Chapter 175: What He Carries Down

Chapter 175: Chapter 175: What He Carries Down

"Persephone will want dinner," Aunt Mary said, wrapping a plate carefully and setting it on the counter. "Erik, would you mind taking it down to her?"

"I can do that." Erik reached for the plate, then hesitated. "Could I take two more?"

Aunt Mary’s eyebrow rose, slow and deliberate, though she said nothing about it, simply reaching for two more plates and beginning to portion out servings without comment.

"For Vanya and Harold," Erik added, unprompted, as though the explanation might head off whatever question was clearly forming behind her raised eyebrow.

"I didn’t ask," Mary said, mild, wrapping the second and third plates with the same careful attention she’d given the first. "I don’t believe I’ve met either of them, have I?"

"Not yet," Erik said. "Persephone’s neighbors. They looked after her while she was sick."

"Ah." Mary’s expression softened at that, understanding settling in easily. "Then they’ve more than earned a hot meal. Be careful carrying all three."

Erik took the plates without further comment, ignoring the amusement he could still feel radiating from her as he headed toward the stairwell, though something in his own chest sat a little warmer than usual, a little less easy to fully explain even to himself.

He reached the twentieth floor gate and knocked twice, and Persephone opened it a moment later, already smiling before she’d fully registered who stood on the other side.

"Erik. Please tell me that’s food."

"Dinner," he confirmed, handing over the first plate. "My mom insisted."

"Your mom is a gift to this entire building." Persephone accepted the plate with obvious delight, glancing at the other two still balanced in his arms, brow furrowing slightly now. "And those?"

"For Vanya and Harold."

Persephone blinked, genuinely thrown for a moment. "You’re... delivering dinner. To my neighbors. That you’ve met, what, twice?"

"They looked after you," Erik said, as though that settled the matter entirely.

"Sure," Persephone said slowly, though something in her expression had already begun shifting from confusion into quiet, dawning understanding, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth that she didn’t bother explaining. "Well. That’s very thoughtful of you."

"It’s just dinner," Erik said, already turning toward the hallway.

"Mm-hm," Persephone said, watching him cross toward Vanya’s door with open, undisguised interest now.

He knocked, and a moment later the door opened, Vanya’s expression shifting from neutral alertness into genuine surprise at the sight of him.

"Erik." She glanced at the plates in his hands, clearly not expecting either him or the gesture. "That’s unexpected."

"My mother made extra," he said. "Thought you and Harold might want a proper meal instead of rations."

Vanya studied him a moment longer than the offer strictly required, something careful and assessing behind her eyes, before stepping back to let him inside. "That’s generous of her. Thank you."

"She’s generous with most things," Erik said, stepping in, glancing around the apartment with the same quiet attentiveness he brought to everything — sparse, organized, functional.

Harold appeared from the back room, blinking at the sight of Erik standing in their living room holding food. "Uh. Hi?"

"Erik brought dinner," Vanya said, setting the plates down on the small kitchen table, still visibly working through the surprise of it.

Harold’s confusion deepened for a moment before settling into something closer to pleased bewilderment. "That’s — that’s really nice, actually. Thank you."

Vanya crossed to the kitchen without further comment, retrieving a small pot she’d kept warming on a low burner, and poured a second cup of coffee, offering it toward Erik with the same measured, deliberate courtesy she’d shown the meal itself. "It seems rude to eat in front of a guest without offering something in return."

Erik accepted the cup without hesitation. "Thank you."

Vanya paused, cup halfway extended, clearly not having expected him to actually say yes.

From the doorway, Persephone — who had followed a few steps behind, plate still in hand, watching the whole exchange unfold with open fascination — let out a startled laugh.

"Oh, you’re staying," she said, delighted, glancing between Vanya’s faint surprise and Erik’s easy acceptance of the cup. "Okay. Harold, come eat with me instead. I don’t think we’re needed here."

Harold, still holding his own plate, glanced uncertainly between Vanya and the open door. "Are you sure—"

"Very sure," Persephone said, already tugging him gently by the sleeve toward her own apartment across the hall. "Come on. I want to hear more about the crossbow lessons you promised me."

Harold allowed himself to be pulled along, casting one last, faintly bewildered glance back over his shoulder before the door clicked shut behind them, leaving Erik and Vanya alone in the sudden quiet.

Vanya finally handed over the cup properly, settling into her own seat across the small table, though something in her expression hadn’t fully smoothed back into its usual composure. "You didn’t have to accept that."

"I know," Erik said, taking a slow sip. "I wanted to."

Something flickered behind Vanya’s eyes at that — not quite surprise anymore, something closer to recalibration, the same careful reassessment she gave anything that didn’t immediately fit where she’d expected it to. She began eating, unhurried, and the silence between them settled into something comfortable rather than awkward.

"Can I ask you something," Vanya said eventually, setting her fork down, her tone shifting into something more deliberate.

"Go ahead."

"Penelope." She studied him carefully as she said the name, gauging his reaction. "She’s careful around me. Has been since the day we all met at the dock. I don’t believe I’ve done anything to earn that particular wariness, but I’d like to understand it, if you have any insight."

Erik went still for a moment, turning the observation over, and found he genuinely had nothing to offer. "I hadn’t noticed."

"You hadn’t," Vanya repeated, something faintly surprised in her voice, as though she’d expected him, of all people, to have already caught it.

"No." Erik frowned slightly, replaying the dock reunion in his mind, searching for whatever Vanya had apparently seen clearly enough to name outright. "She seemed happy. Relieved, mostly, finding Persephone. I didn’t catch anything beyond that."

"Perhaps I misread it," Vanya said, though her tone suggested she didn’t fully believe that either.

"What did it look like? Specifically."

Vanya considered the question carefully. "Polite. Measured. The same tone she’d use with a stranger she had no particular opinion of, except that it came right after genuine warmth toward everyone else in the group. The shift was subtle. I don’t think anyone else noticed it."

Erik sat with that for a long moment, something uneasy settling into his chest now that he had no clean answer to offer. Penelope carried things quietly — he knew that much about her, had known it for weeks now, ever since the confession in her room, ever since he’d learned there was an entire version of her existence he still didn’t fully understand. If something about Vanya specifically unsettled her, it wouldn’t be the first piece of herself she’d kept carefully hidden from the rest of them.

"I don’t know," he admitted finally. "I wish I did. She’s been carrying things lately that she hasn’t explained to anyone, including me, and I’ve learned not to push until she’s ready. If this is connected to that, I genuinely couldn’t tell you how."

"That’s an honest answer," Vanya said. "I appreciate it more than a guess dressed up as certainty."

"I’ll ask her," Erik offered. "Carefully. If it matters to you."

"You don’t have to on my account," Vanya said. "I’m not offended by it. I’m simply the kind of person who prefers to understand a variable rather than leave it unexamined."

"That sounds exhausting."

"It’s kept me alive," Vanya said, something dry threading through the words, and Erik found himself huffing out a quiet laugh despite the unresolved weight still sitting in his chest.

They finished the rest of the meal in easier conversation after that, the earlier question left open between them, unresolved but no longer uncomfortable, simply another piece of the same puzzle neither of them had the full shape of yet.

"Thank you for the coffee," Erik said eventually, rising, gathering the empty plate he’d carried down.

"Thank you for the dinner," Vanya returned, something almost like warmth threading through her usually flat composure. "And for the honesty. Even unfinished, it was more than I expected."

"I should get back," he said. "My mother will wonder what happened to me."

"Tell her I said thank you," Vanya said. "It was kind."

"I will."

He let himself out, the quiet click of the door closing behind him carrying a strange, settled weight, and made his way back up the stairwell slower than the trip down had been, Vanya’s question circling in his mind the whole way, alongside the uncomfortable realization that he’d missed something about the person he trusted most.

Across the hall, Persephone glanced up from her own dinner the moment Harold rejoined her, grinning outright. "So. That was interesting."

"That was something," Harold agreed, settling into his seat, still faintly bewildered. "Does he always do that?"

"I have no idea," Persephone admitted, though her grin only widened. "But I’m very much looking forward to finding out."