33. Songbird
THIRTY-THREE
SONGBIRD
Charlie waited until the end of the shift to tell them, waiting for when the junior techs filtered out and Engineering had gone soft and quiet.
She'd been sitting on this all day because she wanted to do it right. Tavi and Maren deserved that and more with this news.
"Hey," Charlie said, pulling both Tavi and Maren's attention from their consoles. She walked over to the table in the middle of the parts sector and sat down in one of the chairs there. "Come here a minute, both of you. I've got something to tell you."
Tavi walked over and, in true Tavi fashion, opted to hop up on a crate and sit, grinning already, totally forgoing the chair next to Charlie. He was grinning widely, and Charlie knew in that instance that she'd made the right choice.
Maren came over from the primary bank with her Eye Shimmer flashing, and when Charlie saw it, she felt a little tug of something like pride.
"So," Charlie said. "I've got some news. Did you two hear about Cael?"
Maren nodded immediately. "I can't believe the Captain dismissed him. But, I mean, it makes sense."
"About time," Tavi said, letting out an exasperated noise. "Cael should have been gone long ago." Tavi's gaze turned to Charlie, a single eyebrow raised. "I guess it just took a human engineer that was better than him to really stick his foot in it."
"Tav," Charlie said, her voice serious. "As much as I appreciate the compliment, even at Cael's expense, what happened was really bad."
Tavi had the decency to bow his head. "You're right. That was a poor choice of words."
"It's still right, though," Maren said as she sat down in a chair at the table, not even bothering to hide the sass.
"Maren!" Charlie said, a laugh slipping out before she tucked it back into her chest.
"What?" Maren asked, the smile playing across her lips a sight Charlie couldn't help but feel charmed over.
"Okay, okay," Tavi said. "Enough. What's the news, Spark Plug?"
Charlie looked at them both. "Okay, well, with Cael's dismissal, the Captain called me into her office today." Charlie watched Tavi lean closer, his elbows on his knees. "It's official, as of today. I'm Acting Chief Engineer."
Tavi was immediately on his feet on top of the crate. "Charlie!" He shouted.
Maren started clapping. "That's fantastic news, Charlie!"
"That's, okay, that's huge!" Tavi continued. "That's, wait, are we celebrating?" He turned to Charlie, suddenly serious. "Should Borran know? I think Borran should know."
"Sit down, Tav, you're going to fall," Charlie said, laughing. "Let me get through the whole thing."
"Wait, there's more?" Tavi asked, sitting back down. Barely.
"There is a second part, yes," she said.
She took a moment to let the energy come down, because she wanted to slow down for this.
This was the part that mattered, more than her appointment in the first place, and she wanted to make sure the two people with her knew that this was the most important piece.
"I told her I had conditions before I accepted. "
Maren's face went slack. "You what."
"Charlie," Tavi said, his tone soft. "With all due respect, why the hell would you do that?"
"Because," Charlie began. "I told her I'd only take it one way. And that was with the two of you. Ranked Co-Chiefs. Right beside me."
The words dropped into a silence that stretched.
"Charlie," Maren said quietly, her voice thick.
"I mean it," Charlie added. "Not as subordinates, but as equals.
We are all Chief Engineers of the Emberkind.
" Charlie looked between them, and God, she was flooded with a love for them that transcended the universe, apparently.
And suddenly, if she was going to go anywhere in space, she knew it would be with this odd little family she'd fallen into.
"You two ran held this department together, dancing circles around Cael, long before I ever even showed up," she continued.
"I am not going to stand at the top of this incredible ship that runs better than any machine I've ever worked on and pretend I did anything that you two didn't build, manage, and maintain from the ground up for over a decade.
" Charlie reached out and grabbed Maren's hand before reaching for Tavi, who leaned over the side of the crate and grabbed her other open palm.
"There's no way I'd do it alone. So, I told her, all three of us, or I'm out. "
"And she said yes," Tavi said, not as a question, his grin had gone soft at the edges.
"She said yes," Charlie repeated, her smile warm and open.
For a second, nobody said anything.
Then Maren rose from her chair, dropping Charlie's hand, crossed to her and pulled Charlie up in a hug, quick and fierce, her shimmer bright against Charlie's shoulder.
"Thank you," she said into Charlie's hair.
And when she pulled back, her eyes had gone bright in a way Charlie had never seen.
"I have to go. I want to go call my sister and tell her before the comm window closes.
" But then she held Charlie's gaze a second longer.
"I will not forget this, Charlie. Ever."
Which, from a Noethan, was about the biggest thing she could have said.
"Go on, Chief," Charlie said, and waved her off, still smiling.
Maren squeezed Charlie's hands before she turned to Tavi and gave him a high-five. Then she moved away from the table and went out of the bay.
Charlie let her smile sit with her for a while before turning to Tavi. He hadn't moved. He was still on his crate, his boots swinging, and was watching Charlie with his head tipped at an angle.
"What?" Charlie asked at his look as she grabbed her datapad from the table and walked back to the consoles.
Tavi jumped down off the crate and followed Charlie. He stood beside her, looking up at her with his same grin and his head still tilted.
"Please don't misunderstand this, Charlie, I am eternally in your debt for the awesome news you just shared, and I can't wait to get started." Tavi touched Charlie's forearm, fully grabbing her attention from her datapad. "But, are you good?"
Charlie looked down at him. "Yeah, Tav. Why wouldn't I be?"
Tavi just looked at Charlie. And the longer he looked, the more she felt her resolve crumble.
She sighed, letting her head fall back as her eyes closed.
"Yeah, okay," Tavi said. "That's what I thought." Tavi sat on the floor, indicating for Charlie to sit next to him. So, she did.
Charlie slid down onto the floor between two console banks, back against the bulkhead, and put her datapad to the side. Tavi sat next to her, close, with his legs crossed. He patted her knee once she settled next to him.
"I think we need some music," he said, turning to face Charlie. "Why don't you pick? Then, maybe, we can talk."
Charlie nodded against him and pulled her datapad into her lap. She opened the music program and went scrolling. She knew there would be a song here for this feeling. And she was right.
She pressed play on "Steal Away" by Robbie Dupree. She added it to her playlist as the song poured out about wanting to slip off somewhere alone with someone, to steal away together, away from everything and everyone else.
And as the song played, Charlie couldn't stop thinking of Reyna. The version of her she saw in the back of her mind who took her boots off at Earth Night and asked her, quiet and genuine, about thunderstorms.
"Good song," Tavi said. But then he was quiet. She knew he wouldn't rush her. Tavi was good at waiting when it counted, just as he was not good at waiting when that counted more. But he had a special talent of, somehow, always knowing the difference.
So, instead, they just talked with an easy, unforced cadence. Tavi made some joke about Borran's latest campaign to reverse-engineer Earth pasta, making Charlie laughed. And for one, brief, shining moment, it was just that. Two friends sitting together, on the floor of their job, laughing.
But then, almost against her will, Charlie's laughter ran out.
Charlie let it go quiet. She didn't crack another joke, or get up and find something to fix. She just sat there, listening to the song, listening to the bay's sounds, leaning against her friend because, right now, it was exactly what she needed.
That was when Tavi turned to look at her, right into her eyes. And Charlie watched his face change as he immediately seemed to understand. She watched the realization move across his face, soft and certain, almost as if he'd been waiting for this and she'd finally found her way to him.
"Oh, Charlie."
She looked up at him fast because the way he said it made her heart squeeze.
But what she found in his face wasn't pity or worry, and it wasn't the beginnings of a careful approach to her because he thought she might break.
It was just Tavi, looking at her as if she were exactly who she'd always been. It was just that, now, he could see she was carrying something more.
"It's the Captain, isn't it?" He asked softly.
Charlie closed her eyes, dropped her head, and nodded, just barely.
"How did you know?"
Tavi took a deep breath. "All the strikes, Spark Plug," he answered, triggering Charlie's memory of the times Tavi would use the baseball term with her.
"Is that what that was?" Charlie asked.
"Yeah. Well, that and what Maren told me."
Charlie raised her head to look at him. "What did Maren tell you?" She asked, her voice raising an octave.
Tavi laughed. "Something about 'interrupting a moment' during the cascade emergency?"
Charlie groaned, letting her head fall back onto Tavi's shoulder.
She went quiet for a moment, letting the feelings free from their cage in her chest. And it engulfed her completely.
She couldn't help taking a shaky breath as every single emotion she'd been holding back was allowed to run wild in her ribcage.
"I don't know what I'm going to do, Tav."