Chapter 52 The Interview at the Terminal
His shoulders were broad, his collarbone slightly hard against her cheek. He carried a faint, incredibly comforting scent of crisp winter air and a trace of tobacco.
The high-altitude sunlight streamed through the airplane window, bathing them in a gentle, almost dazzling warmth.
Chloe smiled softly, turning her head and burying her face completely into the crook of Nathan's neck to escape the bright glare.
Nathan remained completely still and gentle throughout the flight, allowing her to shift and adjust herself against his chest. Occasionally, he would subconsciously tighten his arm around her waist, drawing her flush against his side.
"When we get back to Chicago... can I finally move in with you?" Chloe asked, her voice a soft, muffled hum against his skin.
Nathan hesitated for a fraction of a second.
"Of course," he replied, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly octave. He lowered his eyes, his large hand enveloping hers, gently twirling her fingers between his own. His tone brimmed with an absolute, terrifying intimacy. "It's your home, too, Chloe."
Chloe smiled against his neck, turning her head to press a soft, lingering kiss against his jawline. She nestled back against his shoulder. "How are we going to tell Mason? He hates me."
"I'll handle Mason," Nathan promised, his grip on her hand tightening with absolute, unwavering authority. "Don't worry about him."
"Okay." Hearing the ironclad reassurance in his voice filled Chloe with a profound, anchoring sense of security.
The absolute second the plane rolled to a stop at the O'Hare terminal, Nathan guided her through the crowded jet bridge.
But as they stepped through the arrivals gate, two men suddenly broke through the crowd, aggressively flanking them. One man hoisted a heavy DSLR camera, the other shoved a digital recording device directly toward Chloe’s face.
"Excuse me! Are you Ms. Frost? We're from the Chicago Chronicle. We'd like a few minutes of your time!" the reporter demanded, flashing a laminated press credential.
Chloe violently flinched backward, startled. "What? Why? I'm not a public figure."
"We received an anonymous tip that you are one of the passengers who miraculously woke up from the twenty-three-year coma anomaly," the reporter pressed eagerly. "We’re doing an exclusive feature. How have you adapted to the modern world? And who is this older gentleman accompanying you?"
Chloe narrowed her eyes, raising her hand to shield her face from the photographer, Wade Grant. "Stop taking my picture. The flash is hurting my eyes. I don't want to be interviewed, and I absolutely do not want to be in the news."
"I’m sorry, she is not giving statements," Nathan said, his voice dropping to a lethal, freezing register. He stepped directly in front of Chloe, his large hand shooting out to lock like a steel vice around the photographer's wrist, forcefully pushing the camera down. "If you don't want my legal team to bankrupt your publication by tomorrow morning, you will delete those photos right now."
"Whoa, sir, don't get physical! We're just doing our jobs," the reporter, Hubert Diaz, immediately began playing the victim, backing up a step. "Just half an hour! If you give us an exclusive interview, we can arrange significant financial compensation!"
Nathan wasn't having a single second of it. "We just got off a flight, and she is exhausted. If you genuinely want a statement, contact my university assistant to schedule a supervised time. Back off."
With that, he firmly gripped Chloe’s waist, shielding her with his massive frame as he shoved past the men toward the exit.
Hubert scrambled after them, shouting over the noise of the terminal. "Ms. Frost, did you even know?! Out of the nineteen people who woke up with you on that train... two of them have already committed suicide!"
Chloe stopped dead in her tracks. Her blood ran freezing cold. "What did you just say?" she whispered, turning around.
Hubert smiled, a sly, triumphant gleam in his eyes. "You didn't know? Give me half an hour on the record, and I'll give you all the details."
Chloe looked up at Nathan, her eyes wide with shock. Nathan’s jaw tightened in fury, but seeing her desperate expression, he gave a curt, reluctant nod.
Fifteen minutes later, the four of them were sitting in a quiet, secluded corner of an airport café.
Chloe sat rigidly across from Hubert, while the photographer set up his camera on a tripod.
Nathan stood behind the camera, his arms crossed over his chest, his gaze dark and lethal. He stared through the digital viewfinder. A large potted fern beside the table completely obscured Chloe's face, leaving only her silhouette visible in the frame.
"Is this framing acceptable?" Wade asked nervously, intimidated by the man standing behind him.
"Can you blur the focus more?" Nathan demanded.
"It's already a heavy bokeh effect. Any more blur and the shot will be completely unwatchable," Wade replied hesitantly. "I promise, she is entirely unrecognizable this way."
Nathan stared at the screen for a long moment before giving a sharp nod. "Alright. Start."
Hubert clicked his audio recorder on. "It's been a month since you woke up in the present day. How have you been coping? Has it been difficult adjusting to such an earth-shattering reality?"
"Yes. It has been incredibly hard," Chloe said softly, her hands tightly clasped in her lap.
"What has been the absolute hardest part for you?"
"Waking up to find my parents in the ground," Chloe whispered, her voice cracking. "Being completely displaced. Not being able to eat my mother's cooking, or hear her complain. Realizing that the entire world had moved on without me, and there wasn't a single familiar building left to go home to."
"How did you manage to survive the psychological shock?" Hubert pressed.
Chloe swallowed hard. She slowly turned her head, looking past the camera directly into Nathan's dark eyes.
"Because my husband is still here," she said, her voice steadying with a profound, absolute devotion. "He is the only reason I survived. He maintained our home. He took care of my dying parents when I couldn't. He handled every single tragedy I abandoned him to face alone. Because he waited for me... I feel a little less terrified of the future."
Hubert seemed genuinely moved. He clicked off his recorder, the cynical journalist persona slipping slightly.
"You are incredibly fortunate, Ms. Frost," Hubert remarked grimly, packing up his notepad. "Of the nineteen passengers who woke up in that hospital, two have already taken their own lives. They couldn't mentally bear the loss of their spouses and children who had moved on. Even the families who were still alive completely refused to acknowledge them, treating them like freaks or imposters."
Hubert sighed heavily. "Others had no family left to find at all. You are literally the only survivor we've tracked down so far who seems to have a stable, functioning support system."
Hearing this, Chloe clenched her fists, a sickening wave of horror and survivor's guilt violently crashing against her ribs.
She couldn't recall the names or faces of the strangers on that fateful train. Yet the news of their deaths burned her throat like battery acid.
She deeply understood their despair. The crushing weight of this alien world was a monstrous, suffocating beast. Some people were lucky enough to have a Nathan Archer to pull them out of the jaws.
Others, entirely alone, were instantly devoured.
Chloe lifted her head, her panicked gaze locking onto Nathan. She reached out her hand, a desperate, silent plea for grounding.
Nathan immediately stepped out from behind the camera. He crossed the space in two strides, his large hand locking around hers, hauling her up from the chair and pulling her flush against his chest. His absolute, silent strength instantly smothered her panic.
Hubert zipped up his bag, watching them. After a moment's hesitation, he added, "You two need to be careful, though. Besides the two suicides... I heard from a police contact that another survivor has completely vanished."
"Who?" Chloe gasped, her eyes widening against Nathan's coat.
"The train conductor," Hubert frowned. "His new coworkers at a construction site said he just stopped showing up last week. His phone is dead, he abandoned his apartment, and he never collected his paycheck. He just vanished off the face of the earth. The police have no idea what happened."
Hubert tipped his hat. "Thank you for the interview. Wishing you both the best of luck."
As the journalists walked away into the terminal, Chloe frowned deeply, her heart hammering with a dark, terrifying unease. She clung to Nathan's lapels, her knuckles white.
Nathan wrapped both arms tightly around her, resting his chin on the top of her head. "Don't be afraid. I'm right here,"he whispered, his voice an impenetrable fortress.
"Mm," Chloe murmured, pressing her face against his chest, letting his steady, thunderous heartbeat slowly calm her spiraling terror.
What she didn't know was that, a week later, when the newspaper finally published her blurred silhouette on page six, it would generate absolutely zero public reaction.
The general public completely refused to believe the medical anomaly was real. People simply scoffed, tossing the paper in the trash, assuming modern journalists were so desperate for clicks they had resorted to publishing literal science-fiction plots as real news.
To the world, she was just a crazy conspiracy theory. To Nathan, she was the entire universe.