39. Saying It Out Loud #4
"Debt paid, Captain," Charlie said against her lips.
Reyna smiled. Then she reached over without breaking eye contact, and stole a second piece off Charlie's tray.
"What the—"
Charlie started laughing, catching the appearance of the little curve in Reyna’s mouth and the rose gone warm along her throat.
"I'm ready to repay my debt again, Chief Wickett," Reyna said.
Charlie caught on.
"It seems you like carrying Gula Cake debt, Captain."
"You have no idea," Reyna answered.
Charlie laughed, and then leaned over and kissed her again.
REYNA
They left the galley together. A day ago, she would have felt different walking out of a crowded room at Charlie's side, letting the whole crew draw the obvious conclusion.
But tonight? She'd spent the entire day being looked at because of the rose color and her incessant need to be near Charlie wherever they were together, and had discovered, surprisingly, that she liked it. Who'd have thought?
The corridors had gone to their evening settings, lights down warm, the ship settling into the low hum.
They walked without talking for a while. Charlie's hand found hers somewhere around the habitat junction and wouldn't let go.
When they reached the branch between the crew quarters and the officers' wing, Charlie's fingers began to slip from Reyna's, and her steps began to angle left toward her own quarters.
Out of pure habit, Reyna could see it, the months of muscle memory steering her toward the small room that had been hers since the week she arrived.
Reyna stopped walking.
Charlie got half a step further before the tug of their joined hands brought her up short. She turned, blinking, already halfway into the automatic goodnight.
"Where are you going?" Reyna asked.
Charlie looked down the corridor at her own door, down the left branch. Then her eyes returned to Reyna.
"Oh," she said. "Right. Uh, force of habit. I was going to—" She gestured vaguely toward her quarters. "You know, just, go to my—"
"Like hell you are."
It came out of Reyna before she could stop it. She watched Charlie hear it and then the corner of her mouth start to go.
"Did you just—" Charlie's grin broke all the way open, crossing her arms and slouching into one hip. "Captain Solas. Did you just use your mission voice on me? To get me to come to bed with you?"
"I absolutely did and I have no shame for it."
"Clearly."
Reyna walked close to Charlie, arriving just in front of her.
"Do you not want to come to bed with me, Charlie Wickett?" Reyna asked, her voice just above a whisper.
She watched Charlie physically swallow.
"I never said that," Charlie whispered back.
"You ended up in my quarters last night," Reyna continued. "I'm simply removing the intervening disaster this time."
"Efficient."
"I'm the Captain of this ship. I have a reputation for it."
Charlie was so close now, her lips merely an inch away from Reyna's.
"So this is a thing now," Charlie said quietly. "We're deciding this."
"There's nothing to decide." Reyna said it simply and meant it, and felt the rose answer it warm along her skin before she could think about whether to let it.
"Yours has a bed I've never slept in and a viewport I don't like as much.
Mine has you in it. And frankly, I've already grown too attached to the arrangement for it to be taken away. "
Something moved across Charlie's face at Reyna's words, the small astonishment of a woman who had spent a long time not expecting to be wanted out loud.
"Yeah," Charlie said. "Okay. Yours."
Reyna leaned forward and kissed Charlie, gently at first, turning heated until Reyna pulled back gently. "Mine."
Reyna turned them both away from the left branch, gripping Charlie's hand, and began to walk toward the officers' wing.
"For the record," Charlie said, as they walked, "I was going to come find you anyway. In like an hour. I just didn't want to seem—"
"Needy?" Reyna's mouth curved as she stopped again, turning to Charlie. "You are aware I want you needy, aren't you?"
Charlie's face went slack.
"That's deeply unfair. You can't just say things like that," Charlie sputtered.
"I'm the Captain of this—"
"If you say 'I'm the Captain of this ship' one more time tonight, I'm sleeping in my own quarters out of principle."
"You are not."
Charlie stared into Reyna's eyes, and Reyna saw the fire begin to burn there, the same she saw last night.
Charle let out a sigh that sounded defeated and delighted. "No," she admitted. "I'm not."
CHARLIE
Charlie followed Reyna in through the door of her quarters and drifted toward the middle of the room, taking it in from the inside the way she still hadn't quite gotten to.
Reyna had a low couch in the corner, a desk along the wall with its scatter of datapads, and a small quiet corner where she kept a few things to eat and drink.
Reyna moved past her toward the desk, unclipping the Captain's pin at her collar and setting it down, not looking back.
"So," she said, over her shoulder. "I found your love letter."
Charlie stopped.
"My what?"
"Your love letter." Reyna still wasn't looking at her.
She set the datapad down beside it, entirely casual, as if she hadn't just said that.
"The one you've been writing me for five months.
It's very good, I must say. But it was a little heavy on the nineteen-eighties, though the sincerity carries it. "
"I haven't written you a letter." Had she? No, she'd remember that. "I'd remember that."
"Mm," Reyna hummed, finally turning around. But there was her tell, right there in the corner of her mouth, the almost-smile. "The songs, Charlie."
"... The songs." Charlie didn't understand how that was a clue.
"On your datapad? The ones you kept adding, one at a time, since the day Tavi created the music program." Reyna leaned back against the desk and folded her arms, watching Charlie put it together, thoroughly enjoying it. "Orion found the pattern—"
"What pattern?"
"—and brought it to me," Reyna continued, not giving in.
Charlie rolled her eyes. "The pattern he found showed every song lines up to a day.
A specific day, actually, with a specific event that happened between you...
" Reyna pointed to Charlie. "... and me.
" Reyna pointed at herself. The almost-smile grew.
"You've been telling me you love me since about your second week aboard.
Musically. In increments." She tilted her head. "I have receipts."
Charlie stood in the middle of Reyna's quarters and felt the whole thing land on her at once.
"Holy—"
"Yeah," Reyna interrupted, walking toward Charlie, wrapping her arms around Charlie's waist when she reached her. "Holy shit about covers it."
And then Reyna kissed her, and it said more than any song ever had.
When they broke apart, Charlie didn't step back. She stayed close, hands still at Reyna's sides.
"Can I tell you something? Since we're apparently doing this now. The saying-things-out-loud thing."
"Does it involve you nearly dying again? Because I'm telling you now, Charlie Wickett, I have reached my cap. It's been officially maxed out this early in our relationship," Reyna said tentatively.
Charlie laughed. "No. Absolutely not."
Reyna smiled. "Then yes, ask away. Because we are apparently doing this."
"You know about Frank and Helen. Who they were to me." Charlie paused. "I never told you how they met, though. I don't think I ever told anyone out here."
"Tell me," Reyna said, holding tighter to Charlie.
"Frank was Navy. That's one of Earth's militaries, the ones who work off ships out on the water.
" Charlie's voice warmed. "Helen was a Navy nurse, and Frank kept turning up at her nursing station with things that were wrong with him.
A hangnail, headache, a muscle he'd pulled that he, actually, hadn't pulled.
" Reyna laughed softly. "And Helen would look at him and go, what is it today, Beckman. And Frank would say—"
She stopped.
Because she heard it. Right there, in her own mouth.
"He'd say, I think it's my heart, ma'am."
The words sat in the room.
"Oh my god, Rey," Charlie whispered. "This whole time."
"This whole time... what, Charlie?" Reyna asked.
"The systems," Charlie said. "Holy shit, the number of things I fixed on this ship that weren't broken! The... the stupid maintenance that could've waited a week!" Charlie laughed.
"You fixed things that weren't broken?" Reyna asked. "Why?"
But Charlie didn't answer.
"And of all people, I would have thought you wouldn't call maintenance stup—"
"I kept finding you," Charlie said softly, looking at Reyna with a newfound energy she didn't know she could possess.
"Over and over and over again, with a wrench in my hand and a completely fake reason, and I told myself every single time it was about the ship.
" Charlie laughed. She pulled her hand away from Reyna's waist and lifted it to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear.
"It was never about the ship," Charlie whispered.
"I've been Frank the whole time, Rey. Coming to your station with a hangnail. "
Reyna went still.
"The ready room," she said slowly.
"What?"
"You rerouted a coolant line in my ready room that did not need rerouting. You spent ages on it and explained yourself the whole time." Reyna's voice had gone quiet. "I moved a briefing to let you stay. I told myself it was—"
She stopped.
"Efficient," Charlie offered.
"I told myself it was efficient."
They looked at each other.
"You were Helen," Charlie said. "And you didn't know it any more than I knew I was Frank."
Reyna shook her head slowly. "I didn't see it."
"Frank and Helen probably didn't see it either," Charlie said. "But that's what they told me. That's just how it works. You don't find out you're in the story until you're already most of the way through it."
Reyna reached up and put her hand against the side of Charlie's face.
For a long moment, neither of them said anything.
Then, very quietly, Reyna said, "I think it's my heart, Charlie."