33. Songbird #5
"Right," Tavi said, drawing out the word. "Well, on that note." He clapped his hands once. "Maren, Orion, I do believe there is a cake situation requiring immediate leadership attention from all three of us."
"There's no cake situation?" Maren said, looking at Tavi like he'd lost his mind.
"Maren," Tavi grumbled. Charlie watched Tavi's nostrils flare as he looked at Maren, and caught the quick flick of his eyes towards Charlie.
Maren stared at Tavi and then followed his gaze to Charlie. She took it the rest of the way and looked at her captain, standing very still in a room full of gold light with her eyes locked on Charlie.
"There is a significant cake situation," Maren said, letting Tavi take her elbow.
"We will go handle that," Tavi added to Charlie. "Don't worry." And he gave her a wink.
She wanted to punch him in the face.
Orion was the last to leave the circle. He didn't say anything as he left, but he touched Charlie's shoulder once, warm and comforting. And then they were all gone, lost into the noise of the crowd.
And Charlie was standing in the middle of the best party she'd ever been to with nobody left in front of her but Captain Reyna Solas.
"You did all this," Reyna said.
"Tavi did most of it," Charlie stated.
"Charlie," Reyna said, her voice soft, slightly exasperated, but full of warmth.
"Okay, Tavi did the music."
Reyna's mouth twitched into a small smile, but she said nothing. She just looked at Charlie, who made it about four seconds before she cracked.
"Okay, fine. I found out it was your birthday and you weren't going to do anything, so sue me," Charlie said, her words coming quickly.
"That's the whole reason. Beginning, middle, end.
Orion told me it was your seventy-fifth, and I asked what the crew does for something like that, a milestone birthday, for their captain of all people, and he had the audacity to say nothing.
Nothing! And all because you apparently don't let them.
And so I thought, well." She scoffed. "That was going to end with me whether you liked it or not. "
Charlie was breathing slightly heavier than before. She noticed the music had moved on to something with a beat to it, and across the library, somebody had gotten Torvax to dance, which he was doing exactly the way you'd expect, with total commitment and no rhythm whatsoever.
"Thank you," Reyna said.
"You're welcome."
"No." Reyna said, turning so she was facing Charlie fully. Her voice had gone rough at the edges. "Charlie. Thank you."
Charlie had about four more sentences ready, but every single one of them disappeared instantly.
Reyna was looking at her. She was standing three feet away in a room full of people who loved her, and she was looking at Charlie like there was nobody else in the room.
And being this close to her, Charlie could see the amber of her eyes catching in Maren's light, a piece of hair come loose at her temple.
Charlie's hand came up to put it back.
It got halfway there before she remembered where they were standing.
Charlie made her hand into a fist and put it back down at her side.
"Yeah," she said. "Of course, Rey." And then, because she couldn't hold it back. "Next year we're going bigger."
"Yes," Reyna said. Then, "I would like that very much," she whispered so only Charlie could hear.
Charlie turned away from Reyna to watch the party, because looking at her was beginning to hurt.
They stood there a while before Reyna changed the subject.
"So, I have some news for you."
"Oh?" Charlie asked.
"The Engineering department is running better than it has run in my entire command, all since your appointment with Tavi and Maren," Reyna said.
Charlie laughed. "Come on."
"I'm serious, Charlie," Reyna said, turning to face her again.
Charlie couldn't look away.
"Thirteen years I have run this ship, including that department.
Under Rask, it functioned. But with you three...
" Reyna trailed off. "It's all in the efficiency reports.
They are the best numbers I have ever put in front of a Fleet Admiral, and Torvax has checked them twice because he assumed there was an error. "
"Oh, there's no error," Charlie insisted. "Maren doesn't make errors."
"There it is," Reyna said, her gaze filled with awe.
"There what is?" Charlie asked.
"You do that every time," Reyna said softly. "I hand you an achievement, or dare I say a compliment, and you attribute it to someone else."
"Because it's theirs," Charlie said, hearing her own voice come up, not bothering to pull it back.
"Reyna, I'm serious," she said as she watched Reyna raise a single eyebrow.
"Listen, Tavi feels systems like no one I've ever worked with.
That man knows a manifold's going bad two days before the sensors even notice a drop in efficacy.
" Charlie began to talk with her hands. "And Maren?
Jesus, she has never forgotten one single thing in her life, and yes, I know that's a Noethan thing, but it means I've got a walking security camera overlooking my department that can recall everything we've ever learned and completed and achieved.
" Charlie stared at Reyna. "I'm good. I'll even go so far as to say I'm really good.
But, Reyna, if you pulled either one of them out of that bay, the whole thing would come down inside a month. I'm not good without them."
"And if I pulled you out?" Reyna asked, her voice cracking.
Charlie stopped, holding Reyna's gaze, who looked back at Charlie, waiting with such anticipation for Charlie's answer.
"It would be the same thing," Charlie whispered.
"That's my whole point." Charlie held up three fingers, and then, because her hands always got involved when spoke about something that mattered, she brought them together.
"A tripod; three legs. You can put weight on it, you can set it on ground that isn't anywhere close to level, and it still holds.
That's the whole design." She dropped her hand.
"Take one leg off a tripod and it isn't something less. It just doesn't work anymore."
She was still going when Reyna's face changed.
It was there and gone, quick, and then Reyna wasn't looking at her anymore.
Recognition dawned on Charlie almost immediately. "Just like Jere and Elena were for you," Charlie said softly.
Reyna looked up into Charlie's face, lingering there before nodding.
"Yes," she said. "Three legs, like you said. Elena was the one who decided where we were going, Jere made it worth going, and I was the one in the middle that kept the two of them from flying apart." Her voice didn't change at all when she said it. "It held on any ground you put it on."
Charlie smiled at Reyna's echoing back her own words.
"A tripod," Charlie muttered.
"A tripod," Reyna repeated.
Charlie looked into Reyna's gaze and, for the first time, truly saw her struggle and how it must have felt for all the years she worked through it.
"And then it was one," Charlie said.
Reyna didn't answer.
"You've been running this ship on one leg for thirteen years," Charlie said, quieter.
"Yeah," Reyna said. "I have."
Charlie watched Reyna deliver the admission and proceeded to just stand there with her, letting it be as heavy as it was between them so Reyna didn't have to brave it alone.
Eventually, Reyna turned to Charlie and looked at her for a long moment.
"Katie would be so proud of you," Reyna whispered. "You know that, right?"
And that just went straight in.
Katie had been nineteen. She'd stood in the doorway of the only house both of them had shared but never felt at home in, and told the two people who made her that Charlie was was extraordinary.
Charlie had never gotten over it, and she'd never told a living soul that everything she'd built since that day had been possible only because of a nineteen-year-old kid in a doorway.
Katie would be proud of her.
Charlie had wanted to hear that sentence her whole adult life. She just never would have known it would be Reyna saying it.
She wanted nothing more than Katie to be proud of her. God, she wanted that.
But now, now she wanted Reyna Solas to keep looking at her the exact way she was looking at her right now, plus so much more.
Oh, Charlie thought. I'd do anything for her. Charlie took a staggering breath. I want the rest of my life to have her in it.
Charlie stopped there. She stopped right there, hard, because Charlie stood three feet away from Reyna and she was not going to be able to hold herself together if she let that go any further.
"Yeah," Charlie managed. "I think she would be."
The music cut out mid-song like a record scratch, and forty people turned around at once to find out why.
"So!" Tavi's voice bellowed from the room as he stood on a chair. "It's the captain's birthday!"
The room made a very loud noise about that. Charlie looked over to see Reyna duck her head slightly.
"And on Earth," Tavi continued. "They have this tradition.
Charlie told me all about it." He looked at her, and she gave him eyes that said, 'Don't do it.
' But obviously, he didn't care. "When it's somebody's birthday, someone sings to them.
" The crowd made noises at this, laughter and comments filtering through the crowd.
"That's how they do it. Humans, am I right?
" The crowd laughed. "But it just so happens that our festive gathering tonight has exactly one Earthling. "
The library exploded.
The whole crew, everybody Charlie had spent six months feeding stories to and teaching to dance, turned around and started cheering at her. Charlie even saw Borran banging something metal on a table. Even Torvax said, in a voice that carried straight to her ears, "I would like to observe this."
Charlie's face had gone so hot she could feel her own pulse in her neck.
I don’t know if I can do this.
"I'm going to kill him," she said. "I'm going to take his console apart with my hands."
Maybe this is a bad idea.