Chapter 8 #2
“Okay,” she finally said. “But if you mess it up, I’m telling Corinne.”
“Understood.”
He finished spreading out the components and began assembling the frame, letting Anya guide the process when her knowledge surpassed his.
She had clever hands and a quick mind, understanding the construction intuitively in a way that suggested natural aptitude rather than mere memorization of her father’s lessons.
Corinne watched them from the main room, a data pad in her lap but her attention clearly on them rather than whatever she was pretending to read. Her expression was soft and hopeful, like she was watching something precious and fragile take shape.
“You would have made a good engineer,” he told Anya as she helped him secure a joint.
“Dad wanted me to go to MIT.” She didn’t look up from her work. “That’s a famous engineering school on Earth. He said I was smart enough to get in if I kept my grades up.”
“You did not want to go?”
“I didn’t know what I wanted.” She tightened the connection with more force than necessary. “I was twelve. I just wanted to read books and play games and not think about college applications.”
“I am sorry for your loss,” he said.
“Everyone’s sorry. Sorry doesn’t bring him back.” She fitted the piece into place with unnecessary force. “Sorry doesn’t explain why he left me with a stepmother I barely knew. Sorry doesn’t fix anything.”
He understood that anger. He’d felt it himself after Kessa and Lira died, raging at a universe that would take his family and leave him alive to grieve. The anger had eventually faded to numbness, but he remembered the sharp edges of it, the way it cut deeper than the grief itself.
“Did you resent her?” he asked softly. “Corinne?”
Anya’s hands stilled. She stared at the bed frame for a long moment before answering.
“Yeah. I resented her.” Her voice dropped to barely above a whisper.
“Dad married her when I was ten. I didn’t understand why he needed a wife when he had me.
We were fine, just the two of us. We had our routines, our inside jokes, our weekend projects.
Then suddenly there’s this stranger living in our house, trying to cook us dinner and asking about my homework like she had any right to care. ”
“But your feelings changed.”
“Slowly. She didn’t push, didn’t try to be my mom or replace anyone.
Just… existed in our lives. Made sure I had clean clothes and decent meals.
Helped with homework when I asked. Gave me space when I needed it.
” Anya’s expression softened slightly. “After Dad died, she could have dumped me in foster care. She didn’t have to keep me.
We weren’t related by blood, and I was a brat to her most of the time.
But she fought to keep custody, even when Dad’s lawyer suggested it might be easier to let the state handle it. ”
“She loves you.”
“I know.” The admission seemed to cost her something. “I didn’t make it easy for her to love me. I was horrible, actually. Angry and mean and determined to hate her for not being my dad. But she just… kept showing up. Kept trying. Kept choosing me even when I gave her every reason not to.”
Pride swelled in his chest—not for himself, but for Corinne.
She’d fought for this prickly, hurting child and had refused to give up despite the rejection and resentment.
She had proven through actions rather than words that Anya mattered and that family could be built from choice rather than blood.
Just like he wanted to do now. For all three of them.
“Your father chose well when he married her,” he said quietly.
“Yeah.” Anya picked up another component, her movements steadier now. “I just wish I’d figured that out before he died. Maybe if I’d been less of a brat, he would have known I approved.”
“He knew.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because fathers know these things.” He thought of Lira, of her independence and her curiosity about the world. “Even when our children push us away or test our patience, we know they love us. It’s written in every interaction, every moment of defiance, every grudging acceptance of care.”
Anya looked up at him, her blue eyes suspiciously bright. “You have kids?”
“I had a daughter.” The words came easier than expected, like speaking them aloud to this hurting child somehow made the loss lighter.
“She died twenty years ago. But I remember what it felt like to be her father. To want her happiness more than my own. To see the world through her eyes and understand that every challenge was a test of her growing independence.”
“What was her name?”
“Lira.”
“How old was she?”
“Five going on fifteen.” With the same fierce determination and clever mind as the girl next to him. “She would have liked you. You both share the same stubbornness.”
A ghost of a smile touched Anya’s face. “Was she a brat too?”
“Sometimes.” The memory made his chest ache, but it was a good ache. A reminder that love didn’t disappear with death, that the people we lost remained part of us even in absence. “Sweet and smart and stubborn, curious about everything, and determined to get her own way.”
“She sounds like fun.”
“She was the light of my life.” He handed Anya the next piece they needed. “Your father would be proud of you. Of how you have survived, of how protective you are of Corinne and Mikoz, and how you are facing this impossible situation with courage instead of despair.”
“I don’t feel courageous. I feel terrified.”
“Courage is not the absence of fear. It is moving forward despite it.”
They worked in silence for several more minutes, the bed taking shape beneath their hands. Anya’s confidence grew as they progressed, her suggestions becoming more assertive, her movements more assured. She had good instincts, both for the construction and for what Mikoz would need.
“Make sure the base is wide enough that he can’t tip it over when he gets bigger,” she said. “And the mesh needs to be tight enough he can’t get his head stuck.”
“Noted.”
“And we should pad the edges. Babies are basically tiny drunk people. They fall into everything.”
Despite himself, he smiled. “Where did you learn that?”
“Corinne. She was reading about infant development for a paper she was writing on children’s literature.
She talked my ear off about gross motor skills and object permanence and why babies put everything in their mouths.
” Anya rolled her eyes, but there was affection in the gesture.
“She gets really into research mode. It’s kind of adorable in an annoying way. ”
He glanced over at Corinne, who was definitely not reading her data pad anymore. Her attention was completely focused on them, her expression hopeful. Their eyes met, and something electric passed between them. Heat and promise and possibility.
Anya made a gagging sound. “Okay, that’s gross. Stop looking at each other like that.”
“Like what?” he asked innocently.
“Like you want to eat her face. In front of a child. Disgusting.”
Corinne laughed, the sound bright and musical. “Anya.”
“I’m just saying. If you two start making out, I’m taking Mikoz and leaving.”
“Noted,” Corinne said, still smiling. “We’ll keep all face-eating to times when you’re not around.”
“I hate you both.”
But Anya was smiling too, a real smile that transformed her entire face from wary suspicion to genuine happiness. And in that moment, he could see the child she might have been before loss and trauma and fear had taught her to guard herself so carefully.
They finished the bed in companionable silence, securing the last joints and testing the stability.
It was solid work, strong enough to withstand anything a growing Cire infant could throw at it.
The mesh sides would let Mikoz see out while keeping him safely contained, and the wide base would prevent tipping even when he learned to pull himself up.
“Not bad,” Anya said, surveying their work critically. “I mean, it’s not exactly pretty, but it’s functional.”
“Function matters more than aesthetics.”
“Says the guy wearing the same black uniform as everyone else on this ship.”
“It is practical.”
“It’s boring.”
He couldn’t argue with that. The Patrol had many virtues, but aesthetic diversity wasn’t among them.
Corinne joined them, Mikoz still cradled against her chest. She ran her hand over the crib’s frame admiring the joints they’d secured and exclaiming happily over the mesh panels.
“It’s perfect,” she said softly. “Thank you.”
“Anya did most of the design work,” he said. “I merely provided the labor.”
“That’s not true. You figured out the joint angles.” Anya ducked her head, suddenly shy. “We made a good team.”
Pride surged through him again, warm and unfamiliar. This child had tested him, challenged him, and then chosen to work with him. She had shared pieces of her grief and her history and had trusted him enough to be vulnerable. She had called them a team.
“We did,” he agreed.
Corinne laid Mikoz in the crib, arranging him carefully on the soft padding they’d installed. The infant stretched, making small satisfied noises, and promptly fell asleep with the boneless ease of the very young.
“He likes it,” Anya said, peering over the edge. “Look how content he is.”
“Safe,” Corinne corrected. “He feels safe.”
And that was the point, wasn’t it? To build something secure and stable and permanent enough that they could all feel safe. To create a space where Mikoz could grow, where Anya could heal, where Corinne could trust that tomorrow would come without bringing new disasters. To make a home.
Anya surprised him by stepping closer and wrapping her arms around his waist in a brief, fierce hug. She pulled back almost immediately, her face flushed with embarrassment.
“Thanks,” she mumbled. “For helping. And for… for talking about your daughter.”
His throat tightened. “You are welcome.”
“I should go. I promised Corinne I’d work on my math today.” She fled towards the main room, leaving him standing there with the ghost of her embrace still warming his chest.
Corinne moved to his side, her hand finding his. Her fingers were small and soft against his skin, but her grip was strong.
“That was good,” she said quietly. “What you did. Talking to her, building with her, treating her like a person instead of a child.”
“She is a person. A clever, brave, hurting person who deserves respect.”
“Not everyone sees it that way.” Her thumb traced circles on the back of his hand. “Her father loved her, but he also tried to control her. He wanted her to be the daughter he’d imagined rather than the person she actually was. It made things difficult between them sometimes.”
“I won’t make that mistake.”
“I know.” She looked up at him, hazel eyes serious. “You see people clearly. Who they are, not who you want them to be.”
“And who are you, s’kara?”
“Someone trying very hard not to fall for an alien warrior she met two days ago.” But her smile said she was already falling.
He cupped her face gently, careful of his strength and her fragility. “And if I’m falling too?”
“Then I guess we’ll figure it out together.”
He kissed her, slow and deep and thorough, pouring twenty years of loneliness into the touch. She rose on her toes to meet him, her free hand fisting in his uniform, pulling him closer despite the physical impossibility of their size difference.
From the other room came Anya’s disgusted voice: “I can still hear you!”
They broke apart, breathless and smiling.
“We should stop,” she said, but she didn’t move away.
“Probably.”
“Anya will never let us forget this.”
“Undoubtedly.”
They kissed anyway, consequences be damned.