One night turned to one week.
One week turned into one month.
And one month was fast approaching one year.
Noah didn't have to ask to stay anymore. He was just there, like the wind against the windows, like the sigh of the old radiators, like the sound of the generator when they coaxed it to life for movie nights.
He fixed the squeaky door on the stairwell. He found the cracked pipe behind the laundry sink and patched it with epoxy from the closet Lachlan had forgotten they had.
He sharpened knives on the evenings no one else wanted to talk.
He laughed at Lachlan's jokes. He carried Zubair's fuel cans. He gave Elias quiet space when he was working through another page of numbers and questions and maps. He lost at cards to Alexei and smiled about it.
And somehow, through it all, he stayed exactly the same.
One smile. One voice. One man folding himself into the shape the tower wanted while the winter outside grew heavier and sharper and longer.
