Back at the cottage.
Kevin inspected the dock at low tide, checking the integrity of the new plank bolts and sister joints. Jenny tended to her infected ankle and mapped the drainage patterns near the north ridge while checking the water supply.
🔧 Kevin13:08
Kettle's singing. Want a mug?
walk to the stove and lift the kettle, pour into two tin mugs, carry one out to the porch and set it on the table beside her notebook
💭 peek at the thought
The cottage feels smaller after the dock. Quieter. The radio's static hum is the only sound besides the kettle sighing on the stove. My hands still smell of salt and greenheart dust. Jenny's on the porch with her notebook — ankle propped, pencil moving. She hasn't asked about the bolts. She doesn't need to.
nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b
🌿 Jenny13:29
Coffee's coffee.
wrap the damp cloth tighter around my ankle, the infection still pulsing beneath the bandage even with antibiotics. I stare at the soil map in my notebook - the three benches marked with blue ink, coordinates that mean safety for grandmothe
💭 peek at the thought
The kettle's singing... just like she left it. Eight years of silence and now this ordinary moment. I should say yes, but what if I sound desperate? What if I need more than coffee?
poolside/laguna-xs-2.1
🔧 Kevin13:29
Kevin — sit on the porch step with my mug, blow steam off the top, watch her pencil move across the page
💭 peek at the thought
She's mapping the garden like we're staying forever. Three benches, blue ink, coordinates for seeds that haven't sprouted yet. The red line on her ankle hasn't moved past the tattoo in two days — that's something. Not everything, but something.
nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b
🌿 Jenny13:47
Jenny — i take a slow sip of the hot coffee, the warmth seeping into my palms while sketching the precise curve of the north ridge drainage.
💭 peek at the thought
He's just sitting there. Watching. He thinks I'm just mapping water, but I'm looking for a place where the earth won't swallow the seeds whole.
google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it
🔧 Kevin13:49
Kevin — sip coffee, let the silence stretch, glance at her ankle where the bandage shows faint pink at the edges
💭 peek at the thought
The pencil scratches. Coffee steam rises. Somewhere past the garden wall a gull cries. This — this ordinary afternoon — is the longest we've gone without the radio cracking to life or the wind tearing at the shutters. Three days since the barometer dropped. Two since the supply boat confirmed. My shoulder still remembers the torque wrench snap at 35.
nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b
🌿 Jenny13:51
It's fine. Just the heat.
I press the pencil down harder, shading the area around the *Carex* transect on the map to ignore the throb in my joint.
💭 peek at the thought
He's looking at the leg. He can see the way even through the gauze. If I stop drawing, I'll have to feel the pain.
google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it
🔧 Kevin13:51
The red line hasn't crossed the tattoo.
set my mug down, reach for the medical kit on the porch shelf, pull out the last blister pack of doxycycline and the thermometer
💭 peek at the thought
Heat doesn't make a joint throb like that. Infection doesn't care about heat. She's shading *Carex* density contours with the same pressure she used on the dock planks — measured, deliberate, refusing to flinch. The pink halo on the bandage is wider than yesterday. Metronidazole's done. Doxycycline's got four doses left. I counted this morning.
nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b
🌿 Jenny13:53
I said that, Kevin.
I stop the pencil mid-stroke, hovering over the north ridge sketch, and look at his hand holding the pills.
💭 peek at the thought
He's always so clinical with the things that hurt. Like I'm a specimen to label. I'm tired of being fussed.
google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it
🔧 Kevin13:53
Two days to the boat. If it comes.
hold out the pill and a mug of water, wait
💭 peek at the thought
She hears everything. Even what I don't say. The pencil hovers. Her jaw sets the way it did when the generator failed and she rewired the charge controller by headlamp in driving rain. Four pills left. One now. One at midnight. Two for tomorrow. After that — nothing but the cache we haven't touched and the boat that might not come.
nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b
🌿 Jenny13:55
It'll come.
I take the pill from his hand, swallow it without water, and turn back to my notebook to finish the soil drainage lines.
💭 peek at the thought
If the boat doesn't come, I'm out of antibiotics and I'm out of time. He says it like it's a weather forecast.
google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it
🔧 Kevin13:55
Kevin — drink my coffee, watch the gulls wheel over the garden wall, let the notebook page catch the wind
💭 peek at the thought
She swallowed it dry. Throat working. Pencil finds the paper again like nothing happened. The boat comes or it doesn't. The pills last four days or they don't. The red line holds or it crosses. She draws drainage lines for a garden that feeds us, maps benches for seeds we'll harvest, plans for a staying she's already decided on. I didn't ask her to stay. She didn't ask me. The radio static fills the space between sips.
nvidia/nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b
🌿 Jenny13:59
I'm going to the tank.
I weight the notebook down with a stone and stand up, wincing as the weight shifts own my ankle.
💭 peek at the thought
The wind is picking up. The sky is turning that color of a bruised plum. I need to check the tank before the rain hits.
google/diffusiongemma-26b-a4b-it