safehouse furniture with your bodies.” Silence. Perfect silence. Then Reyes laughed first. A low, delighted sound. Kiro followed, nearly spilling her drink. Ace looked at Panam like she had just discovered a new weapon and was extremely pleased with the craftsmanship. Mai’s mouth curved. Tiny. Dangerous. Shammy stepped closer behind Panam, not hiding her smile at all now. Not even a little. Panam felt it before seeing it. That pride. That warmth. That _there you are_. It nearly did more damage than Ace’s joke. Ace slowly raised both hands. “Noted.” Panam narrowed her eyes. “Really?” Ace nodded. “Really.” Mai, traitor that she was, added, “She means it.” “For now,” Reyes said. Ace pointed at her. “Unnecessary.” “Accurate.” Kiro leaned forward, eyes bright. “So, to clarify, the official position is—” “No official position,” Panam said. “But—” “No.” “I need naming conventions.” “You need breakfast.” “I need both.” Mai set a plate on the table. “You need breakfast first.” Kiro accepted this hierarchy immediately. Panam shook her head and took another sip of coffee. Shammy came to stand beside her now, close enough that their shoulders nearly touched. Not hidden. Not announced. Simply there. Panam did not move away. No one missed that. Of course they did not. The orbit had the collective subtlety of a kicked toolbox when it wanted to. But nobody said anything. Not immediately. That restraint surprised Panam. Then she saw Mai glance at Ace. Ace glanced back. Ah. Managed restraint. Different thing. Still acceptable. Breakfast began in the uneven way safehouse breakfasts always began. People claiming chairs without asking. Kiro talking through a mouthful of food until Mai placed one finger on the table and said her name in a tone that restored civilization. Reyes stealing half a pastry from Ace, who allowed it only because she was clearly planning revenge later. Mai distributing coffee with quiet authority. Shammy settling beside Panam as if the seat had already learned her shape. Panam sat at the table and realized, slowly, that nobody was treating her like glass. That mattered. Ace teased, yes. Kiro pushed, badly. Reyes jabbed. Mai watched too much. But none of them made Panam feel fragile. None of them made Shammy’s pride into spectacle. None of them treated the night like gossip to consume. The line Panam had drawn had held. Or maybe they had always known where it was. That thought made her glance at Mai. Mai met her eyes across the table. A quiet nod. Small. Precise. Understood. Panam nodded back. Not gratitude. Not exactly. Acknowledgement. Mai accepted it. Of course she did. Ace, meanwhile, was buttering toast with the air of someone pretending she was not still pleased with herself. Panam watched her for three seconds. Ace looked up. “What?” Panam smiled. Not sweetly. Dangerously. “You planned this.” “We have established that.” “All of it?” Ace paused. Then looked at Mai. Mai took one sip of coffee. “Answer carefully.” Ace looked back at Panam. “Not all.” “Lie.” “Partial lie.” Kiro raised her hand. “I contributed timing.” Reyes said, “I contributed coffee.” Mai said, “I corrected the exit sequence.” Panam stared at her. “The exit sequence.” “It was inefficient in the original proposal.” “You optimized my ambush?” Mai considered. “Yes.” Panam looked at Shammy. Shammy lifted both hands slightly. “I knew a little bit.” Panam stared. Then laughed. Helpless. Bright. Not cornered. Not ashamed. Just completely surrounded by impossible people. “You are all unbelievable.” Ace raised her mug. “Successful, though.” The pillow was too far away. Panam considered throwing toast. Shammy, without looking, slid a napkin closer to Panam’s hand. Panam looked at it. Then at Shammy. Shammy’s face remained calm. Too calm. Panam’s smile widened. “You are enabling me.” “I am supporting you.” “Same thing.” “Sometimes.” Panam picked up the napkin, balled it, and threw it at Ace. Ace caught it easily. “Second warning?” “Courtesy reminder.” “Generous.” “Do not rely on it.” Reyes looked delighted. “I like morning Panam.” Panam pointed at her next. “You are on thin ice.” “In June?” “In Night City? Absolutely possible.” Kiro nodded solemnly. “Climate data supports weird ice.” “Kiro.” “Stopping.” The breakfast continued. Messy. Warm. Ridiculous. Exactly safehouse. At some point, Panam leaned back with her coffee and realized she was not waiting for the first chance to leave. The thought arrived quietly. No drama. No trumpet. No emotional ambush. Just a fact. She was sitting at the table with Shammy beside her, Ace across from her, Mai near the counter, Kiro half-buried in breakfast, Reyes pretending not to guard the room even while sitting relaxed. She was here. Still. By choice. And the world had not narrowed. It had expanded. That was the strangest part. Choosing Shammy had not made the road smaller. The Badlands did not feel farther away. Dakota’s work did not feel less hers. The Aldecaldos did not become background. Nothing had been replaced. Something had been added. Almost home. Panam looked around the safehouse. The old walls. The ugly lights. The coffee machine that deserved reluctant respect. The couch that had seen too much. The hallway she would never again view neutrally, which was inconvenient but survivable. The door. The door mattered. It opened both ways. That was the whole thing, maybe. She could leave. She could return. The leaving would not erase this. The return would not erase her. She glanced at Shammy. Shammy was already watching her. Of course. But this time Panam did not tell her to stop. Instead, she reached under the table and found Shammy’s hand. Simple. Quiet. Not for display. Not hidden either. Shammy’s fingers closed around hers. A smile moved through her whole face. Not large. Not theatrical. Proud. So proud it almost made Panam roll her eyes. Almost. Instead, Panam squeezed her hand. The motion was small. The answer was not. Ace saw it. Naturally. Ace’s mouth began to open. Panam did not even look at her. “Ace.” Ace closed her mouth. A magnificent victory. Reyes stared. Kiro whispered, “Oh, she’s powerful now.” Mai said, “She was always powerful. She is simply less avoidant this morning.” Panam looked at her. Mai looked back calmly. Panam lifted her coffee. “I hate how accurate that is.” “I know.” “Do not get smug.” “I am not.” Ace muttered, “She is.” Mai said, “I am.” Panam laughed again. So did Shammy. The safehouse filled with it. Not loudly. Not perfectly. Just enough. After breakfast, people began to drift into ordinary morning patterns. Mai cleaned with the precision of someone who thought badly of everyone else’s methods. Kiro tried to help and was redirected toward sitting down. Reyes checked messages near the window, expression turning professional when some merc-thread crossed her screen. Ace took her coffee to the couch and looked almost normal, which meant she was absolutely planning something. Panam saw all of it. Ordinary safehouse movement. Orbit rhythm. People belonging without declaring it every three seconds. She stood near the kitchen counter with Shammy beside her and felt the morning settle into something she knew she would remember. Not because it was perfect. Because it was not. Because Ace had thrown the first verbal knife within five minutes. Because Kiro had brought data files. Because Mai had optimized the ambush. Because Reyes had lied with professional elegance. Because Shammy had looked at Panam like she was proud of every inch of her refusal to hide. Because Panam had stood in the middle of all that and said yes. Yes, it happened. Yes, I stayed. Yes, us. No, I am not ashamed. That mattered. Maybe more than the night itself, in a strange way. The night had been theirs. Private. Warm. Closed door. No witnesses. Morning was the test of whether she would turn it into a secret out of fear. She had not. Good. The word came in Shammy’s voice now. Panam glanced at her. “What?” Shammy smiled. “I didn’t say anything.” “You thought it.” “I did.” “Good.” Shammy’s eyes brightened. Panam smiled. Yes. Good. Let her have that one. A while later, Panam gathered her jacket from the back of a chair. Not to flee. To check the world. There was a difference. Shammy noticed the motion, but not with worry. That was important too. Panam pulled the jacket on and felt the familiar weight settle across her shoulders. Road weight. Work weight. Panam weight. Still hers. Still real. She checked her agent. Dakota had sent one message early in the morning. Nothing urgent. A route question for later. Ordinary life waiting politely at the edge of something extraordinary. Panam typed a brief reply. Then looked up. Ace was watching from the couch. Mai from the kitchen. Kiro over her drink. Reyes near the window. Shammy beside her. Panam sighed. “What?” Ace held up both hands. “Nothing.” “Lie.” “Correct.” Panam shook her head. “I’m not leaving forever. I am checking work.” Ace looked at Shammy. Then back at Panam. “Didn’t ask.” “You were thinking it.” “Maybe.” Mai said, “Everyone was thinking it.” Panam groaned. “Subtle group.” Reyes smirked. “Never claimed otherwise.” Kiro lifted one finger. “Actually—” Mai said, “No.” Kiro lowered the finger. Panam looked at Shammy. The room seemed to quiet around that glance, but not awkwardly. Not this time. Panam stepped closer. Close enough to make the meaning obvious. Not hidden. Not performative. She took Shammy’s hand. “I’ll probably need to run a route later.” Shammy nodded. “All right.” “Dakota. Nothing big.” “All right.” “Might be gone overnight if traffic goes stupid.” “All right.” Panam narrowed her eyes. “You’re being very calm.” Shammy smiled. “You are telling me what the leaving means.” There it was. Panam felt the sentence settle exactly where it belonged. Leaving the room. Leaving the city. Leaving the conversation. Different things. She nodded. “Yeah.” A pause. Then, because it mattered: “I’m coming back.” Shammy’s smile softened into something almost too bright for the morning. “I know.” Panam held her gaze. No flinch. No shame. No joke. Not yet. Then Ace made a small sound from the couch. Not even a word. Barely a sound. Panam turned instantly. “Ace.” Ace looked innocent. Again. Always a lie. “I didn’t say anything.” “You breathed smugly.” Kiro choked on her drink. Reyes laughed. Mai looked into her mug like the answer to the universe might be hiding there. Shammy’s laugh was quiet behind Panam, warm and proud. Ace considered the accusation. Then nodded. “Fair.” Panam smiled. “There. Growth.” “Yours or mine?” Ace asked. “Don’t push it.” Ace saluted with her mug. Panam turned back to Shammy. The laughter was still in the room. That made the next part easier. She leaned up and kissed Shammy. Not long. Not private enough for that. But real. Direct. Unashamed. The room went quiet again, but not in shock. In recognition. When Panam stepped back, Shammy’s face had gone soft with pride all over again. Panam pointed at her gently. “And you. Stop looking like that.” “Like what?” “Like you’re proud of me.” “I am.” The answer came without hesitation. Panam stared. Then shook her head, smiling despite herself. “Dangerous.” “Very.” “Good.” Shammy’s smile widened. Behind them, Kiro whispered, “Oh, that is adorable.” Reyes said, “You value your life weirdly.” Kiro whispered, “Worth it.” Panam did not throw anything. Barely. Another victory. She stepped back, adjusted her jacket, and looked toward the door. The door. Still important. Still opening both ways. She would go through it. Soon. Not as escape. Not as retreat. Not because the morning had become too much. Because the world still existed, and Panam Palmer belonged to movement too. That had not changed. Nothing good required it to change. She looked around the safehouse one more time. Ace on the couch with coffee and criminal intent. Mai in the kitchen, composed and quietly pleased. Kiro trying very hard not to vibrate through the floor with curiosity. Reyes half-smiling near the window, sharp and relaxed at once. Shammy beside her, warm as weather, proud as sunrise through storm clouds. The safehouse was not the Badlands. Not the clan. Not Dakota’s place. Not the road under familiar tires. It was not her only home. It would not become a cage. It would not replace anything that made her who she was. But it had become something. A return-place. A near-home. Almost home. Because Shammy was there. Panam opened the door. Night City waited outside. Ugly. Bright. Hungry. Familiar in all the wrong ways. The road waited beyond it. That thought no longer pulled her away from the room. It simply existed. Part of the map. Panam looked back once. Not dramatically. Not like goodbye. Like a promise she did not need to overexplain. “I’ll be back later.” Ace opened her mouth. Panam pointed without looking. “No.” Ace closed it. Mai smiled into her coffee. Kiro looked impressed. Reyes muttered, “Efficient.” Shammy stepped forward and touched Panam’s hand once. Brief. Warm. Enough. “I’ll be here,” Shammy said. Panam smiled. The real one. The dangerous one. The one that no longer needed to hide. “Good.” Then she stepped out. Not running. Not escaping. Not leaving the conversation. Just leaving the room. The door closed softly behind her. Inside the safehouse, Ace finally said, very quietly, “That went better than expected.” Mai replied, “No. It went exactly as expected.” Kiro whispered, “I am updating the file.” Reyes said, “Delete the file.” Shammy laughed. Still standing near the door. Still looking at the place where Panam had been. Still proud. Outside, Panam reached the stairs and laughed once to herself. Soft. Bright. A little incredulous. Night City smelled like rain, exhaust, hot metal, and terrible decisions. Normal morning. Different world. She pulled her jacket tighter, checked Dakota’s message again, and started down. The road would come. Work would come. The Badlands would come. So would return. For once, none of those things contradicted each other. For once, leaving did not feel like running. For once, coming back already felt true. And somewhere behind her, inside an old safehouse full of smug criminals, bad coffee, and one impossible woman with storm-blue eyes, almost home waited without closing its hand. Panam smiled all the way to the street.