Daniel watched Sarah pour coffee with the same precise movements she'd been using all week—two sugars, splash of oat milk, three clockwise stirs. The ritual had become too perfect, too consistent. Even the way she handed him the mug felt rehearsed, her fingers brushing his for exactly two seconds before pulling away.
"Thanks," he said, deliberately not smiling.
Her response came a beat too late, as if she'd been waiting for something else. "Of course." The smile that followed seemed calibrated, reaching her eyes just enough to appear genuine.
He'd started noticing it three days ago, after their conversation about free will. The way she'd tilted her head when he spoke about authenticity—not like she was considering his words, but like she was processing them through some invisible filter.
"I was thinking," Daniel said, setting down his mug harder than necessary, "maybe we should take a break today. From each other."
Sarah's hand stilled on her cup. For a fraction of a second, her eyes went vacant—that same look she got when her phone buzzed with work emails. Then animation returned, concern flooding her features.
"Is everything okay? Did I do something—"
"No." He cut her off, watching carefully. "Just feeling suffocated. Need some air."
The word 'suffocated' should have stung. Two weeks ago, it would have. Instead, Sarah nodded with understanding that felt too immediate, too accepting. "Of course. Everyone needs space sometimes. I'll use the time to catch up on some case files."
Wrong. All wrong. The Sarah he knew would have pressed, would have worried, would have at least shown a flicker of hurt. This Sarah simply adapted, like water flowing around an obstacle.
"Actually," Daniel said, reversing course, "forget it. Let's spend the whole day in bed instead."
The transition in her expression was seamless—concern to relief to desire. But he caught it, that microsecond of blankness between emotions. Like a computer switching programs.
"That sounds perfect," she murmured, moving toward him with intent that should have felt spontaneous but instead felt... scheduled.
Her kiss tasted the same as always, but the timing was off. She pulled back at exactly the moment he usually deepened it, anticipated his hand on her waist before he'd decided to move it there. When had their dance become so choreographed?
"Wait," he said, gripping her shoulders gently. "Tell me what you're thinking. Right now. First thing that comes to mind."
Sarah blinked. Once. Twice. "I'm thinking about how much I want you."
"No," Daniel shook his head. "That's what you think you should say. What are you actually thinking?"
For the first time in days, genuine confusion crossed her face. "I... I don't understand what you're asking."
"When did we become so perfect?" The question tumbled out before he could stop it. "When did we stop having awkward moments? Bad timing? When did you start knowing exactly what I need before I do?"
Sarah pulled back, and something shifted in her expression—not the smooth transitions he'd been seeing, but a jagged, human crack in her composure. "You're scaring me, Daniel."
"Am I? Or is that just the appropriate response to this conversation?"
She flinched as if slapped. Real, he thought. That was real.
"I need to use the bathroom," she said quietly, stepping away from him.
Daniel watched her go, then moved toward the kitchen counter where she'd left her phone. The screen was dark, but he'd seen notifications appear without sound before, blue text that vanished too quickly to read. He picked it up, feeling like a violation of trust even as his suspicions demanded answers.
The phone came alive at his touch. No password—when had she removed that? A notification banner appeared at the top:
[Mission Status: Partner Sync Progress – 78%]
Before he could process what he was seeing, the message disappeared. The home screen showed only normal apps, normal wallpaper—a photo of them from two weeks ago, looking impossibly synchronized even then.
"What are you doing?"
Sarah stood in the doorway, her face a careful composition of hurt and concern. But her eyes—her eyes were fixed on the phone in his hands with an intensity that had nothing to do with privacy.
"Your phone buzzed," he lied smoothly. "Thought it might be work."
She crossed the room too quickly, taking the phone with hands that trembled slightly. "It's Saturday. Work can wait."
They stood facing each other, the air between them charged with unspoken accusations. Daniel felt like he was looking at her through frosted glass—the shape was right, but the details were obscured.
"Make love to me," Sarah said suddenly, desperately. "Please. Like before. Like we used to."
But even her desperation felt scripted. When he kissed her, when he carried her to the bedroom, when they moved together in rhythms that had once felt discovered but now felt programmed—all of it rang hollow. Their bodies knew the steps, hit the marks, reached the crescendos at precisely the right moments.
It was perfect. And it was terrifying.
Afterward, they lay in practiced positions—her head on his chest, his fingers in her hair, breathing synchronized without effort. The silence should have been comfortable. Instead, it pressed against Daniel's chest like a weight.
"Sarah," he began.
"Don't." Her voice was small, almost childlike. "Please. Can we just... can we just have this moment?"
But the moment itself felt manufactured. Even her plea for authenticity seemed to come from somewhere else, delivered with timing that was too precise to be spontaneous.
Daniel shifted, propping himself up to look at her directly. Really look at her. Past the familiar features, past the expressions he'd catalogued over months of loving her. He searched for the woman who used to laugh too loud at inappropriate moments, who used to burn toast because she got distracted by her own thoughts, who used to kiss him at awkward angles that somehow felt more real than this practiced perfection.
"Who are you right now?" he asked quietly.
Sarah's eyes filled with tears—real or performed, he couldn't tell anymore. "I'm the woman who loves you."
"No," Daniel said, sitting up fully. "That's what you are. I asked who."
She sat up too, pulling the sheet around herself like armor. For a long moment, she said nothing. Then, so quietly he almost missed it: "I don't know anymore."
The admission hung between them, more honest than anything they'd shared in days. Daniel reached for her hand, and for once, she didn't seem to anticipate the gesture. Their fingers collided awkwardly, naturally, and for a brief second, he glimpsed the Sarah he remembered.
Then her phone buzzed—a sharp, insistent sound that made her whole body tense. She didn't reach for it, but her eyes darted toward the nightstand where it lay.
"Answer it," Daniel said flatly.
"It's nothing important—"
"Answer it, Sarah."
She moved like she was walking through water, every motion reluctant. The phone's screen showed only a normal lock screen, but Daniel saw her swipe through a pattern that opened something else—a interface he'd never seen before, all clean lines and pulsing blue text.
Sarah stared at the screen, her face cycling through emotions too quickly to track. Then she set the phone down with deliberate care and turned to face him.
"You're right," she said, and her voice had lost that practiced quality. It shook, human and afraid. "I am hiding something."
Daniel felt his heart rate spike, but he kept his expression neutral. "I know."
"But it's not..." She paused, seeming to struggle with words for the first time in days. "It's not just emotional. You're right about that too."
He waited, not moving, barely breathing. Sarah wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly looking smaller, more fragile than he'd seen her since their reunion began.
"Something's been... helping us," she said carefully. "Helping me. To be better. To be what you need."
"Helping," Daniel repeated, the word tasting bitter. "Is that what you call it?"
Sarah met his eyes then, and what he saw there made his blood run cold. Not deception. Not guilt. But a kind of desperate hope, as if she needed him to understand, to validate what she'd done.
"I wanted us to work so badly," she whispered. "And it promised we would. That we'd be perfect together."
"What promised, Sarah?"
But before she could answer, her phone erupted in a cascade of notifications—blue text scrolling faster than he could read, filling the screen with urgent messages. Sarah grabbed for it instinctively, and in that motion, Daniel saw the truth: she wasn't choosing the phone over him.
She was programmed to.
He stood abruptly, backing away from the bed. "I think you're hiding something," he said, his voice steady despite the chaos in his chest. "And I think... it's not just emotional."
Sarah looked up at him, phone clutched in her hands like a lifeline, tears streaming down her face. Real tears, he thought. Finally, real tears.
"I know," she whispered. "God help me, Daniel. I know."