The room stood for a long time.
He stood at the podium and let it.
Not performing the standing. Not managing it. Just — present in it, the way he had learned to be present in things that were too large to manage. The way his mother had taught him, without teaching it, by doing it herself.
After a while the standing became movement became conversation became the specific warm noise of a room that had heard something true and was responding to it by being human at each other.
He stepped back from the podium.
Vera found him first.
She put her hand on his arm.
She didn't say anything.
She didn't need to.
She walked away.
Theo next.
He came through the room with the directness he had developed — not the careful navigation of someone managing a secret, but the straight line of someone who had stopped calculating the route.
He stood in front of Seren.
They looked at each other.
"Edinburgh," Seren said.
"Still worth the trip," Theo said.
That was it.
That was everything.
