39. Saying It Out Loud
THIRTY-NINE
SAYING IT OUT LOUD
CHARLIE
Charlie woke up somewhere that wasn't her quarters, and it took her a second to work out why.
The light was softer than hers, coming in low through a viewport set at a different angle, so the stars crossed the ceiling on a slant she didn't know. The room smelled clean and warm, and underneath that, like Reyna.
And there was an arm across her waist, heavy with sleep, not moving.
Charlie held still. Moving would end this perfect moment, and she wasn't ready for that.
The markings along Reyna's forearm had gone the soft steady rose now. She still didn't fully understand what she was looking at, only that it was hers, and it wasn't going anywhere.
She shifted, carefully, to see Reyna's face.
Reyna's hand caught her wrist, but she still wasn't awake. It was a reflex, fingers closing, tugging her back, and a low sound in her throat that meant no.
Charlie let herself be pulled back.
She couldn't help smiling as she settled against Reyna's chest, the arm tightening around her. She stopped trying to go anywhere at all.
She didn't fall back to sleep. Instead, she just lay there. Soon, she felt Reyna wake up in stages. First, Charlie watched Reyna's arm flex, then noticed her breathing change with a slow inhale against the back of Charlie's neck.
"You're awake," Reyna said, thick with sleep.
"I've been awake." Charlie turned and looked up at Reyna. "You wouldn't let me leave."
"I wouldn't?" Reyna asked, only slightly amused.
Charlie raised her wrist, still held in the clutches of Reyna's fingers.
"Hmmm," Reyna mused, her arm tightening, unrepentant. "No, I wouldn't."
Charlie turned over fully so they were facing each other, close. The rose was warm and steady against Reyna, reflecting between them.
She'd expected it to feel strange. The morning after.
But it didn't.
"Hi," Charlie said.
Reyna's face softened.
"Hi."
Charlie looked at her. "I love you."
Charlie said it quickly, in the light of the morning, with no emergencies or interruptions, her hair a disaster and her voice not fully working yet. She said it now, in this moment, because after a lifetime of not saying something important until it was too late, she was done being late.
Reyna went very still. Then she brought a hand up and put it against the side of Charlie's face.
"I love you, too," Reyna said softly.
They stayed there a while longer than they should have.
But it was Reyna who finally broke the spell, Captain duty and all, and got them moving.
They dressed, only stopping a handful of times to kiss and touch and take pieces of clothing back off before trying again.
But it was good. In fact, it was better than good.
"I have to tell you something," Reyna said quietly as she placed her Captain's pin on her uniform. She looked up at Charlie.
"Okay," Charlie said. Her stomach didn't like the tone of Reyna's voice.
"I had a call with the Admiral before the Palu rescue mission." Reyna's voice was even, but Charlie had started to learn to hear the effort. "The Coalition has denied your appointment. Officially."
Charlie stood there and let that sink in.
"There was an objection filed on my appointment," Reyna continued. "And the decision came down." Reyna stopped and turned to Charlie. "There was an instruction that came with it. That you are to be removed from the Emberkind and returned to Coalition custody."
Removed.
Taken off this ship, taken away from the one place in the universe that was hers now.
"No," Charlie said.
Reyna's eyebrow moved. "No?"
"No, I'm not going."
Charlie heard how it sounded as a woman with no rank and no vote and no say, but she didn't care.
"I don't know how these things work exactly, and I don't have the first idea on how to fight it, but I'm telling you right now," Charlie walked to stand in front of Reyna directly.
"I'm not going. They can come and get me. They'll have to."
For a second, Reyna just looked at her before her face settled, warm and certain. Charlie realized she'd said exactly the right thing without trying to.
"I'm not taking it for an answer," Reyna said, raising her hand to cup Charlie's face again. Her thumb moved once along Charlie's jaw. "It'll get fixed. I promise."
Charlie searched her face and heard the flat, immovable certainty of Reyna, and it settled her.
"Okay," Charlie said. "I believe you."
"You should." Reyna leaned forward and kissed her once. "Now, let's go. Borran will have heard by now that you didn't sleep in your quarters, and I am not walking into that galley without you."
REYNA
They walked into the galley holding hands.
Reyna had thought about whether or not to do so.
For about four seconds.
Then she'd taken Charlie's hand in the corridor and not let go.
The galley was half-full. The morning shift was there, and the room echoed with the clatter of trays.
For a moment, nobody noticed.
Then somebody did.
Maren looked, and her shimmer brightened, looking back down at her plate with a small private smile.
Selowen inclined her head, once, acknowledging something she found beautiful without a need to comment on.
Orion, at the far table, went still over his datapad before smiling at them both while closing away the datapad.
"Come on," Charlie murmured beside her.
They got trays. Borran turned from the counter and took one look at the two of them. He put an extra Gula Cake on Charlie's tray without a word and turned back to his ovens before either of them could see the rest of his face.
They sat down. Together.
"Oh, holy shit," Kess said from three seats down. Reyna had been waiting for this.
"What?" said Tavi and Maren, at exactly the same time.
Kess took a sip of her tea, eyeing Reyna. Reyna looked over at her and smiled. She watched Kess attempt to go back to being entirely neutral but fooled no one.
"It's just good," she said to Tavi and Maren. "It's really good."
Reyna ate with one hand because she was still holding Charlie's with the other, and she didn't want to take it back.
Breakfast ended soon after. The shift changed, trays cleared, and crews peeled off toward their stations.
Charlie walked her as far as the junction where their own paths would split, the lift to the Bridge one way, the long corridor down to Engineering the other.
"So," Charlie said.
"So."
"I go be an engineer. You go be a captain."
"That is how this is going to have to work," Reyna quipped, a smile tugging from the corner of her mouth.
Charlie nodded in agreement, but did not let go of Reyna's hand.
"Charlie."
"Yeah?"
"You have to let go now." Reyna watched Charlie look down at their hands, then back up at Reyna.
"I know. I'm aware of the mechanics." She didn't let go of her hand. "I'm just choosing to ignore them."
Reyna felt a smile spread across her face before she could do anything about it. "I have a call to make this morning," she said, and watched Charlie remember. "It will be handled," Reyna making sure the promise echoed in her tone again. "Now, go build me something, genius."
Charlie smiled. "I'll see what I can do."
Charlie lifted Reyna's hand, kissed the back of it, and finally let it go. "Go run your ship, Captain."
CHARLIE
Engineering was exactly the way Charlie had left it. It had only been a little over eighteen hours since she was last in here, but it felt like days, weeks even. which was a relief. She assumed that was because everything else in her life had changed overnight.
Tavi was already there up on the platform by the primary console. He didn't look up when she came in.
"Morning, Tav," she said.
"Mm."
She got to her station and pulled up the overnight diagnostics. She scrolled through the numbers but fully felt Tavi not-looking at her from across the bay with an intensity you could probably touch.
She gave it two seconds.
"Just say it, Tav!"
"I didn't say anything," he remarked from his perch.
"You're radiating and I'm sure you've got a whole speech queued up. I can feel it from all the way down here."
Tavi turned around on the platform, grinning. It was the big one, the one that took up his whole damn face.
"The Captain," he said, "walked into the galley this morning, holding your hand, wearing a color I have never once seen on her in the entire time I have known her, which is a long time, kid. A very long time."
"Yeah," Charlie responded, drawing out the word.
"And you're just going to say 'yeah?'" Tavi scoffed.
"What do you want me to say?"
"I want you to say everything else. I have been watching this, Charlie! Do you understand that? I have had a front-row seat to the single slowest thing I have ever witnessed in the history of this damn ship! Two people, both allegedly intelligent—"
"Allegedly intelligent?"
"—orbiting each other for months while the entire ship placed bets—"
"You placed bets?"
"—and last night a building decided to head butt you and now, this morning, she's the fucking color of a flower!" Tavi was actually breathing hard. "And all I get is a 'yeah.'" He spread his hands. "I built the program that played the song, Charlie. I feel I've earned more than that."
"How did you know about the song?"
Tavi looked at her with a blank face. "Do not insult my intelligence."
"Your intelligence, or alleged intelligence?"
Tavi's face didn't move.
Charlie leaned back against her console and stared at him, this small solid copper-colored person who had been there for her, days ago, as well as countless other times, on a night she realized she was in deep.
"You told me to sing," she said.
Tavi's grin softened at the edges.
"Yeah," he said. "I did."
"That's everything, Tav. That's where it started.
I sang the song because you blindsided me in the middle of the party, and she heard it, and—" Charlie stopped, because she felt her throat tighten, and she would not cry in Engineering after breakfast. "So.
Thank you. That's what I'm saying. Under all the yeahs. "