21. Biological Markers
TWENTY-ONE
BIOLOGICAL MARKERS
Reyna had been in a good mood for eleven days, and she was starting to find it a little... suspicious.
Not the mood itself. The mood itself was fine.
In fact, the mood was, arguably, a wonderful consequence.
She noticed she'd been sleeping better, her eating habits had become more consistent, she even arrived on the bridge each morning with a demeanor that was being noticed by the crew each morning.
Even her rounds had taken on a new feeling of purpose instead of routine.
Her voice would carry across the ship with an ease she hadn't noticed until it was already there, a part of her, which made it feel as though it had always been that way.
The reason for the suspicion? If she allowed herself to consider it, she could trace the trajectory of this mood with uncomfortable specificity. Every line she drew always pointed to the same coordinate. Like a compass always pointing north.
The coordinate was not allowed to have a name. The coordinate didn't even have permission to be in her thoughts.
Instead, she decided to channel the energy and focus on the ship.
But her focus wasn’t necessary. Cael's engineering reports were adequate, as they always were.
Maren's logs were immaculate, as they always were.
And Torvax's morning briefings? Thorough, efficient, and delivered with the tonal warmth of a man reading an appliance manual, as they always were.
Everything was normal. Everything was running well. Even she was running well.
And that was the problem.
"Captain." Kess rapped a single knuckle against the doorframe of Reyna's office, once.
"It's that time again. Quarterly physical.
" She was precisely on schedule, as per usual, and Reyna knew any request to postpone would be met with a downright denial.
Reyna had long since stopped pretending to try and postpone these anyway. It was futile.
"Is it that time already?"
"Time moves at its standard rate regardless of your willingness to acknowledge it."
Reyna gave her a look. "Charming."
"I try."
Reyna saved her report, pushed back from her desk, and followed Kess down the corridor to the Med Bay.
This was familiar territory, a routine they'd maintained for over a decade.
Kess would run the scans while Reyna sat on the exam table.
They always engaged in their particular friendship's brand of verbal sparring, something they shared that passed for friendship between a physician who didn't miss a thing and a captain who preferred to act as though there was nothing to see.
Kess pulled up the diagnostic console, initiated the scan sequence, and waited while the data populated. Reyna watched Kess's face the way she always did during these appointments, aware and looking to see micro-expressions that would tell her a whole story before Kess spoke a single word.
Right now, Kess's face revealed nothing. Which meant she was revealing nothing on purpose.
"Everything looks good," Kess said, scrolling through the results. "Musculoskeletal function stable. Neurological markers within your established parameters. Cardiac rhythm holding at baseline."
"That all sounds good."
"But your cortisol-equivalent levels have shifted."
Reyna exhaled through her nose. So this was going to be a 'pull the truth out of Kess' day, apparently. "Shifted... how?"
"Down. Significantly." Then there was a pause, one that lasted exactly long enough to carry weight, and Reyna didn't miss that.
Kess looked up from the console. Her pale green eyes, steady and knowing, met Reyna's. "You seem... well, Captain."
Okay. With words like that from Kess, who measured wellness in decimal points and never used a word apart from the concrete proof and who had spent thirteen years watching Reyna's data hold at a steady, if slightly elevated baseline of someone running on the edges of a good life, well from Kess was a loaded statement.
"Well, the ship is running smoothly," Reyna said. "More so now than in the last few years actually. Some of the work Cael is commanding on the ship has provided changes that have done wonders. Crew morale is also high. The new rescues have gone well."
"I wasn't talking about the Emberkind, Rey."
Reyna went silent and raised her eyes to Kess. Neither of them blinked.
In the background, the Med Bay hummed while both women held their positions with a stillness of two of the same species who understood that the first one to move was the one to concede.
"I'm fine, Kess," Reyna said, but even she could hear there was something in her delivery that sounded forced.
In fact, Kess studied her for a long moment before Reyna realized she was watching Kess make a decision in real time.
She could see her Medical Officer weighing whether to push against Reyna's refusal to address her observations, and she saw as she measured what she wanted to say over what Reyna was probably willing to hear. Then, the choice was made.
"Understood, Captain," Kess said, her gaze dropping to her datapad.
Reyna took a deep breath, knowing Kess was letting it go. Somehow, that just made it more difficult.
She stood from the exam table, smoothed the front of her uniform, and walked to the door. Her hand was on the frame when Kess spoke again.
"Rey."
She stopped, but she didn't turn around. She wasn't sure she was ready to face whatever it was Kess wanted to tell her.
"Your markers are good, Rey. All of them. I just want you to know that." A pause, long enough for Reyna to turn her head slightly to the right. "Whatever is contributing to these improvements, I hope it continues."
Reyna heard what Kess was truly thinking. In a clinical and careful manner, every word chosen was meant to land inside the bounds of just medical observation and nothing beyond. It was here that Reyna heard what lived underneath the clinical language, what Kess wasn't saying.
A name they'd both been circling for months.
"Noted," Reyna said, without turning around.
She walked out of the Med Bay, her stride measured and her posture straight. All the vision of a captain in control of her ship, disciplined to run a whole crew of people who depended on her.
Her gold held.
But in the privacy of the corridor, fifty paces from the Med Bay and well out of range of Kess's eyes that never missed a single beat, Reyna ducked into a small alcove and pressed the heel of her hand against her chest, holding it there while she counted.
"10...9...8..." When she reached zero, she kept her hand pressed until the ache, that she was certain had nothing to do with her cardiac rhythm, subsided enough for her to look up and start walking again.
That night, at the Aetherfin atrium, Reyna arrived first and stood at the railing for forty minutes before Charlie appeared at the far end of the corridor.
Charlie was wearing the same pajamas she often wore.
Her hair was pulled back in the same loose knot, her bracelet visible on her left wrist the way it always was.
She padded across the deck in bare feet, as she always did, before leaning against the railing next to her at exactly the distance she always maintained.
Everything about Charlie arriving tonight was exactly the same as every other night.
But this time, Reyna noticed every single detail as though she were seeing them for the first time.
Thirteen years.
She didn't look over at Charlie when she approached. Instead, she looked at the Aetherfin, drifting through its sphere in blues and purples.
"Couldn't sleep?" Charlie asked, the same question she always asked, as though this weren't the ninth consecutive night they'd both ended up here.
"Something like that," Reyna answered.
And they stood there, watching the Aetherfin drift, close enough that Reyna could feel Charlie's warmth without touching her. The silence between them had weight, but wasn't suffocating. This silence felt closer to a blanket wrapped around them than suffocation.
And that, Reyna thought, was exactly the problem.