Four days since Kasia left.
Four days of the same grinding routine: watch rotations, sporadic attacks, artillery that never quite hits the basement but gets close enough to shake dust from the ceiling.
Four days of rationing supplies that won't last, treating wounds that won't heal properly, and watching Warsaw die block by block.
Jakub's shoulder is better.
He can lift his rifle now, though he still favors the left arm. Doesn't complain about the pain, just works through it with the grim determination of someone who knows complaining doesn't stop bullets.
"She'll be back," he says for the third time today.
I'm cleaning my rifle. Again.
"I didn't ask."
"You've been watching the entrance since dawn. You don't have to ask."
"I'm on watch duty."
"Walsh is on watch duty. You're just standing there, looking." He settles next to me, grinning that knowing grin that makes me want to punch him. "It's okay to admit you're worried."
"I'm not worried."
"Liar."
He's right.
I am worried.
Kasia's been running messages through a city where death is random and constant. Four days is a long time in Warsaw's current state. Long enough for a thousand things to go wrong.
"She knows the city," Jakub says, reading my thoughts. "She's smart. Careful. She'll come back."
"And if she doesn't?"
"Then we mourn and keep fighting. Same as everyone else who doesn't come back." He lights a cigarette. "But she will. I know Kasia. She's stubborn. Death would have to work very hard to catch her."
---
She arrives at sunset.
I'm not watching the entrance—I'm actually on perimeter patrol this time—when I hear Marek's voice: "Kasia! You look like hell."
I'm down the stairs before I fully process moving.
She does look like hell.
Covered in dust and dried blood—not hers, I hope—her braid half-undone, exhaustion carved into her face.
But alive.
Breathing.
Here.
Our eyes meet.
Something passes between us—relief? recognition?—before she looks away.
"Bad four days," she tells Marek, accepting water from someone. "Germans tightened the noose. Half the cells I was supposed to contact are gone. Dead or captured, doesn't matter which."
"You got the messages through?"
"Most of them. Lost two couriers yesterday. Antek and Sophia." Her voice stays flat but her hands clench the water canteen. "Ambush near the old market. I got out. They didn't."
"I'm sorry."
"Everyone's sorry." She drinks deeply, then looks around the basement. "How's here?"
"Still standing. Lost three more since you left. Germans probe our defenses daily but haven't committed to a full assault yet."
"They will. Eventually."
She spots me standing halfway down the stairs like an idiot.
"Rio. You survive four days without me?"
"Barely."
She almost smiles. Almost.
"Good. I'd hate to do all that running just to come back and find you dead."
Jakub appears, embracing her carefully.
"You look terrible."
"You say the sweetest things."
"It's my gift." He studies her face. "When did you last sleep?"
"What day is it?"
"That long?"
"Longer." She sways slightly, catches herself. "I need to brief Marek on the intel. Then I need to collapse for maybe three days."
"Brief Marek," Jakub says. "Then you sleep. Rio can take your watch rotation."
"I can take my own—"
"Kasia. Sleep. That's an order from someone who cares if you live."
She looks at him for a long moment.
Then nods.
"Fine. But I brief first."
---
The briefing is grim.
Warsaw has maybe a week left. Two if they're lucky.
The encirclement is complete. No supplies getting in. No reinforcements coming. The Polish government has evacuated. The military command is scattered or dead.
"We're fighting for time now," Kasia says, spreading a map on the crate. "Every day we hold is another day for civilians to evacuate. Another day the Germans have to commit resources here instead of elsewhere."
"Another day of dying," Marek adds.
"Yes. That too."
She marks locations on the map.
"These are the remaining resistance cells. I made contact with three. Two are combat-effective. One is just survivors hiding in rubble."
She continues, detailing German positions, supply lines, weak points in their perimeter.
Professional. Thorough.
Her exhaustion shows in her movements but not her mind.
I watch from the side, listening.
Not because I need to know the tactical situation—Thompson and Walsh can handle that—but because watching her gives me something to focus on besides the slow certainty that we're all going to die here.
The briefing ends.
Marek thanks her. She nods, swaying again, and I move without thinking.
"Where are you sleeping?" I ask.
"Corner somewhere. Doesn't matter."
"You need more than a corner. You need actual rest."
"Rio, I'm fine—"
"You're asleep on your feet. Jakub's right. You need to collapse properly." I look at Thompson. "There's that room on the second level. The one with the door that still closes?"
"Yeah. Storage room. Not much in it but it's private."
"She can use that."
Kasia looks at me like I've suggested something crazy.
"I don't need special treatment."
"It's not special treatment. It's basic human decency." I meet her eyes. "You've been running for four days straight. Take a real break. The war will still be here when you wake up."
She holds my gaze for a moment.
Then: "Fine. Show me."
---
The storage room is small, barely more than a closet.
But it has four walls, a door that latches, and a single cot that looks marginally better than sleeping on concrete.
"Luxury," Kasia says, dropping her pack.
"By Warsaw standards."
She sits on the cot, testing it, then looks up at me.
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"For giving a shit." She starts unlacing her boots. "Most people are too busy surviving to notice when someone else needs help."
"Jakub would've done the same."
"Jakub is basically my brother. You barely know me." She pauses. "Why do you care?"
Good question.
Why do I care about a resistance courier I met four days ago? Why does the thought of her dying somewhere in Warsaw's streets make my chest tight?
"I don't know," I admit. "But I do."
She studies me for a long moment.
"Old soul," she says finally. "Maybe you remember caring about people in past lives. Maybe that's why you're good at it now."
"Or maybe I just don't want you dead."
"That too."
She finishes removing her boots, stretches out on the cot with a sigh that's pure relief.
"Wake me if Germans attack. Otherwise, let me sleep until I'm human again."
"Will do."
I start to leave.
"Rio?"
I turn back.
"I'm glad you're still alive," she says.
Her eyes are already closing.
"Would've been disappointed to come back and find you gone."
"Likewise."
By the time I close the door, she's already asleep.