Chapter Text
“Carmy?” Syd looks at him as tears flow from his eyes. He looks fine, red and flustered as usual with tears as an accessory. The warm light of the light above the stove makes him look so exhausted. Sydney feels guilty for receiving the vulnerability she’s been craving from him for weeks. Tonight is too much. She should put him out and take a hot shower and reminisce on the good parts of the night. She was eating Eggo waffles with Chef Andrea Terry two hours ago and now she’s post panic attack about to spend the last of her energy building Carmy up. She can’t do this. She turns away from Carmy and braces herself against the sink. How is she going to get through this?
Carmy sighs and Syd can feel his eyes look bore into her back as leans against the wall. “I don’t really know what I’m doing and I think that,” he pauses, “I think that things were better when we talked? Like really went back and forth. And-and I know after friends and family I changed a lot of shit so that I can push you and you can push me, but I don’t– I don’t want to push you to be like me, I guess.”
Syd releases her grip on the sink as she listens to him string words along. Carmy, unscripted, sounds like someone flipping through a dictionary to try and find the words to match their thoughts. Only thinking for a second before he speaks. She misses him like this. And fuck, if Carmy can do it– be vulnerable and talk to her after everything since The Bear opened–she can stay up and push the tiredness down.
“I don’t want to be the kind of guy that makes you feel like your life has to stop for you to be great or excellent, because you are. Great and excellent already. And I want The Bear to be the same. I know we can get there, by being who we are, and you being who you are. And I’m sorry I tried to change that. And I’m ready, ready to talk– and to listen— if you’re down?”
This is how he centers them, centers her. By being honest and listening and trying if it’s not too late.
Sydney turns to look at him and leans her back against the sink. He’s looking at her face for a reaction, something to reassure him that he’s doing the right thing. His blue eyes wont leave her face. She has a small smile as she speaks.
“Thank you for saying that. And I am ready to talk and listen. But I also have like no furniture and the dining room set is actually extremely uncomfortable, which isn’t too bad since I never eat here. But this feels like it’s going to be long conversation and I don’t want you to–”
“Syd.”
“Yeah okay.” She holds her hands in defense, smiling to herself for her rambling.
“Let me help you finish the dishes?”
“Yeah okay.”
“Ok so Google AI says that to have tough conversations we need to prioritize active listening, demonstrate empathy, and focus on understanding the other person's perspective. And if we want to start fresh we need to acknowledge and process past hurts and be fully honest with each other,” Sydney reads off of her phone.
Carmy nods and runs a hand down his face.They are sat across from each other in her dining room table. Carmy hunched over, suit jacket on the back of his chair and his shirt unbuttoned to show his wife beater underneath. Sydney changed into her pajamas after they silently cleaned the kitchen. She has her knees to her chest in the chair worried about how this night will end. She’s eager to hear Carmy talk but terrified of what he might say, how deep this might get, how honest she’ll have to be. The thought of telling Carmy about her offer from Shapiro in her Snoopy pajamas after watching him cry about the anxiety surrounding this conversation doesn’t seem like the best way to end the night, if it ever will.
“Yeah, no that sounds fine. We kind of do the same thing in Al Anon.”
“Yeah? So this shouldn’t be too bad.”
“It’s a little different.”
“How so?” Sydney questions, moreso to get into his head.
“In AA, me being honest is supposed to help someone reflect on their own experience and help them be honest with themselves. I feel like you sharing how you feel about me or the kitchen just opens the door for me to make excuses.”
“Ok so just don’t do that,” Sydney advises.
“Right, so I just won't.”
They share a smile.
“I also read somewhere that “I” statements work too.”
“I feel like that’s bullshit,” Carmy jokes.
“Ok Carm, what if we think of this as 21 questions. We go back and forth asking each other questions, that lets us be honest with ourselves, hear each other out, and bring up any past… issues,”
He weighs the idea and tries not to pick at a cut on his knuckle. “What kind of questions?” he asks, suspicious but intrigued.
“We can start with like vanilla–”
“The fuck?” Carmy mutters.
“-- questions and then get into the deep shit.”
“Ok ok. Um you go first?” Carmy asks.
“Sure, yeah yeah,” Sydney nods.
They stare at each other silently. Carmy raises an eyebrow and Sydney leans back expectantly.
“So ask me a question,” Carmy states.
“No, no you ask me a question I’m supposed to answer first.”
“Oh! Oh okay.”
“I told you we are bad at this,” Syd laughs and shakes her head
“No! No we’re not we got this, Syd.” He looks her in the eye and nods until she nods back in agreement.
“Good umm. Tell me about your favorite meal?” Carmy looks at her hopeful. She smiles and looks around the dining room as if she's being pranked.
“For fuck’s sake, we’re not doing this.” She shakes her head, laughing sarcastically and releases her knees from her chest. Carmy lets out a deep laugh at her refusal to answer the simple question.
“I didn’t think I was going to stump you with that one.” He smiles at her, leaning back in his chair. Sydney stands up without a word and heads into the kitchen. Carmy hears the fridge open, then the clink of glass. He waits, watching her silhouette in the low light. She comes back with a bottle of wine, a brita pitcher of water, and two mismatched glasses and drops into the seat across from him without ceremony.
Sydney’s heart is thumping against her chest while she thinks about how she’s going to answer his question. To be fair, he didn’t say the greatest meal of all time. Her favorite thing to eat would probably be peanut butter and jelly with how her stomach has been fucked up. But Carmy is smiling at her and they’re talking and one in the morning and it’s only the first question.
“To honesty,” She says and they click their glasses. Sydney is sitting cross legged sipping her wine and watching Carmy eye her.
“So?” he says, settling back, eyes on her. “Favorite meal?”
She gives him a look. “You’re really committing to that question, huh?”
“To honesty,” he mocks her.
Sydney rolls her eyes and takes a slow sip. “Fine. Um, once upon a time I had a meal in New York and it was… creative and inspired. And it made me confident in continuing on my journey and really sticking out some tough kitchens.”
“I’m not hearing the name of a meal,” Carmy jokes.
“Fuck off. It was hamachi with blood orange at EMP,” she says, waiting for his reaction.
Carmy blinks. “Wait. Seriously?”
“Yep.”
“And I was the CDC?”
“Well, yeah. Yes, that is accurate.” She manages to let out. Carmy stares at her, trying to match the timeline in his head.
She catches the look. “What?”
“That dish—hamachi, blood orange—I only ever ran that once. It never went on the actual menu.”
Sydney frowns. “You’re messing with me.”
“I’m not,” he says, eyes a little wide. “It was a one-off. I wanted it on the menu, but the Fields wanted fennel instead. Said blood orange was too soft. I lied and said a guest had a fennel allergy so I could plate it the way I wanted.”
Sydney stares. Then, slowly, she starts to smile. “You really did that?”
He shrugs, suddenly sheepish. “I didn’t think anyone noticed.”
“Well,” she says, “someone did.” They both smiled for a second.
“I ate some on the train,” she says, quieter now. “Out of a to-go box. Still tasted like magic.”
Carmy lets out a soft, stunned laugh, then looks down at his glass like it’s steadier than the air between them.
“That might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about my food,” he says earnestly. Sydney raises an eyebrow at him and he nods. The air is lighter around them and the conversation is so easy. There’s a moment where they both realize how much this matters—not the meal, not the memory, but this. The talking. The knowing. It feels like breathing again. Carmy is stuck on why they haven’t done this earlier, but then the fridge guy comes back into his head and Claire and the non-negotiables and he remembers he needs to be just as honest with himself as he is with Sydney.
“How does it feel to have peaked so young?” She asks and he laughs and shakes his head.
“Fuck off, I’m counting that as a question.” he says. Sydney rolls her eyes and brings the glass up to her lips. Carmy can’t believe he’s here right now. Across from Sydney while shes in her Snoopy pajamas drinking fucking wine talking about how he inspired her when he was in the worst mental state of his life. If she’s at the center of The Bear and her inspiration comes from a meal he cooked, what does that say about him?
“Ok, ok don’t get all emo on me. What is your favorite meal?” She asks, pulling him out of his train of thought.
“Oh um, I think my brother’s braciole? It’s a family recipe, but my mom usually adds raisins to it and that was like fucking gross and as we got older Mikey, Sug and I kinda made it into our own thing. And Richie would always find his way into the kitchen talking about Bill Murray,”
“Fucking Bill Murray voicemail,” Sydney pretends to grumble.
“Yeah! Exactly, right?” Carmy looks at her incredulously. She knows his people and sometimes he forgets that she wants to be here. She likes being a part of his family. Sydney refills her wine and stretches her legs out under the table until her feet bump his. She doesn’t move them.
“I think we should talk more,” she says.
“I told you we were good at it.” He smirks.
“You can ask me something deeper, ya know? Any past grievances?” Syd opens the floor for him. He thinks for a second to try and find a way to keep the conversation light. It’s been so long since he’s let himself enjoy something as small as this and because of that it’s not small at all. He’s sitting across from Sydney, someone who he’s supposed to trust and be open with and all he can think about is how her slipper is resting on top of his shoe. They should be so much stronger than what they are right now and yet they never break. Well.
“What made you stay?”
“What do you mean?”
“After you quit and came to collect your last paycheck, we were going through the tomato money. What made you come back? Was it just because we were going to change or…” Carmy explains. He doesn’t know why he asked. It doesn’t really matter, she’s here still. He hopes it's for him, convinced that she’s still here because she still thinks of him as the most excellent chef from the most excellent restaurant in the whole United States .
She leans her head back against the chair, thinking.
“I don’t know,” she says finally. “I think… I stayed because I wanted to see if the place could be what we talked about.”
“And?” he asks, carefully.
“And it’s not. Not always,” she says. “But sometimes it is. Like when Tina’s in her zone and Richie’s not being a dick and Marcus pulls something out of the oven that makes everyone shut up for a second... it feels close.”
He nods slowly, like he’s storing her words somewhere sacred.
“I also stayed,” she adds, “because you apologized.”
Carmy looks up at her, surprised.
“Even if you didn’t say it directly,” she says. “You admitted your mistake and helped me with my dish. We pushed each other. And I figured… if you were still trying, I should too.”
Carmy nodded. He looked at his hands and blinked. Blinked like it would change the scars on his palms or the ink on his knuckles. His leg started to shake, bouncing into his foot onto hers. She doesn’t pull back.
“Thank you. You know, for staying. Despite everything,” he says looking up at her. She pauses for a second and lets out a shallow breath.
“Yeah, yeah. Of course,” She bristles. For a second she thinks of Shapiro’s offer, but she can’t bring it up. Not like this. She stands quickly, needing to shake off the guilt that she’s feeling.
“Um, do you want to see the rest of my place?” She asks. Carmy looks around at her open concept apartment.
“I think I am seeing it.” Carmy says with a confused smile on his face. Sydney shakes her head.
“No, there’s a bunch of stuff and I’m starting to get sweaty from you grilling me,” she laughs awkwardly. Carmy laughs with her, confused but too exhausted to do anything different.
“Ok, sure. Lead the way,” he stands and moves toward her.
“This is the kitchen, obviously,” she says, waving toward the space they’d just cleaned. “Stove works when it wants to. The oven is tiny, but reliable. I burned toast for two weeks straight when I moved in because I was trying to get cute with imported sourdough.”
Carmy smirks, trailing behind her. “Toast is harder than people think.”
“That’s what I tell myself.”
She leads him to the middle of the living room which he cleaned up a short bit ago. “Technically this is the living room. I have exactly one chair and a rug that’s still rolled up in the corner because I haven’t committed to where I want it.”
He steps in and surveys minimalism. “It’s nice,” he says. “Clean. Feels like you.”
“Unfinished and full of potential?” she quips.
Carmy chuckles. “Yeah, pretty much.”
She pushes open the door to her bedroom. It’s sparse: a mattress on the floor, a small nightstand with a mismatched lamp, a laundry basket filled with clean clothes she hasn’t folded.
“I haven’t gotten around to a bed frame. Or curtains. Or really anything.” She shrugs, a little embarrassed now. “It’s not much, but it’s mine.”
Carmy doesn’t say anything at first. He just looks around, taking it in—the simplicity, the quiet pride in it.
“I like it,” he says finally. “It’s not trying to be anything it’s not.”
She meets his eyes. “Yeah. Kind of like me.”
There’s a beat. A silence not heavy, but full of something neither of them wants to name just yet.
He looks at the mattress, then back at her. “You sleep okay here?”
She shrugs. “Most nights. Some are better than others.”
“You should get a good lamp,” he says. “Not just for light. It changes the way a room feels. Makes it warmer.”
“Oh, I didn’t know you did interior design when you’re not at The Bear,” she says mockingly.
“Oh fuck off,” he says and bumps shoulders with her. She smiles and enters her room to grab some blankets and pillows.
“Let’s sit in the living room?” she asks as she closes the door.
They’ve migrated to the floor, sitting with their backs against the wall of the bay window. They are facing each other, Carmy with his legs stretched out and a throw blanket wrapped around his shoulder and Sydney with her legs to her chest and a blanket covering her front.
Sydney draws a lazy line on the rim of her empty glass, then looks over at Carmy, whose knees are drawn up, arms resting on them.
She hesitates, then asks softly, “How do you feel about The Bear? Like… not the kitchen or the staff or press—just you.”
Carmy lets out a quiet laugh. Not bitter, not dismissive. Just… tired.
He tilts his head back against the wall and stares at the ceiling for a moment. The silence stretches, but Sydney doesn’t fill it.
Carmy exhales. “It’s hard to explain. There was this—this urgency when we were building it. Every day was about permits and tiles and vendors and keeping the lights on. I didn’t have time to think about what it meant. I just kept moving.”
He glances at her. She nods, just enough to say keep going.
“When we opened… I thought I’d feel something. Relief? Pride? I don’t know. But instead it just—it was like the finish line moved. Every time I get close to it, it jumps. Another deadline, another inspection, another write-up, another menu change. I don’t know when I last looked around and thought, ‘Yeah, this is what I wanted.’”
Sydney listens, her fingers tightening around her knees.
“And I think… maybe I messed up,” Carmy says, voice smaller now. “Not with the food. I mean, yeah, I rushed things, I fucked things up, but I think I didn’t really ask myself what I wanted The Bear to feel like. Not just for the guests, but for us. I said it was about family, about doing something different—but I treated it like another test I had to pass.”
His voice cracks a little. He doesn’t look at her.
“And I don’t know what it says about me that I’ve built this thing that some days I still don’t feel like I belong in it. Or like maybe the only reason it works at all is because of you. And that scares the shit out of me because you could just leave one day and I don’t think I’m enough to make you stay.”
He swipes a hand over his face, scrubbing at the honesty like he can make it disappear.
“I want to love it,” he says. “I want to wake up and feel like it’s ours. But a lot of days I feel like it's just bits and pieces of me, of the chef I think I am supposed to be.”
“Well, what kind of chef do you want to be?” Sydney presses. Carmy tugs the blanket around him tighter.
Carmy exhales through his nose and scratches the back of his neck. “Fuck,” he mutters. “I don’t know. When I was younger,” he says, eyes on the ground,, “I just wanted to be the best. Like, full stop. Just the best chef. Whatever that meant. Whatever it cost.”
“And now?”
He finally looks at her. His voice is quieter. “Now I think I just want to be someone people trust.”
Sydney tilts her head, watching him carefully.
“I want to make food that means something. I want to lead a kitchen without... breaking people. Without breaking myself.” He pauses. “I want to feel proud of what we’re doing, not scared of fucking it up all the time.”
She nods, eyes soft.
“I spent so long chasing perfection that I stopped tasting what I was making. Stopped caring about people,” he says looking at her pointedly.
“Like Claire,” Sydney says, her voice quieter now, eyes drifting away from his.
Carmy doesn’t flinch. He exhales slowly, like he’s been expecting the name to come up eventually.
“Yeah,” he says. “Like Claire.”
He leans back against the wall, rubbing a thumb along the edge of his knee, grounding himself. Sydney watches the movement, subtle and practiced—like he's trying to anchor himself to the room.
“She was kind. Like, good. And she looked at me like I wasn’t a walking mess, which honestly scared the shit out of me.”
Sydney doesn’t say anything, just listens. She knows the version of him he’s describing, she’s worked beside that version. But it’s different seeing him name it aloud. Watching him sift through himself in real time feels… intimate.
“I thought I could do both,” he continues. “Have someone like her and still be all-in at The Bear. Be the guy who leads and builds and shows up for people.”
He swallows. “But every time I left the kitchen to be with her, something broke. And every time I left her to deal with the kitchen, something broke. Eventually, I stopped going in either direction.”
Sydney feels a pang in her chest—not pity, not exactly. She remembers all those nights he disappeared into the walk-in or behind closed doors. The weight of his absence, how it never came with explanation. She used to take it personally. Now, watching him struggle to put words around it, she doesn’t feel vindicated—just sad.
He looks at her now, eyes heavy but honest.
“She didn’t ask for that. And she didn’t deserve what I did—shutting her out, pushing her away. But I was terrified. Of losing control. Of losing this.” He gestures lightly between them. “The Bear. You.”
“Me?” she asks, startled.
Carmy nods. “Yeah. You.”
Sydney tries not to let her face shift too much, but her chest is buzzing now. Something between heat and confusion. He presses forward, slowly.
“I didn’t know how to be close to someone without everything else falling apart,” he says. “And I couldn’t risk you walking away too. So I did what I always do—shut down before someone else could leave first.”
“And now?” she asks, voice just above a whisper.
He meets her gaze. “Now I know what we’re building—me and you. It’s not just the food. Or the stars. It’s trust. Partnership. This thing only works if we can show up for each other. I didn’t do that. Not with her. Not with you.”
Sydney doesn’t say anything right away. She’s turning it over, the way he said “me and you,” the gravity in it. She wants to be mad, wants to remind him how hard it’s been.She thinks about the nights she walked home angry, unheard. The hours spent wondering if she mattered beyond her food, beyond what she could fix. She still feels all of that. But she also sees him—really sees him—sitting here in her unfurnished apartment at 4 a.m. asking to be better.
“I don’t need perfect,” she says finally. “I need present.”
Carmy nods, lips pressed together, eyes glassy. “I can do that. I want to do that—with you. With The Bear.”
The silence that follows isn’t heavy. It’s full, but breathable. He glances toward her and lets the ghost of a smile slip through.
“That was like 3 questions in one, by the way. I’m gonna skip your turn a few times, cheater.”
“You can’t cheat in 20 questions.” She argues.
“What do you need from me now? For this to work. Not just the food. Not just the kitchen. All of it,” he asks, getting them back on track
She looks at him, surprised—not by the question, but by the quiet vulnerability in the way he asks it.He’s not asking to fix something or to buy time. He’s asking because he wants to show up differently. Because for once, he’s not assuming he already knows the answer.
Sydney sets her glass down and draws her knees up to her chest. She thinks.
“For you to be here,” she says finally. “Like—not physically. Not just doing an expo or checking the books. I mean here. With me. In it.”
He nods, slow, listening.
“And I need you to stop deciding things on your own and calling it protecting people. I’m your partner, not someone you’re shielding from a burning building you lit." Sydney pulls the blanket tighter around her shoulders. She’s quiet letting the words settle in her body before trying to find more.
Carmy watches her. He’s trying to stay still, but there’s a tightening in his jaw, a slight twitch in his fingers like he’s holding back from pacing. Always moving when things get hard. But tonight, he waits.
“I think,” she starts, eyes fixed on a streetlight gleaming past Carmy’s head out the window, “I’ve been afraid that if I really leaned into all of this—The Bear, you, everything—I’d lose parts of myself.”
Her voice is steady, but there’s something fragile underneath it. “Like I’d get swallowed up. By the pace, by your chaos, by how big it all feels sometimes. And I’ve worked really hard to build myself into someone I can be proud of. I didn’t want to disappear.”
Carmy stares at the floor like it just insulted him. The guilt is already blooming under his skin. She was right to feel that. And yet it still stings.
“I care about this place, Carm. About what we’ve made. But I also care about myself. And sometimes, it felt like those things were at odds.”
He drags a hand over his mouth.
“Is that why you haven’t signed the partner agreement?”
The question hangs there, uncomfortably honest. It’s not accusatory, but it hits soft and deep, like something she’s been hoping he wouldn’t ask. She shifts her legs beneath her and looks straight ahead.
“I didn’t know if it meant anything anymore,” she says quietly.
Carmy’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”
“You pulled away. You stopped talking to me. You started making decisions without me. I thought… maybe I’d missed my window. That you changed your mind about what us being partners even meant.”
Carmy blinks, stunned. “No. Syd. I—fuck—I didn’t change my mind. I just—I was overwhelmed. I let everything get too loud, but I’ve never changed my mind about you. I- we- I need you. That’s how this works best. Fuck, if I didn’t want you there… I want you around, Syd. I need to understand what’s keeping you from me. From this.”
She doesn’t answer right away. “There was an offer.”
His head snaps up.
“What?”
“From Shapiro,” she adds. “A few weeks ago.”
Carmy stares at her. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t know if I’d take it.”
“But you considered it.”
She hesitates, “I thought about it.”
Silence.
He gets up, walks a short lap across the apartment like he needs space to breathe.
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want it to be a threat,” she says. “It wasn’t leverage. It was… it was just a reminder. That I don’t have to stay in something that hurts.”
“And you think I’m hurting you?”
“I think,” she says, carefully, “we hurt each other. By not talking. By assuming the worst. By pulling away when we should’ve leaned in.”
He sits again, elbows on knees, head in his hands. She watches him crumble into himself a little.
“I’m trying, Syd,” he says into his palms. “I thought I was doing this for Mikey, for us, for something real. But lately, I don’t even know what ‘us’ means.”
“You could’ve asked,” she says gently. “I would’ve answered.”
He lifts his head. “Then let me ask now. What do you want from me? What do you need from me to make this work?”
Sydney looks at him for a long moment. Something shifts in her expression—tiredness, yes, but also something like relief.
“I need you to talk to me like this. Before it gets this bad. I need to feel like I’m not an afterthought, like my ideas don’t just fill the gaps you leave behind.”
He nods. He hears her.
“And I need you to believe I’m here because I want to be. Not because I couldn’t get something better.”
Carmy presses his lips together. “And are you?”
She exhales. “I haven’t said yes to Shapiro.”
“But you didn’t say no either.”
“I needed to know if this still had a future,” she says. “If we did.”
Carmy leans forward, elbows on his knees, rubbing at the back of his neck like the words are trapped there. Carmy turns the thought over and over like a stone in his palm: if he tells Sydney the truth about Jimmy’s ultimatum, there’s no taking it back. No softening it. The Bear might be on borrowed time, and that’s not just his burden anymore—it’s hers too. And that’s the thing—he wants it to be hers too. Not because it’s falling apart, but because when he thinks about The Bear’s future—its best possible future—he can’t imagine it without her.
When he pictures what’s next, he doesn’t see a restaurant without her in it. He sees late nights like this one, the quiet hum of their rhythm returning, the two of them building something that’s not just brilliant, but theirs. He doesn’t want to scare her off or make her feel like he’s pulling her under. But keeping this from her would be the same old cycle, the same isolation that’s already cost them too much. If he’s going to ask her to be his partner—not just in business, but in whatever strange, steady thing this is becoming—then she deserves the truth. All of it. Especially now.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” Carmy says, and the weight in his voice makes Sydney frown deepen.
“Okay…” she says slowly, sensing whatever this is, it’s not small.
He doesn’t meet her eyes. “Jimmy said if the Tribune review wasn’t spectacular he’d have to close The Bear.”
She blinks. “What?”
“He didn’t want to,” Carmy rushes out, like that’s supposed to soften it. He’s standing now pacing the room. “He said it’s business. He’s already sunk too much in. He gave us until the review dropped. If it wasn’t glowing, he was done.”
Sydney just stares at him, like she’s trying to catch up to the room spinning. “And you didn’t tell me.”
Carmy’s jaw tightens. “No. I didn’t.”
She laughs, humorless. “Jesus, Carm,” she says, leaving the blanket on the floor and standing in front of him.
“I didn’t know how to—I didn’t want to freak you out, or—fuck, I don’t know.” His hands are clasped in front of him like he’s praying for a way to rewind time.
“But it’s my restaurant too!” Sydney snaps. “You don’t get to carry that alone and then drop it on me when you’re ready.”
“I know,” he says, voice rough. “I know. I was wrong.”
She looks away, teeth clenched, arms folded tight. Her voice is shaking when she says, “So what now? It’s over?”
Carmy presses his palms together, staring at the floor. “The thing is… the review wasn’t even terrible. That’s the part that’s messing with me.”
Sydney’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”
“It wasn’t glowing, but it wasn’t a takedown either. It said we’re… brilliant, sometimes. That we’re in search of a center. Whatever the fuck that means.”
“That was the line?”
He nods, jaw tight. “The Bear is many things—bold, brilliant, occasionally transcendent. But for now, it remains a restaurant in search of a center.”
Sydney exhales slowly. “That’s not… bad.”
“No,” he agrees. “But it’s not spectacular. And Jimmy said spectacular.”
She watches him closely. “So we’re in limbo?”
“Exactly,” he says, voice sharp with frustration, “If this is it—if this really is the end—I want to go down doing something I’m proud of. Not half-assing our way into closure. I want to leave a legacy, you know? Something that’s anxiety free and calm and I don’t know how to do that without you.”
Sydney’s chest tightens. Not because he’s wrong, but because she sees it now—how much he’s been holding, how much of this place is tied to grief and legacy and pride he’s never allowed himself to feel.
“I want to do this right. With you. As equals. Partners. Whatever it takes.”
Her face doesn’t give him much. So he asks, quieter:
“Do you still want to be my partner?”
Sydney exhales, still processing. Her voice, when it comes, is soft but firm. “Ask me again when you’re ready to really share the weight. Not just the food. I want the pressure. The wins. All of it.”
Carmy meets her eyes. He doesn’t look away.
“Sydney, be my partner.”
Sydney holds his gaze. The way he asks this time, steady and sure, lands deep in her chest. There’s still frustration, yes. Still things to work through. But there’s also a truth between them now that wasn’t there before.
She nods, slow and deliberate.
“Yes,” she says.
Carmy’s shoulders sag with the release of breath he didn’t realize he was holding. His lips part, like he might say something.
“But,” she cuts in, holding up a finger. “I need transparency. No more of this martyr shit where you try to protect me by leaving me out. If you want this to be ours, then you let me in.”
He nods quickly, eyes shining. “Yeah. Okay. I will.”
“And I need space to lead. Not just follow your chaos. If we’re partners, I’m not just covering your blind spots. I’m building with you.”
His voice is softer now, not just agreeing, but reaching. “I want to let you in. Not just into the kitchen, not just into The Bear. Into everything. I know I make it hard—I know I’ve made it hard—but I don’t want to keep shutting you out. You’re the one person I don’t want to lose.”
“And when it gets hard,” she says, steady, “we don’t disappear on each other. We show up.”
“I will,” he promises, eyes never leaving hers. “Whatever it takes. I’ll show up—for you.”
A beat passes. Her shoulders drop. He sees it—the softening. The space opening.
And before he can think himself out of it, Carmy steps forward and wraps his arms around her. It’s not tentative. It’s not performative. It’s real. It’s grounding. He exhales when her arms come around him in return, like he’s been holding his breath for months.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, voice rough and low against her hair. “For all the ways I didn’t show it before.” Syd just nods her head against his chest and lets him wrap the blanket around the both of them.
Outside, the first light of dawn has started to slip through the window, painting pale gold across the floor and onto their feet. The city stirs slowly beyond the glass. The Bear may still be in search of a center, but beneath this sun in this tiny apartment Sydney and Carmy have found theirs.