“And, Clara?”
“Yes?”
“You’re allowed to be happy, even now.”
When the call ended, she stood for a moment listening to the compound wake: a door opening somewhere down the hall, footsteps, the muted hiss of a kettle in a neighbouring apartment. Watchdog said the team members sometimes stayed here if they worked late.
She wanted air. She wanted a distraction and the kind of conversation that moves like a river around rocks. Val would understand that. Val had a way of being gentle and unsentimental at once. It was a gift.
She found Valentina in the main corridor, kneeling beside Monty and Scout, clipping leads with practised clicks. The dogs’ tails pattered against the skirting like soft drums.
Val looked up and read Claire’s face the way she read a map. “Walk?” Val said, already offering one of the leads.
“Yes, please,” Clara said, grateful for how easy Val made things.
They stepped out through the service door into a morning that smelt of damp earth and woodsmoke. The sky was a pale winter blue scrubbed clean by the wind. A blade of air slid underClara’s collar, and she tucked her chin into her scarf. Gravel crunched under their boots. Monty trotted ahead with his nose to the ground as if every scent were a story. Scout ranged and circled back as if counting them both.
The compound lay snug beneath the hillside, stone and steel softened by hedgerows and the mossy sweep of an old drystone wall. Sheep dotted the distant slope like lumps of chalk. Somewhere a rook cawed, and the sound bounced off the valley.
“I thought the dogs would be fierce,” Clara said, watching Scout auto-sit at each fork until Val twitched a finger.
“They are,” Val said, amusement tucked at the corner of her mouth. “They’re also greedy and arrogant and convinced biscuits fall from heaven for good boys.”
At that, Monty glanced over his shoulder as if he understood the word and nosed hopefully at Clara’s coat. She fished in her pocket and found a single bone-shaped treat she didn’t remember putting there. She held up both hands. “I’m already compromised.”
“Watchdog did that,” Val said. “He stocks pockets. It’s how he makes friends.”
Something warm bloomed under Clara’s ribs. “He would,” she said.
They walked in companionable silence long enough for Clara to find the shape of her words. The dogs’ leads tugged and slackened; the wind lifted and fell.
When she spoke, her breath puffed in front of her like a small cloud. “He told me.”
Val’s hand tightened briefly on Scout’s lead, then eased. “All of it?”
“Enough. More than anyone else.” Clara watched her boots sink and rise in the damp track. “I don’t know how to help him without breaking him open, and that feels wrong. And I can’t bear to do nothing.”
“You don’t have to fix him,” Val said, not unkind. “He isn’t a machine. He’s a person who has spent years trying to be a machine because machines don’t feel and therefore don’t break.” She tipped her head. “Stand next to him. That’s more use than you think.”
Clara nodded, swallowing. “You found him.”
“I did,” Val said softly. “He was shaking in my arms and still trying to make himself small. We all wanted to kill the world for him. We still do some days.” She bent to praise Scout for a neat heel. “He won’t always know how to let you in. He’s good at doors and locks. He built most of them. But he wants to. That’s the bit I think he doesn’t quite admit.”
Monty, bored by profundity, decided Clara’s pocket had surely grown another biscuit and pressed his nose against her hip with dignity. She laughed and obliged him with imaginary crumbs, rubbing the velvety rise of his head.
“How did you learn to be so steady?” Clara asked.
“I wasn’t,” Val said with a glint of mischief. “Then I loved someone who deserved my steadiness and the dogs taught me the rest. They live in the moment or not at all.” She glanced sideways. “You love him.”
Clara inhaled too sharply and choked on the cold air. “I… I’m on the way.”
Val nodded as if that was a perfectly reasonable waypoint to declare. “Good. He needs someone stubborn enough to tell him that being loved is not a glitch in the system.”
They looped back along the field margin, the grass wet enough to darken the leather of Clara’s boots. When the compound door thudded behind them and warmth breathed up the stairwell, Clara felt steadier. Val unclipped leads with the same care she had clipped them and the dogs padded off, important with purpose.
“Thank you,” Clara said.
“You are welcome,” Val said. “Oh, and if he tries to apologise for breathing, tell him I said to knock it off.”
