26. The Language She Speaks
TWENTY-SIX
THE LANGUAGE SHE SPEAKS
Reyna had found reasons to be in Engineering twice that week, and both times her feet had carried her to Charlie's console first.
She had a reason, of course. She always did.
Cael had been slipping for months, and there was no harm in a commanding officer taking an interest in her own engine bay. In fact, in this case, it was even true. And to be honest, that was the irritating part. It was the truth, but deep down, Reyna knew it still wasn't the full reason.
She went to Charlie's console first because she wanted to. It was just that simple. She could try and cover it in oversight all she liked. In fact, Kess would probably have several words for it, most of them delivered with a raised brow.
What began as checking up though became a bigger problem, one Reyna was navigating as Captain now instead of just wanting to be at Charlie's console.
And Cael had noticed. His markings gave him away, the sullen blue-green of a man who couldn't decide if he was angry or ashamed.
He gave Reyna a wide berth in the bay now, and she let him.
She kept note of his missteps but also had other things to watch. Not a single one of them were him.
Charlie told her the next Earth Night had been scheduled. She told herself she was going to go for the crew. And even though that was true, it also wasn't the full reason.
Earth Night had thinned to just the regulars by the sixth one.
Orion had planted himself near the shelves, close to Charlie, but made no move to the center of the room.
Reyna watched as he kept glancing at Charlie, as though something he's been waiting for is really about to happen.
Whatever Charlie had told Orion beforehand, he'd plainly been looking forward to her telling the rest of them.
And as soon as Charlie began to speak, Reyna understood why.
Charlie was handing the Emberkind crew something close and personal.
But this crew, especially this group of regulars, had become hers over these last months.
Reyna saw that Orion had the best view in the room for it, and he looked like he wouldn't trade it for anything.
Tavi sat on the floor near the front, elbows on his knees, tipped toward Charlie the way he always did when he couldn't stop listening to her. It was the same look he had when Charlie talked about baseball.
Borran stood over the spread he'd laid out, minding it and the people eating it in equal measure.
Selowen sat in the good chair, as she had since the second Earth Night. Since then, no one had ever been rash enough to contest it.
Reyna decided to lean against the shelves behind the rest of the group attending. If it happened to face Charlie directly, well, that was between her and the shelf.
Charlie had gotten going, warming up and easy because tonight, the subject was music. Charlie was explaining what it was and why a whole planet had built so much of its heart from it.
As Charlie spoke, Reyna realized she knew this.
She remembered the private version from months ago, less by the words than by Charlie's face.
Charlie's face had lit up then, and it was the same now.
But those few months ago, Reyna had been the only one in the room to see it in that corridor at the end of Charlie's first week.
She remembered how Charlie had stood with one palm flat against the wall and a small machine at her ear, eyes half shut, listening to the Emberkind the way no one on Reyna's ship had ever bothered to do before.
Reyna's own boot as she approached had startled Charlie out of it.
But what had begun as the captain deciding what to do had turned into Charlie holding out a plastic square covered in her sister's drawings, calling it the most cherished belonging she owned.
'A song could do what words couldn't,' Charlie had said, explaining it was what her father had taught her. And Reyna, listening, had thought that music seemed to be a language Charlie spoke more easily than her own.
Reyna had been the one Charlie showed this to first, alone in a corridor months ago.
But watching her hold it out to the whole room now was even better.
This was Charlie letting herself be seen by the people Reyna trusted with her ship and her life.
It was everything for Reyna to watch Charlie doing it openly, without being asked.
Watching this, Reyna felt the request Charlie had made of her come to life again, to find a way for Charlie to stay on the Emberkind.
Here was Charlie doing her own part of that work, making herself known to the crew who would want her here.
Charlie stood in the light with every guard down, handing over one of truest parts of her, and, slowly, Reyna realized she could watch Charlie do this all night.
"Every big feeling I've ever felt seems to have been represented in a song," Charlie said, her voice breaking through Reyna's thoughts.
"What's funny is I never picked them. They seemed to always find me, picking the moment I needed them most." Reyna watched Charlie's smile spread across her face.
"You hear the right song at the right time, and it just welds itself on. "
Charlie's eyes found Reyna, holding her gaze while Reyna felt her chest tighten. "After that, the song becomes the moment," Charlie continued, her voice softer. "And every time you hear it, for the rest of time, it provides insight into the memories of your life, fully immortalized by music."
Charlie's gaze held Reyna's a moment longer before going back to the room, and Reyna wished, briefly and uselessly, that it hadn't drifted away.
It was Tavi who broke it. He'd gone still and quiet at some point during Charlie's speech. It was in a way Reyna almost never saw in him, and when he spoke, there was none of the usual spark in it, only a kind of awe and wonder that was completely genuine.
"You store a lifetime in three-minute increments," he said softly. "I've never encountered a more efficient architecture."
It was the truest compliment he could have said and Charlie absorbed it exactly as it was meant to be delivered. She laughed at his words, causing others to laugh with her, most especially Tavi himself.
The room came back around her, loud again.
She heard the sound of someone needling Borran about a song he'd picked, causing Tavi to bark out a laugh.
But Reyna let it come back without her. Instead, she stayed where she was, her face set in what could pass for a captain listening.
But suddenly, as she leaned against that shelf, it became very clear what she'd spent weeks managing to avoid to see.
Charlie was getting in. That was the simplest way to put it.
She wasn't even trying or asking Reyna for a single thing.
Charlie was pushing past her heavily guarded armor by just being exactly who she was, and she was doing it on Reyna's ship, in Reyna's Engineering Bay, in her Observation Room, and now, she was doing it while Reyna leaned against one of the shelves of her library.
Charlie was simply kind, smart, and entirely herself.
Yet somewhere inside all that ordinary, Charlie had found the one door Reyna had been keeping shut and had, without the faintest idea she was even doing it, began to work it open.
This was the door Reyna had closed a long time ago, deliberately, with both hands.
She had loved two people with a ferocity of a family you choose for yourself.
And from that love, she had experienced such loss when she lost them both within a matter of months.
That grief had come close to ending her.
Too close. Close enough that she felt her job suffer, and that wasn't allowed when you had so many individuals depending on you for your leadership.
It was then and there that she decided she was finished.
Not with people entirely, but with this, the feeling of ever again letting someone close enough that their absence could destroy her.
For thirteen years that decision had held.
But in all that time, she had never met anyone who made her want to reconsider it.
But now, there was a woman, a human woman of all things, standing in her library, talking about music as though it were a divine experience, and that decision was not holding.
Air rushed from Reyna's lungs as the severity of that realization hit. It was a quiet fear, but it was a fully complete one. It had structure and foundation and was nearly built entirely. The old foundation she had stood on for thirteen years had moved under her.
The evening broke up the way Earth Nights always did.
In twos and threes, people slowly carried plates toward the door.
Tavi grabbed Maren's in a rare form of good gesture while Borran collected what was left of the spread and carried it to the kitchen.
Selowen surrendered the good chair, bidding good night to Charlie and Orion on her way out.
Orion then said something to Charlie that made her duck her head and laugh.
Then he left, saying good night to both Charlie and his captain.
Reyna probably should have left when Selowen did. But she didn't. And now, that left just Charlie and Reyna in the library.
Charlie was finishing her cleanup, crouched over the low table, winding the cord of her small machine around her hand.
Reyna watched her gather up the plastic boxes, the mixtapes as Charlie called them, and fit them back into the bag she had landed with a few months ago.
All evening she had been telling those in the room to ask her about this music, this phenomenon that spoke to her so clearly that she had carried across half a galaxy in a bag and had never once put it down.
This music was in the Emberkind now, because of this, because of Charlie.
Reyna made the decision to cross the library to figure it out, doing exactly what Charlie said to do.