The Journalist and the Guardian

“The truth’s never polite—it kicks the door in and asks who you really are.” — Noah Bales

Kelly's flat was a collision of warmth and clutter, the kind of space that felt lived in, rather than curated. Shelves sagged under the weight of books, some wedged in haphazardly, others stacked horizontally in defiance of space. Small wooden figurines—birds, foxes, mythical creatures—perched on windowsills and along the tops of cupboards, their edges worn smooth by absent-minded handling. Dried herbs—sage, rosemary, lavender—hung from hooks near the kitchen, their scent mingling with the faint but lingering aroma of old coffee and candle wax.

It was cosy in the way that suggested organised chaos, a place where objects held stories, where a book left open on the arm of a chair could stay there for days without being disturbed. The soft amber glow from mismatched lamps cast gentle pools of light across the room, holding the darkness at bay.

Nathan barely glanced at any of it.

His focus was already locked onto Noah.

Noah was at the small kitchen table, hunched over his laptop, typing furiously with one hand while scribbling notes in the margins of a battered, overstuffed notebook with the other. The scene had the distinct air of a man in the middle of an intense thought, his movements quick, almost irritated, as if his brain was running three steps ahead of his ability to get the words down. Coffee rings stained the pages of his notebook, overlapping like ancient tree rings—a timeline of late nights and deadlines.

At the sound of the door opening, he looked up—and immediately stilled.

His eyes flickered from Kelly to Rhona to Nathan, narrowing in instant suspicion. The sudden shift in his posture was subtle but unmistakable—a coiling of energy, like an animal sensing a predator.

Nathan had seen that look before. It was the assessing stare of someone used to sniffing out bullshit, the kind of person who made a living questioning what people told him and deciding what to believe.

It was the look of a journalist who had long since learned that the most dangerous people never looked dangerous at all.

Noah's gaze moved over Nathan in a quick but thorough sweep, cataloguing details. The jacket, worn at the elbows and collar—not for fashion but for function. The way he carried himself—not just standing, but balanced, the kind of stance that suggested he was always ready for something to go wrong. The sharpness of his gaze, the absence of unnecessary movement. The almost imperceptible bulge at his ankle that suggested a concealed weapon.

Noah's fingers stilled on his keyboard. The soft tap-tap-tap that had filled the room seconds before vanished, leaving only the hum of the refrigerator and the distant sound of traffic on Marchmont Road.

"Alright…" His voice carried the weight of someone used to cutting through noise—blunt, measured, and not particularly interested in pleasantries. The American accent, flat and distinctly Southwestern, gave the single word an edge of dry impatience. "Who the hell are you?"

Nathan exhaled through his nose, already irritated. The sound was barely audible, but in the tense silence of the flat, it might as well have been a gunshot. Patience had never been his strong suit, and what little he possessed had been worn paper-thin over the past several hours.

"Good question," he said flatly. The careful neutrality of his tone belied the storm brewing beneath.

Kelly, sensing the immediate shift in tension, stepped in before either of them could make it worse. She moved forward, positioning herself not quite between them but close enough to intervene if needed. Her hands fluttered nervously at her sides, fingers twisting around the silver rings she wore.

"Noah, this is Nathan. He needs to talk to you about Luke."

The second the name left her lips, the entire energy of the room changed.

It was like watching a lightning strike—a flash of recognition followed immediately by the thunder of reaction. The temperature seemed to drop several degrees, the cosy flat suddenly feeling far too small, too confined.

Noah's jaw tensed, fingers curling slightly against the edge of the table. A muscle jumped in his cheek, a tell he'd never managed to control. His eyes flicked between them again, and just for a fraction of a second—just long enough for someone as sharp as Nathan to catch it—his face gave something away.

Recognition.

Not just of Luke's name, but of the danger in the fact that they were here asking about him. It was the look of a man who had been dreading a knock at the door, who knew that secrets had a way of unravelling at the most inconvenient times.

Nathan saw it. And so did Kelly. Her breath caught almost imperceptibly.

And just like that, the real conversation had already begun—whether Noah was ready for it or not.

Noah's entire body tensed. It wasn't just a flicker of recognition—it was immediate, instinctive, defensive. The kind of reaction that bypassed conscious thought entirely, that revealed more in a millisecond than hours of questioning ever could.

His jaw tightened, his fingers hovering over his keyboard for a beat longer than necessary before, deliberately, he reached forward and closed his laptop with a quiet but firm click. The sound was final, like the closing of a door—a physical manifestation of his mental shutters coming down.

Then, arms folding across his chest, he leaned back in his chair, his posture controlled but closed-off. Guarded. The wooden chair creaked beneath him, the sound unnaturally loud in the tense silence.

"I don't know where he is," he said flatly. The lie rolled off his tongue with the ease of someone who dealt in half-truths professionally, but there was an undercurrent of strain in his voice that belied his calm exterior.

Nathan didn't so much as blink.

His eyes—the pale, washed-out blue of a winter sky—remained fixed on Noah's face, unreadable and unrelenting. Behind that impassive mask, his mind was cataloguing, assessing, pulling apart the threads of Noah's reaction with clinical precision.

He had spent years watching people lie. Some were good at it, most weren't. Noah wasn't necessarily bad, but he was making a crucial mistake—he was too still. No shifting weight, no forced casualness, just straight to a tight-jawed denial. It was the stillness of someone trying too hard not to give themselves away, forgetting that normal conversation involved movement, fluidity, the natural ebb and flow of human interaction.

Nathan had seen this before.

A man who didn't want to admit he knew something, but who definitely knew something. It was almost disappointing how predictable people could be when cornered—like actors following a well-worn script.

His expression didn't change, but his voice took on an unmistakable edge of cold certainty. The kind that didn't need to be raised to be heard, to be felt.

"That's interesting," he said, tilting his head slightly. The movement was minimal but deliberate—a predator sizing up its prey. "Because I have it on good authority that he's been sitting across from you in a particular café for months."

Kelly shifted her weight from one foot to the other, the floorboard beneath her creaking in protest. Somewhere in the flat, a pipe groaned—the old building settling around them, oblivious to the human drama unfolding within its walls.

Noah exhaled sharply, his nostrils flaring as he turned his glare onto Kelly. The betrayal in his eyes was unmistakable—a flash of hurt quickly buried under anger.

"Jesus, Kelly, you've really got to stop talking so much." The words came sharp and dry, each one clipped with the kind of irritation that suggested this wasn’t the first time she’d said too much. His Arizona drawl hardened with frustration, but it was the flicker of panic—quick, tightly reined in—that caught Nathan’s attention.

Kelly threw up her hands. "Oh, come on! I didn’t know he was a fugitive Guardian, did I?" Her tone was defensive, her indignation real—but there was guilt there, too, buried just deep enough to notice. Not for dragging Nathan into it. For realising too late what Noah had been keeping quiet.

Nathan clocked the phrasing. Fugitive Guardian.

He turned to Noah.

No denial. No confusion. Just a tight jaw, and the faintest shift in posture—as if bracing for something.

So Noah did know what Luke was.

That made things simpler.

And much more interesting.

The information slotted into place in Nathan's mind, another piece of the puzzle falling into alignment. His pulse remained steady, his breathing unchanged, but there was a quickening of something inside him—the sharp focus of a hunt nearing its conclusion.

Noah's shoulders were still stiff with tension, his fingers tightening where they rested against his biceps. He was fighting to regain control of the conversation, to shore up the defences that had been so unexpectedly breached.

"I don't know what he's told you," he said, voice even but clipped, like each word was carefully measured before being released, "but I'm not dragging him into whatever this is." Behind the defiance was a thread of genuine concern—not just for himself, but for Luke. The loyalty of a man protecting a friend, or perhaps something more.

Nathan took a slow, measured step forward. His boot made no sound on the worn floorboards—the movement of someone who knew how to enter a room without being heard, how to cross a space without announcing his presence.

Noah didn't move, but his eyes flicked upwards, tracking the slight but deliberate shift in proximity. Something in his expression hardened, a silent acknowledgment of the power play.

Nathan wasn't looming. He wasn't threatening. He didn't need to be.

There was a weight to his presence that filled the space between them, an unspoken promise of what could happen if this continued to go poorly. The calm before a storm that nobody wanted to see break.

When he spoke, his voice dropped just slightly, the quiet weight of it far more effective than volume. "That's not your call."

A muscle in Noah's jaw twitched. The tick-tock of the mantelpiece clock seemed to grow louder in the silence that followed, each second punctuated by the soft mechanical click.

Then, he scoffed, shifting in his seat, his arms still firmly crossed. It was a gesture of forced nonchalance, undermined by the tension radiating from every line of his body.

"Yeah? And who the hell do you think you are?" The question hung in the air between them, half challenge, half genuine demand.

Nathan's lips twitched, not quite a smirk, not quite anything at all. It was the ghost of an expression, there and gone so quickly it might have been imagined. His eyes, however, remained cold and focused, like chips of ice.

He leaned in just slightly, his head tilting in a way that was entirely calculated, measured, unbothered. "The man who is going to make you contact Luke."

The room hung on the weight of that sentence, the tension sharpening like a wire pulled too tight.

Noah's fingers curled slightly against his forearm, but he didn't break eye contact. There was something almost admirable in his defiance—a stubbornness that spoke of principles rather than mere obstinacy.

Whatever was coming next—neither of them were backing down.

The silence between Nathan and Noah stretched taut and unyielding, thick with unspoken challenges. The room was too small for this much tension, every breath measured, every movement calculated.

Noah didn't flinch under Nathan's stare, but there was something in the tight set of his jaw, the way his fingers tapped against his forearm, that gave him away. A hairline crack in the façade. He was holding firm—but only just. Like a dam with pressure building behind it, the question wasn't if it would break, but when.

Finally, he exhaled sharply, unfolding his arms just long enough to shove his chair back and stand, forcing a bit of distance between them. The legs of the chair scraped against the wooden floor, the sound harsh and jarring. Not backing down, but repositioning. A tactical retreat rather than a surrender.

"Look," Noah said, his voice tightening, each word clipped with the kind of dry finality that came from growing up in a place where shade was currency, "Luke’s my guy. I'm not throwing him under the bus just because some rando rolls in barking orders." There was conviction now—rooted, sunbaked, immovable—the protective instinct of someone who'd learned loyalty under a desert sky and wasn’t about to crack under pressure.

Nathan's eyelid twitched.

It was the barest flicker of reaction, gone almost before it registered, but it spoke volumes. The first ripple on the surface of a deep, still pond—a warning sign of the currents moving beneath.

Kelly let out a groan, scrubbing a hand over her face. The sound was part frustration, part resignation, the noise of someone watching a disaster unfold in slow motion.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

She could feel Nathan's patience unravelling at an alarming speed. Having known him for less than a year, even she could read the warning signs—the slight tightening around his eyes, the almost imperceptible shift in his stance. Like watching the second hand on a bomb timer steadily approaching zero.

"Noah," she interjected quickly, stepping forward, hands raised in a placating gesture. Her silver rings caught the light, momentarily distracting. "He's not trying to expose whatever you and Luke have been working on."

Her voice carried the weight of sincerity, but also a hint of desperation—a woman trying to defuse a situation rapidly spiralling beyond her control. In the back of her mind, a voice whispered that she had made a terrible mistake bringing Nathan here, that some doors were better left unopened.

Noah scoffed, running a hand through his already-messy hair. The movement was agitated, betraying the nervous energy he was trying to contain. Dark circles under his eyes spoke of too many late nights, too much coffee, too little rest—a man running on fumes and determination.

"Yeah?" he shot back, the word sharp-edged and challenging. His gaze flicked between them, assessing, calculating. "Then why's he so desperate to find him?"

The question hung in the air, reasonable and pointed. The journalist in him pushing back, demanding answers before giving anything away.

Nathan exhaled slowly, the kind of breath that suggested he was calculating exactly how much force was required to put someone through a wall. His patience—never his most abundant quality—was wearing dangerously thin. The room seemed to contract around them, the walls pressing inward, amplifying the tension.

For the first time, Kelly saw it—properly saw it.

Nathan wasn't just frustrated. He was running out of time.

It was in the tight line of his shoulders, the barely perceptible tremor in his right hand before he clenched it into a fist. The haunted look that occasionally flickered behind his eyes when he thought no one was watching. This wasn't the measured pursuit of a professional—it was the desperate chase of a man with everything at stake.

Whatever this was—whatever Luke had that Nathan needed—it wasn't just some Guardian errand. It was urgent. It was critical.

And Noah, stubborn as ever, had no idea what he was standing in the way of. He was playing chess while Nathan was fighting for his life—two different games with vastly different stakes.

The real question wasn't why Nathan needed Luke.

It was—how far was he willing to go to get to him?

Noah stood his ground, arms folded tight across his chest, jaw set like concrete baked under a desert sun. His posture screamed defiance, but Nathan wasn’t buying it. There was a flicker there—a subtle shift in his eyes, like someone checking the exits without moving their feet. Not fear, not quite. Just calculation. A man who knew how the game worked, but wasn’t used to playing from the back foot.

Nathan let the silence thicken, counting the beats.

Three. Four. Five.

Let the quiet do the cutting.

Then, finally—"Alright," he said softly, tilting his head just enough to signal a shift.

"Let’s try another angle."

His voice was still low. Measured.

The kind of voice people didn’t interrupt. The kind that suggested a man who always got what he wanted—eventually.

He took a step forward. Not threatening, just… closer.

"How about this—if you don’t contact Luke, I’ll assume Kelly was right about the two of you."

A pause, perfectly timed.

"And I’ll make things not just awkward—I’ll make them biblical."

The silence after that wasn’t just stunned—it was seismic.

Even the hum of the fridge seemed to duck for cover.

Noah choked. "Are you kidding me?" His voice cracked halfway through the sentence, the flush climbing his neck in full Arizona bloom. "Man, what kind of cowboy bullshit is that?"

Kelly groaned loud enough to echo off the walls. "Oh, Jesus. Please don’t."

Her hands went straight to her face, scrubbing it like she could exfoliate the conversation out of existence. "I cannot deal with this brand of testosterone today."

Rhona, meanwhile, was grinning like someone had handed her front-row tickets to an open-mic disaster. She leaned one shoulder against the doorframe, arms crossed, eyes sparkling with inappropriate joy.

"Now this is the kind of HR violation I live for."

Her Kiwi accent clung to every word like damp fog on cobblestones.

She gestured loosely, mock-inviting. "Please. Do continue. Let’s ruin more friendships while we’re at it."

Nathan didn’t flinch. The chaos swirled around him like a weather system he had already forecasted. He shifted his weight—one heel to the other—and said, perfectly calm:

"I don’t care who he’s sleeping with. I care that I need to talk to him."

Then, with the faintest hint of a smirk—"But if I have to engineer a social implosion to make that happen…"

He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to.

The threat wasn’t just implied—it was refined. Like a pressure point only he knew how to press.

Noah looked like he might combust. His jaw flexed, hands clenching at his sides, his mouth moving in a way that suggested at least five different retorts had been drafted and rejected mid-flight.

"You're an absolute menace, you know that?" he muttered finally, his voice low and tight, like it was being forced through gritted teeth.

Nathan gave a small, infuriating shrug.

"Efficient, though."

Kelly, still massaging her temples, let out a weary sigh.

"Nathan."

Her voice carried the weight of accumulated frustration—equal parts warning, disbelief, and weary resignation. It wasn’t even clear if she was scolding him or just the cursed absurdity of the entire situation.

Nathan, of course, was utterly unfazed.

"Yes?"

The single word was delivered with the polite curiosity of a man who had definitely heard her tone, and was choosing to ignore it anyway.

Kelly dropped her hands, fixing him with a look.

"There has to be a less painful way of doing this."

Nathan offered the barest shrug.

"Perhaps. But not one that works this fast."

The pragmatism in his voice was flat and unapologetic—the voice of someone for whom efficiency had always outweighed etiquette.

Across the room, Noah was still staring at him like he was trying to rewrite reality with sheer indignation.

He looked like a man who had prepared to debate policy and expose corruption—not fend off emotional blackmail from a barista-turned-spy. Words failed him, and for a journalist, that was a rare, humiliating defeat.

And now—Nathan had the upper hand.

The mood in the flat shifted with the subtle momentum of a tide turning.

The tension didn’t dissipate—it just morphed into something else. Less hostile. More… inevitable.

Noah’s glare darted toward Rhona—who was still leaning in the doorway, beaming like this was the best live theatre she'd seen all week. She offered a lazy wave, utterly unrepentant.

"Love this for you," she whispered, her accent stretching the vowels just enough to add insult to injury.

Then his eyes flicked to Kelly.

Arms crossed. Brows drawn. Exhausted in that uniquely Arizona way that said, I’ve already had enough of today and it’s not even over yet.

His shoulders dipped, just slightly.

The posture of someone realising he could keep fighting this, but it would cost more than it was worth.

He exhaled hard through his nose and raked a hand through his hair, making it stick up in wild angles.

"…Fine."

The word was low. Ground out. Like it had sharp corners on the way up his throat.

"But I’m not just calling him up like he’s a bloody Uber."

Nathan nodded, the ghost of a smirk twitching at the edge of his mouth.

"Didn’t expect you to."

He said it with the finality of a chess player removing a piece from the board. The win wasn’t gloating—it was procedural.

Noah’s lips thinned. His fingers twitched against his sleeve—conflicted, then resigned—before he finally pulled out his phone.

The device felt heavier than it should have. Like it knew what came next.

"I’ll send him a message."

The words were muttered, directed at no one in particular. He didn’t look up. "If he responds… I’ll let you know where and when."

Nathan gave a short nod.

"Good. Sooner’s better."

Noah shot him one last look—half frustration, half reluctant respect—before his attention dropped to the phone.

His thumbs moved quickly. Message typed. Sent.

Rhona, still leaning in the doorway, muttered under her breath, "Hope you’ve got a seating chart for that level of drama."

And just like that—the wheels were in motion.

Luke Smith was about to be found. And none of them were ready for what would happen next.