He bathed in the companionable silence that had fallen between them as they started walking – through cool air, down dark familiar streets. He felt more awake again for the movement, or maybe just from the escape, but his stride slowed when Kieran spoke. Jude was a little surprised by the sentiment.

The corner of his mouth quirked up, halfheartedly. Wasn’t it still too soon to say? He was proud of how the campaign had gone, for the most part, and proud of his friends for all the efforts they had made to help, and he didn’t regret doing it... but he wasn’t sure if he could say he was satisfied.

Jude hmed in response. “I don’t know,” he said contemplatively, with more the air of a confession than an argument. “I just don’t know if I did enough.” To win, or just to have made enough difference – it was hard to tell about either from here. There was something about the results looming and the hours of waiting in the way: the uncertainty of what came next (for him, and for everyone) had left an opening for the doubts to grow. He couldn’t have admitted it to everyone, but...

And he wasn’t used to feeling such unease; but then tonight was more pivotal than most in his life. He didn’t know what his tomorrow would look like, and both the best outcome and the worst were sinking in with sudden, terrifying clarity. (Maybe he hadn’t made any impact at all, and it had all been for nothing. Or maybe he’d done well, and people would vote for him – but then a conservative would win because of a split progressive vote, and Jude would be a partial architect of that. Or, wilder still, maybe opinions had shifted enough to give him a chance of winning – but what then? He was almost less worried about the governance, uphill struggle though it would be, than about how his life would change by it. There would probably be – no more evenings at the Augurey like this.)

---