Chapter 6 #2
I forced my eyes to focus. Found myself in a medical pod, monitoring equipment attached to every surface of my body.
Bea stood at the controls, her pale blonde hair pulled back severe and practical, gray-blue eyes tracking data with the focus of someone who wouldn't tolerate failure from mere biology.
"How long?" My voice came out rough, damaged by the plasma exposure.
"Eighteen hours since we pulled you out of that derelict.
" Bea's fingers moved across her datapad, making adjustments to my medication drip.
"You had third-degree plasma burns across forty percent of your torso, severe internal bleeding, and nerve damage that would have paralyzed a human. You're lucky to be alive, Commander."
"Elena—"
"Is alive. Stubborn. And currently sleeping in the chair next to your pod because I literally had to sedate her to make her rest." Bea gestured to my left, and I turned my head, carefully, everything hurt, to see Elena slumped in a medical chair, her injured shoulder wrapped in bandages, dark hair wild around her face.
She looked exhausted. Beautiful. Alive.
"She wouldn't leave," Bea continued. "Stayed through your entire surgery, all eighteen hours.
Argued with me about medication protocols, apparently she thinks her electrical engineering degree qualifies her to debate xenobiology.
Nearly punched Zorn when he suggested she should rest in her quarters.
" A hint of warmth crept into Bea's professional tone.
"She cares about you. More than is probably wise. "
I stared at Elena's sleeping form, at the way her hand rested near mine like she'd been holding it before exhaustion claimed her.
"The mission?" I asked.
"Will and Lisa are both alive, stable, and recovering.
The derelict's navigation data was successfully destroyed, so Earth's location remains protected.
Captain Tor'van wants a full debrief when you're recovered, but initial reports suggest you and Elena prevented a catastrophic intelligence breach.
" Bea's expression softened microscopically.
"You both did well, Commander. Try to remember that when the guilt sets in. "
The guilt. She knew. Saw through to the core of what drove me, the need to protect, to save, to prevent the kind of loss that had destroyed my old unit.
"I failed them," I said quietly. "My unit. They died because I wasn't fast enough, wasn't strong enough—"
"They died because war is chaos and loss is inevitable." Bea's voice was gentle but firm. "You can't protect everyone, Vaxon. Not from everything. The best you can do is fight for the ones in front of you and accept that sometimes just surviving is enough."
She moved toward the door, then paused. "Elena understands that.
She spent months punishing herself for surviving when others didn't. But she learned something important on that derelict, that living isn't betrayal.
That choosing to save someone you care about doesn't diminish the ones you've lost." Bea looked back at me, and for once her clinical mask dropped completely.
"Let her teach you that. She's good at it. "
Then she left, and I was alone with Elena's sleeping form and the weight of everything that had happened.
The mission had been successful. Intelligence had been secured, survivors rescued, catastrophic breach prevented. By any objective measure, we'd accomplished our objectives.
But all I could think about was the moment when Elena had chosen to save me instead of completing her mission. The moment when she'd defied every tactical principle, every survival protocol, to drag my dying body to safety.
She'd chosen me.
The thought terrified and exhilarated in equal measure. Because it meant this thing between us, this complicated, intense, impossible connection, was real. Not just attraction or professional respect or the bonding that happened during combat operations.
Elena Vasquez, brilliant chaos in human form, had decided I was worth saving. Worth fighting for. Worth risking everything.
Now I had to decide what I was going to do about it.
Movement caught my attention. Elena stirred, her face scrunching in that way that meant she was fighting consciousness. Then her eyes opened, hazel and bright even through exhaustion, and found mine.
For a long moment neither of us spoke. Just looked at each other across the small distance between pod and chair, communication happening in that loaded silence.
"You're awake," she finally said, voice rough from sleep and emotion.
"Thanks to you."
"Don't." She sat up straighter, winced as the movement pulled at her injured shoulder. "Don't make me a hero. I just did what any decent person would do."
"You completed the mission and saved my life. Most people can't manage both."
"Most people aren't trying to prove they deserve to exist." The words came out bitter, raw. Then she seemed to realize what she'd said, and looked away. "Sorry. I'm tired and everything hurts and I'm saying things that should stay in therapy."
"Elena." I waited until she looked at me again. "On the derelict, before the raiders attacked. What I said—"
"Was a crisis situation. Adrenaline and desperation. I know how it works." Her expression shuttered, walls going up. "You don't have to explain. We're both alive. Mission accomplished. We can go back to being professional colleagues who occasionally argue about maintenance protocols."
She was giving me an out. A way to pretend that kiss had been nothing but combat stress and survival instinct. A clean retreat to the safe distance we'd maintained for months.
I should take it. Should accept the escape she was offering and go back to the careful neutrality that kept things simple.
"I meant it," I heard myself say instead. "Everything I said. Everything I felt."
Her breath caught. "Vaxon—"
"I've wanted you for months. Wanted to know if your skin was as soft as it looked, if you tasted like electricity and chaos, if that brilliant mind would feel as good as I imagined when I finally kissed you.
" The words came easier now, like removing armor piece by piece.
"I told myself it was inappropriate. That I was too damaged.
That you deserved better than someone who couldn't protect his own unit. "
"Don't." Elena's voice was fierce. "Don't you dare blame yourself for surviving when others died. That's my specialty, and I'm trying to retire from it."
"Then help me." I held out my hand, careful of the medical equipment. "Teach me how to live instead of just surviving. Show me how to stop punishing myself for being alive."
She stared at my outstretched hand like it was a trap. Or a promise. Maybe both.
"I don't know how to do relationships," she said quietly. "I've spent my whole life proving I'm smart enough, capable enough, worthy enough. I don't know how to just... be. Without the proving."
"We'll figure it out together. Make mistakes. Argue about stupid things. Drive each other crazy." I kept my hand extended, patient. "But we'll do it honestly. No more pretending this doesn't exist between us."
"What if I mess it up? What if I'm too much chaos and not enough stability and you realize—"
"Elena." I waited until her eyes met mine.
"I fell for you because of the chaos, not despite it.
Because you see problems as puzzles to solve instead of limitations to accept.
Because you multitask at impossible levels and forget to eat when you're hyperfocused and explain electrical theory with the passion most people reserve for religion.
" My hand remained steady, an offer without pressure.
"You're not too much. You're exactly enough. "
She crossed the space between chair and medical pod, her small hand sliding into mine. The contact sent electricity through my damaged nervous system, the good kind this time, not the killing kind.
"This is a terrible idea," she whispered.
"Probably."
"We're going to drive each other insane."
"Definitely."
"And if this goes wrong, we still have to work together because we're stuck on the same ship in a different galaxy—"
I pulled her closer, carefully given my injuries but with enough force to stop her spiral. "Elena. Stop thinking and just answer one question."
"What question?"
"Do you want this? Us? Whatever form it takes?"
She looked at me for a long moment, hazel eyes searching. Then something in her expression softened, opened, let me see past the walls to the hope and fear and desperate longing underneath.
"Yes," she said. "God help me, yes."
"Then that's enough. The rest we'll figure out."
She leaned down, had to, given our height difference even with me horizontal in a medical pod—and kissed me. Soft and careful, mindful of my injuries but real. No combat adrenaline. No life-or-death crisis. Just Elena and me and the honest want between us.
When she pulled back, her eyes were bright with unshed tears.
"I've been so alone," she whispered. "Watching Dana and Er'dox, then Jalina and Zor'go, then Bea and Zorn. Seeing them all find their people while I just kept working and pretending I was fine."
"You're not alone anymore."
"Promise?"
"Promise." I squeezed her hand gently. "Now go get actual sleep in your quarters. Bea will lecture both of us if you aggravate that shoulder injury."
"Not leaving." Elena settled back into her chair, hand still holding mine. "Someone needs to make sure you don't die while I'm not looking."
"I'm in a medical bay. Monitored by advanced technology. Bea checked on me five minutes ago—"
"Don't care. Staying." Her expression turned stubborn in that way I was learning meant further argument was futile. "Get used to it, Commander. You're stuck with me now."