17. I’d Burn Every Bridge Twice #2
"That's all I'm asking." He nodded, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. "I know you'll do right by the crew, Alves. That's why you're sitting in that chair."
I found Davids alone in the gear room two days later, restocking medical supplies, his movements efficient and practiced.
Boxes of gauze, packages of bandages, bottles of antiseptic lined up on the shelves with the meticulous care of someone who’d served in the military and actually understood order.
My stomach churned as I pushed through the door, but I forced myself forward.
This conversation needed to happen, even if every instinct I had was screaming at me to avoid it.
"We got a problem?"
He didn't look up, his hands continuing their methodical work. "Nope. No problem."
"Bullshit. You haven't said two words to me in a week." I moved closer, not crowding him but making it clear I wasn't leaving until this was settled. "Actually looked at me even less."
His hands stilled on a box of gauze, his shoulders tensing.
The silence stretched between us, thick and uncomfortable, heavy with everything unsaid.
I could hear the distant sounds of the station.
Stevens laughing at something in the common room, the mechanical hum of the refrigerator, the creak of the building settling in the afternoon heat.
"Look at me," I said quietly, and it wasn't a request.
He finally turned, and the anger on his face was unmistakable. Raw and immediate, burning in his eyes like a fire that had been smoldering for days. His jaw tightened, hands clenched at his sides.
"You embarrassed me," he growled out. "In front of everyone. Made me look like an asshole in front of my girlfriend, in front of Cap, in front of the whole fucking crew."
"You made yourself look like an asshole.
I just called you on it." I kept my voice level, but I could feel heat rising in my chest, my anger matching his.
"You want to talk about embarrassment? Try being Vera, hearing grown men talk about her body like she's not a person.
Like she's just tits and ass for you to comment on. "
"We all talk like that. It's just how guys are." He threw the gauze into the cabinet harder than necessary, the packages scattering. "It doesn't mean anything. It's just bullshitting, just—"
"Not about Vera." The words came out sharp and final. "Never about her. That's the line, Davids. That's the one thing that's non-negotiable."
"So what, you get a girlfriend and suddenly you're above the rest of us?
Too good for locker room talk?" He turned fully now, facing me, and I could see the resentment etched into every line of his face.
"You used to laugh at this shit. We all did.
But now you've got some pretty little librarian and suddenly we're all sexist pigs? "
The implication hung in the air between us, fully accusatory. You're different now. You've changed. You chose her over us. You're not one of the guys anymore.
"This isn't about being too good. It's about basic fucking respect.
" I took a step closer, and he didn't back down.
"You want to talk shit about random women, women you don't know, women who aren't in your life?
Fine. I don't agree with it, but I'm not your mother.
But Vera? She's done nothing to you. She's a good fucking person.
And she's the one I go home to, the one I'm building a life with.
And yeah, that changes things. Because now it's not abstract.
It's real. It's the woman I love that you were reducing to a piece of meat. "
I could see it in his eyes—he didn't get it.
Couldn't understand why I'd choose Vera over crew solidarity, couldn't grasp that loving someone meant defending them fiercely, without question, without compromise.
To him, I'd violated some unspoken dude code, some male bonding ritual that was supposed to be sacred.
Bros before... whatever the firefighter equivalent was.
"She's just some girl, Petra." His voice carried disbelief, like he genuinely couldn't fathom why I was making such a big deal about this. "Is she really worth all this drama? Worth breaking the crew over?"
My hands clenched into fists, nails digging into my palms. The urge to hit him surged through me. Not because of what he'd said at the barbecue, but because of this, this casual dismissal of Vera as "just some girl," like she was interchangeable, forgettable, insignificant.
"She's not just some girl," I said, my voice dropping to something low and dangerous.
"She's the person I love. She's my home, my future, the best thing that's ever happened to me.
And yeah, she's worth it. She'll always be worth it.
I'd burn down this entire station before I'd let anyone disrespect her like that again. "
The words hung in the air, stark and uncompromising, and I meant every single one.
Davids stared at me for a long moment, and I watched something shift in his expression.
Not quite understanding because I don't think he'd ever truly understand, but maybe...
recognition? Recognition that I wasn't backing down, that this wasn't negotiable, that he could either accept it or we could stay in this cold war forever.
"Fine," he said finally, turning back to the supplies, his shoulders rigid with defeat or resentment or both. "I won't say anything about your little girlfriend."
"Her name is Vera."
"Vera." He didn't turn around, his hands resuming their mechanical restocking. "Whatever. Are we done here?"
No. We weren't done. Not really. The crack in our crew dynamic was still there, wide and profound, maybe too deep to ever fully heal. But it was the best I was going to get, the closest thing to peace we'd find in this situation.
"Yeah," I said, my voice tired. "We're done."
I walked out before I could say something I'd regret, before the anger still simmering in my chest could boil over into something uglier.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I made my way to the bay, needing space, needing air, needing to be anywhere but in that gear room with Davids and his wounded pride and his complete inability to grasp why I'd do anything, sacrifice anything, to protect Vera.
I came home that evening tense and coiled tight, my shoulders knotted with stress, jaw aching from clenching it all day.
The confrontation with Davids played on repeat in my mind.
His words, my words, the way we'd circled each other looking for an opening that would hurt.
The apartment was warm when I walked in, golden light from the setting sun streaming through the windows, and I could smell something savory cooking in the kitchen.
Vera was there, humming off-key as usual, her hair pulled up in a messy bun, wearing one of my Station 19 t-shirts and a pair of skin-tight yoga pants that made my heart clench with want and need and the desperate desire to just hold her.
The normalcy of it—her cooking dinner, music floating from her record player, the domestic peace we'd built together—should have soothed me.
For once, it didn't.
"Bad day, babe?" she asked, looking up from the pot she was stirring, and the concern in her cornflower eyes nearly undid me. Nearly.
"They're all bad days now,” I said before I could stop myself.
She turned off the stove immediately, giving me her full attention in that way she always had, like I was the only thing in the world that mattered, like whatever she was cooking could wait, like my pain was more important than anything else. "Want to talk about it?"
I told her everything. The cold shoulders that followed me through every shift, the way conversations stopped when I entered rooms like I was a ghost haunting the station.
Rodriguez's concerns about crew cohesion, his unspoken warning that fractures in trust could cost lives in the field.
The confrontation with Davids that had solved nothing and somehow made everything worse.
It all left me feeling hollowed out and raw.
"I hate that you're dealing with this because of me," she said when I finished, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. She reached for my hands, her touch gentle and grounding. "That you're suffering at work, that your crew is treating you like this, all because you defended me."
"It's not because of you." I needed her to understand this, needed her to know with absolute certainty that I didn't blame her, would never blame her.
"It's because they're assholes who think they have the right to objectify women.
And I'd do it again. I'd do it a thousand times, Vera.
I'd burn every bridge in that station before I'd let anyone talk about you like that. "
"I know you would." Her voice cracked slightly. "That's what scares me."
I frowned, studying her face, the worry etched into her delicate features, the fear she was trying to hide. "What do you mean?"
She took my hands, her thumbs stroking over my knuckles in that soothing pattern she'd developed, and I could feel her trembling slightly.
"You'd burn every bridge for me. You'd sacrifice everything.
Your relationships with your crew, your standing at the station, maybe even your career if it came to that.
I don't want you to have to make those choices, Petra.
I don't want loving me to cost you everything else. "
"Vera—" I started, but she cut me off.
"Let me take care of you tonight. Please?" She pulled me gently toward the bathroom, her hand wrapped around mine. "I made one of your favorites for dinner. But first, you need to relax. You're wound so tight you're practically vibrating."