It was a small accident.

She would say so later, and it would be true. A kitchen stool shifted when she climbed on it to reach the top shelf, the leg sliding one inch on the tile, and she came down harder than expected onto her left ankle, catching herself on the counter before hitting the floor. Nothing broken. She knew immediately — she'd broken a toe once, in university, and understood the specific language of real damage versus shock and bruising. This was the second kind.

She sat on the kitchen floor for a moment.

Sunny appeared immediately, pressing his nose to her face.

"I'm fine," she told him.

Then she looked at the ankle, which was already beginning to suggest strongly that walking on it for the next few days was going to be an editorial comment on her choices.

She should ice it. She should elevate it. She should find the ice pack that was either in the freezer or had been lost to the same entropy that claimed her second umbrella.

She texted Lucien: Minor kitchen disaster. I'm fine but I may have done something stupid to my ankle.

The reply came in ninety seconds: Are you on the floor?

She looked at the floor she was sitting on.

Elowen: ...Define floor.

Lucien: Stay there. I'm coming.

He arrived in three minutes, which meant he had been home and changed quickly, which meant he had been either already awake or a very fast dresser. He had the first aid kit from his bathroom — which was more comprehensively stocked than most first aid kits had any right to be — and an ice pack in a cloth wrap.

He crouched beside her on the kitchen floor without any indication that this was unusual.

"Show me," he said.

She lifted her leg slightly.

He examined the ankle with focused care, pressing at specific points and watching her face rather than the joint, which she found mildly disconcerting in the way that attentiveness always disconcerted her when it reached a certain level of precision.

"Not broken," he said. "Possible minor sprain. You need to stay off it."

"I was going to ice it."

"I have the ice pack." He positioned it around her ankle with efficient care. "You climbed the stool for what?"

"The good pasta."

He looked at her.

"The good pasta is on the top shelf," she said. "The bad pasta is accessible. I wanted the good pasta."

"Elowen."

"I'm standing by my choices."

His mouth compressed in a way that was equal parts exasperated and fond, a combination she had catalogued carefully over the weeks because it only appeared when she had done something he found simultaneously frustrating and endearing.

"Can you stand?" he asked.

"Probably."

He stood first and extended his hand.

She took it.

He pulled her up with controlled steadiness — not hauling, not cautious in a way that implied she was fragile, simply providing exactly the counterbalance her weight required. She came to standing and tested the ankle and winced, and his hand tightened around hers by exactly the amount that wincing warranted.

"Couch," he said.

"The pasta—"

"I'll make the pasta."

She looked at him. "You don't have to—"

"I'm already here," he said. "Couch."

It was difficult to argue with the logic.

She limped to the couch. He followed, making sure she was settled, and then went back to her kitchen with the particular self-directed efficiency he brought to rooms that weren't his, locating things without being told where they were.

She had stopped finding that unsettling a while ago.

Now it just felt like a language she'd been hearing long enough to follow.

"The pasta is in the tall cabinet," she called. "Second shelf."

"I found it."

"The good pot is in the lower—"

"I have it."

She leaned back against the cushions and listened to the sounds of her kitchen being used by someone else. Sunny had relocated to the couch's other end and was watching the kitchen doorway with the alert devotion of a dog who had decided that whoever was in there was probably going to drop food.

"He's going to stare at you the entire time," she said.

"He stares at me regardless," Lucien said.

"He adores you."

"The feeling is mutual." A pause. "Don't move the ankle."

"I wasn't going to."

"You were about to."

She had been about to shift position to see better into the kitchen.

"Stop predicting me," she said.

"Stop being predictable," he replied, without heat.

She laughed despite herself.

From the kitchen came the sound of water running, then the quiet percussion of preparation. She stared at her ceiling and thought about nothing, specifically, which was a luxury she didn't often have and appreciated more than she expected.

When Lucien brought the pasta to the coffee table it was in the correct bowl — she had four, two large and two small — and was precisely seasoned, which meant he had found her spice rack without assistance and applied it correctly, which should probably have unnerved her and instead made her feel like someone was paying attention to what she actually needed rather than a general concept of her needs.

He sat beside her.

Not across. Beside.

"Thank you," she said.

"Thank me by staying off the ankle for two days."

"That's a very conditional thank-you."

"It's practical."

She ate. He watched her eat with the low-level attention he gave to things he was monitoring without appearing to monitor. She had learned to notice the difference between when he was present and when he was present and watchful, and this was the second kind, quiet and specific.

"I'm fine," she said, at one point.

"I know."

"You're still watching me."

"I'm sitting next to you."

"While watching me."

A pause. "Yes," he conceded.

She turned to look at him.

He held her gaze.

"I don't like it when you're hurt," he said. Simply. Factually. Like all his emotional admissions — placed in the room and left there, offered without any demand that she do something with them.

"I know," she said, in the same tone.

He looked away.

She finished the pasta.

Outside, the city moved on indifferently, and Sunny eventually convinced Lucien to scratch behind his ears, and her ankle ached with the modest complaining of something that would be fine in a few days, and none of it was especially remarkable.

Except that it was.