Chapter 14

Elliot woke slowly, the way people do after a night that had rewritten something fundamental inside them.

Warmth was the first thing he felt. A soft, steady warmth pressed along the entire right side of his body. Then the weight of an arm draped across his chest, her palm resting exactly over his heart as though it has been moulded to fit there. Then the gentle trace of her breath against his collarbone, each exhale smooth and quiet, brushing his skin like something sacred.

He opened his eyes.

Sam was still asleep in his arms, curled against him, the duvet tangled around their waists but not doing much to cover either of them. Ler leg was slung over his, her body curved into his side, breasts resting softly against him. they were completely intertwined, two shapes folded into one. And for the first time in his life, waking up naked next to someone didn’t bring a flicker of awkwardness of worry.

It just felt… right.

Natural. Inevitable.

The attic was quiet in a way it had never been before. Soft morning light filtered through the window above them, washing the room in pale gold. The storm from the other night had passed entirely now; no wind rattling the glass, no rain against the roof. Just calm. A stillness so gentle it almost felt like the house itself was holding its breath.

He lay there for a long moment, simply taking her in.

Her hair was a dark, blurry halo across his pillow. One strand curled across her cheek, rising and falling with each slow breath she took. Her lips were parted slightly, relaxed, peaceful. She looked younger like this, unburdened in sleep, the tension she carries so often nowhere to be seen.

Elliot lifted a hand and brushed the pad of his fingertip along her shoulder, tracing the delicate curve of it. Her skin was warm under his touch. Familiar, now. He hadn’t expected that, that familiarity could form so quickly. But here it was, threaded into every small detail: the rhythm of her breathing, the way her body fit perfectly into the shape of his, the soft weight of her hand over his heart.

Her eyelashes fluttered.

A sleepy sound slipped from her throat, barely a hum, and she shifted, snuggling closer into him before her eyes blinked open properly. For a moment, she looked dazed, lost between dreams and waking.

Then her gaze found his, and she smiled.

A slow, warm, sleepy smile that spread across her face like sunlight. The kind of smile that didn’t hide anything. The kind that made Elliot's chest tighten with something tender and overwhelming.

“Morning…” she whispered, voice rough with sleep. Her fingers flexed slightly against his chest, feeling the gentle rise and fall of his breathing. Then, softer still, like a secret she was giving only to him: “I love you.”

The words melted straight through him.

He felt himself smile before he even realised he was doing it. He leaned forward just enough to kiss her forehead, lingering there for a heartbeat, his lips brushing her skin with a tenderness that surprised even him.

“I love you too,” he murmured into her hair.

Saying it in daylight, without the candlelit haze of a restaurant or the adrenaline of the night before, somehow made it more real. More grounded. The words settled into the room like they belonged there.

Sams smile widened sleepily, and she tightened her arms around him, burrowing into his chest. The duvet slipped a little as they shifted, exposing the smooth warmth of her shoulder and the curve of her back. Elliot didn’t look away. Neither did she. There was no shyness now, no instinct to cover herself or hide. Just comfort. Ease. Familiarity.

Like this was how they were always meant to wake up.

Sam gave a small, contended sigh and closer her eyes again, resting her cheek over his heart, and Elliot held her, the morning light spilling across their bodies, thinking that if every day began like this, he’d never fear this house again. He’d never fear anything.

They sifted at the same time, the duvet slipping down as they sat up, exposing Sam’s breasts fully, the soft morning light through the attic window highlighting the mound, casting shadows on the skin below. Sam made a small, sleepy noise and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, reaching automatically for the hairbrush she kept on the bedside table.

Elliot watched for a second, propped on one elbow.

There had been a time not that long ago where a moment like this would’ve sent him into a panic of where to look, what to do, how to pretend he wasn’t flustered. Now, his first feeling was something quieter. Awe, mostly. A sense of wonder that she trusted him enough to simply exist like this, unhurried, unguarded.

Sam dragged the brush through her hair, catching his eyes in the mirror.

“You’re staring,” she said, a little smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

“I’m appreciating,” he corrected, voice still rough with sleep.

That earned him a very satisfied look. She didn’t rush to yank the duvet up or hide; if anything she sat a little straighter, shoulders rolling back, chest swelling, as though letting him see exactly how comfortable she was now. His gaze flicked away out of politeness, then back again because pretending he wasn’t drawn to her would have been ridiculous.

After a moment, Sam stood and padded over to the chest of drawers, leaving anything behind she could’ve used to cover herself. She bent seductively, exposing her bare buttocks to him, presenting it like a gift he couldn’t wait to get his hands on. She rummaged through the drawer, finding a clean t-shirt to wear. She glanced back over her shoulder and smiled in a satisfied way at the hungry look in his eyes.

“Later,” she said quietly, a promise threaded through a single word.

Heat rushed to his face. “I… am not complaining.”

“I noticed,” she replied, soft laughter under her breath as she shook out the t-shirt.

They dressed without the awkward dance they’d done before. No turning backs, no sudden, embarrassed silences, just two people sharing a room, moving around each other like they’d done it for years.

Elliot swung his legs out of bed and stood, stretching until his spine popped, Sam hooked her thumbs into her underwear and perched lightly on the edge of the bed, lifting one knee at a time before standing to pull them the rest of the way up, depriving him of the full view he’d been enjoying.

“You definitely stole the duvet,” he said, having pulled on his own boxers and reaching for his joggers from the chair.

“Excuse me?” she scoffed. “You wrapped yourself in it like a burrito. I nearly froze to death.”

“That’s slander,” he said, stepping into the joggers. “I was very reasonably covered. You’re the one who starfishes in her sleep.”

“I do not starf-”

He gave her a look.

She paused. “Okay, I partially starfish.”

“Violently.”

She laughed, opening a drawing to pull out her jeans. “At least I don’t kick.”

“I don’t kick either,” he protested, indignant.

“You absolutely do. You caught my shin twice.”

“That was self-defence. You were invading my side of the bed.”

She rolled her eyes at him and wriggled into her jeans, her still-exposed chest bouncing as she did, a grin plastered across her face. “You love it.”

“Unfortunately, yes,” he said, and the way the grin softened on her face at that made his chest ache.

They met in the middle of the room to grab yesterday’s clothes off the floor and toss them into the laundry bag, but Elliot grabbed her hand lightly and spun her into him, her breasts pressing into his chest as he pulled her into a deep, tender kiss.

Sam moaned theatrically as they broke apart, having spotted her dress. 

“I didn’t even get to wear this for more than a few hours,” she said. “Tragic.”

He gave her a look that said very clearly he remembered exactly when it had come off. Colour rose in her cheeks, but she didn’t look away.

“Worth it,” he said simply.

Her smile went bright and helpless. “Yeah. It was.”

They moved past each other easily, brushing shoulders, hands trailing across backs, little touches that had become instinct over the last few weeks. Sam finally grabbed the t-shirt she had collected from the drawer and tugged it over her head, hair tumbling around her face, completely forgoing the bra. Elliot dragged his own clean t-shirt on, fighting with the hem for a moment as it caught on an elbow.

“You’re one to talk about violent sleeping,” Sam said, raking her fingers through her hair again. “Look at your head. You hair looks like it tried to escape in the night.”

“That’s rich, coming from a woman who suffers with full-on bedlion,” he countered, reaching out to gently scruff up the side of her hair just to make her squeal.

She batted his hand away, laughing. “Rude. I am elegance incarnate.”

“Elegance does not snore,” he said.

She gasped. “I do not snore.”

“Last night would disagree.”

“You’re lying.”

He hasn’t, but he grinned instead of answering. She narrowed her eyes, clearly debating whether to be mortified or amused, then opted for the latter and flicked his shoulder.

“Fine,” she said. “If I snored, its only because you finally let me sleep.”

The words landed with more weight than either of them expected. Elliot's smile softened. Without really thinking about it, he caught her hand and tugged her gently closer.

“Come here,” he murmured.

She stepped into him, and before either of them bothered with top layers, her just in the t-shirt and jeans, him in his joggers and t-shirt, he spu. Her lightly under his arm, bringing her back chest-to-chest. Sam laughed, surprised, and them tipped her chin up as he kissed her.

It wasn’t the desperate, breathless kind of kiss from the night before. This one was slower. Familiar. Her hands settled against his shoulders, his palms smoothing over her back. When they finally pulled away, both of them were smiling like idiots.

“Good morning, properly,” she whispered.

“Very properly,” he agreed.

She swatted his arm again, but she was still smiling as she stepped back and reached for a hoodie from the back of his chair. He watched her shrug into it, his hoodie, hanging a little too big on her, and felt a new, quiet kind of contentment settle in his chest.

They finished getting ready with that same easy rhythm: trading places at the mirror, bumping hips at the desk, stealing another quick kiss when they crossed paths in the middle of the room.

By the time they were both dressed, Room 6 felt different, not because anything in it has changed, but because they had. The space was still the same matching furniture except the desk chairs, the same sloping ceiling, the same desk and bed and wardrobe. But now it was undeniably theirs.

Elliot didn’t really want to move at all.

They’d finally pulled on jeans and joggers, the duvet straightened into something roughly bed-shaped again, and the room felt hazy-soft with mid-morning light. Sam was halfway through trying her hair into a loose knot when he brushed a thumb over the inside of her wrist and, without planning to, leaned in and kissed her again.

It started as a quick thing, yet another good-morning-again kiss, nothing more, but lingered, sweet and unhurried. When they broke apart, both of them smiling faintly, the room felt different again. not charged like last night. Just… settled. Like this was exactly where they were supposed to be.

“Okay,” Sam said eventually, breath puffing out in a small laugh. “If we stay like this, we’re never leaving this room.”

“Is that… a problem?” Elliot asked.

Her eyes narrowed in mock warning. “We agreed: breakfast first. Then we can debate being hermits.”

“Right, right. Food, civilisation, basic human needs.” He stepped back, hands raised in surrender. “Got it.”

She rolled her eyes fondly.

Elliot dropped into the desk chair and pulled his laptop towards him.

Sam hovered beside him for a second. “Should I move?”

“Only if you want to,” he said. “There’s room.”

Instead of grabbing the spare chair, she scooted right in beside him, wedging herself onto the same seat so their thighs pressed together. The chair creaked under the combined weight but held. She leaned her shoulder into his, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

“There,” she said, satisfied. “Perfect.”

“You realise this chair is not designed for two people,” he pointed out.

“Then it can learn to cope.”

He huffed a small laugh and opened up his emails. The familiar interface felt weirdly distant after the last few days of ghosts and Latin and storm-blackouts but also grounding. Subject lines. Deadlines. Boring things. Normal things.

Sam pulled her own laptop from under the bed and balanced it across her knees, angling the screen so she could still lean into him.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Staring at my essay and hoping the word count magically increases if I glare hard enough,” she replied. “You?”

“Seeing what fresh hell corporate life has for me today.”

“Fun.”

“Thrilling.”

He started scanning through his inbox, half-reading automatically. A notification from his manager. A newsletter he never remembered signing up for. A spam message promising him “business success in 7 EASY STEPS!!!”

He snorted.

“What?” Sam asked without looking up.

“You know those scammy emails you think only your uncle gets?” he said. “Apparently they also get sent to front-end developers who mind their own business.”

“Read it,” she said immediately.

He cleared his throat in an overly serious tone. “Dear Sir or Madam, I need a full website by Monday despite giving you no details whatsoever. Please respond urgently with design, content, SEO plan, and logo. Budget: fifty pounds. Exposure guaranteed.”

Sam choked on the mouthful of water she’d just taken, coughing and spluttering into her sleeve. Elliot burst out laughing.

“Are you okay?” he managed between laughs.

She wiped her mouth, eyes watering. “You made that up.”

“I didn’t!” he protested, already clicking to show her. “Look, genuine inbox chaos.”

She leaned over, squinting at the screen. The actual wording was somehow worse; a wall of broken sentences and emojis, no punctuation in sight.

“Oh my God,” she wheezed. “They didn’t even spell ‘website’ right.”

“Web sight,” he read aloud. “As in the sight of your web, I guess. Very poetic.”

She snorted again, pressing the heel of her hand to her mouth.

“You should reply,” she said. “Send them a PowerPoint about why their budget is offensive.”

“I’d rather summon a demon,” he muttered, then winced. “Too soon?”

“Too real,” Sam said, making a face. “Okay, maybe don’t summon anything. Just… archive it and pretend humanity is better than this.”

He obeyed, clicking archive with exaggerated ceremony. “There. One less crime against language.”

“And capitalism,” she added.

They drifted into a comfortable silence after that, the sort that didn’t need filling. Elliot worked through a couple of legitimate emails: a client asking about a minor update, his manager checking in about a sprint ticket. He replied in quick, concise bursts, feeling strangely detached from it all but grateful for the mundanity.

Beside him, Sam opened her essay document. A dense wall of test stared back at her, cursor blinking accusingly near the bottom.

She sighed dramatically.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, without looking away from his laptop.

“This thing,” she said, jabbing at the screen. “I still need another thousand words, and I’ve already said everything smart I’m capable of saying about Victorian domestic spaces and ghost metaphors.”

He glanced over. “You say that like you don’t already have three more angles hidden in your brain.”

“I don’t,” she insisted. “The brain is empty. There are no more thoughts. Only fog and tea.”

He smiled, nudging her shoulder with his. “You’ll smash it. You always do.”

She tried to hold on to her grumble, but the compliment worked under her defences like a warm water. “You have to say that,” she muttered. “You’re biased.”

“I liked your essay before I was in love with you,” he pointed out. “So technically I’m an experienced, highly qualified reviewer.”

She huffed, but couldn’t hide the small, pleased curve of her mouth. “Fine. Noted.”

She started scrolling up through the document, rereading older paragraphs. Occasionally she’d tweak a sentence, add a word in the margin, or highlight something to revisit later. Every so often she’d lean sideways, resting more of her weight against him, laptop still balanced across both their knees like they were sharing the burden.

He kept replying to emails, his free hand absently resting against her leg. At some point she laced her fingers through his without really looking, their joined hands sitting lightly on her thigh while they worked.

It felt… easy.

Elliot realised, somewhere between deleting a meeting invite and flagging a task for later that this, the shared chair, the quietly overlapping work, the absent-minded touches, felt more intimate than half the big gestures he’d ever seen in films.

Sam nudged him with her knee. “Read this sentence,” she said, pointing at the screen. “Does it sound clever or like I swallowed a thesaurus and regretted it?”

He leaned in, reading aloud under his breath. “The domestic interior, once a sanctuary insulated from the public sphere, here transforms into a site of haunting where memory refuses to remain obediently contained.”

He paused, then nodded. “Clever. Just pretentious enough for academia.”

Sam groaned. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

“In a good way,” he added quickly. “Like, ‘first-class essay’ pretentious. Not ‘man on YouTube ranting about crypto’ pretentious.”

She snorted. “High praise.”

“Write more like that,” he said. “Dr Rowland or whoever is going to combust with joy.”

“It’s not Dr Rowland,” she said automatically. “It’s Professor Hughes. Rowland was my Year 2 teacher.”

“Right, right,” he said. “She of the blue chairs and the juice box.”

Sam’s expression flickered for a moment, remembering the memory in the journal, then smoothed out again.

“Yeah,” she said quietly. “Her.”

He gave her hand a gentle squeeze under the desk, and she squeezed back, wordlessly.

A few minutes later, he found another email that made his eyebrows shoot up.

“Oh, wow,” he said. “You need to see this.”

She leaned in again. “What now?”

He pointed at the subject line. “Someone trying to sell me ‘premium mystical SEO services.’”

Her laugh burst out far too loud for the quiet room. “Mystical?”

“Apparently their optimisation is ‘guided by cosmic forces,’” he read, eyes widening. “And they can ‘attune my site to the vibrations of success.’”

Sam buried her face against his shoulder, laughing helplessly. “Please, I beg you, reply and ask what moon phase is best for a homepage redesign.”

Elliot grinned, warmth flooding his chest at how happy she looked; loose, unguarded laughter spilling out of her after days of tension.

“I might,” he said. “Purely for research.”

“You’re going to end up in some weird cult Slack,” she replied.

“As long as it doesn’t involve Room 2, I’ll take the risk.”

They traded nonsense like that for a while, bouncing from bad SEO jokes to an argument about whether one of her sources was secretly in love with the author she was quoting. Sam read a sentence she likes aloud, then immediately groaned and accused herself of sounding unbearably wanky. Elliot assured her it was exactly the right level of wanky.

Their legs stayed tangled under the desk. At some point, Elliot rested his cheek briefly against the top of her head while he skinned an email, and she just let him. kept typing, one hand still threaded loosely through his.

Time blurred, measured not in minutes, but in tiny markers: the clack of keys, the soft whirr of his laptop fan, Sam’s quiet “mm” when she finally found the right word for a sentence that had been resisting her.

Eventually Sam stretched, lifting her arms over her head until her joints cracked.

“Okay,” she groaned. “My brain is officially mush.”

Elliot closed his laptop with a soft click. “Same.”

She turned her face toward him, their foreheads almost brushing.

“Thanks,” she said.

“For what?”

“For… this.” She gestured vaguely around, the desk, the room, the morning. “I didn’t realise how much I needed a normal couple of hours. Just… work. Stupid emails. Essays. You.”

He swallowed, something tight and fond catching in this throat. “Anytime,” he said. “I’m very good at being stupid and normal.”

She smiled, then leaned in for a small, slow kiss that he felt all the way down to his toes.

When they pulled back, she rested her nose against his for a second, eyes half-closed.

“Breakfast?” she asked.

“Definitely breakfast,” he replied.

They left the quiet of Room 6, still brushing against each other, fingers naturally threading together as though their hands had been made that way. Sam tugged the door shut behind them, then leaned briefly into Elliot's side as they started down the narrow attic staircase, not out of nerves, just because she could. Because it felt right.

The house felt different in daylight.

Not safer, exactly. Just… calmer. Sunlight streamed through the small landing window at the second-floor turn, pooling warm gold across the banister. Dust motes drifted lazily in the beams, the kind of soft domestic stillness that made the night before feel almost unreal.

Sam gave his hand a tiny squeeze with her thumb. He squeezed back.

They didn’t talk as they descended the stairs to the first floor. They didn’t need to. The silence was companionable, threaded through with the steady awareness of each other’s nearness, her hip brushing his as they stepped around the turn, his shoulder nudging hers when he shifted to the inside of the stairwell so she wouldn’t bump into the wall.

Neither of then looked toward Room 2 as they passed it.

Not out of fear, though fear was always somewhere in the periphery, but because this morning, the house wasn’t what they were thinking about. The haunting felt distant, small against the enormity of what had changed between them.

By the time they reached the bottom steps, warmth had begun to rise from the kitchen. The closer they moved toward the ground floor, the clearer the smells became: butter, frying eggs, toast browning, and something Jordan was probably theatrically seasoning on purpose.

Elliot breathed in and felt a strange mix of comfort and apprehension settle in his chest.

Sam inhaled too. “He’s definitely cooking,” she murmured, amused. “I can smell the paprika from here.”

Elliot huffed a laugh. “Jordan’s philosophy: if your sinuses don’t clear, it’s not seasoned enough.”

They exchanged a look; a mutual, innocent sort of bracing. Because breakfast meant Jordan. And Jordan meant commentary. Harmless, affectionate torment, but torment, nonetheless.

Sam bit back a smile, tucking her hair behind her ear as they reached the hallway. The light from the kitchen spilled over the wooden floor, warm and inviting. Elliot felt her fingers tighten around his just once, not uncertainty, simply acknowledgement. Here we go.

He leaned in slightly, brushing shoulders against hers. “Ready?”

“No,” she whispered, grinning, “but let’s go anyway.”

Together, still hand in hand and still unable to lose the soft glow that clung to them the moment they woke, they stepped into the kitchen doorway.

Jordan spotted them before either of them managed a greeting.

He didn’t even turn from the frying pan, he just lifted his chin slightly, voice carrying with theatrical projection:

“Morning, lovebirds. Sleep well? I mean-” he flicked a glance over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised to impossible heights, “did you sleep at all?”

Sam stopped dead.

Elliot, who had been mid-step behind her, bumped into her back and made a soft, strangled sound.

Harper, sitting at the table with a cup of tea, closed her eyes and mutter, “Jordan, no.”

Jordan raised a single finger in scholarly correction. “Ah-ah. Yes. For the love of God, noises were made.”

Elliot inhaled wrong and immediately choked on nothing but despair.

Sam made a mortified squeak and covered her face with both hands.

David, halfway through a sip of tea, snorted so violently into his mug he nearly spilled it. He coughed, trying to pretend it was unrelated.

Jordan, encouraged, continued with gusto. “At one point,” he said, flipping something in the pan with unnecessary flourish, “I genuinely thought the council had approved midnight roadworks in the attic.”

“Jordan,” Harper snapped again, dragging out the name like a warning siren.

“What?” He shrugged, palms up, the very picture of innocence. “I’m just saying, I was this close” he pinched his finger and thumb a millimetre apart “to filing an official noise complaint.”

Sam groaned into her palms. “Please stop talking.”

“No can do,” Jordan replied cheerfully. “Someone had to address the fact I had to turn my show up fourteen full volume levels. Fourteen, Elliot. That’s practically cinema mode.”

Elliot stared at the floor, cheeks flaming. “I hate everything.”

“You’re welcome,” Jordan said brightly.

Harper threw a tea towel at him. “Will you behave?”

Jordan caught it with one hand, smirked, and tossed it back onto the counter. “I’ll behave when the attic stops sounding like a literal earthquake. It’s only fair.”

Sam whimpered. Elliot tried to melt into the lino.

David cleared his throat, trying to salvage their dignity, but even he failed to hide the amused twitch tugging at his mouth. “Ignore him,” he said gently. “He’s incapable of maturity before noon.” 

“Or after,” Harper muttered.

Jordan held up a spatula like a judge’s gavel. “Motion stands. Next time, a courtesy test would be appreciated. Something like: ‘Hey Jordan, pop some headphones on.” Very neighbourly.”

Sam dropped her hands just long enough to glare at him through mortification-burning eyes. “There will be no text.”

“Oh, I know,” Jordan said breezily. “But I’ll still be listening for tremors.”

Elliot buried hid face in Sam’s hair, whispering, “I’m never coming downstairs again.”

Sam, voice muffled against his shoulder, said “We could just move out.”

Jordan clapped once, delighted. “Excellent! I’ll help you pack!”

Harper finally snapped, “Jordan, let them eat in peace!”

He winked. “Sure. After all…” he gestured to them with the spatula. “They clearly worked up an appetite.”

Sam made a noise that was neither human nor recoverable. Elliot considered climbing out the window. And breakfast had only just begun.

Jordan, now more than fully committed to the bit, flipped something in the frying pan with another flourish that suggested he’d been waiting for this moment his entire life.

“Well,” he said, glancing over his shoulder with a smirk far too pleased with itself, “I’m making a fry-up because some people clearly burned about five million calories last night.”

Harper made a strangled noise and immediately grabbed the tea towel again and snapped him with it. “Jordan. ENOUGH.”

He dodged the towel like he’d anticipated the strike. “I’m just saying! I didn’t know the walls could shake like that. I genuinely thought we were having an earthquake. I started standing in the doorframe for safety!” he demonstrated by bracing his arms flat against the cupboards, wobbling dramatically.

David, who had been quietly sipping his tea and trying very hard to stay neutral, failed spectacularly. He let out a short, surprised laugh before ducking his head. “It really was… quite loud,” he managed, cheeks pinking.

Sam let out a mortified groan and covered her face again. 

Elliot went crimson from collarbones to hairline. “Jordan, please-”

“Oh no,” Jordan interrupted delighted. “We’re not done.” He held out the spatula again, using it like a pointer in a lecture. “I was this close to testing the group chat: ‘Does anyone else feel the house vibrating or should I call a priest?’”

Harper hit him again with the towel. “STOP TALKING.”

Jordan nodded solemnly. “I hear you. I respect your request.” A beat. Then, brightly: “But also… WOW.”

“Jordan!” Harper barked.

He raised his hands in surrender, but his grin only widened. “What? I’m simply acknowledging excellence.”

Elliot let his forehead fall into one hand, defeated. Sam dropped into a chair with a whimper. “I can’t be here right now.”

Jordan pointed the spatula at her. “Really? Because last night you were everywhere.”

The tea towel snapped even harder this time. “JORDAN!”

He winced, rubbing his arm, but couldn’t suppress the gleeful sparkle in his eyes. “Worth it.”

They had settled around the table, Elliot buttering toast, Sam pouring herself juice, when Jordan looked up from the pan again with a grin that spelled doom.

“So, for real though,” he said casually, “how’s everyone’s morning? Sleep well?” his eyes flicked to Sam and Elliot.

Sam froze, waiting for it to start again, with the juice carton mid-air. Elliot stared very hard at his toast as though it held spiritual answers.

Harper: “Jordan. No more.”

Jordan held up a peaceful hand. “I’m just asking! Friendly question.”

Breakfast resumed for approximately four seconds.

Then, as if the thought had just occurred to him:

“You know,” Jordan mused, sliding scrambled eggs onto a plate, “at one-point last night I genuinely wondered if the boiler was malfunctioning. Or like… vibrating? Thought we were seconds from an explosion.”

Sam groaned into her hands. Elliot's ears went scarlet.

Harper, trying to be stern, clenched her jaw, which only made the tiny laugh she tried to swallow more obvious.

Jordan pointed triumphantly. “HA! Harper laughed. That means it was funny.”

Harper slapped his arm. “It means you’re unbearable.”

Conversation shifted briefly to Harper’s errands for the day, David’s planned run, Sam’s coursework. Normal, safe topics.

But Jordan’s brain refused to let a loll go un-chaotic.

Midway through buttering his own toast, he said, “Actually, speaking of vibrations-”

“NO,” Sam said instantly.

“-I’m just saying,” Jordan continues, unbothered, “I thought someone had dropped a bowling ball upstairs. Twice.”

Elliot choked on his tea.

David cleared his throat politely, clearly entertained but attempting diplomacy. “It’s… nice to see you both so, ah… happy.”

Sam shrank into her chair. Elliot wished briefly for death.

Jordan wasn’t done.

“Also,” he added conversationally, “the cat from next door sat on our windowsill for ages. It kept staring at the house like it was trying to work out who upset the structural integrity.”

Harper pressed her lips together so hard she made a wheezing sound, the kind that happens when laughter is violently suppressed.

Jordan nodded wisely. “Animal sense disturbances, you know.”

Sam threw a piece of toast at him.

Jordan dodges easily. “Wow. Violence. Classic deflection tactic.”

They all started laughing then, even Sam, even Elliot, even Harper, who pretended she was laughing at something else entirely. The tension of the past few days loosened around the table, replaced with something warm and communal.

As everyone began to clear their plates, Jordan delivered one last, devastating line:

“You know what? Next time I’m putting a sign on my door: ‘If the house starts shaking again, don’t worry, it’s just Sam and Elliot rediscovering gravity.”

Harper finally lose it, releasing a full, bright laugh.

Sam buried her face against Elliot's shoulder, mortified.

Elliot muttered, “There won’t be a next time.”

Jordan smirked. “Mate… there absolutely will.”

Eventually, mercifully, the worst of Jordan’s teasing burned itself out.

He flipped an egg, letting the pan hiss, and glanced over at them with a quieter smile.

“Alright, alright,” he said, lifting his hands as if surrendering to an armed police squad. “I’ll stop terrorising you. Mostly.” His expression gentled. “I’m just happy for you both. Seriously.”

Sam peeked at him through her fingers, cheeks glowing crimson. “You have a horrible way of showing it.”

Harper snorted before clamping a hand over her moth, eyes wide. “I did not make that noise,” she muttered.

Jordan grinned. “You absolutely did.”

Harper swatted his shoulder with the tea towel, but there was an unmistakable fondness in her eyes now, the earlier exasperation softened into something warm.

Sam leaned subtly into Elliot's side, brushing her knee against his under the table. Elliot squeezed back gently, an unspoken I’m here. We’re okay.

For a few blessed minutes, breakfast settled into an easy rhythm. The soft clink of cutlery. David quietly spreading butter on toast Harper pouring juice. Jordan humming as he plated more food. Sam occasionally brushing her leg against Elliot's as if needing to confirm he was still there beside her.

The kitchen felt normal again. five housemates sharing breakfast.

When the plates were mostly empty and chairs began scraping back, Sam dared to think the ordeal was over.

Harper gathered dishes. David excused himself politely. Elliot stood, ready to guide Sam toward the hallway before Jordan could…

“Oy, lovebirds.”

They froze.

Jordan leaned casually against the counter, coffee mug in hand, looking far too pleased with himself.

“Just so you know,” he said, raising his voice enough for the entire floor to hear, “next time I’m putting music on in Room 4. Full volume.”

Harper: “Jordan-”

He talked right over her, pointing his mug at Elliot.

“Ward, mate, I’m begging you. Either bring back my sanity or give me a heads-up before the attic starts… vibrating again.”

Elliot dragged a hand down his face. “I hate you.”

Jordan raised his mug like a toast. “Love you too, champ.”

Sam made another strangled noise.

Elliot took her wrist gently, guiding her toward the hallway before Jordan you lock and load another joke.

Harper called after then, “Ignore him, he’s incorrigible!”

“INCREDIBLE, actually!” Jordan corrected.

Sam groaned into Elliot's shoulder as he pulled her out of the kitchen.

They slipped back into Room 6 after breakfast, still warm from the teasing, still sharing those embarrassed little looks that made them both break into quiet smiles. Sam nudged him lightly with her shoulder as the door clicked shut behind them.

“We weren’t that loud,” she whispered.

Elliot groaned into his hands. “Oh, we absolutely were. Jordan looked traumatised.”

Sam laughed and kissed his cheek before climbing onto the bed with her laptop. A moment later, Elliot’s phone buzzed with an unexpected notification; an email marked URGENT from his team. He sighed and showed Sam the screen.

“Unscheduled meeting,” he muttered. “I’ll keep it quiet.”

“I’ll keep myself quiet,” she promised, tapping his foot affectionately with hers.

Elliot settled at the desk, slipping on his headphones, turning his mic and camera off, and straightening his spine in that automatic way he always did when shifting into work mode. Sam watched him for a moment with a soft, amused smile, his “serious work face” was adorable and unintentionally intense.

She opened her own laptop, pulling up a half-finished essay. Every so often, she’d stop, glance over to confirm his mic was muted, then read a line aloud:

“Does this sound pretentious or academic?”

Elliot typed a note into his meeting window, leaned sideways, and murmured back, “Both. Which means it’s perfect.”

Sam snorted and kept typing.

For the next half hour, they fell into an easy rhythm, an unbelievable gently, domestic kind of peace. Sam stretched at one point, brushing her foot along Elliot's calf under the desk; Elliot didn’t break concentration, just nudged her angle tenderly with his own.

He passed her his charger wordlessly when her laptop chimed at 10%, not needing an explanation. She mouthed thank you and blew him a silent kiss.

Then, occasionally, Elliot would speak aloud, short bursts of disconnected phrases to his meeting that made absolutely no sense without context:

“Yes, I can chase that up with the development team.”

Sam bit her lip, hiding a smile.

“We don’t need four different spreadsheets for the same data.”

She snorted quietly into her sleeve.

“No, Martin, please don’t share your screen, I’m begging you.”

She clapped a hand over her mouth to stop from laughing out loud as Elliot shot her a helpless look. He wasn’t even supposed to be talking but couldn’t help the automatic responses slipping out as he typed.

Sam shifted on the bed so she could sit with her back against the wall, watching him with that soft, affectionate expression that warmed his chest every time he caught it. He looked up at once point just as she was observing him, and they shared a small private smile.

Sam eventually broke the silence with a gentle sigh, clicking her essay document closed. Elliot typed one last note, brow furrowing at something someone said in his headphones before whispering:

“No, that’s a terrible idea. No, don’t. oh God, he’s doing it.”

Sam covered her face to hide her laughter again. 

The quiet settled in so slowly, so gradually that neither of them noticed it at first.

Sam was halfway through a paragraph, fingers tapping rhythmically at the keys, when she paused. Her brows pulled together, eyes drifting toward the door.

Elliot glanced up from his meeting notes. “What’s wrong?”

She listened a moment longer. “it’s… really quiet.”

He opened his mouth to say the house was always quiet this time of day, but he stopped before the words reached his tongue. Because she was right, it was different. Not the normal hush of people in their rooms, or Harper reading, or Jordan gaming with headphones on. This was stillness. Complete. Absolute.

No footsteps. No muffled conversations from downstairs. No clatter from someone rummaging through cupboards. Not even familiar old-house creaks.

Just silence.

Elliot tried to rationalise it. Maybe everyone had gone out. Maybe they were all busy. Maybe…

His meeting startled him back as someone in his headphones snapped, “No, no, that deliverable was meant to be Thursday.”

Elliot blurted, far too loudly, “Thursday? Absolutely not.”

Sam snorted a laugh behind her hand, the tension easing for a heartbeat. He shot her a helpless, apologetic grin and types furiously to look like he actually knew what was happening.

But even as she went back to her essay, that strange quiet pressed at the edge of the room.

Once, Sam rose from the bed and opened the door, peering down the staircase toward the second floor. Nothing. No movement. The house didn’t even breathe.

“Probably just one of those weird lulls,” Elliot offered when she returned, though he kept glancing at the doorway himself, the kind of involuntary movement a body makes when it senses something it can’t articulate.

Another few minutes passed.

Sam tried again to focus on her word, but her eyes flicked up every time the house made a sound that might have been something. A whisper? A distant shift? Or maybe just imagination trying to fill in the silence.

“God, this essay is killing me,” she murmured at last, rubbing her temples.

“Want me to read something?” Elliot offered automatically, still pretending not to be unsettled.

“Yeah.” She cleared her throat, resumed in a steadier voice. She read a sentence aloud for him to check slow, and he nodded while typing into his meeting notes. It felt almost normal.

Almost.

Someone in Elliot's meeting suddenly said, “And if marketing doesn’t fix that, I swear I’m going to scream,” and Elliot echoed out loud, “Please don’t scream,” with such deadpan misery that Sam dissolved into soft, helpless laughter. The moment broke through the eerie hush for a few seconds, warm and human.

But when the laughter faded, the stillness returned immediately, deeper now, as though the house resented the interruption.

Elliot's eyes drifted to the attic door, just for a second, just long enough for a ripple of unease to move through his chest. He pushed it aside. Logic insisted there was no reason to feel anything. But logic felt very small in a house like 12B.

Another hour passed like that, the two of them working close to each other, sharing occasional smiles, soft touches, muted comments, all while something beneath the surface of the house remained unnervingly quiet.

Finally, Sam exhaled hard and shut her laptop with a decisive click. “I’m done. If I write another sentence about nineteenth-century literary expectation versus female autonomy, I might combust.”

“Sounds painful,” Elliot said, closing his meeting window with visible relief. “I’m don’t too. With meetings. Forever. Ideally.”

Sam stretched, groaning, and Elliot stood, offering her his hand. She took it gratefully.

“Lunch?” she asked.

“Definitely lunch.”

They left Room 6 together, shutting the attic door behind them, the air still thick with that strange hush that had lingered for the last few hours. Sam’s hand brushed Elliot’s as they began down the narrow staircase from the attic, the footsteps soft on the worn steps. Neither spoke; there was nothing to say yet, only the quiet decision that lunch was a good enough excuse to step away from the eerie stillness.

They reached the second-floor landing, passing the closed doors of Rooms 4 and 5. Everything felt perfectly ordinary here, sunlight on the floorboards, the faint hum of pipes, the distant tick of the hallway clock. It lulled them into thinking the unease was just leftover nerves.

They continued downward.

The moment they reached the first-floor landing, Sam’s fingers tightened painfully around Elliot's wrist.

The door to Room 2 was gliding outward on its own.

Not abruptly, nor violently, but slow. Smooth. As if someone on the other side was easing it open with deliberate care.

Sam’s breath caught. Elliot froze beside her.

They stared at the widening gap, expecting emptiness, expecting nothingness, expecting the familiar dread of that room’s threshold.

Instead, Thomas Caldwell stepped into view.

He wasn’t there all at once; he formed the way breath fogs on cold glass. Faint outlines, then shapes, then colour bleeding uncertainly into existence. Half his body remained in the darkness of Room 2, half in the muted hallway light.

His clothing unmistakably Victorian, tailored for wealth, for status, but time had worn it into something ragged. The fabric hung loose at the seams, threadbare at the elbows, edges frayed like he’d worn the same outfit every day for a lifetime. Or longer.

And his outline… it refused to stay still.

Parts of him shimmered in and out, his shoulders briefly sharp, then dissolving; his right hand almost solid while the rest of him flickered like a reflection in disturbed water. The air around him vibrated with the faintest distortion, as though light itself struggled to decide whether he existed.

His eyes were the worst. Red-rimmed, swollen, exhausted. The eyes of someone who had cried long enough to forget when he started.

Sam made a small, strangled sound. Elliot felt his own chest seize.

Thomas listed his head.

When he spoke, the sound came fracture. Words staggered, broken, as if slipping through static:

“Plea… hel… me… I… made… a… stake…”

The timing was wrong. Horribly wrong. His lips moved half a second late, shaping the words after the sound had already reached them, like a recording trying to catch up to itself.

Sam clutched Elliot's arm with both hands now.

Elliot instinctively stepped half in front of her, not blocking her entirely, but shielding her in the way the body moved before the mind can think.

They should have run. Every instinct they had learned in this house said run.

But they didn’t.

Because beneath the terror rolling through them, another feeling crashed over the top, overwhelming, heavy, unmistakable:

Desperation.

Not theirs.

His.

It radiated from Thomas like heat. Thick aching sorrow that pressed into their ribs, their throats, their bones. A grief so potent it wasn’t heard of seen, but felt, like a weight settling into their chests.

Thomas’s jaw trembled; his form flickered again.

He lifted a hand, translucent, shaking, only half-formed, and gestured weakly toward the open room behind him.

Another broken plea escaped him, voice warping:

“Pl… se… I… can’t… ho… on…”

His whole body shuddered, like a candle guttering in a draft.

Elliot’s fear loosened at once beneath the crushing wave of Thomas’s emotion. Sam’s hand slid down his forearm, gripping him not in terror now, but in understanding.

They weren’t looking at a threat; they were looking at a man who had suffered longer than any person should. Someone begging for help the way drowning men beg for air.

Elliot didn’t breathe as Thomas lifted his trembling arm and pushed the door wider. It opened without resistance, no groaning of swollen wood, no protesting hinge, just a smooth, obedient glide that felt entirely wrong.

Cold air swept out of the doorway, brushing over their skin like a warning or a welcome. Sam’s breath hitched beside him.

Thomas stepped backward into the room, though ‘stepped’ was almost the wrong word. He drifted, his boots barely disturbing the dust on the floorboards. His face remained turned toward then, expression carved from grief, apology, and something that twisted painfully in Elliot’s chest: pleading.

That broken hand lifted again, flickering at the edges like a half-burnt film reel.

“Pl-… ease…” his mouth moved at a different rhythm than the sound, lagging just behind. “…fo… llow…”

Not a command. A plea.

Sam’s fingers tightened slowly around Elliot’s. her voice was barely a thread of sound.

“He needs help.”

Elliot swallowed hard, pulse hammering in his throat. Because he felt it too. Not just the fear, but something else pressing in from all sides. A pull. A gravity. As if Thomas’s desperation was leaking into the air, soaking into their bones, bypassing reason entirely.

This wasn’t the cold terror from before. This wasn’t Room 2 hunting. This was Thomas reaching.

Trying.

Begging.

They stepped forward together.

Elliot didn’t remember deciding to move; one moment he was frozen in the corridor, the next his foot crossed onto the threshold. Sam stayed glued to his side, her hand gripping his, but she wasn’t being dragged; she was walking willingly, even though she trembled.

Thomas drifted farther into the dim, dust-scented room. The air grew colder by the second, prickling against their arms. A low, resonant hum vibrated through the floorboards, like something deep beneath the house had some awake again.

Sam’s voice was barely more than a breath. “Elliot…”

“I know.” His own voice shook.

But they didn’t stop.

Thomas paused near the centre of the room, beside the heavy wooden writing desk, his form flickering sharply, shoulders going translucent, rubs showing faintly through his faded waistcoat before solidifying again. he lifted one hand to his temple, wincing like the act of manifesting was tearing him apart.

His lips move: help me. A half-second later, the sound reached them in fractures pieces.

“H…el… me…”

Then he gestured sharply to his left. The stack of notebooks, dozens, shuddered where they sat precariously stacked against the side of the desk. One toppled sideways. Another slid off the pile. And buried near the bottom, a single book with a darker cover shifted free, its spine cracking as though eager to be found.

Sam took a small, startled step forward.

Elliot squeezed her hand, grounding her, grounding himself.

Thomas looked at the journal, then at them. His whole face tightened, grief and desperation folding together like he was reliving something unbearable. He opened his mouth again, voice stuttering in and out:

“M… ade… a… mi…ake…”

“…can’t …old… on…”

“…pl…ea…se…”

His outline flickered violently, first transparent, then too solid, as if something was pulling him in opposite directions.

Sam reached a hand out, instinctively, though she couldn’t touch him. “Thomas…”

He seemed to hear her. His eyes, swollen and red with years of regret, met hers.

He mouthed one more word. Silent. Clear.

Take.

Then his form collapsed inward, thinning like mist, vanishing into the cold air with a faint crackle of static.

The room fell silent.

Elliot realised only then that his heart was slamming against his ribs. Sam’s grip was shaking in his own. But neither of them backed away. Neither of them screamed. Neither ran for the door.

They simply stood there, breath held, staring at the space where Thomas had been.

For the first time since this all began, the fear didn’t send them fleeing.

Because beneath the terror, beneath the cold, beneath the wrongness of Room 2, there lingered something else Thomas had left behind in the air:

Hope.

Fragile, fraying, fading. But hope.

Sam’s voice trembled. “…We have to get that journal.”

Elliot nodded, throat tight.

“Yeah. We do.”

Together they stepped fully into Room 2.

The door whispered shut behind them.