Dominic decides Orly is the likeliest person to reveal too much to Rowan, so he warns the boy to think before speaking and reminds everyone that Rowan must be watched and given no reason to doubt them. Needing to protect the island’s remaining power, Dominic takes Rowan to the storage shed to help replace the damaged cover over the solar batteries. Rowan immediately proves useful: she chooses the correct hardware, handles the tools confidently, and loosens rusted roof fastenings that Dominic had to cut through. Her skill makes Dominic realize he has underestimated her, and that her competence makes her more dangerous, not less.

Dominic and Rowan drag salvaged roofing uphill to the batteries and stop for lunch. Rowan explains that she used to work in construction and built her own highly sustainable house from the ground up, and Dominic, who has long imagined building a house himself, is drawn into the conversation. As Rowan describes her work, Dominic feels admiration and an unwelcome attraction growing alongside his suspicion. When Rowan’s torso wound starts bleeding through her bandages from the strain, Dominic makes her stop and finishes the job alone while she keeps talking, and he becomes more emotionally entangled as he listens.

Afterward, Dominic drives Rowan back to the lighthouse on the quad bike because she is losing too much blood, even though he resents spending the fuel. His thoughts reveal how badly rationing and isolation are governing every decision now that the radio is gone and help cannot be called. Rowan insists on a brief shower, and later she asks Dominic for a needle and thread so she can redo her broken stitches herself. Dominic refuses to let her handle it alone and tells her that, on the island, everyone must be accounted for.

Dominic examines Rowan’s deep hip wound, cleans it with vodka because medical supplies are running low, and restitches it himself. Their exchange is half practical and half flirtatious, and Dominic becomes intensely aware of Rowan’s body and of his own desire, even as he reminds himself that Rowan is married and that he should not trust her. He tells Rowan to keep taking antibiotics and leaves feeling shaken by both her sincerity and her teasing.

That night Dominic is forced back into his role as father. Raff wakes in grief, and Dominic takes him to the punching bag in hopes that movement will help, but Raff is too sorrowful to respond and Dominic cannot find words to comfort him. Dominic later dreams of a hanging body, then wakes again to Orly crying from a nightmare about Rowan’s house and land burning in a bushfire. When Orly says everything will burn, drown, or starve, Dominic is left with the frightening sense that Rowan has brought with her visions of a ruined world beyond Shearwater.