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"I don't understand," Rafael said, staring at the thermostat on his wall as if he could intimidate it into working. "I pay an exorbitant amount of maintenance fees. The building manager assured me this system was fail-safe. 'Fail-safe' implies a lack of failure, Olivia."
"It’s a city-wide grid blowout, Rafa. Your maintenance fees can't bribe ConEd." Olivia was sitting on his sofa, wrapped in her coat, shivering slightly. She could see her breath in the air. "It’s getting cold fast. The wind chill is five below."
Rafael turned, looking offended on behalf of his apartment. "It is unacceptable. I have a brief to finish. I cannot litigate while hypothermic."
"We need to consolidate heat," Olivia said, standing up and rubbing her arms. She looked around his spacious, open-concept living room. "The ceilings are too high. All the heat is rising. We need a smaller space."
"I am not sleeping in the walk-in closet," he stated flatly.
"No," she said, a mischievous glint entering her eyes that Rafael had learned to fear. "We need to build a micro-climate."
"A what?"
"A fort."
Rafael blinked. "I beg your pardon?"
"A blanket fort, Barba. Like when you were a kid." She walked over to the linen closet in the hallway. "Grab the dining room chairs. I’ll get the sheets and the duvet."
"I am an Executive Assistant District Attorney for New York County," Rafael announced to her retreating back. "I do not build forts."
"You do if you want to keep all ten of your toes," she called back.
Ten minutes later, Rafael was standing in the middle of his living room, holding a fitted sheet and looking deeply skeptical.
"This is ridiculous," he muttered. "It has no structural integrity. If the center sags, the entire roof collapses."
"So fix it, Mr. Harvard," Olivia challenged, tossing a pile of heavy pillows onto the floor. "You’re always bragging about your logic. Engineer a solution."
Rafael narrowed his eyes at the pile of bedding. He looked at the chairs Olivia had arranged haphazardly. They were misaligned. The tension on the sheet would be uneven.
He sighed, tossing his suit jacket onto a nearby armchair and rolling up his sleeves.
"Move the Eames chair to the left," he ordered, pointing. "And bring me the stack of case files from the coffee table. We need counterweights for the corners, or the silk sheets will slip."
Olivia smirked, saluting him. "Aye aye, Captain."
"If we are doing this," Rafael grumbled, grabbing a broom from the kitchen to use as a central support beam, "we are doing it according to code. I will not have a negligence lawsuit because my living room collapsed on us."
It took twenty minutes, three arguments about tension ratios, and the sacrifice of Volume 4 of the New York Penal Code (used to anchor the northeast corner), but the structure was complete.
It was... impressive.
Rafael had created a multi-room effect using the dining chairs and the sofa back. He had secured the roof (an Egyptian cotton sheet) with binder clips he retrieved from his home office. It was taut, symmetrical, and surprisingly spacious.
"You really don't do things by halves, do you?" Olivia asked, crawling into the entrance on her hands and knees.
"Go inside," Rafael directed, handing her the thick down duvet. "I need to get the lighting."
"Flashlight?"
"Please," he scoffed. "Am I a Boy Scout?"
He walked over to his curiosities shelf—the one that held the oddities he picked up at estate sales when he was bored on weekends. He reached for the heavy, brass railway lantern from the late 19th century. It was an oil lamp, fully functional, which he kept filled because he liked the smell of the kerosene.
He lit the wick. A warm, golden glow flared to life, encased in the thick glass.
He crawled into the fort behind her.
The transformation was instant. Outside, the apartment was a cold, dark void. Inside the sheet-tent, the world was soft, white, and intimate. The lantern, which he hung carefully from the cross-bar of the central chair, cast a flickering amber light that bounced off the white sheets, making the entire space glow like the inside of a paper lantern.
Olivia was already under the duvet, curled on her side, watching him. The light softened the lines of her face, turning her eyes into pools of warm honey.
"Okay," she whispered, pulling the edge of the duvet up. "I admit it. Good architecture."
"It’s passable," Rafael murmured, sealing the entrance flap with another binder clip. He moved to join her under the covers, the space forcing them into immediate, full-body contact.
He lay on his side facing her, the lantern light dancing in his eyes. It was quiet. The sound of the wind outside felt miles away.
"It’s warm," she noted, sounding surprised.
"Body heat," he replied, his voice low. "Thermodynamics."
"Is that what you call it?" She shifted, sliding her leg between his to get closer. Her feet were ice cold against his shin.
Rafael hissed at the contact but didn't pull away. Instead, he reached down and rubbed her arm, generating friction. "You are freezing, Liv."
"I'm warming up," she whispered. Her gaze drifted to the lantern hanging above them. "Where did you get that? It looks like something from a ghost story."
"1890s. Union Pacific Railroad," he explained, watching the flame flicker. "It was designed to stay lit in a storm. To guide the way when the tracks were iced over."
Olivia looked back at him. The metaphor hung heavy in the small space.
"The guiding light in a storm," she repeated softly. She reached out, her hand resting on his chest, right over his heart. "Sounds familiar."
Rafael covered her hand with his own. The playful bickering about construction codes had vanished, replaced by the heavy, thrumming awareness that always lived between them, now amplified by the small, enclosed space.
"I suppose," he said, his voice rough, "that makes this—" he gestured to the sheets surrounding them "—our station."
"Or our sanctuary," she corrected.
She moved closer, her head resting on the pillow they were sharing. Her nose bumped against his.
"Thank you, Rafa," she whispered. "For the fort. For the light."
"It’s just a lantern, Olivia."
"No," she said, closing the distance to press a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. "It's never just a lantern with you."
The flame flickered above them, casting long, dancing shadows against the walls of their temporary world, as Rafael pulled her in, deciding that the storm outside could rage all it wanted. He had everything he needed right here.