Chapter 7 #2
Zorn was at the main workstation, reviewing something on a holographic display. His deep forest-green skin caught the overhead lighting, gold healing markings tracing patterns across broad shoulders. He looked up when I entered, and something in his expression shifted, wariness mixing with hope.
We'd been walking on eggshells around each other since the commendation ceremony last week. Since I'd admitted therapy was hard. Since he'd offered to walk me to my quarters and we'd almost-but-not-quite acknowledged the complicated thing building between us.
"Bea." His voice was professionally neutral, but his golden-brown eyes held more. "Everything alright?"
"Fine. Just checking in before dinner." I moved to the monitoring station, pulled up patient files with practiced efficiency. "How's the Veridian Station crew member? The respiratory infection case?"
"Responding well to the antibiotic protocol. Should be cleared for discharge tomorrow." He hesitated, then added, "You attended your therapy session today."
It wasn't a question, but the observation hung there waiting for response.
"Yes. I attended." I kept my focus on the display, watching numbers scroll past that meant life, meant healing, meant measurable progress in ways therapy never could.
"Dr. Senna thinks I should join the survivors' support group.
Apparently talking about trauma with other traumatized people is therapeutic. "
"Is it?"
"I don't know. Haven't tried it yet."
Silence stretched between us, not uncomfortable exactly, but weighted with things we weren't saying. With feelings we couldn't quite acknowledge. With professional boundaries blurring into something more complex.
"Dana mentioned they're having dinner tonight," Zorn said carefully. "The bonded couples. She invited me. Said you might be there."
My hands stilled on the interface. "Jalina invited me. I said yes."
"So you'll be there."
"Yes."
"Good. That's good." His markings flickered, just briefly, a tell I'd learned meant emotional response he was trying to control. "You should socialize more. Build connections outside of the medical bay. It's healthy."
"Dr. Senna would agree with you."
"Dr. Senna is a wise woman."
I finally looked at him directly, abandoning the pretense that patient files were more interesting than this conversation. He was watching me with an intensity that made my breath catch, made my pulse kick up in ways that had nothing to do with medical emergencies.
"Are we going to talk about it?" I asked.
"About what?"
"About whatever this is. Whatever's been happening between us since the colony outbreak. Since you forced me into therapy. Since—" I stopped, gathered courage. "Since I realized you actually care. Not professionally. Not as my supervisor. But as someone who—"
"Who's falling for you despite knowing it's complicated and probably inappropriate and definitely against my better judgment." The words came out rushed, like he'd been holding them back and couldn't anymore. "Yes. We could talk about that. But I don't think you're ready."
The assessment should have offended me. Should have triggered defensive walls. But he was right, I wasn't ready. Wasn't stable enough, wasn't healed enough, wasn't sure enough of anything beyond the fact that my hands shook less when he was nearby.
"No," I admitted. "I'm not ready. But I want to be."
"Then take your time. I'm not going anywhere." His expression softened, became almost tender. "I waited years before meeting someone who made me reconsider everything. I can wait a few more months for you to do the same."
The promise settled in my chest like warmth, like possibility, like something I didn't quite deserve but desperately wanted.
"A few months," I echoed. "That's optimistic."
"I'm a healer. Optimism is an occupational requirement."
I almost smiled. Almost. "What if I'm too damaged? What if I can't—"
"You're healing, not damaged. There's a difference." He moved closer, just a step, but it felt significant. "And I'm patient. We've established this."
We stood there in the quiet medical bay, monitoring equipment humming around us, stars visible through the viewport, everything familiar and strange simultaneously.
Two people figuring out how to want something beyond survival, beyond duty, beyond the carefully constructed walls that kept feeling at bay.
"I should go," I said eventually. "Dinner's in three hours and I need to—" What? Change clothes? Prepare myself for social interaction like it was surgery? Admit that spending time with happy couples made me ache for something I'd convinced myself I didn't need?
"You need to let yourself enjoy it," Zorn finished. "Your friends want you there. I want to share their happiness with you. That's not pity or obligation. That's care."
Care. That word again. The one that implied vulnerability, implied openness, implied allowing people close enough to hurt me.
"I'll try," I promised.
"That's all anyone can ask."
I left the medical bay with that promise ringing in my head, with Zorn's patient expression burned into memory, with something that might have been hope unfurling cautiously in my chest.
Three hours until dinner. Three hours to prepare myself for social interaction with people who'd figured out how to be happy while I was still learning how to stop punishing myself for surviving.
But maybe that was okay. Maybe healing wasn't about racing toward some finish line but about small steps forward, one session, one conversation, one dinner at a time.
Maybe I could learn to live instead of just surviving.
Maybe I could let myself have something good without waiting for catastrophe.
Maybe I could let Zorn get close enough to matter.
The thought terrified me.
But I headed toward my quarters anyway, checking the time, planning what to wear, deciding whether to bring anything to dinner beyond myself and my carefully controlled damage.
Dr. Senna would call that progress.
I called it terrifying.
But I was going anyway.
And that had to count for something.