A grey, overcast Monday morning settled over the Cambridge campus, Emily walking down the pavement holding a cardboard tray with two coffees, oversized hoodie, jeans, messy bun, the uniform she wore like armor whenever she needed to forget, briefly, that she had ever owned an emerald silk dress.
She passed a bench near the Law Faculty. A young man sat there, eating a packed sandwich wrapped in foil, wearing a slightly worn wool sweater and carrying a heavy, old backpack. Julian Harper, twenty four, bespectacled, kind, gentle, and distinctly working class in every detail that mattered.
He looked up as she passed.
"Emily?"
She stopped. She blinked, surprised.
"Julian. I... I didn't know you were still in Cambridge."
Julian stood up, wiping crumbs from his hands. "Yeah. Got the scholarship for the Masters program. International Law."
He looked at her, at the hoodie, the messy hair, and a genuine, warm smile spread across his face.
"You look... like yourself," he said. "I haven't seen you look this comfortable in years."
"I'm trying, Julian," she said, a sad smile touching her mouth. "Living the normal life, remember? Just like we talked about."
Julian's smile faltered. A shadow of pain crossed his eyes.
"I remember, Em."
He gently squeezed her arm, a touch of regret, not possession, and Emily nodded, unable to speak. The Baker name had cost her this simple, kind love once, and some part of her still hadn't entirely forgiven it for that.
From a distance, Sebastian stood by the faculty gates. He saw the interaction. He saw the tenderness. He saw Julian, a simple, decent guy, and something about the scene lodged itself somewhere under his ribs that he didn't care to examine.
❦
Later, Sebastian sat before his monitors, lines of code cascading down the screen, unheeded. His gaze was fixed on the window, staring blindly in the direction of the courtyard bench where Emily had met Julian. From this angle he could see nothing at all. He stared anyway.
The door opened. Emily entered, the emerald gown long gone, replaced by the familiar oversized hoodie, her expression composed, feigning a casual air, as if the previous night had never happened at all.
Sebastian watched her. The memory of the sharp, intoxicating woman from the gala clashed violently with the girl standing before him now, and clashed again with the girl he'd just seen outside with the gentle, safe boy. The disparity maddened him. He clenched his jaw, forcing it down.
She set the cup down on the desk, right beside his hand.
"Black. Two sugars."
Sebastian didn't turn. He attacked the keyboard, the mechanical clack clack clack brittle, aggressive, louder than necessary.
"You're four minutes late."
"The queue at the canteen was long. I assumed you needed caffeine more than absolute punctuality."
Sebastian stopped typing. He slowly swiveled his chair around. He grabbed the cup, ignoring the heat, and didn't say thank you.
"You disappeared," he said. "I told you to wait."
Emily stiffened. She moved to her station, picking up a soldering iron.
"I had to leave."
"Right. Just like in London." He laughed, a harsh sound. "Is that your specialty, Miss Baker? Running away the moment things get real?"
"I didn't run away. I went home. There is a difference."
"Is there? Maybe the carriage was turning back into a pumpkin."
"Stop it," Emily said, turning to him. "You're crossing a line."
"I'm your professor. I ask where my student goes when she..."
Bang. A sharp knock on the glass wall cut him off.
Sebastian and Emily turned. Standing outside was Jessica, looking like she'd stepped out of a Vogue cover, sunglasses, trench coat, deadly heels. Holding her hand was Tilly, clutching a teddy bear.
Jessica didn't smile. She pointed at the door lock.
"Open it."
Sebastian paled. The anger drained out of him, replaced by a weary dread. He walked over and swiped his card. The door hissed open.
"Jessica. I told you, I'm in the middle of..."
"Save it," she said, breezing past him. "Brad has a business trip in Bali. We fly in two hours."
She dropped a small duffel bag on Sebastian's desk, right next to his high tech monitors.
"Bali? You can't just leave her here."
Jessica removed her sunglasses. "You're the genius, Seb. Figure it out." She looked around the lab with disdain. "Besides, you have money now. Hire a nanny. Or use one of your students."
She glanced at Emily. She didn't see a threat. She saw a girl in a hoodie.
"You. Keep an eye on her until he hires a professional." She turned back to Sebastian. "Three days. Don't call me unless it's an emergency."
She bent down to Tilly, but didn't hug her. She only straightened the girl's coat.
"Be good, Matilda. Don't annoy your father."
And she was gone, the click clack of her heels fading down the corridor.
Sebastian stood frozen near his desk. He looked at the closed door, then at his daughter. He looked ashamed, not just for his ex wife's behaviour, but for his own helplessness.
Tilly stood in the middle of the room, looking tiny. Her lip trembled. She looked at Sebastian, this angry, stressed man, and tears began to spill.
"Oh god," Sebastian said, rubbing his face. "Tilly, please. Don't cry. Daddy is sorry."
He reached out a hand, but awkwardly, Tilly backed away, hugging the bear tighter.
Emily watched this. The anger from Sebastian's earlier insults simply vanished. She saw the pain instead. She put down her screwdriver.
She walked over, ignoring Sebastian entirely, and knelt down in front of Tilly.
"Hey," she said softly. "That's a serious injury."
Tilly blinked, tears stopping mid fall. "What?"
"Your bear," Emily said, pointing. "His arm is hanging by a thread. That looks painful."
"Mommy said to throw him away," Tilly sniffled.
Emily shot a dark look at the door where Jessica had vanished, then smiled warmly at Tilly.
"Well, lucky for you, I run a secret hospital for bears right here."
She produced a roll of colourful electrical tape from her pocket.
"I have magic tape. Want to see?"
Tilly nodded, entranced. Emily held out her hand. Tilly took it.
Emily looked up at Sebastian. He was staring at her, stunned.
"Finish your work, Professor," she said. "We've got this."
❦
Moments later, Emily stood up, brushing dust from her knees. She looked at the clock on the wall. Twelve oh five in the afternoon.
She looked at Sebastian. He was rubbing his temple, looking like he wanted to dissolve into the floor.
"You're not planning to let her starve, are you?" she said. "It's twelve o'clock."
Sebastian blinked, snapping out of his spiral. He looked at her, genuinely confused.
"Lunch?"
"Children can't photosynthesize, Professor."
Emily rolled her eyes, grabbing her bag from the bench.
"And neither can you, judging by how pale you look."
She looked back at him. It wasn't a request. It was an order.
"Let's go."
Sebastian hesitated. He looked at the mountain of work on his screens. Then he looked at Tilly, holding Emily's hand, waiting for him. He sighed, a sound of defeat and relief in equal measure, and grabbed his jacket.
They walked out. Emily led. Sebastian followed.
❦
Easter break had emptied the university entirely, the usual river of students gone, ancient stone buildings standing silent under a pale, watery spring sun. Sebastian, Emily, and Tilly walked toward the University Centre, Tilly skipping ahead, chasing a pigeon that wanted nothing to do with her.
Sebastian walked stiffly, checking his watch out of pure habit.
"I haven't seen the campus this empty since... well, ever," he said, looking around.
"It's Easter, Professor," Emily said, walking beside him. "Everyone is either in Italy or Cornwall. Only the desperate and the deadline chasing are left behind."
"And which one are we?"
"Definitely the desperate," she said, smirking.
Tilly stopped at a flower bed, crouching down to look at a daffodil. Sebastian stopped too. He didn't rush her. He just watched.
Emily watched him watching her.
❦
The canteen was a vast, echoing hall, hundreds of empty tables, sunlight streaming through the high windows, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. At a corner table, the team was having lunch, a feast of beige: fries, chicken nuggets, and cartons of apple juice.
Sebastian ate a single chip with a plastic fork, looking thoroughly out of his element.
"Mommy says chips make you fat," Tilly said, mouth full of ketchup.
"Mommy is in Bali," Sebastian said dryly. "Her jurisdiction ends at the airport."
Emily stifled a laugh behind her sandwich. She opened her laptop on the table, taking a bite while scrolling through a PDF.
"Are you working?" Tilly asked, pointing at Emily.
"Always, peanut," Emily said, nodding. "I have to write a very long story about robots."
"Is it a fairy tale?"
"Sort of. It's about teaching a robot how to be nice."
Tilly considered this. She pushed a chicken nugget toward Sebastian.
"Like Daddy?"
Sebastian choked on his water. Emily bit her lip, eyes sparkling with mirth.
"Eat your chicken, Matilda," Sebastian said.
Silence settled over the table. But it wasn't the awkward silence of the lab. It was comfortable. The sound of Tilly chewing, Emily typing, the hum of the refrigerator. Sebastian looked at the two of them, something unreadable moving behind his eyes.
❦
Golden hour found the lab quiet again, the kind of productive, heavy silence that usually only exists in libraries. Emily sat on the floor, leaning back against her workbench, laptop balanced on her knees, typing furiously. On screen: CHAPTER THREE: ADAPTIVE EMOTIONAL RESPONSE IN KINETIC SYSTEMS.
Next to her, Tilly lay on her stomach on a spread out coat, drawing with crayons on the back of old schematics. Tilly held up a red crayon. She tapped Emily's knee. Emily didn't look away from her screen. She held out her hand. Tilly placed the crayon in it.
Emily opened a water bottle, took a sip, and handed it to Tilly. Tilly drank, then handed it back. It was a seamless, wordless dance, a rhythm established in just a few hours.
Sebastian sat in his glass walled office, wearing a headset. On screen: a grid of serious faces, the Swiss investors. He was muted, listening to them argue about scalability and burn rates, his expression a mask of professional focus.
Sebastian rubbed his temples. The investors were giving him a headache. He looked up. Through the glass wall, he saw them.
He stopped listening to the meeting entirely. The voices in his headset faded into a dull buzz.
He stared at the scene. He had expected chaos. He had expected crying. He had expected to be unable to work. Instead, he felt... anchored.
He saw Emily pause her typing. She reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind Tilly's ear. Tilly leaned into the touch, still coloring.
For a man who lived in the future, predicting algorithms, market trends, next quarter's profits, he was suddenly, entirely struck by the present.
The investor on the screen waved a hand.
"Mr. Smith? Do you agree with the projection?"
Sebastian blinked. He snapped back to reality. He looked at the screen, then back at Emily and Tilly.
"The projection is conservative," he said into the microphone. "We can do better."
He looked at Emily again.
"Much better."
He typed a command, closing the window on a separate monitor. He sat back, watching Emily type. A smile touched his lips.
❦
The sun had set by the time Sebastian stepped out of his glass office, the lab now lit only by the soft blue glow of server racks and desk lamps. He looked looser, tie gone, top button undone, feeling lighter after the call than he had in weeks. He walked toward the camp on the floor.
"Meeting adjourned," he said softly.
Emily looked up from her screen, smiling.
Suddenly, a whirring sound cut through the peace. Sebastian spun around.
Tilly was standing by the workbench. She had climbed up onto the stool. She was holding her teddy bear out toward the Arm.
"Mr. Fluff is tired," she said. "Hold him, please."
She pressed a button on the console. A green light blinked.
The metal claw descended. Fast. Surgical.
Sebastian's eyes widened. He lunged forward.
"Tilly! No!"
He moved to grab her, terrified the hydraulics would snap and hurt her. But he was too far away.
The metal pincers closed around the bear's neck.
Sebastian flinched, expecting the ripping sound of fabric.
Silence. The arm stopped.
The pincers didn't crush. They held the bear with infinite delicacy. Then, slowly, the arm retracted. It lifted the bear into the air. And then, it rocked it. Back and forth. Gently. Like a cradle.
Sebastian froze mid step. He stared at the machine. The monstrous industrial arm was cradling a stuffed animal like a newborn.
"See, Daddy?" Tilly giggled.
Sebastian looked at the robot, then slowly turned to Emily.
Emily hadn't moved. She leaned back on her hands, watching him with a calm, knowing expression.
"Haptic feedback sensors," she said quietly. "I programmed a soft touch protocol into the kernel."
Sebastian walked over to the robot. He looked at the valve. Then he looked at the code running on the side monitor. It wasn't just code. It was poetry.
"You taught it..." he said, stunned.
"I taught it to feel resistance and stop." She stood up, walking to him. "That's the adaptive emotional response, Professor."
Sebastian looked at her.
"Wow," he whispered.
❦
The lab had gone dim by the time Tilly fell fast asleep on a makeshift bed of coats on the floor, the robot arm still holding her teddy bear, frozen in a protective pose above her.
Sebastian and Emily sat on the floor nearby, backs against the workbench, sharing a packet of biscuits from the vending machine, speaking in hushed tones.
"She usually cries when I have to work late," Sebastian said. "My ex wife always said my stress was contagious."
"Children are just raw data sensors, Professor," Emily said, taking a biscuit. "They pick up on the noise you try to filter out." She gestured to the sleeping girl. "Tonight, the signal was clean. You were calm. So she was calm."
Sebastian looked at Tilly, then at his own hands.
"I didn't feel calm inside the office. I felt like I was drowning in spreadsheets." He turned to Emily. "But then I looked out here. And the noise stopped."
Emily froze mid chew. She felt the weight of his words settle somewhere she wasn't prepared for.
"Well," she said, deflecting slightly. "I'm good at noise cancellation."
Sebastian reached out. He didn't touch her face. He touched the sleeve of her hoodie instead, pulling a loose thread.
"You are the most useful variable in this entire equation."
The distance between them was vanishing. The air had gone thin.
He leaned in. Just a fraction.
Emily held her breath. She didn't pull away.
Beep.
A notification on Emily's laptop screen lit up the dark corner.
The spell broke.
Emily jolted back. Sebastian cleared his throat, pulling his hand away.
"I should get her home," he said, standing up, voice raspy. "And you... you have a deadline. Tuesday!"
"Right. Deadline. Of course," Emily said, scrambling to pack up.
Sebastian scooped sleeping Tilly up into his arms. He looked at Emily one last time.
"Goodnight, Miss Baker."