Chapter 2 #2
At first, when I woke choking on nothing at all, wheezing in breaths that refused to fill my lungs as I struggled, desperate, to crawl my way free from the bed that kept dragging me back, Araxis had no idea what to do.
He kept asking me what was wrong, reaching for me in a panic, looking stricken when I wrenched away.
He tried turning on the lights, then shifting them to a familiar, soothing pink; he got me water, he talked to me, he tried to drape a blanket over my shoulders while I shivered.
"What can I do?" he asked when I finally calmed down enough to stop gasping for air.
"Nothing," I wheezed. "Just – it just happens."
He didn't push; I didn't offer more. Eventually I drank my water and crawled back into bed. And the next night, we went through the same song and dance again, Araxis looking devastated and wide-eyed and hopeless, all at once.
Which was frustrating: I didn't really want to be worrying about his emotions in the middle of my – episode. Not when I could still feel the shards of broken bone radiating from my orbital socket; when I could feel the prick of Andiri's claws around the back of my neck.
He must have figured out the particular quality of my nightmares.
Maybe it was the way I rubbed my neck, an attempt at self-soothing – the physical reminder that Andiri didn't have her bone-white fingers around my neck, that her claws weren't gouging punctures into my skin.
Maybe it was because, sometimes, I pressed a hand hard to my own face, assuring myself that it was still in one piece – firm, unbroken, not soft and pulpy.
In any case, he figured it out and the next night that I woke, unable to breathe with my mouth tasting like blood and my own imminent death, he'd threaded his fingers through my hair – certain – and murmured, "You are here, safe with me.
You are far away. No one will touch you again.
No one can touch you here." His fingers were cold against my scalp and stopped me in my tracks as I fought against the tangle of blankets.
Instead, I'd curled inwards and he had pulled me to him until my head was resting on his chest and his words were a rumble I felt more than anything I could hear.
Of course, it was a lie – although, admittedly it was a nice one, and it was nicer still because he believed it. But none of us can promise safety, can we?
In the morning, I'd still felt like I'd been run over by a shuttle, but it was definitely a smaller shuttle than it had been in the days before.
As always, it was like Araxis had shone a light on some dark, hidden corner of my soul and lit it up for us both to see. This time, though, it was helpful rather than just – painful.
Well, it was painful too. God, it was painful, because by the light of day, it became clear to me: I was scared.
I was terrified. I didn't feel safe. How could I feel safe, when I'd gone through what I'd gone through on Seraphim, scrambled to scrape by, had everything I'd known yanked away from me by someone who I'd then fallen in love with, and I'd nearly been murdered twice for intergalactic broadcast because I was a dancer, not a fighter, and, worse, I was a fucking liability.
So the next day, when he'd reminded me that it was a Personal Day, of course I'd decided to start looking for a trainer. And then I found Tam and Inmadra and began, inch by inch, to carve out the shape of my life here on Sozamia Station and here as part of Creche Thiel.
My life quickly fell into two bisected halves.
When I was working, I slotted into the creche's life as if I were a piece designed to fit into their puzzle.
It was what I knew how to do: to be helpful, pretty, entertaining.
Agreeable. I woke every morning and reviewed the plan for the day with Araxis on the large display in our bedroom that was perpetually glowing, whether with our schedule or the missives that Araxis seemed to get in an endless stream from creches throughout the empire or with the news that came every day on the morning burst, a selection of important updates from Xitera.
I woke, I dressed, I laid out my day, and I walked the kids to school.
When I came back to the inevitable onslaught of meetings and guests who would sit in the meeting room off of our bedroom, I would sit at Araxis's side and smile, tilting my head attentively and peppering in little comments that never failed to win me some pleased laughter from whoever was sitting across from us.
During our first week on station, I'd expected I would be lost during those meetings – after all, I hadn't magically learned abayan through proximity to a creche, and I hadn't yet found Inmadra then, although even she couldn't cram an entire language into my brain in a few meetings – but when Vivith had started speaking in melodic abayan during our first meeting, Araxis had gently cut them off.
"It would be best if we use Standard," he'd said, "so that we might all understand. "
The entinn and cinelaat from Creche Eshos who sat across from us for our very first in-person meeting had both beamed at me – absolutely glowed in my direction – and easily slid from their language into one I could follow while I murmured about my appreciation and their kindness.
Vivith's face flashed with a tight expression before they smoothed it away and business continued apace.
That night, Araxis had offered to help me with the language, if I was inclined, after the dinner's conversation had yet again slid into abayan before he'd reminded my creche-mates to speak in Standard while I suppressed a wash of awkwardness and pretended like I wasn't disrupting everything.
"I'm fine," I'd said, already skimming the Sozamia forums. "And you're busy anyway. "
Araxis had stood in the door to our bedroom, watching me, before he nodded and drifted away to go speak again with Vivith about something that I guess didn't concern me and that I couldn't help with.
I wasn't helping much with anything – but, I told myself, if I could learn the language, if I could build my skills, maybe I could be more than just a pretty little thing on Araxis's arm. I'd said I wanted to help, and I did. He was paying me enough that I should be helping.
After the first two weeks – during which I'd had, improbably, three days off – my calendar showed more signs of shifting around me.
Suddenly, there were these weird pockets of time in my day, often in the morning and evening, but sometimes in the middle of my day, when my schedule only read Personal Time.
The first time I'd opened my schedule and found one of them glowing gently above my wrist, I'd been reminded so much of Silver Sea that I'd actually written to her to make sure she hadn't told him to do that.
You are wildly presumptuous, she had replied after a few hours, during which I'd trekked down to Radiant Ward and practiced some questionable conversation skills with Elethenn before dropping in at the gym for a quick session with Tam’s assistant coach.
I do not think of you often enough to be able to give advice on how best to handle your lack of a sense of self-preservation.
Please review the attached merchandizing contract.
I have highlighted the areas you should argue with me about.
It was in those pockets of time, though, and in the days off that punctuated my calendar on a semi-regular basis, that I continued to build that second, separate life for myself.
I wrote to Inmadra at least eleven times a day with questions or to ask for more practice.
At first, she'd responded, A language cannot be learned in a day.
You are impatient, all while attaching more homework.
It didn't take long for her to realize that, sure, maybe I couldn't learn abayan in a day, but I had to learn a lot and I had to learn it quickly – because I was swimming in waters deeper than I understood.
After three weeks, I was exhausted, but I was used to being exhausted.
The hours in the den had been unforgiving: humans need more sleep than other species, and I could barely work enough to cover rent, training, and food, to say nothing about chipping away at the debt to Alet Trident I'd accumulated in the first few years of life on Yellow Fin before I'd been ready to work.
So I knew how to work myself to the bone. I knew how to throw myself into the deep end and figure out how the fuck I was going to swim my way out of the mess I'd put myself into.
This time, though, I was being paid well and I had time off, even if I'd rapidly and incessantly filled every possible gap with the work I needed to do to be better.
And I guess someone was holding me while I slept and helping me through the tremors that followed the nightmares that still punctuated my nights, which would be nice if he weren't also –
Every time I had a day off, Araxis would bring me tea and food and ask if I was ready to hear his apology.
And every time, I said no. I had to, because the truth was that holding on to my anger and hurt was the only thing that allowed me to maintain this professional distance.
I was white-knuckling my way through this whole mess of a situation.
Because I could admit to myself, when I was away from the creche and sitting somewhere in Radiant Ward as just Sashen, that I still loved him. Of course I did. You don’t fall out of love in a heartbeat, and I wasn't even sure I wanted to.
Val asked me once, when we were on a call together, if I felt differently about Araxis now that I wasn't staring down the barrel of my own imminent demise.