Miles Lindgren's Arc

Chapter 12 of 13

By the time they got back to Frost Inn, the last of the daylight had disappeared behind the trees. The drive back had been quiet, not because there was nothing to say, but because neither of them seemed to know where to start after everything that had happened at the ranger station. Chase unlocked the door and set the camera bag beside the desk while Miles carried in the tripod. They moved around each other without thinking, setting everything down where it belonged, pulling the memory cards from the equipment before either of them sat down. The work still came easily. Miles opened the laptop and connected the hard drive while Chase started transferring footage. A few minutes later, Chase set a coffee beside him before taking the chair across from the desk. Miles glanced at it, then back at the screen. "Thanks." "Yeah." That was all. For the next hour, they worked through the footage. Miles sorted clips and built the timeline while Chase cleaned up audio, marking sections that needed adjustments before sending them back. They didn't have to explain much. They had done this too many times. The strange part was how normal it still felt. Until it didn't. Miles scrubbed through the footage from town hall, stopping when Casey appeared on the screen. Neither of them said anything. He watched himself recognize her, watched the brief moment where they'd both seemed caught off guard, then watched the conversation change. *"Where the hell were you, Miles?"* His hand stopped on the mouse. For a few seconds he let the footage keep playing before pausing it. The room stayed quiet, Miles staring at the frozen frame. "She really hates me." Chase looked over at him. "Miles." "I know." He rubbed a hand over his face. "I know she's angry. I know why she's angry." Chase didn't answer. Miles glanced at him, almost expecting the usual response, the one where Chase would remind him he'd been eighteen, that he'd lost Dani too, that leaving Cutter's Bend didn't mean he'd stopped caring. But Chase just looked back at the screen. Miles turned back to the laptop. "She was there for everything." His voice had gone quieter. "Everyone stayed. Everyone dealt with it. And I left." Chase shifted slightly in his chair but didn't interrupt. Miles pressed play again, and they watched the rest of the interview without speaking. When Chase appeared on screen, stepping in between him and Casey, Miles found himself paying attention to him instead of Casey. He hadn't noticed it at the time, the way Chase hadn't raised his voice, hadn't tried to win the argument, had just stepped in when Miles stopped being able to handle it. Miles looked away from the screen. He trimmed the footage later, keeping the confrontation but cutting the parts that didn't add anything to the episode. "The rest stays," he said. Chase looked at the timeline. "Okay." Miles waited a second. A few months ago, that wouldn't have been the end of it. Chase would have explained why he thought it was the right choice, or why Miles was being too hard on himself. This time he just let the decision stand. Miles turned back to the edit. The room was quiet again, but this time neither of them tried to fill it. The rest of the edit went faster after that. They finished cleaning up the audio from Dale's interview, adjusted the footage from David's interview at the ranger station, and worked through the timeline until the episode finally started to feel like a complete story instead of a collection of pieces. Miles watched the playback again, adjusting the order of the clips. "The transition here feels off." Chase looked over from the other side of the desk. "Where?" "Between Dale giving us the citation and going back to David." Miles moved the cursor back a few seconds. "It jumps too quickly." Chase leaned closer to look at the timeline. "Put the explanation from Dale first. Let people understand what we found before we show them why it matters." Miles nodded and moved the clips around. That part had always been easy. The work. The editing. Knowing what the other person meant without needing a full explanation. A few minutes later, Miles stopped again. "The audio on Dale's interview is still off." Chase stood and came around behind him. "Let me see." Miles shifted slightly as Chase leaned over the back of the chair and reached around him for the wireless mouse. The familiarity of it caught him off guard. "This section is peaking," Chase said, focused on the screen. "The background noise is swallowing your question." "Can you fix it?" "Yeah." Chase adjusted the levels, scrolling through the audio track while Miles watched. "There." Miles replayed the clip. The difference was immediate. "Better." Chase stepped back. "Good." Neither of them mentioned the moment. By the time they finished the final edits, it was fully dark outside. Miles leaned back in the chair, rubbing at his eyes while Chase opened the upload page. The title sat at the top of the screen. *The Danielle Sorbo Investigation: New Witnesses, Old Records, and a Lead That Doesn't Add Up* Miles read the title twice, thumb hovering over the trackpad without clicking anything. He hadn't planned for this case to ever go back on the channel, not after the teaser two years ago. He glanced at Chase, then back at the screen, closed the description box, and opened it again to check the wording a second time. Outside, the last of the daylight had gone fully dark against the window. He read the title a third time before he finally let his hand move away from the mouse. "Looks good," Miles said. Chase nodded and finished filling in the description. This was the first real update they'd given their audience since the case reopened. When everything was ready, Chase looked over. "Ready?" Miles nodded. "Yeah." Chase clicked publish. For a few seconds they watched the screen. The view count stayed at zero. Then it moved. One. Three. Seven. Miles let out a quiet laugh. "I always forget how strange this part is." Chase glanced over. "What?" "Watching people find it." A small smile crossed Chase's face. "Remember when we celebrated fifty subscribers?" Miles smiled. "With gas station cupcakes." "They were terrible." "They were stale." "You still ate two." "They were cupcakes." Miles shrugged. Chase laughed, and Miles looked over before he could help it, smiling in response. Something in his chest jumped at the sound. He hadn't realized how long it had been since Chase laughed because of something he'd said. The comments started coming in faster as the evening went on. People were recognizing Cutter's Bend, remembering the teaser, asking questions they'd been waiting two years to ask. Most of them were focused on David. Why hadn't he mentioned the citation? Why did he seem so surprised when they brought up the ice-cutting operation? A few people were already speculating that the car seen near the tree line that week might have belonged to him. Miles scrolled through them while Chase added notes beside him. "People are already suspicious of him," Chase said. Miles looked over. "Can't blame them." "No." Chase clicked back to their timeline, and for a while they worked without talking. The silence wasn't uncomfortable. It was familiar. That was the problem. They still knew how to do this. Five years of working together didn't disappear because they'd stopped being together. They still knew how the other person thought, how to divide the work, how to build an episode without needing to explain every decision. It was the one thing that had never really broken. Eventually, Chase closed the laptop with a deep breath. "Miles." Something about his voice made him look up. "What?" Chase was quiet for a moment. "I think we need to talk about what happens after this." Miles frowned slightly. "After the case?" "Yeah." He waited. "We figure out the next one." Chase looked down. "I don't think I'm going to." Miles stared at him. "What?" "Take the next case." The words didn't make sense at first. "You mean you want to take a break?" Chase shook his head. "No." A cold feeling settled in Miles's chest. "Chase." "It's time, Miles. We need to figure out what we're doing." "Why does it sound like you're leaving?" Chase was quiet. Because he was, not in the way Miles had imagined, not storming out, not walking away in the middle of a fight. Just making a decision. "I think after Cutter's Bend, we need to figure out what the channel looks like without us doing everything together." Miles looked at him. "Without us?" Chase met his eyes. "I think I need to step away." The room felt suddenly too quiet. "You've thought about this." "Yes." The honesty caught him off guard. "How long?" Chase looked down at his coffee. "A while." Miles swallowed. "And you didn't tell me?" "I didn't know how." That answer hurt more than he expected. "Why?" Chase was quiet for a moment. "Because every time we talk about anything between us, it turns into a fight." Miles opened his mouth. Chase shook his head slightly. "I'm not saying that to blame you. I'm saying I didn't know how to bring this up without it becoming another argument about what happened two years ago." Miles looked away, because he knew he couldn't argue with that. "We're good at this," he said quietly. Chase looked at him. "I know." "Then why isn't that enough?" Chase's expression changed slightly. Not anger. Not frustration. Just sadness. “Because we’re good at the job. We stopped being good at us a long time ago.” Miles went still. The words landed because they were true. For two years, he had told himself they were okay because they could still work together, because Chase was still there, because they'd found a way to exist after the breakup. He had never stopped to think that maybe Chase was only staying because walking away was complicated. The channel was their job. Their income. Their entire routine. Leaving wasn't as simple as ending a relationship. "We'll figure out the practical stuff," Chase said. "The channel. The cases. Everything." Miles looked at him. "You already have a plan." Chase hesitated. "I've had time to think about it." That was the part Miles couldn't get past. Not that Chase wanted space. That Chase had gotten far enough to imagine his life without Miles in it. "We don't have to solve it tonight," Chase said. Miles nodded because he didn't know what else to say. "Okay." Chase stood and gathered the notes from the desk. "I'm going to shower." "Okay." Chase paused at the bathroom door. For a second Miles thought he might say something else. He didn't. The door closed. Miles sat there a while after the door closed, the laptop still open beside him, comments blinking in one after another. *You two are the whole reason I still believe in love.* *The way Chase stepped in for him gave me chills.* *So lucky to get to work with the person you love every day.* He read them twice, then closed the laptop, and sat in the dark feeling like he'd just lost something he hadn't even realized he still had.