It was late.
The city had settled into that half-awake state where the noise softened but never fully disappeared. Lights flickered in distant windows. Somewhere below, a train sighed along its track.
Aria sat on the couch, one leg tucked under her, jacket draped over the armrest.
She reached into her pocket.
Another bag of chips.
She stared at it for a second.
"…Figures," she muttered.
The tear at the top came easy. The sound—sharp and familiar—cut through the quiet.
Crunch.
From the kitchen, someone paused mid-step.
Noah leaned out, eyebrow raised. "Is that the emergency signal now?"
"Only if you're hungry," she replied.
He grabbed a drink and joined her, sitting on the floor instead of the couch, back against her knees like it was the most natural thing in the world.
They ate in silence.
Not the tense kind.
The kind that didn't need filling.
A message pinged on her phone. She glanced at it, then set the device face-down without responding.
No chasing.
No alarms.
Just now.
"You ever think," Noah said after a while, "about how strange this is?"
She crunched another chip. "Define strange."
"That we survived all that," he said, "and this is what it looks like."
She considered it.
Then shrugged. "Survival doesn't have a shape. It just keeps happening."
He nodded, satisfied.
Across the room, Scar-Jaw passed by, saw the chips, and quietly grabbed a handful without asking.
Aria smacked his hand.
"Ask."
"Sorry," he said immediately. "Big Sis."
She handed him the bag anyway.
That was the thing.
She didn't guard it.
Didn't ration.
Didn't hoard.
She opened a bag of chips—
And for once, that simple act meant there was nothing left to fight.