Chapter 37
Homecoming Day
The fact that Carissa didn’t ask a single question when he told her that Fia wasn’t coming stung the most. Was this inevitable?
Was he so blinded by butterflies and longing that he hadn’t realized it was doomed from the start?
He had loved and lost before. That wasn’t new.
But at least before, there was an understandable cause. This, he couldn’t understand.
They had the money, and they had their route set. At least Fia had stayed true to her word. She made sure Marius came home. It just wouldn’t be a home she shared with him.
He had been imagining this reunion for weeks.
They would decorate the ship, and Fia would help him with the cooking.
Or, at least, she would be in the scullery with him while he made a welcome-home meal.
They would all meet, they could laugh over the hilarity of fate, and then plan where life would take them next.
The reunion would still happen, but with a different shape.
He would still make the meal. They would still be happy to have Marius back.
And, truly, he was happy that the future little nephew (or niece, or nebulous other) would have their father there to meet them.
Eventually, he would find peace with it all. But it was not coming easily.
There had to be some joy to salvage from this, or he was going to lose it and give up to join a monastery or something to start over. Not that he was feeling righteous, but it felt like an appropriately dramatic tactic while also being minimally self-destructive.
“Hey, Dav…” Carissa’s voice snapped him out of his brooding. “Look, we don’t have to talk about anything. But you’d tell me if things started going sideways, right?” she asked from her pilot’s seat while he sat slumped in the copilot chair.
“Yeah. I’m not going to do anything stupid.”
He heard the apathy creeping into his voice. It was true. He was hurt and heartbroken, but he wasn’t teetering on the edge of oblivion. He was firmly grounded, the edges of his pain muted and dulled.
“I’m sorry to have to ask. I just don’t know how to read you sometimes, and the last thing I want is to get swept up in getting Marius back, baby shit — both literal and figurative — and not catch that you’re drowning.”
“Well, unless you’re planning to elope to a different star system with my brother, I’ll be around. Gotta be a good uncle, help you with said baby shit. Both literal and figurative.”
Carissa snorted. “God, no. We got a decent payday, but not enough to get out of TC. I was thinking of getting a little condo hab on a station with decent schools, give the kiddo a chance to grow up around other kiddos.”
“You think Marius is down to stop the ship-hopping life?”
She leveled a brutal stare at him and gave her belly a derisive pat.
If one can even pat a belly derisively. “Do you think he’s in any position to argue?
” She puffed out a triumphant laugh. “No, he agreed that if I was going to do this, that he would smile and nod and do whatever I damn well say. Unless he figures out how to give birth in my stead.”
“Damn, chasing after stern women really does run in the family.”
Carissa pursed her lips and did her best not to laugh in response. Davik didn’t stifle his own, and they both devolved into cackles. It was a cathartic sort of laughter, and both of them were clutching their stomachs and doubled over after a few failed bouts of quelling the fit.
“Fuck, C. What the hell do I even do?” he finally muttered, his voice still carrying mirth tangled with spent sorrow.
“You give it time, Dav. It’ll get easier in time. It’s just … it’s hard. I get it, but that doesn’t make it less painful.”
“Clue me in, then. Because all I got was some lip service about how the big mother fish needed her.”
Carissa chucked an empty pouch of juice at Davik’s head, landing squarely on his temple.
“Hey!” he yelped, rubbing the spot where she had made contact.
“You can be pissed, but don’t start saying shit like that.
I’ll kick your ass,” she huffed, turning back to face out the front viewport.
“The war seems like it’s far away for you and me, but it was happening for her barely a season ago.
It takes longer than that to adapt back to civilian life.
Some people never can. Look at Drey. The man got shunted back into the real world, and it fights him at every corner. ”
“Gods above and below, I still don’t get it,” he said with a tired sigh. “She seemed happy, C. She seemed so goddamn happy here, with us. Even when things were hard. I don’t understand why she chose a rough life as an expendable cog over a chance at happiness.”
Another juice pouch hit him on the head. This time, it was full, and it smarted like a son of a bitch.
“What the hell?!”
“Write down what you just said and tattoo it on your goddamn forehead. Or the back of your hand. Or your dick, whatever you stare at the most. Because Dav, I swear to Baal, I have chastised you for doing that exactly. And you didn’t listen to me, even a little.”
“Excuse you! In what context—” He ducked down as she readied a third projectile pouch. “Okay! Yeesh, lady.”
“Look, I may not have said it as eloquently, but I distinctly recall you choosing to join the Engineers Guild rather than continuing art school because, in your words, ‘you don’t have the luxury of dreaming’. And you hated it. You hated every dreary minute. But you did it. Because it was safe.”
“I think I had pretty solid proof that it wasn’t for me, C. You think trying to make it as a starving artist wouldn’t have been miserable?”
“No, and you’re being obtuse on purpose. You chose a thing you knew you could do, that you didn’t want to do, because the other option was to do something unproven and scary. Even if that unproven, scary thing is something you love.”
Davik pushed off from the chair with a sigh. “Fine, I’ll … sleep on it. I’ll come swap with you in five, alright?”
“Take more than a fiver. Try for at least seven hours. You look like shit, and I don’t want Marius’ first impression of you to be too corpse-like.”
“You sure? You’re running a long-haul shift here, and you have the whole growing a human thing going on.”
She waved a hand dismissively, and he ceased his protest. He knew he wouldn’t sleep even for the five, but it would give her some peace of mind.
He curled up in the corner of the bed. He couldn’t bring himself to sleep in the middle. That was where she should have been. But the attempt to slumber was fitful and fruitless.
Against his better judgement, he grabbed his datapad to search for something that had been nagging at the back of his mind.
The Teelish word she spoke in quiet moments and vulnerable exchanges of touch and affection.
The gentle lilting “ilsuir’a”, a word she had never explained the meaning of. And he had to know.
Maybe it just meant pet, or toy, or “stupid horny human man”. It would be apt. You’re being an idiot, deciding to learn some Teelish once it’s all blown up in your face. Dumbass.
He stowed the self-degradation and brought up his search. It took a few attempts to spell the anglicized translation well, but he finally found the entry. The page read:
Ilsuir’a. A term of endearment, literally translated as “my beloved”. This word is reserved for intimate partners who have bonded for life. Typically, this is established via a ritual—
Davik was grateful they had just gotten paid. The datapad that he sent careening across the room would cost a pretty penny to repair.
His hair was neatly tended, his clothing reasonably de-wrinkled, and the under-eye bags somewhat hidden behind tinted glasses.
Carissa was dolled up for the occasion, too.
She had on bright purple lipstick and a floral-patterned dress that didn’t quite match the military-style coat she was wearing.
He was going to give her flak for it until he noticed the patches and the name across the shoulders on the back. It was Marius’ old jacket.
They had already paid the processing fees and bail amount at the nearby station clerk’s office. Despite that, they had been told they had to wait an agonizing week as it made its way through the red tape.
But this was the day. Finally.
They docked at the prison station, at the correct bay this time.
And, unlike last time, they did so legally.
Davik was on high alert with each worker and guard they passed.
The chances of anyone recognizing him from his attempted heist here were slim, but he still felt that primal fear of walking into the den of a beast that might sniff him out.
They sat in the waiting room for what felt like an eternity. She reached out to hold Davik’s hand for comfort, and he gave it a soft pat as they both stared at the guard manning the departures desk.
“We’re almost there. He’ll be home soon,” Davik whispered.
“I just really don’t want to throw up on him,” Carissa blurted. “I feel like I’m gonna hurl.”
“Well, if you do, he’s seen worse. Plus, he got to take a nap while you worked your ass off through gestation and a slew of legally dubious adventures to save him. Fair is fair.”
That elicited a soft crack in her stony expression.
“Baby?!” a booming, rumbling voice sounded.
There he was. All six hulking feet of Marius, looking bewildered, exhausted, clammy, wearing incredibly wrinkled clothes, but here.
Marius ran down the aisle of the seats and sank to his knees in front of Carissa, scooping around her waist with one arm and grabbing Davik with his other.
They all fell into a huddled heap together, despite the annoyed chiding of the guard insisting that they couldn’t loiter in the discharge lobby.
Carissa didn’t hurl. Marius did cry. And Davik breathed a sigh of relief that he had been holding onto for months.
Davik had finished making the brunch-ish welcome home meal and was tidying up while Carissa filled Marius in on the finer details.
He was grateful for the busywork. Anything to avoid explaining the absence of the Icthian crewmate they had accidentally plucked from the ice all those months ago.
Plus, then they can’t see that you’re getting misty-eyed in the kitchen because you’re using the knife she gave you.
“A contract with the Sov Fleet? I thought they were all dead?!” Marius asked through a mouthful of pancakes as Davik brought out the last batch.
“Kinda. It’s a long story,” he answered as he settled into his own chair. “It was a means to an end for them. You know how it is. Desperate times, desperate measures.”
“Well, shit.” Marius let out a low breath, gesturing to his little brother in greeting as he sat down. Davik found a strange comfort in how similar their mannerisms were. If it weren’t for the height difference and the beard, they would look like twins.
The mil-grade augs that Marius had were a stark contrast, though. Most of his spine and limbs had been fortified to hell and back. His brother could probably peel the plating off the ship with his bare hands.
How come he got all the good genes? Would be nice to get kitted out with augs and not end up fighting rejection aches at every corner.
Davik took a little sip of coffee as he spoke, shelving his brotherly envy.
“The Fleet is shipping out for good, though, so there’s not another big payout like that on the horizon. But now we have a friend in TCIP, Theos, and he’s keen to work with us again.”
Carissa shook her head. “Nah, I’m looking to stay put with this payday. Maybe get a service job on whatever rig we land on. Might even do local cab work if I need to flex my pilot skills. But I can’t be living on a boat forever.”
Marius shrugged. “I’m not going to argue.
We have the coin now to at least buy a place, and none of us have active warrants.
Been a hot minute since that happened all at once,” he said, beaming a bright smile at his wife.
“We’ll see where life takes us. You might get the itch later.
Or maybe I’ll get real fond of domesticity.
” He gasped in sudden realization. “Oh, fuck, baby. I can finally get a welcome mat.”
The evening devolved into musings about where they would settle and host belated baby showers. Davik realized he had managed to go the entire meal without thinking of the person who would have been sitting in the empty chair next to him.
As he was cleaning up in the scullery, he popped open the cabinet to tuck away a mug, and saw a jar of the loose leaf they had gotten in Tescatua.
It was her favorite.
She should have been here.