The six-month mark arrived on an ordinary Tuesday.
There were no alarms.
No confetti.
No matrix update.
Just a quiet ping from her calendar at 8:00 a.m.: *Six-month check-in – Chen/Hale (personal).*
She almost laughed.
“Of course you put it on the calendar,” she muttered to herself in the bathroom mirror.
Of course he had too.
At 8:30, as she walked to his office, she saw the same reminder flash on his phone as he stepped out of an elevator.
Their eyes met.
He smirked.
“You’re very… organized,” he said.
“Takes one to know one,” she replied.
They walked into his office together.
For once, she closed the door.
Toggled the glass to opaque.
Turned back.
He stood by the desk.
Not sitting.
Not behind it.
Neutral ground.
“Six months,” he said.
“More like five and change,” she said. “If we’re being precise.”
“You want to wait another two weeks?” he asked.
She thought.
“No,” she said. “I don’t.”
He nodded.
“Status,” he said. “Personally. Not… professionally.”
She exhaled.
“Yellow,” she said. “On the good days. Orange on the bad. Green… sometimes. Briefly. With caveats.”
He smiled, small. “Honest.”
“You?” she asked.
“Same,” he said. “Less… red. Fewer… blackouts.”
She snorted. “High bar.”
“This is… weird,” he said.
“Everything with you is weird,” she said.
He laughed softly.
They stood there, suddenly shy, like strangers in a kitchen at a party.
“Do you…” He cleared his throat. “Do you still… feel…?”
“Attracted to you?” she finished. “Yes.”
He inhaled.
“And more?” he asked quietly.
“Yes,” she said.
He closed his eyes briefly.
“Okay,” he said. “Me too.”
“Shocking,” she said dryly.
He opened his eyes.
Looked at her like he had that first day in his office.
Curious.
Intense.
Hungry.
“Do you… want to do anything about it?” he asked.
She laughed, the sound halfway to a sob.
“That’s the question, isn’t it,” she said.
He waited.
She thought.
Of the matrix.
Of Maya.
Of Kline.
Of her father.
Of Priya.
Of Jess.
Of Luis.
Of them.
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “Part of me… yes. Desperately. Part of me thinks it would be… catastrophic. For my career. For my heart.”
“For mine too,” he said quietly.
“And?” she pushed.
“And I… don’t care,” he said. “Not the way I… used to.”
Her breath caught.
He stepped closer.
Not too close.
Just enough that she could see the faint shadow of stubble on his jaw.
“I used to think,” he said slowly, “that my work was… everything. That I could… sacrifice whatever I needed to for it. Sleep. Relationships. Myself.”
“You did,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “And it worked. For a while. We built something. Big. Important. And I’m proud of that. But…”
He swallowed.
“But,” he went on, “the last six months have shown me something I didn’t… factor in. That this—” he gestured vaguely between them, then more broadly, “—this work is empty if I do it alone. If I… end up in a glass box with no one who sees me. Really sees me. Not just the CEO, or the autistic pattern machine, or the convenient villain.”
Her throat ached.
“You’re not alone,” she said. “You have Eliza. Raj. Nina. Priya. Kline. Your sister.”
He smiled faintly. “Yes. And they’re… everything. I’m grateful. But none of them are… you.”
Danger, she thought.
Signal.
Red.
He took a breath.
“I’m not… good at this,” he said. “At… asking. At… risking. But I’m going to try.”
She held very still.
“Ask what,” she whispered.
He met her eyes.
“Stay,” he said simply. “Not just as my EA. Not just as my ethical constraint. As… more. When we can make it less… fucked up. When we can… rebalance. I don’t know how yet. I just know I don’t want to… spend the next ten years pretending I don’t feel what I feel every time you walk into a room.”
Her eyes stung.
“Declan,” she said.
“I’m not asking you to decide now,” he said quickly. “I know we still have… integration. Activists. Boards. Fathers. I’m not… oblivious. I’m just… putting it on the table. For once, ahead of time. So you’re not… reacting to something I did without thinking.”
She laughed wetly. “Therapy’s working.”
“Expensively,” he said.
She sat, because her knees weren’t entirely reliable.
He stayed standing.
“Here’s my problem,” she said, staring at her hands. “I don’t… do half. If I jump, I jump. Full force. No parachute. That’s how I ended up… carrying men like Leo through crises while they spiraled. That’s how I ended up… structuring my entire life around work. And then around my father’s debt. If I jump into *us*, I will give you… everything. I don’t know if you can… handle that. Or if I can survive it.”
He lowered himself into the other chair, slow.
“I don’t… want everything,” he said.
She looked up sharply.
“I mean,” he corrected quickly, flushing, “I *do.* But I know that’s not… healthy. Or fair. Or… sustainable. I want… enough. Enough that we both still exist as… ourselves. Not as… each other’s projects.”
“That’s… new,” she said softly.
“I’m learning,” he said.
“So am I,” she said.
Silence hummed.
“Answer me this,” she said. “If I said no. If I said, ‘I can’t. Ever. It’s too much,’ what would you do?”
He swallowed.
“I’d… try to be okay,” he said. “I’d… step back. Eventually. Reassign you. Not because I’d want to get rid of you. Because it would hurt too much to… see you every day and know… there was nothing we could ever… be. I’d… miss you. A lot. For a long time. Maybe forever.”
Her chest clenched.
“And if I said yes,” she asked, voice barely above a whisper. “Eventually. Not now. What would you do?”
His eyes burned.
“I’d… wait,” he said. “I’d… fight like hell to build a version of this company that wouldn’t penalize you for loving me. Or me for loving you. I’d… put us on equal footing. As much as I can. Before we cross any more lines. I’d… keep going to therapy. I’d… try not to use you as a mirror for all the ways I hate myself.”
Tears spilled over.
“Fuck,” she said softly. “Why did you have to be… like this.”
“Like what,” he asked, panic flickering. “Honest? Intense? An idiot?”
“Human,” she said. “Impossible. Worth it.”
His breath hitched.
“Margot,” he said.
She sniffed, swiping at her cheeks. “Don’t. I’m… great. This is fine.”
He laughed weakly.
They sat there.
Between.
Then she exhaled.
“I’m not ready,” she said quietly. “Not… yet. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t… want. I’d also be lying if I said I wasn’t… terrified. I need… more time. To see if this version of you—this… trying, honest, boundaries version—is… real. Sustainable.”
He nodded, jaw tight.
“Okay,” he said.
“But,” she added, before he could spiral, “I’m also… not leaving. Not because I’m stuck. Because I don’t… want to. Yet. I want to see what we do with this mess. And yeah, part of that is you. I won’t pretend it’s not.”
His shoulders dropped.
Relief. Pain.
Both.
“So,” he said. “Status quo?”
“Status calibrated,” she said. “No new rules. Just… more awareness.”
He huffed. “You realize we’re… very bad at normal.”
“We’re excellent at our version of it,” she said.
He smiled.
“You know,” he said, “if we ever… do this… I want to take you to dinner somewhere nice. Like a normal person. With menus and awkward small talk and bad lighting.”
She snorted. “You’d hate that.”
“I know,” he said. “But I’d try. For you.”
Her heart did something traitorous.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she said softly.
“I won’t,” he said. “Not anymore.”
She stood.
He did too.
“Back to work,” she said.
“Always,” he said.
She reached for the door.
Paused.
Looked back.
He watched her.
“I’m not saying no,” she said. “I’m saying… not yet.”
He nodded.
“I can live with that,” he said.
She opened the door.
Stepped out.
Closed it gently behind her.
The matrix waited on his desk.
He picked it up.
Crossed out “Status quo (high tension, no relationship)” and wrote underneath:
*Status: calibrated tension, no relationship (yet). Risk: ongoing. Reward: unknown.*
He set the paper down.
Smiled.
Just a little.
And went back to work.
Because if there was one thing he knew how to do, it was build systems under pressure.
Now he just had to hope that, this time, he wasn’t building one that would collapse on the two of them.
Not if he could help it.
Not if she stayed.
Not if, someday, she said *yes*.
And until then—
They’d walk the edge.
Together.
On purpose.