39. Saying It Out Loud #5
And Charlie broke, laughing and crying all at once.
REYNA
She was still holding Charlie's face, Charlie's laughter and tears going warm against her palm, when the datapad on the desk chimed.
Reyna almost ignored it. Almost. But it was the priority tone from a Fleet channel, and some part of her that would be a captain until she died turned her head toward it.
"Leave it," Charlie murmured against her.
"It's Vondra's channel."
She felt Charlie go still against her.
She turned back to Charlie, kissed her softly, then pulled away and crossed to the desk. She picked up the datapad and read it, standing there a moment with her back to Charlie.
She read it again before tears began to blur her vision.
It was a few words and a rank.
TRANSMISSION FROM FADM. VONDRA, P.:
You got your Chief Engineer. Congratulations, Captain.
Reyna set the datapad down and turned around.
She watched Charlie's eyes go wide. "Why are you crying?"
"It's done," Reyna said softly. "The removal order. It's..." Reyna took a staggering breath. "It's completely rescinded, Charlie. You're staying."
For a second, Charlie didn't move at all. Then she watched the day's tension rush out of her, all at once, a whole day of a woman quietly bracing to be torn out of the only home she'd ever chosen.
"I'm staying," Charlie repeated.
Reyna started walking back to Charlie.
"You're staying," Reyna confirmed.
"With you?"
Reyna reached her and wrapped her arms around Charlie's waist.
"With me."
Charlie let out a breath that shook all the way through. Then her eyes narrowed, and Reyna watched that part of her that needed to understand how this problem had been solved.
"How?" Charlie said. "That was a Coalition directive. That was protocol. Those don't just — How did you—"
"I told her something she couldn't argue with."
Charlie's eyes narrowed on hers.
"What did you tell her?" Charlie asked slowly, suspicious.
Reyna could have deflected. But instead, she reached up and wrapped both arms around Charlie's neck, looked at her, and told her.
"I told the Admiral that if she took you off this ship, she would be taking its captain too." Reyna kept her voice even. "If you go, I go."
Charlie stared at her.
"You did what."
"You heard me."
"Reyna." Charlie's voice cracked. "You did what?! You threatened to resign your command. The ship. All those years. Your whole—you put all of it on the table for—" She stopped. "Why would you do that?"
And Reyna, who had spent a lifetime measuring the cost of every single thing before she let herself want it, found there was nothing to measure here. There never had been. The answer had been sitting in her, whole and finished, since a bridge and a headset and a woman's silence on a dying planet.
"Because I'm not going anywhere in this universe without you," she said.
"There's no version of it where, if it doesn't have you in it, I don't want it.
" She held Charlie's gaze, steady, the rose gone warm along her arms. "You are what I choose.
I love this ship. I love this crew, and I love the work we do.
" She ran her finger along Charlie's jaw.
"But I love you more." Reyna cupped Charlie's cheek.
"You're it, Chief," Reyna said, using Charlie's title, making her laugh.
"Everything else is just where I happen to be standing. "
Charlie's laugh quieted as she stared at Reyna, not saying a word.
Then she reached up, took Reyna's face in both hands, and kissed her.
Charlie's fingers found the top button of Reyna's coat while they kissed, popping it open against her warm skin.
Reyna went to the hem of Charlie's shirt, sliding her hands underneath and grazing against Charlie's skin.
Charlie groaned into her mouth and gripped the coat before she moved to work the second button.
Reyna was tugging Charlie's shirt up her body while her fingers worked down the coat until it was fully open.
Charlie pushed it off Reyna's shoulders just before she pulled Charlie's shirt up and over her head.
Charlie's hand moved again mid-kiss and Reyna felt it trail along to her waist, pulling the hem of her tank top out of her pants, Charlie's fingers caressing the skin there. Reyna's breath hitched at the touch, and she felt the rose begin to collect where Charlie's hands stilled.
Charlie’s fingers moved higher, gathering Reyna’s tank top in both hands as she ascended.
Reyna lifted her arms, breaking the kiss only long enough for Charlie to pull it over her head and toss it somewhere behind them.
Before it had landed, Reyna had caught the hem of Charlie’s undershirt and was doing the same, dragging it upward until Charlie ducked free of it and came back to her mouth.
They made clumsy work of the rest. Charlie’s hands found the fastening at Reyna’s waist while Reyna worked at Charlie’s, both of them laughing once, breathlessly, when their fingers collided between them.
Reyna stepped out first, one hand braced against Charlie’s shoulder, then steadied Charlie while she kicked her own away.
For several breaths, they didn’t kiss, simply holding one another close, skin-to-skin.
The need hadn't passed. In fact, Reyna suspected it might never pass where Charlie was concerned.
They knew each other now, knew one another’s bodies. They'd found the places a hand would settle without being guided, which breath meant closer and which meant stay right there.
Charlie’s skin was warm against hers, her mouth resting near Reyna’s neck. Her fingers moved slowly along Reyna’s back, tracing paths of rose they had followed before and somehow making each one feel newly chosen.
Reyna tightened her arms around her.
Charlie kissed her shoulder. Then again, closer to her throat.
“Rey?”
“Yes?”
“I think my legs have stopped working.”
Reyna laughed against her hair. “Again?”
“That sounded judgmental.”
“It was an observation.”
“Well, then observe this.”
Charlie kissed her before Reyna could ask what this was supposed to mean, and the answer became immediately, thoroughly clear.
Charlie moved backward until she sat on the edge of the mattress, keeping hold of Reyna’s hands. Then she shifted farther back and looked up at her.
“Come here.”
Reyna followed Charlie into the bed, and Charlie drew her forward.
Charlie lowered fully to the mattress, sitting cross-legged.
She pulled Reyna towards her, settling her into her lap.
Reyna's knees moved easily to either side of Charlie’s hips, wrapping her legs around Charlie’s back as her arms closed around Reyna’s waist and pulled her nearer.
The position brought them together differently, closer than standing allowed. Face-to-face, breath-to-breath, with nowhere for either of them to look except at the other.
Reyna’s breath caught, and Charlie smiled as though she’d felt it happen.
She probably had.
Her hand rose to Reyna’s cheek, Reyna leaning into the touch.
Charlie’s expression softened.
“Hi,” she whispered.
The word moved through Reyna with all the lives it had already lived between them before she felt her own smile begin.
“Hi.”
Charlie kissed her, slowly, until it changed into something they knew they had found, and still couldn’t believe it belonged to them.
They had spent so long stealing moments from the universe.
Tonight, they'd let the universe do the waiting.