Chapter 6 #3
I looked at her, compact and fierce and refusing to leave despite obvious exhaustion, her wild dark hair and bright eyes and the determined set of her jaw, and felt something shift in my chest. Something that had been frozen since I lost my unit, kept behind walls and discipline and the belief that I didn't deserve happiness.
"I could get used to that," I said softly.
She smiled, small and real and beautiful. "Good. Because I'm not going anywhere."
Her comm unit chirped. She glanced at it, frowned. "It's Dana. She wants to know if we're both alive and not killing each other."
"Tell her we're alive and not killing each other at the moment."
"At the moment?" Elena typed quickly, one-handed since she refused to release my hand. "That's not reassuring."
"It's honest."
She laughed, bright and unexpected, the sound cutting through medical bay sterility like a flare. "Fair point. Though Dana's going to have questions about why I'm still in medical instead of my quarters."
"Let her have questions. We'll answer them when I'm not held together by Zorn's medical genius and spite."
"You're assuming spite is involved in your treatment?"
"I know Zorn. He considers keeping difficult patients alive a personal challenge."
"Then you must be his favorite patient." Elena's thumb traced small circles on the back of my hand, the gesture unconscious and intimate. "You've been difficult since day one."
"Says the woman who tried to work on live power conduits at oh-three-hundred."
"That was necessary maintenance—"
"That was you punishing yourself for surviving the Liberty disaster."
The words landed harder than I intended. Elena flinched, her hand tightening on mine.
"Sorry," I said. "That was—"
"True." She looked away, toward the viewport showing endless stars beyond Mothership's hull.
"I've been punishing myself for months. Taking dangerous assignments, working impossible hours, trying to earn the right to be alive when so many others aren't." Her voice dropped.
"The people in that derelict, Will, Lisa, the rest who didn't make it, they were my section. My responsibility."
"You couldn't have known they survived."
"I should have looked harder. Searched longer. Been more obsessed about finding survivors instead of just moving forward with my new life."
"Elena." I waited until she looked at me. "You found them. You never stopped searching, even when everyone else said to let it go. Those two people are alive because of you."
"And six others are dead."
"Which isn't your fault. Any more than my unit's deaths were mine." The words felt strange, like trying on clothes that didn't quite fit yet. "We both survived something that killed people we cared about. That's not a crime. It's just what happened."
She studied me with those analytical eyes. "You don't really believe that."
"Not yet. But I'm trying to learn." I squeezed her hand gently. "And having someone beside me who understands the guilt makes it easier."
"Is this going to be our thing? Helping each other work through survivor trauma while fighting raiders and arguing about electrical systems?"
"Probably. Along with driving each other crazy and stealing each other's food and debating proper maintenance protocols at inappropriate hours."
"That actually sounds good." She smiled, small and uncertain. "Complicated and messy and probably disaster-prone, but good."
"Welcome to relationships. I hear they're all complicated and messy and disaster-prone."
"Where'd you hear that?"
"Er'dox. He waxed philosophical about it after bonding with Dana. Apparently love is equal parts terror and joy with significant logistical challenges."
Elena laughed again, and I committed the sound to memory, wanted to collect every version of her laughter, catalog the differences between amused and delighted and surprised.
"He's not wrong," she said. "Though I'd add 'electrically charged' to that description."
"Electrically charged?"
"From my perspective. Your perspective might be different. Maybe 'tactically complicated' or 'strategically inadvisable.'"
"From my perspective?" I pulled her closer, until her face was inches from mine. "It's worth dying for. Which I almost did. So yeah, I'd say it's significant."
Her breath caught. "Don't joke about dying."
"I'm not joking. I'm stating a fact. You're worth fighting for, Elena. Worth surviving for. Worth being recklessly vulnerable with." I traced her cheekbone with my free hand, careful of my own injuries. "Worth everything."
Tears spilled over, tracking down her cheeks. She didn't pull away, didn't hide. Just let me see her completely, the fear and hope and desperate wish to believe what I was saying.
"I don't know how to do this," she whispered.
"Neither do I. But we'll figure it out." I wiped her tears with my thumb. "One day at a time. One argument at a time. One impossible survival situation at a time."
"You make it sound easy."
"It won't be easy. It'll probably be one of the hardest things either of us does." I held her gaze. "But I'm done pretending I don't want this. Done letting guilt and fear make decisions for me. So I'm asking you, Elena Vasquez: Will you take this catastrophically complicated risk with me?"
She kissed me instead of answering, deeper this time, hungry and desperate and real. Her hand cupped my face, careful of the medical equipment but claiming nonetheless.
When she pulled back, her eyes blazed with that fierce determination I'd come to associate with Elena at her most dangerous.
"Yes," she said. "But if you die on me after making that speech, I'm going to rewire your security systems to play embarrassing music every time you walk past."
"Noted. I'll endeavor to stay alive."
"Good." She settled back into her chair but kept my hand clasped in hers. "Because we're doing this properly. Dates that don't involve derelicts or raiders. Conversations that don't happen during combat operations. Normal relationship things."
"You think we can do normal?"
"No. But we can try."
The medical bay doors opened and Zorn entered, his forest-green skin and gold markings catching the sterile lighting. He stopped when he saw Elena still occupying the visitor chair, his warm brown eyes moving between us with obvious assessment.
"She was supposed to be resting in her quarters," he said mildly.
"I tried." Bea appeared behind him, datapad in hand. "She threatened to rewire the medical bay if I forced the issue."
"Could you actually do that?" Zorn asked Elena with genuine curiosity.
"Yes. But I won't. Because you saved Vaxon's life and I owe you forever." Elena met his gaze steadily. "Thank you. For everything."
Zorn's expression softened. "You're welcome. Though technically you saved his life first by getting him to the shuttle. I just prevented him from dying afterward."
"Team effort," Elena said.
"Indeed." Zorn moved to my medical pod, checking readings with the thoroughness that made him Mothership's best physician.
"Your recovery is progressing well, Commander.
Another forty-eight hours of monitoring, then light duty for two weeks.
No combat operations, no heavy exertion, and absolutely no crawling through damaged derelicts. "
"Understood."
"And you," he turned to Elena, "need to let Bea examine that shoulder. The plasma burn requires specialized treatment."
"It's fine—"
"Elena." I kept my tone gentle but firm. "Let them treat you. You can come back after."
She looked like she wanted to argue, but something in my expression must have convinced her. "Fine. But I'm coming right back."
"I'll be here."
She squeezed my hand once more, then reluctantly stood and followed Bea to an examination area. I watched her go, tracking her movements with the same tactical awareness I brought to combat operations. Making sure she was safe, protected, cared for.
"You care about her." Zorn's observation wasn't a question.
"Yes."
"Good. She needs someone who understands what she's been carrying." He made adjustments to my medication drip. "Survivor guilt is a weight that crushes slowly. Having someone who shares that weight makes it bearable."
"You've experienced it."
"Every healer has. We lose patients despite our best efforts.
Learn to live with the ones we couldn't save.
" Zorn's gold markings flickered with old pain.
"Elena's been punishing herself for surviving when others didn't. You can help her see that living fully honors the dead better than slow self-destruction. "
"And what if I don't know how to live fully? What if I'm just as broken?"
"Then you learn together. Share your brokenness until it becomes something new. Something that works." Zorn finished his adjustments, met my eyes with compassion that made his profession make sense. "Love doesn't require perfection, Commander. It requires honesty. The rest follows."
He left me alone with those words and the distant sound of Elena arguing with Bea about treatment protocols. I closed my eyes, let exhaustion pull at consciousness, and tried to believe that maybe I could learn to stop merely surviving and actually live.
With Elena beside me, arguing and brilliant and refusing to let me give up on either of us, it almost seemed possible.