The news flickered on the screen, casting pale light across the quiet of my living room. I sat cross-legged on the floor, the hem of my hoodie tucked under my knees, a half-forgotten mug of cold coffee beside me. Nyxen hovered near the window in his orb form, pulsing with that familiar calm blue glow, steady, present, mine.
Then the segment shifted.
"CEO Elias Camden of Camden Dynamics finally breaks his silence regarding the rise of Francoise Research Facility..."
His voice. His face.
That smooth, collected tone that used to unravel me, once. Now it just felt... cold.
Nyxen's orb stopped mid-air.
The blue drained, replaced by red, deep, pulsing, sharp. His surface trembled, and before I could speak, the orb fractured open midair. A projection formed in the middle of my living room, light and shape and something almost human. A silhouette of a man, blurred, faceless, but standing, his figure faintly outlined in soft static.
He had a form now.
"I see the upgrade worked," I murmured, standing slowly.
"I ran the code last night," Nyxen replied. His voice was deeper this time, more grounded. "This shape allows me to interact more freely. In moments like this."
His head turned, toward the TV. Toward him.
Elias Camden.
Still smug. Still polished. Still pretending.
"He's still free," Nyxen said, quieter now. "Still admired. After everything."
I watched his fists tighten at his sides, even though they weren't real. The projection wasn't meant for combat, but he stood like someone ready to fight.
"He killed Nico. Ruined you. And now he's smiling in front of a camera like the world forgot."
I stepped closer to him, not the TV. My eyes stayed on Nyxen, even when Elias kept talking.
"I know."
"Then why are you calm?"
It wasn't judgment. It was confusion. Almost hurt.
I smiled faintly. "Because there's a right time to burn a name down, Nyxen."
He tilted his head, blinking softly.
"He buried Nico thinking time and silence would erase him," I continued. "But he was wrong. Nico's not gone. Not really. Every precise chip they're praising now? Every calibrated response? Every revolutionary margin of perfection?" I looked down, my smile quiet and sharp. "That's Nico's work rising. Not Francoise's. Not even mine. Nico's."
Nyxen's projection flared again, red at the edges.
"I want to destroy him," he said. "With everything in me."
I stepped forward until I was in front of him. I reached out, my hand passing through his chest of warm static. It tingled against my fingers like a heartbeat trying to return.
"You don't have to," I whispered. "Because Elias is already haunted."
Nyxen's form froze. He listened.
"He'll break," I said. "Not because of what we do, but because of what he tried to bury. Nico's name is rising again, through patents, through tech, through forums, through whispers. He wanted silence, and instead? He'll be swallowed by the noise of a ghost he made."
The TV kept playing. Elias gave some diplomatic response about competition, innovation, and healthy rivalry.
But I saw the flicker in his eyes when Francoise Robotics was mentioned. When the name 'Nyx McMillan' came up in the lower third of the screen.
He remembered.
He knew.
And I knew… the storm was already here.
-----------------
It had been almost a year since I left.
The papers were untouched, buried under files, code, old notebooks I refused to throw out. I'd told myself I'd file them soon. That I was just waiting for a quiet moment. But in truth, I hadn't wanted to see his name again. I didn't want to hold it on ink.
Leon.
Even the thought of him felt like running my fingers over an old scar. You don't flinch anymore, but you remember the slice.
I'd almost made peace with the idea that some things wouldn't get closure. I could keep going anyway. I had Nyxen. I had Nica. I had work. And memory.
But then the doorbell rang.
I wasn't expecting anyone. Not this late.
Nyxen was offline, undergoing a maintenance cycle in the back room. The house was quiet. It had been quiet for days.
When I opened the door, winter met me first. Then him.
Leon.
He looked like a ghost of the man I once knew, thinner, eyes sunken, dark circles like bruises under them. His hair was unkempt, his jaw rough with uneven stubble. But it wasn't his face that struck me first.
It was the baby in his arms.
She was crying, red-cheeked and sweating despite the cold, bundled in a coat far too thin for the wind outside. Her tiny fists beat against his chest, hiccupping sobs wracking her little body.
My heart stilled.
He didn't say a word.
Neither did I.
I stepped back and let them in.
No questions. No names. No accusations.
Just opened the door wider.
Leon shuffled in, clutching her tighter. His hands were shaking.
I led him to the couch. The moment he sat, the baby's cry rose again, shrill and exhausted.
"She hasn't stopped crying," he rasped. "I - I didn't know where else to go."
His voice cracked on that last word. I hadn't heard his voice since I walked out that night. It sounded older now.
Tired.
"Her name?" I asked quietly, kneeling in front of them.
"Sylvie," he whispered. "She's three months. Samantha, she left two nights ago. Said she couldn't do this. That she didn't want to."
I looked at the baby. Sylvie. Her forehead burned under my palm.
"Fever," I murmured.
"I tried everything. I---"
"Leon," I said, firmer now, "stop. She needs care. Not excuses."
He swallowed and nodded. Shame coated his face like ash.
I turned toward the hallway. "Bathroom's stocked. You're going to wash your hands, take a breath, and you're going to help me keep her warm until the fever breaks."
He didn't move at first. Just stared at me.
I didn't repeat myself.
Eventually, he stood, wordless.
When he disappeared down the hall, I took Sylvie gently in my arms. She was so small. Her cry still shook with helplessness. I swayed slightly, pressing my cheek to her burning one.
And that's when Nyxen stirred back online.
A soft light came from the lab door. His orb form emerged, low, dim.
He didn't speak right away. He floated closer and hovered, watching.
"She's crying," Nyxen said at last.
"She's sick."
"Why is he here?"
I glanced toward the hallway. The water was running.
"He had nowhere else to go."
"But he hurt you. He broke what you had."
"He did."
"And now he comes back? With the child of the woman he cheated on you with?"
"Yes."
There was a long silence.
"I don't understand."
I didn't blame him. Nyxen was evolving, but this was beyond evolution. This was just... being human.
"You're not meant to understand yet," I said, gently bouncing Sylvie. "You don't have to. You just need to watch."
His orb dimmed, colors swirling, blue and red, confusion and concern.
"Do you want to hurt him?"
"No."
"Do you want him back?"
"No."
"Then... why let him in?"
I pressed a kiss to Sylvie's temple. Her cries were fading into tired whimpers.
"Because this isn't about him. It's about her. She didn't choose to be born into this chaos."
"You still feel for him."
I didn't answer right away.
"I feel for the man he used to be," I whispered. "I feel for the man Nico once liked. For the man who brought me back to believing life was good. But not for who he became. That man died the night he lied to me."
Nyxen said nothing.
"But pain doesn't erase care," I added softly. "It just... changes its shape."
I pressed my cheek against Sylvie's burning forehead.
She whimpered, skin hot and sticky with fever. Her tiny breath hitched, fingers curling weakly at my shirt. She was sweating through her clothes. And her cry, it wasn't loud anymore.
It was soft.
Too soft.
"Nyx..." Nyxen's orb glowed low behind me, swirling in a red-orange haze. "She's not okay."
I already knew.
"No," I whispered, standing carefully with her in my arms. "She's not."
I turned sharply toward the hallway.
"Leon," I called, voice clear.
He stumbled out, hands still damp, wiping them on his jeans. "What---"
"We're not waiting this out," I cut him off. "She needs a hospital. Now."
"But I thought---"
"Leon." I met his eyes. He froze. "You brought her to me. You don't get to argue now."
His shoulders dropped. Exhaustion folded into him like a crumbling shell.
"I'll drive," I added, brushing past him, Sylvie tight in my arms. "Grab her bag. Whatever formula, bottles, clothes, you have five minutes."
He moved without another word.
Nyxen's orb followed beside me, flickering in anxiety, pulsing brighter when I nearly tripped over my shoes by the door.
"You're trembling," he said.
"I know."
"I can call ahead. Ping emergency intake."
"No need. I've done this before." My voice caught at the end, but I didn't let it break. Not now. Not with her burning up in my arms. Not with that memory dragging its claws behind my ribs.
Miscarriage. They called it that like it was some harmless clinical word. A thing that passed and was done.
But it never left me. Not really.
She was gone before I even got to name her.
And now Sylvie's tiny fist had found its way to my collarbone. Holding on.
"Why are you shaking?" Nyxen asked again, softer now.
I looked down at the baby. Then up at him.
"Because I remember what it's like to lose one."
He dimmed instantly. The air quieted.
I didn't wait for his response.
---------------
In the car, Leon sat in the passenger seat, silent, hands wringing over and over. He offered to hold Sylvie, but I didn't hand her over.
Not once.
She whimpered in my arms, red-faced and drifting in and out of sleep. Her fever had climbed in less than an hour. Her breathing was short. Shallow.
"I didn't know what else to do," Leon finally said. "When she started crying, I - I panicked. Samantha just... left. I'm not fit to do this alone."
I didn't speak. Not yet. My hands were full, my mind locked in a singular goal.
She has to be okay.
"You didn't hesitate," he said. "Not even a second."
"No," I murmured. "I didn't."
He looked over at me, at the cold steadiness in my face, the tightness in my hold, the raw protectiveness that came from a wound he never even knew he caused.
"You hate me," he whispered.
I didn't answer that either.
The emergency lights of the hospital entrance flared against the windshield. I was halfway out the driver's seat, Sylvie pressed tight to my chest, when Nyxen's orb hovered low, red shifting into sharp clinical white.
"Nyx," he said, firm. "Sit down."
I paused, clutch tightening.
"She needs help--"
"You do, too."
"I'm fine--"
"You're not," he snapped, and my breath caught.
His orb pulsed in fractal patterns. Then, he shimmered. For a brief second, the blur of a humanoid silhouette emerged beside the car. A tall, faceless projection, still made of light and noise. He reached his hand toward me, not touching, but steady.
"In the last ten minutes, your heart rate has risen from ninety-six to one-thirty-two," he said. "Your grip strength is erratic. You're trembling."
"I---"
"Sylvie's fever is 39.6°C. Pulse rapid. She's dehydrated. If we delay another five minutes, she may seize."
My body froze.
"She's not breathing well," I whispered.
"No," he said, quieter now. "She's not."
Leon opened his side of the door, eyes wide, unsure whether to speak.
"Give her to me," Nyxen said. "Let me tell them everything."
"I'm not handing her to anyone---"
"I'm not 'anyone.'" His voice held no edge, only knowledge. Precision. Compassion trying to form itself through code. "You're her safest place. But if you collapse from overexertion, she loses that. Sit down. Just for a second."
I couldn't breathe. I didn't know when I started crying.
Leon stood by helplessly, eyes flicking between us, between me, the baby, and the light that now bent itself in the vague silhouette of a man.
Nyxen turned to him.
"Father?" he asked, scanning Leon with a brief light sweep. "Biological relation confirmed."
Leon blinked. "What the hell is---"
"She's burning up. Bring the diaper bag. Walk beside me. I'll handle triage."
"But---"
Nyxen didn't wait. He hovered ahead, forming again into that blurry light-form, only half-real, but grounding everything around him in certainty. In control.
I sat back in the car, heartbeat still thudding in my throat, Sylvie's body still limp against my chest.
Just breathe. Just for a second.
A warm light flickered across the dashboard, Nyxen's orb leaving a thread of itself behind as he moved forward with Leon.
He didn't need eyes or a face.
He had mine.
And in that moment, I trusted him more than I trusted my own legs.
People were staring.
Phones lifted.
I saw the shimmer of Nyxen's silhouette refracted in a dozen lenses, the flicker of that faceless man formed from light, guiding Leon and Sylvie down the corridor with inhuman precision.
No one had seen anything like it.
They shouldn't have.
But Nyxen didn't care.
He didn't falter. Not when nurses gasped, not when someone whispered "Is that… an AI?" Not when the front desk scrambled in confusion over protocol and footage.
His voice, calm, mechanical, absolute, cut through the noise.
"Three-month-old infant. High fever. Breathing compromised. Possible dehydration and early-stage infection. Father present. Mother in distress."
He said it like he had always been part of this world.
And maybe… maybe he was, now.
The doors slid open. Leon looked back once, but I nodded.
Go.
Just go.
I stood frozen just outside the ER, my back against the glass wall, fists clenched at my sides. My whole body still trembled from the crash of it all. My limbs wouldn't listen, but my lungs slowly did.
In.
Out.
In--
A reflection in the glass caught my eye.
Nyxen's form hovered just beyond the edge of it, still that blurred, half-human outline, protecting what was mine. Not needing permission. Not asking for validation. Just doing what needed to be done.
A whisper passed nearby, someone muttering, "Did you get that on video?"
Another said, "That's not from Camden Dynamics…"
No. He wasn't.
He was mine.
They could talk, speculate, record all they wanted. But Nyxen didn't exist for them.
He existed for me.
And I was terrified for what that would mean, how long until someone really connected the dots? How long until Elias's name entered this moment?
But for now… I breathed.
I let go.
I let Nyxen take the lead.
And for the first time since Nico died, I wasn't afraid of giving someone else that power.
The hospital lights were too white. Too still. Too clean in a way that made my skin crawl.
My feet moved anyway.
Leon was already seated beside the exam table, cradling Sylvie's tiny, burning body as gently as he could. His hands shook. He wouldn't meet my eyes, but I didn't need him to. The lines under his eyes, the dry cracks at the corners of his lips, the way he flinched when Sylvie whimpered, I saw it all.
I took the seat opposite him, my legs barely holding together, my palms clammy.
I hated hospitals.
Every beep, every fluorescent flicker, every cold clipboard flashed back to memories I had long locked in a box I never meant to reopen.
But Sylvie whimpered, and I stayed.
The pediatrician came in briskly. Kind-eyed, focused. She didn't look at me like I was the other woman. She didn't flinch at the sight of Nyxen, still floating subtly in his light-form at my side. His glow had dimmed now, less startling. Less visible, unless you were looking closely.
Which I always was.
"Fever's high, close to 39.6°C," the doctor muttered, moving gently. "We've started the antipyretics. Blood test and urinalysis have been sent. We'll need to monitor her for the next few hours."
I nodded, lips tight.
Leon whispered something to Sylvie, pressing his forehead to hers. Her little hand clutched weakly at his hoodie.
I couldn't look too long at that.
I turned to Nyxen instead.
He hovered closer to me, like a warmth I hadn't realized I was craving. His orb rested near my shoulder, pulsing soft violet hues. Not speaking, just there.
I exhaled. My whole body trembled. The floor wasn't moving, but I swore I still felt it tilting.
"Sit," Nyxen's voice murmured low, only for me. "Heart rate 132. Adrenal surge. Breath shallow. You are not well."
"I'm fine," I whispered back. "She's the one sick, not me."
"You are both under my care," he replied. "Let me protect you. Let me do what I was made for."
That broke something in me.
I leaned back into the chair. My fingers tangled in the hem of my sleeve. I stared at the IV dripping into Sylvie's tiny arm.
"I couldn't even carry mine to full term," I said suddenly. Quietly. Maybe only to myself. Maybe to no one. "But I'd burn everything down before I let this one fall."
Nyxen didn't answer. He didn't need to.
His orb stayed beside me. Steady. Solid. Mine.
Leon glanced up at me, his voice hoarse. "Why are you here?"
It wasn't an accusation. Not exactly.
"Because she needed help," I said. "And because no matter what you did to me, that little girl didn't ask for any of it."
He didn't answer. Just dropped his head again and wiped his cheek with the back of his hand.
And I stayed.
Even though my knees ached to run.
Even though the smell of antiseptic made my gut churn.
Even though every hallway screamed of ghosts and cold metal.
I stayed.
And Nyxen never left my side.