CHAPTER 15
ELLIE
I really do promise, I used to be rule follower.
It took quite a feat of human strength—especially my very limited human strength—but I eventually got Zarek tucked into his own bed with a trash can parked by the ledge last night.
He seemed to be sprinting through a wild night out, going from tipsy to drunk to hungover over the course of a few hours, so I was hoping he’d sleep the rest of his hangover off.
As I washed the makeup off my face and changed into pajamas, I tried to muster up the annoyance I’d feel for anyone else who nearly puked on my shoes.
But all I can come up with is fondness and a little bit of concern.
It wasn’t Zarek’s fault that he didn’t know what the effects of alcohol would be on his system.
Plus, between the mumbling Terilian, I’m certain I heard him call me pretty a few times.
I fell asleep blushing at Zarek calling me beautiful.
By the time I woke up, Zarek was already sitting at the table, much more astute than he was last night, with his DIRC open in front of him.
He’s focused enough that he doesn’t notice me waking, and I get a moment to study him in his camouflaged form.
He looks like one of the strong and silent types—a little lanky, but clearly athletic.
Tan like he’s been in the sun quite a bit, dark hair that he has to keep pushing out of his eyes.
He’s very attractive like this.
And yet I find myself missing the sapphiro version of him.
“Good morning,” I murmur, shifting in bed to dangle my legs off the side. Zarek meets my gaze, a blush immediately spreading across his cheeks.
“Good morning,” he murmurs back, embarrassment clearly written across his face. “Before you say anything, I’d like to apologize for my behavior last night.”
I huff out a laugh, more at myself than him.
I’m unbothered by his loud, ridiculous karaoke performance.
His stumbling and puking had me more worried for his well-being than anything else.
The drunken confessions made me flush for a different reason than Zarek probably thinks.
Honestly, the only thing that actually worried me last night was how quickly his disguise began to slip.
“Don’t worry about it,” I reassure him, patting his shoulder as I pass behind him to brush my teeth in the en suite. “But no more gin for you, unless we’re somewhere you don’t have to disguise yourself.”
“Ugh,” Zarek sighs, dropping his face into his hands. “I really did put us in danger, didn’t I?”
“I covered for us, don’t worry,” I mumble around my toothbrush, spitting into the sink. “Helps that the entire bar was trashed out of their minds.”
Really, only a few people had even raised their eyebrows at Zarek’s shifting pallor. And no one asked twice when I suggested the skin condition might be fatal.
“And I said all those things to you…” Zarek tapers off, looking down at his hands clasped in his lap.
“Barely any of it was in English,” I remind him, rinsing my face and rummaging around for my sunscreen. “Seriously, don’t worry about it at all.”
I don’t know why, but I’m not ready to tell him just how much of his proclamations I understood.
It feels unfair to cling to those words when they were spoken under significant influence.
It’s hard enough to convince my quickly falling heart that they meant nothing—if Zarek repeated them in the light of day, I don’t know what I’d do with myself.
“Well, I’ve been trying to make up for my behavior,” he says, turning the DIRC toward me as I sit down next to him at the table. “I’ve been getting a lot closer to the information you want, I think. At least, I’m in a section of files dedicated to musculoskeletal development in early hominids.”
I furrow my brow at the glowing screen in front of me, tracing my eyes over the English translations that sit side by side with the original Terilian reports. This must have taken him hours.
“How long have you been awake?” I ask, not taking my eyes off the notes. For some strange reason, the work he put into this means more to me than the information itself.
Oh no. I’m going soft.
“The announcement when we stopped woke me up,” he replies, and I suddenly realize that we are, in fact, not moving. I twist over my shoulder to confirm that the landscape out the window is at a standstill.
“Oh, where are we?” I ask, trying to remember what the route stops after Toulouse were. I really should have paid more attention when we purchased the tickets.
“I didn’t understand the announcement at all, but it sounded something like a nail bun?” Zarek’s brows are scrunched up when I turn back to him. “Anyway, I recorded the announcement when the conductor repeated it.”
“Narbonne,” I say, trying not to laugh as I listen to the rest of the recording that Zarek captured with the DIRC. We’ll be here until ten at night.”
“Plenty of time to research,” Zarek says brightly, pulling the DIRC back to him with a sincere smile.
That’s what I should want, to spend the day digging into his files.
Like he said, we’re getting so close to the answers I want.
And the need for discovery hasn’t dimmed at all.
It’s just got competition now. Competition with galaxies for eyes and warm hands and the most sincere smile in the fucking universe.
“Why did you put on your disguise?” I ask, avoiding the feeling building in the pit of my stomach. Zarek doesn’t look at me, but his cheeks heat again in response.
“I wasn’t very good at maintaining my cover last night,” he says, guilt lacing his tone. “I didn’t want to take any chances today.”
Personally, I think it’s overkill. But the effort and sentiment are appreciated. And maybe, if he insists on covering up my favorite version of him, at least we can take advantage of it.
“What if we went out?” I say, surprising both Zarek and myself, based on the way he’s raising his eyebrows at me. “Narbonne has lots to offer, and you haven’t seen enough of this part of France sober.”
He blushes again, but the smile on his lips tells me he took my little rib as the joke it was meant to be.
“What would you want to do?” he asks. And suddenly, I have no desire to control our agenda, or dictate our path. All I want to do is spend time with Zarek.
“Can you access an Earth search engine on that thing?” I ask. Zarek blushes again, for some unknowable reason, but nods. “Why don’t you do some research and see what piques your interest? It might be…well, it’s probably your last time in France, right? You should choose.”
The reality of that statement hits me a little too squarely, right beneath my ribs. I push away from the table and rummage among my belongings, looking for an outfit for the day instead of meeting Zarek’s gaze, afraid of what he might see.
“Okay,” Zarek agrees, his tone careful and maybe a little sad. “Yes, I want to spend the day with you.”
And I’m the one who’s blushing as I shut myself into the bathroom to get ready for our adventure.
Two hours later, we’re leaning against a railing, peering into the Canal de la Robine.
Boats of varying sizes knock against the concrete ledges where they’re docked, the sound marrying with the quiet lapping of the water and the soft chatter of the people around us.
Many of our fellow train patrons have opted for this same excursion, readying themselves to climb onto one of the little boats and enjoy a lazy float down the canal.
“This is lovely,” I admit, leaning further over the railing to gaze at the surrounding architecture.
It’s not quite the same as Venice, but it’s somehow more charming with its almost residential feel.
Little bridges dot the path that the water winds through, and trees line the corridor like sentries.
Zarek seems stiff beside me. His hands keep flexing and relaxing at his sides, and every time my arm bumps his, all his muscles seem to lock up.
“Yes. Pretty.”
“Wow, high praise,” I reply, rolling my eyes before looking up at him. “What’s up with you? Do you not like the water?”
Zarek’s gaze meets mine briefly before glancing away, catching on something across the canal.
“Sapphiro encourage sleep by submerging ourselves in water,” he explains, though it sounds more like a fun fact than an explanation for his behavior. It does, however, explain his sleepiness the other day.
“Okay…” I trail off, prompting him to continue. He only seals his lips shut. “I feel like that’s not an answer for why you’re acting so weird.”
“I’m just trying not to make a scene.”
The finality with which he says the words hits me somewhere soft and vulnerable.
Now that he’s said it, I can read the look on his face, clear as day.
Locked somewhere between embarrassment and control, shame coloring the whole picture.
I’ve been there—maybe not for the same reasons as him, but I know how it feels to try to mold yourself into something more acceptable to the people around you.
“You didn’t make a scene,” I say, knowing it’s a little bit of a lie. “And even if you did, I don’t care. We had fun, and we made it safely back to the train without government intervention. That’s all that matters.”
Bravely, and with Jo’s voice in my mind, I reach down one hand and tangle my fingers with his. Zarek’s head quickly snaps to look down at our intertwined fingers, and for a moment, blue flashes where our skin is pressed together, before he gets it under control.
“Do you want to have lunch on one of the boats?” he asks, still looking at our hands.
I know he can feel the way my heart is kicking in my chest, and I try to tell myself not to be afraid of letting him see that part of me.
“I’ve memorized the name and location of a few who offer lunch without wine. ”
I can’t help the laugh that tumbles out of me, not at Zarek’s expense, but because it’s so him to try to make up for his accidental drunkenness by finding sober adventures.
“That would be nice,” I reply, squeezing his hand and watching a grin spread across his face. “Lead the way.”
Twenty minutes and a tap of my increasingly-bloated credit card later, Zarek and I are seated at a small table that looks much like the one in our train cabin, but on the bright deck of a barge.
A green bottle of sparkling water sits in a silver bucket of ice in front of us, and Zarek eyes it warily until I explain its contents.
There are other couples and groups around us, but the tables are spread out enough that their conversations act as background noise, just like the lapping of the water against the hull.
When the waiters bring small charcuterie boards to our tables, Zarek’s calf knocks against mine under the table, and before he can flinch away, I lean into it, resting my leg against his.
Brave. That’s what Jo wanted me to be. So here I am.
There’s an emcee of some sort, speaking in long convoluted sentences about French architecture and the history of the canal. I only catch about half of it, partially because my French isn’t that advanced, but mostly because I’m busy talking to Zarek.
Under his breath, he tells me more about Terilia, about the landscapes and architecture and technology, about social customs and family dynamics.
For every little piece of information he gives me, he wants double in return, asking dozens of questions about humanity.
At first I think it’s a function of his job, a habit of any researcher.
But it doesn’t take long until the questions aren’t about human customs, or even American ones.
They’re about me. He doesn’t want to know about Pennsylvanian architecture, he wants to know what my childhood home looks like.
He doesn’t ask about American customs regarding female friendship, he asks about Jo and how we met and what she means to me.
It feels like a date. Not in the terrible anticipatory way that dates always feel to me, but in the way Jo describes them. Exhilarating and bubbly and fun. Discovering something new about someone who feels like an adventure.
The sun warms my skin, and we try new cheeses and put fresh fruit in our sparkling water, and everything feels a little easier. All the complications of dissertations and human connection and aliens seem far, far away as we share our histories on this barge in the middle of a canal.
It’s over far too soon, but Zarek takes my hand to help me onto dry land, and doesn’t let go as we walk back toward the train.
“Research now?” he asks, his thumb dragging over my knuckles between us. Part of me wants to get back to the DIRC and all its hidden knowledge. But the thing that has me nodding is knowing that once we’re behind closed doors, Zarek can look like himself again.
And even though it would have seemed impossible nearly a week ago, the research is only the second most interesting thing to me in that train cabin now.