The road to Santa Barbara was unforgiving.
What looked like a simple stretch of farmland and forest became a gauntlet of muddy trails, wandering sentries, and villagers too curious for their own safety. Every mile tested Patrocinio's nerves—and Andres' ability to adapt.
The first time they were forced to share a bed in a roadside hut, it was out of necessity. The old man who gave them shelter assumed, naturally, that they were married. To object would only raise questions.
"Sleep on the floor," Patrocinio whispered sharply after they bowed and smiled their way past their host.
"I'm injured, remember?" Andres gestured to his still-bandaged arm. "You take the floor."
They argued in hushed tones until they finally settled—her on the far edge of the mat, him stiffly lying beside her, neither daring to move.
The tension between them was a live wire, drawn tight with every breath.
The next morning, as the old man handed them warm rice cakes and waved them off, Patrocinio muttered under her breath, "If I wake up married for real, I'll smother you with your own bandage."
"Noted," Andres said dryly.
But the road didn't care about bickering. It offered only more danger.
At a river crossing, a group of local militia stopped them. Not Spanish—but cazadores, native collaborators. Worse in many ways.
"We're checking travelers," the leader said. "You look too clean. Too... ready."
Patrocinio pulled Andres close, slipping her hand into his. "That's because we're newly married," she said, feigning a blush. "We're on our way to visit his aunt, who gave us her blessing. We bring sweet rice, if you want some."
The man narrowed his eyes. "Let me see what you're carrying."
"No!" she said sharply, stepping in front of the cart. "It's wedding linen. Custom-made. I'll not have it dirtied by your hands."
Andres stepped in with a gentle but firm tone. "Please, sir. My wife... she's proud. Her family worked hard to prepare it. We have nothing to hide."
The man looked between them, saw the tension, the closeness. But he also saw how Andres shielded her.
"Fine," he said. "Go."
They didn't breathe until they'd crossed the water and the sounds of boots faded.
"You're getting good at this," Patrocinio said, impressed despite herself.
"I've been married before," he said softly.
She looked at him. Something deep passed between them, unspoken.
"I'm sorry," she said after a moment.
"For what?"
"For whatever you lost."
He gave her a ghost of a smile. "You too."
That night, they stopped in a clearing surrounded by trees. Fireflies flitted through the grass, and the stars broke free from clouds.
Andres looked up. "No satellites. No towers. Just... space."
"It's always been like that. You just forgot."
They sat near the fire. The silence was less awkward now. It hummed with something new.
"You never asked me what I did," he said.
"I assumed you were a soldier."
"Medic. I tried to keep people alive."
She nodded. "I was a courier before this. I carried words. Now I carry a flag. Funny how both are dangerous."
He looked at her, really looked.
"You're brave."
"I'm necessary. That's not the same."
He reached for her hand without thinking.
She let him.
Just for a moment.
Because tomorrow, the road would rise again.
And lovers—real or not—always had something to lose.
But the next day tested them further.
Rain fell in heavy sheets by noon, and by midafternoon the cart was stuck in the mud. Andres pushed with all his strength, his boots slipping in the wet clay.
"You don't even know how to guide a karitela!" Patrocinio snapped.
"I didn't exactly grow up on a farm!" he yelled back over the rain.
She grabbed the reins and cracked them hard, barking orders to the horse, while Andres heaved from behind. They finally freed the cart with a sharp jolt that sent her stumbling backward—right into his arms.
The moment lingered. Their faces inches apart. Rain dripping off their hair, down their cheeks.
He didn't let go.
She didn't ask him to.
"Thanks," she said quietly.
He nodded, but his hands didn't move.
That night, soaked and cold, they found shelter under a nipa roof beside a crumbling chapel. He offered his jacket, which she stubbornly refused until her teeth chattered hard enough to betray her.
When she finally lay beside him for warmth, neither said a word. Their shoulders touched.
Heartbeats did, too.
She broke the silence first. "You've done this before?"
"Held someone?"
She hesitated, then nodded.
"Yes. But not like this."
There was no kiss. Not yet. But the air between them brimmed with the promise of something waiting to break free.
The rain had softened the earth, but hardened something between them. A bond not forged in vows, but in choices, shared burdens, and quiet longing.
They slept like that—half touching, half tense. A makeshift intimacy that came not from romance, but necessity. Yet under the silence, something stirred. Not just survival. But want.
Just before she drifted off, Patrocinio murmured, "You're not who you say you are. Not completely."
Andres' voice was soft in the dark. "I never claimed I was."
She turned her head slightly toward him. "But you're not my enemy. Are you?"
"No," he said. "Not now."
They said nothing more. But as the wind rustled the nipa roof and the flag beneath her skirt shifted like a sleeping heart, something old and unspoken passed between them.
They were no longer just playing the part.
They were becoming it.
Tomorrow, they would need that lie to feel like truth.
Because tomorrow held the most dangerous checkpoint of all.