Bee Epilogue #3
“I think Earth science can challenge Layn assumptions. I think Layn research can challenge Earth assumptions. I think your species has been looking longer, with different eyes, for different purposes, and I think my field has tools you have not bothered to respect because your royal secrecy protocols are very impressed with themselves.”
Loora appears beside me with a tiny pastry. “Oh, I like her too.”
“Everyone stop liking her,” Skylor says.
“No,” I tell him.
Zymlor’s gaze remains on Mack. “You want my data.”
“I want access to your questions first. Data follows better questions.”
His ears go very still.
That, apparently, is the thing.
Not the challenge. Not the credentials. The questions.
“You would have to come to Layn,” he says.
Skylor makes a sound. “Absolutely not.”
Mack looks at him. “That sounded like a decision made before consultation.”
I do not even try to hide my smile.
Skylor’s eyes narrow at me. “Do not enjoy this.”
“I am enjoying this so much.”
He turns back to Mack, visibly dragging himself through every principle he has learned the hard way. “Travel to Layn is complicated. Politically, biologically, medically, and diplomatically.”
“I assumed.”
“Zymlor’s facility is restricted.”
“I assumed that too.”
“You would be subject to Layn protocols.”
“I have survived university grant committees, hospital ethics boards, peer review, and one congressional subcommittee. Your protocols will need to be impressive.”
Zymlor’s expression changes again, not softening exactly. Never that. More like a lock recognizing the correct key and resenting it.
“This is a terrible idea,” Skylor says.
“This is obviously the next great idea,” I correct, because I can see what he cannot, or maybe what he does not want to admit yet. Not romance. Not yet. Not even friendship. Alignment. Competence meeting competence. Two impossible people recognizing that the other is an obstacle worth studying.
“Your optimism remains hazardous,” Skylor says.
“My optimism rebuilt your magazine division and got you a wife.”
“Our wife,” he says without thinking.
Loora chokes on her pastry.
I turn slowly. “Our?”
His ears flatten.
Zymlor, traitor that he is, says, “Father uses that phrasing often. Royal family habit. Possessive plural. Very archaic.”
“Fascinating,” I say.
Skylor looks at his brother as if murder could travel through hologram.
Mack, who has the survival instincts of a lit match, says, “Royal linguistic structures aside, I want a formal research pathway. Not a promise. Not a vague future call. Terms.”
Zymlor’s mouth curves, small and dangerous. “Send your proposal.”
“I already did.”
His ears lift. “When?”
“Four hours ago.”
“I have not opened it.”
“I know. The read receipt told me.”
Loora whispers, “Marry her.”
“Loora,” I hiss.
“What? For science.”
Skylor pinches the bridge of his nose. The gesture is so human now I almost laugh. “This conversation is over until after the launch.”
“No,” Mack and Zymlor say at the same time.
Then they look at each other.
Across the blue light, across planets, across every classified barrier and professional irritation in their way, something sparks.
Not love.
Not yet.
A problem recognizing its favorite problem.
The launch numbers surge around us, screens updating in real time with metrics that exceed our most optimistic projections.
The Mack feature trends across platforms, the conversation expanding beyond our control in directions we could not have engineered.
Athena is back, not merely surviving but defining the terms of its return, and I stand at the center of it with my best friend stealing hors d’oeuvres, a scientist preparing to invade another planet through sheer academic will, and my husband beside me looking as if love, journalism, and women with questions are going to be the death of him.
He catches me watching him.
“What?” he asks.
“You look happy.”
“I look besieged.”
“You can be both.”
He considers that with unnecessary seriousness. “Yes.”
His arm wraps around my waist, his hand settling against the curve of my hip, familiar and warm. Claimed territory, yes, but not conquered. Loved. Chosen. Shared. He bends close to my ear. “Are you happy?”
Again.
Always again.
I look at the launch, at the bodies moving through space I designed, at Mack and Zymlor already arguing across a holographic divide with the intensity of people who may someday become either research partners or legal adversaries.
Possibly both. I look at Loora accepting compliments from the photographer she pretended not to notice.
I look at the investors calculating returns on ethical investment, at the city spreading beyond these windows with its indifferent grandeur, at the alien prince who finally learned that loving me meant standing beside me without becoming less powerful, less Alpha, or less himself.
“Yes,” I tell him. “I am happy. I am here. I am heard. I am building something that matters. I have my work, my best friend, my terrifying husband, and a magazine full of women who are about to become everybody’s problem. What more could I want?”
His mouth brushes the mark at my throat, careful because cameras exist and he has been warned. “Say the middle part again.”
“Terrifying?”
“Husband.”
I smile. “My husband.”
His growl is low enough that only I hear it. Mostly.
Loora looks over anyway and gives me a thumbs-up.
“Save that for home,” I murmur.
Skylor’s hand is already moving toward his phone.
“No.”
He freezes.
“Do not cancel your appointments without asking.”
His eyes close briefly, like a man praying for strength from gods who enjoy comedy. “Beatrice, the launch is nearly finished, my wife has called me husband twice in public, and I have endured a scientific ambush without destroying anyone. I would like to go home.”
“That was very good asking-adjacent language.”
His eyes open. “May I cancel my remaining appointments so I can take my wife home and show her, privately, how much I appreciated hearing the word husband from her mouth?”
Heat curls through me, low and immediate.
“See?” I say. “Was that so hard?”
“Yes.”
“Did you survive?”
“Barely.”
I take his hand. “Cancel them.”
The message is sent in under three seconds. Progress does not have to be slow when permission is clear.
We leave the launch together after I say my goodbyes, accept six compliments, dodge one donor who wants to discuss “content synergy,” and promise Loora I will call her tomorrow about the photographer, the wedding folder, and whether Mack accidentally started a diplomatic incident near the dessert table.
Behind us, Athena roars back to life. Ahead of us, Layn waits with its sick children, stubborn princes, classified research, and one human scientist about to make everyone uncomfortable in the name of progress.
Skylor slows his stride before I have to tug him back.
I smile without looking at him.
He notices anyway.
“By your side,” he murmurs.
“Good husband.”
His growl follows me into the elevator, low, pleased, and full of promise. The doors close on the party, the city, the launch, and the first bright edge of whatever comes next.
This time, neither of us walks ahead.
We go together.