Chapter Text
The hum of the apartment's heating unit was a low, rhythmic vibration that Sandrone usually managed to tune out. Tonight, however, it seemed to pulse in exact synchronization with the heavy, unyielding ticking of the wall clock over the entryway. In the corner of the apartment is Sandrone, a senior student studying Mechanical Engineering. Along with her is her roommate, Columbina, a 4th year Communications student.
Sandrone remained seated at her workbench for a long moment after Columbina retreated to the kitchen. Her thumb traced the edge of the brass casing she’d been working on. It was cold, metallic, and predictable. If a gear failed, it was because of friction or poor calibration. If a spring snapped, it was because the tension exceeded the yield strength of the alloy. Everything in her field of mechanical engineering possessed a clear, unflinching cause and effect.
Sandrone pulled off her safety goggles, tossing them onto the cluttered desk alongside scrap metal, copper wiring, and translucent sheets of tracing paper covered in hand-drawn schematics. She rubbed the bridge of her nose, feeling the dull ache of an eighteen-hour day settling behind her eyes. Senior year of university was supposed to be a period of consolidation, a time to wrap up research grants, polish capstone projects, and secure post-graduate fellowships.
Instead, it felt like standing on a shrinking ice floe, watching the water swallow the edges inch by inch.
She stood up, her joints popping softly in the quiet room. Her clothes smelled of machine lubricant and solder, a stark contrast to the scent beginning to bloom from the kitchen: caramelized onions, crushed garlic, and the sweet, herbal aroma of simmering root vegetables. She knew that it was her favorite dish, Fontainian Onion Soup.
Sandrone walked down the short corridor, her socks quiet against the scarred hardwood floor.
The kitchen was small; cramped, barely wide enough for two people to pass each other without brushing shoulders. When they had moved into the apartment three years ago, Sandrone had complained bitterly about the lack of counter space and the outdated gas stove that hissed angrily whenever the burners were lit. Columbina had simply hung a dried bundle of lavender over the window frame and declared it home.
Right now, Columbina was standing over a bruised enamel pot, stirring slowly with a wooden spoon. Her sleeves were pushed up to her elbows, revealing pale forearms dusted lightly with flour. She wasn't following a recipe card. She never did. Columbina cooked the same way she sang in the conservatory's vocal halls: by intuition, feeling out the harmony of flavors until something resonant emerged.
"You're hovering," Columbina said without looking back, her voice carrying that pleasant, light melody that had first drawn Sandrone’s attention during their freshman orientation.
"I'm observing," Sandrone corrected, stepping into the kitchen and leaning her hip against the counter. "You're adding parsnips before the potatoes have softened. The texture will be uneven."
Columbina turned her head slightly, her dark purple eyes glittering with quiet amusement under the low-hanging kitchen bulb. "Engineering judgment doesn't apply to soup, Drony. Soup requires patience, not precision."
"Soup is thermodynamics and chemical reactions," Sandrone argued softly, though there was no real bite to her words. She reached out, her fingers instinctively reaching for the tie of Columbina’s apron, gently adjusting the lopsided knot at the small of her back. "If you burn the garlic, no amount of patience will reverse the oxidation."
Columbina let out a small, musical laugh, a sound that momentarily drowned out the persistent ticking from the hallway. She turned fully around, setting the wooden spoon across the top of the pot. Step by step, she closed the distance between them until her chest lightly brushed Sandrone’s shoulder.
"The garlic isn't burned," Columbina whispered, leaning upward to press a soft, lingering kiss to the corner of Sandrone’s jaw. Her lips were warm, a stark contrast to Sandrone’s perpetually cold skin. "See? Perfectly calculated."
Sandrone closed her eyes for a brief second, allowing herself to sink into the physical reality of the moment. She brought her hands up to rest on Columbina’s waist, feeling the faint, steady rise and fall of her breath. For three years, this kitchen had been their sanctuary. It was where they had celebrated Sandrone’s first successful prototype, where they had stayed up until four in the morning studying for Columbina’s broadcast journalism finals, and where they had quietly, without grandiose declarations, built a life together.
"You look tired," Columbina murmured, her fingers coming up to brush a strand of dark hair away from Sandrone’s eyes. Her thumb stroked the high curve of Sandrone’s cheekbone. "Did the dean talk to you today about the defense schedule?"
Sandrone’s posture stiffened almost imperceptibly. Her hands remained on Columbina’s waist, but her grip tightened slightly. "Yes."
"And?"
"The panel approved the blueprint for the automated clockwork movement," Sandrone said, keeping her voice flat, stripped of the pride she had felt six hours ago. "They want the working physical prototype submitted by the end of next month."
Columbina smiled, her eyes brightening with genuine pride. "Drony, that's wonderful! That guarantees your honors distinction." She reached up to hug Sandrone’s neck, but Sandrone didn't fully lean into it.
"It also means the defense is moved up," Sandrone added, her eyes fixing on a small stain on the wall tile behind Columbina. "Which means the fellowship offers will be finalized sooner than expected."
The air in the kitchen suddenly felt a little denser, the warmth of the boiling pot doing nothing to cut the sudden chill that settled between them.
Columbina slowly lowered her arms, though she didn't step back. Her expression softened, the lightheartedness giving way to a solemn, knowing stillness that Sandrone often found terrifying. Columbina had a way of looking at people—especially Sandrone—as if she could read the hidden gears and springs beneath their skin.
"So the timeline moved," Columbina said quietly. It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
"Have you heard from the Fontaine Institute?"
Sandrone swallowed hard, her throat feeling dry. "They sent the official contract outline this afternoon. It's an exclusive three-year residency at their primary research facility. Off-site, fully residential, restricted access." She paused, the words tasting like lead. "It starts three weeks after graduation."
Columbina didn't flinch. She simply listened, her head tilted, processing the information with the same tranquil grace she brought to every tragedy and triumph. "Three weeks."
"It's an isolation contract, Columbina," Sandrone said, the clinical tone she always used as a shield beginning to crack. "No external projects. Minimal non-academic travel. If I accept it, I won't be in the city. I won't even be in the country."
"And if you don't accept it?" Columbina asked gently.
"If I don't accept it, I turn down the most prestigious engineering fellowship awarded in this university's history," Sandrone replied, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "It’s everything I worked for before I met you. Everything I built my academic standing on."
Columbina looked down at the gap between them, her fingers lightly tapping against Sandrone’s wrist, matching the rhythm of a heartbeat. "And my offer from the Snezhnaya Media Conglomerate came in this morning."
Sandrone froze. She had known it was coming—Columbina’s sharp investigative skills and magnetic on-camera presence had drawn corporate scouts from across the continent for the past six months—but hearing the confirmation made the floor beneath her feel fragile.
"Where?" Sandrone asked, though she already knew the answer.
"The main international bureau," Columbina replied softly. "A five-year broadcast analyst contract. They want me in their capital newsroom by mid-summer."
The silence that followed was absolute, save for the bubbling of the soup behind them.
Fontaine and Snezhnaya. Thousands of miles of ocean, land, and institutional red tape. Two careers moving in diametrically opposite directions, fueled by ambitions that had existed long before their paths had crossed in that dusty university library during their freshman year.
There was no scenario where Sandrone could build her clockwork in Snezhnaya. There was no scenario where Columbina could anchor a news desk in an isolated research vault in Fontaine. Neither of them was foolish enough to suggest giving up their dreams—they loved each other too much, and respected each other's brilliant minds too fiercely, to ever demand such a sacrifice. To ask Columbina to abandon her voice would be to destroy the very thing Sandrone adored; to ask Sandrone to stop creating would be to lock her in a cage.
They were trapped by their own excellence.
"We knew this was coming," Columbina said softly, her voice uncharacteristically small. "We've known since the start of the semester."
"Knowing a storm is coming doesn't make the house any warmer when the roof blows off," Sandrone muttered bitterly, turning her face away. She hated how helpless she felt. She could fix a broken micro-gear; she could re-wire an entire control board; she could calculate the exact kinetic energy required to move a hundred-pound weight with a single lever. But she couldn't stretch time. She couldn't stretch distance.
Columbina reached out, placing both hands on Sandrone’s cheeks, forcing the engineer to look at her. Columbina’s dark eyes were glossy, but she wasn't crying. She offered a fragile, tender smile—one that carved straight through Sandrone’s defensive armor.
"Sandrone," Columbina whispered, her thumb brushing over the skin beneath Sandrone's lower lip. "Look at me."
Sandrone forced herself to meet her gaze, though every nerve in her body screamed to retreat back to her workbench, where problems had solutions.
"We have two months," Columbina said gently. "Two months before graduation. Two months before contracts are signed and flights are boarded."
"Two months is nothing," Sandrone choked out, the reality finally breaking through her stoic exterior. "It's sixty days. It’s a fraction of a second in the scale of what we wanted."
"Then we make sixty days feel like sixty years," Columbina said softly, though the edge of her own sadness bled through her steady tone. "We don't spend the time we have left mourning the end while we're still sitting in the middle of it. We don't turn our apartment into a funeral before anyone has died."
"Columbina—"
"No," Columbina interrupted gently, pressing her forehead against Sandrone’s. "Listen to me. We are here right now. The pot is on the stove. Your hands are cold. My apron is dirty. We have tonight."
Sandrone took a deep, shuddering breath, filling her lungs with the scent of lavender, woodsmoke, and Columbina. She closed her eyes, letting her forehead rest heavily against Columbina's, relying on her partner's steady balance to keep her own feet grounded.
"I don't know how to stop calculating the end," Sandrone confessed, her voice barely audible over the hiss of the gas burner. "Every time I look at the clock, I count down the hours. I can't turn it off."
"Then let me be your clock tonight, pay attention to me, touch me, kiss me, make me yours," Columbina murmured against her skin. "No numbers, no gears. Just me."
Sandrone’s arms tightened around Columbina’s waist, pulling her impossibly close, burying her face into the crook of Columbina’s neck. She held on with a desperation that betrayed all her logical pretense, her fingers clutching the soft fabric of Columbina’s clothes as if holding hard enough could physically anchor them to this exact second in time.
Columbina didn't pull away. She wrapped her arms around Sandrone’s shoulders, resting her chin on Sandrone’s dark hair, humming a soft, wordless tune into the quiet space of the kitchen. It was a fluid, mournful rhythm, yet wrapped in a strange, comforting warmth.
They stood like that for a long time in the cramped, warm kitchen, suspended in the space between what was inevitable and what was present.
Finally, the soup began to bubble over, tiny drops of liquid splashing against the hot metal stove top with a series of quiet hisses.
Columbina pulled back just enough to smile, though a single wet track now shone on her cheek. She didn't acknowledge it, and neither did Sandrone. Instead, Columbina reached out and turned the gas knob down, reducing the flame to a gentle simmer.
"Set the table," Columbina said softly, her voice clear once more, throwing a delicate blanket over the looming shadows of their future. "First, we eat dinner."
Sandrone looked at her, at the smudge of flour on her wrist, at the soft light catching the edges of her hair, at the quiet, absolute love residing in her eyes.
"Alright," Sandrone said, stepping back and reaching for the mismatched ceramic plates sitting on the shelf. "First, dinner."
Outside the kitchen window, the winter wind howled against the glass, and in the hallway, the wall clock kept its steady, uncaring count. But inside the small arc of light, Sandrone picked up the silverware, Columbina stirred the pot, and for a few fleeting hours, they let the world pretend that time was something they could afford to waste.