9. Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine
By the time I finished my duties and returned to our cabin that day, I was astonished to find Ursa sitting up in bed. Let me repeat, sitting! Do you have any idea the muscle strength required to sit up, not leaning or propped up against anything?
It was a very promising sign of healthy progress. And almost as encouraging was the fact that Ursa looked up at my approach, doing his best to smile, even if he grimaced as he did so.
He’d been so still, so unresponsive, for so very long, that I’m afraid I let my emotions get the best of me. “Ursa!” I raced forward and launched myself onto the bed, taking hold of his face and peppering it with kisses.
Semi-tackling a man who’s been too ill to move for several days was probably not the best idea I’ve ever had, I’ll grant you that.
When he grunted, I pulled away to make certain I hadn’t injured him.
But he drew me back to him, wrapping his arms around me and holding my face snug against his chest. I could hear his heart beating, slow and steady.
It was—I thought then, and think so still—the most beautiful sound I had ever heard.
The first order of business was to get him properly fed.
Then, after another successful night of sleep with the sunlamp shining on him, when he was able to walk about the room on his own, I helped him shower.
1 After another proper meal, which he managed to keep down with little issue, I decided it was time to tend to Ursa’s health in a different, but no less important, way.
“Are you feeling up to a walk, my love?” I asked. Seeing his hesitation, I smiled at him encouragingly. “It will be worth it, I promise.”
After helping Ursa get dressed and bracing him as we walked down the hall, I took him to the cargo hold. Before the poker game, when I’d fruitlessly searched for extra sunlamps, I’d stumbled across something there that I thought he might enjoy.
It wasn’t only the lack of sunlight and poolwater that was ailing Ursa, after all. He was unsettled, uncertain, and homesick. No doubt missing the peace he felt at being in the wilderness. The beauty of a sunset. The wonder of a mountain range. The tranquility of grass between his toes.
I couldn’t give all of that to Ursa, not here. Maybe not anywhere else aside from Earth, not completely. But perhaps, even on this tin can floating through space, there was something of beauty, of wonder, that I could still offer him.
I’ll admit, the cargo hold is not particularly impressive upon first glance. I saw Ursa’s wariness as he entered the room, glancing around at the crates of various sizes, the tools and machinery, the cold, unfeeling metal surrounding us on all sides.
“Wait here,” I instructed, helping him to take a seat on a nearby crate before hurrying to the panel on the side wall.
After I pressed the right combination of buttons, the lights went out and mechanisms on the wall began to groan, then shift.
I hurried back to Ursa’s side as the sequence progressed, standing next to him as he remained seated on his crate. Taking his hand, I watched with him as the wall shifted and then slid aside to reveal a large observation window.
And outside were stars—so many stars. Brighter and even more beautiful than they appeared on Earth. Endless and infinite and breathtaking.
Ursa’s fingers tightened around mine. I squeezed back as my eyes roved over the brilliant, bright dots of light illuminating the pitch black.
“I know we’re far from home,” I told him. “I know you’ve given up so much. I know this can’t make up for what you left behind, not entirely. But there’s beauty here, too, isn’t there?”
I looked down to see what Ursa’s response to the view would be. But he wasn’t looking at the stars. He was looking at me.
He pulled me around to face him, spreading his legs wide so I could come to stand between them.
My breath caught in my throat as he took hold of the zipper at the top of my jumpsuit.
But he only tugged me closer so he could press his lips to mine.
He was so reassuringly warm, and solid, and healthy, and whole.
As he wrapped his hand around the back of my neck to pull me deeper into the kiss, I raised my palm, placing it on his chest. His heartbeat thumped against me in what felt like a response. I’m here. I’m safe. I’m here.
Reassured, I lost myself in the feeling of his lips against mine, our bodies twined together.
That was quite enough excitement for one day, I determined.
After all, Ursa was still healing, and he ought to pace himself.
I made the executive decision that we would carry on skipping eating meals with the crew for the remainder of the day.
I knew that Ursa would need to show his face again, and soon, especially if I wanted to assuage Tobago’s concerns.
But all of that could hold for one more day. Today, Ursa needed his rest.
I arranged for us to take our meals in the room again, which I knew would cause some grumbling, though I made sure to do both mine and Ursa’s chores so efficiently and thoroughly that no one could reproach us for not pulling our weight.
Though Croydon tried to goad me into playing poker again that evening, I excused myself early.
When I arrived back at our quarters, I found Ursa lying in bed. As I’d suspected, he was very happy to shuck his clothing, even without me explaining that exposing his skin would help the sunlamp be more effective. Well, that was just Ursa. He was always happiest when he was naked.
I could not boast the same, especially not aboard an older vessel without proper temperature regulation. Hurriedly, I changed out of my jumpsuit and into my nightclothes.
Unfortunately, I’d had to leave behind my beloved billowy nightgown on Earth, thanks to being unceremoniously chased out of our cave by Rawley and his men.
I suspect that Ursa was pleased with the loss of my comfortable-but-not-entirely-flattering sleeping garment, until he saw the standard-issue nightclothes for the crew members: thermal one-piece footie pajamas that buttoned up the front.
The pajamas covered me almost completely, so only my hands, face, and part of my neck were showing.
Amazingly, it was even less sexy than the billowy nightgown had been, although I have to admit, it was terribly comfortable.
Now Ursa huffed and made a face as I emerged, wearing the thermals, from behind the changing partition.
I grinned at him unapologetically, stopping at the foot of the bed to strike a few poses that I knew would likely be less than flattering but hopefully also hilarious.
“Don’t be jealous, Ursa. You could also be this warm and cozy, you know.
Give in to the pajamas. Embrace the thermals! ”
Ursa didn’t seem to find me very funny. I thought I was hysterical.
Still giggling, I crawled into bed next to him.
Once we’d covered ourselves with our blanket, I reached for the towel I would be using to cover my eyes, handing another over to Ursa.
We would have our backs turned to the sunlamp, but it was still rather bright, and it was difficult to sleep well without our makeshift blindfolds.
“Good night.” I fastened my towel in place before lying down with my back to him.
Ursa would need at least one more night of full exposure to the sunlamp, I guessed, before we could start doing shorter treatments. We could figure all of that out tomorrow, though. The important thing was that Ursa was well.
After a few moments, the mattress shifted. “Ursa?” I was worried he might be feeling ill again, or was perhaps having difficulty sleeping with the extreme brightness of the sunlamp.
His hands slipped around my waist, drawing my back against him. “Cold,” he murmured against my ear.
His hot breath against the shell of my ear made me shiver. “I told you, you ought to wear the thermals.” I started to sit up. “Let me get you some—”
Ursa pulled me back before I could get too far. “Mina warm.”
Oh. Oh.
I know I can be naive at times, but I would’ve had to have been a proper idiot not to understand where this was going.
I myself had been daydreaming about our newly discovered intimacy.
With Ursa’s far more, shall we say, voracious appetite, it didn’t come as any surprise that he should feel the same.
But was he well enough to exert himself in that manner?
On the one hand, I worried that he might not be. On the other, he had just conquered an unexpected, life-threatening illness, and it felt meanspirited not to reward him in some tangible way.
And maybe, just maybe, I missed him just as much as he missed me.
The problem, of course, was my pride. I had put up such a fight, made such a ceremony of explaining the rules and you may only touch me here and so forth, that I felt a little ridiculous retracting my earlier stance.
I hated being wrong. As an adolescent, I dropped out of the debate club when I realized I’d inaccurately said that Creusa was the wife of Hector.
2 All that to say, the idea of “changing my mind” was not one I could embrace easily.
Which was unfortunate, since I now desperately wanted him to touch me, but I couldn’t find the way to vocalize this without it sounding like a defeat.
I cleared my throat. “I suppose if you’re cold, we could cuddle together for a bit.”
Ursa grunted and pulled me in tighter against him. I waited for him to make a big move, grind into my behind or grab my breasts or something, but instead came the softest brush of his nose over my hairline. God, that man loved to sniff me, and how I loved to be sniffed!
I waited for him to do something more. But he didn’t. I might have thought he was content simply to hold me, that perhaps he was too ill to try anything more, but I knew him too well. He was waiting me out. I was his prey and he knew he had me cornered.