Chapter 40 Roxy
ROXY
The scanner chirps softly.
Not the urgent kind. Not the red-light scream of arterial bleeds or toxin surges.
Just a soft, steady confirmation ping. The medbay is quiet—dim lights, antiseptic scent humming beneath sterilized air.
I sit back against the cushioned panel, shirt loose at the collar, boots unlaced.
The med-tech doesn’t say anything. Just looks at me, then down at the pad again.
And then she nods.
That’s it.
That’s all it takes to flip my entire goddamn reality on its axis.
I blink, once. Not in shock. Not in fear. Just—processing. There’s no sharp intake of breath, no sudden jolt. It settles over me like the slow thickening of atmosphere when you drop into gravity after too long in zero. Familiar, but weighty.
She hands me the report. “It’s early,” she says. “But stable. No complications on scan. You’ll want to update your primary with the developmental marker timelines. You’re... about eight weeks.”
“Vakutan hybrid?”
“Confirmed,” she says. “Viable bond. No rejection indicators.”
I exhale through my nose.
Of course not.
Vrok’s in the command cabin when I find him.
Console lit, maps and contractor summaries on standby.
He’s bent over logistics, sleeves rolled up, thick arms flexed with the way he leans into the screen like it owes him answers.
His jaw moves faintly—he’s muttering at the data again.
Probably rerouting fuel reserves through the sub-relays. It’s what he does when he can’t sleep.
I stop in the doorway. Watch him for a beat.
He looks good. Focused. Steady. Strong in a way that isn’t just muscle. The kind of strength that lives in choices made, not wars survived.
I step forward. “You got a second?”
His head lifts immediately. “Always.”
He reads me in half a heartbeat. I see it—the shift behind his eyes. The way he straightens without even realizing it. Like some part of him is wired to brace every time I enter a room and lead with that tone.
“You hurt?” he asks, already halfway to his feet.
I shake my head. “No. Not that kind of update.”
His brow furrows.
I move closer, slide the datapad across the console to him.
He takes it. Glances down. Scans.
Stops.
The silence stretches. He reads it again, slower.
Then his lips part, and I see it—raw, stunned joy. Open and unguarded, like something cracked clean through the granite he usually keeps around his heart.
“You’re sure?” he asks, voice rougher than usual.
I nod once. “Confirmed today.”
He lowers the pad, looks at me like I’ve just rewritten every rule of physics.
And then he laughs—deep and full, not loud, but real.
He crosses the space between us in two long strides and crushes me to his chest. I sink into it, let myself breathe him in. He smells like heat and leather and the faint mechanical tang of lubricant from the console.
“I didn’t think,” he starts, then stops. Presses his forehead to mine. “I didn’t dare hope.”
“I wasn’t sure how to feel,” I admit. “Still not. But I knew I needed to tell you right. No dramatics. No waiting.”
He leans back enough to look at me. “Thank you.”
We just stand there a while. Wrapped up in the quiet and the gravity of it.
Later, over strong black caf and a plate of ration toast he burned on one side, we talk logistics. Not names. Not nurseries. That comes later.
Now it’s routes, contingencies, comm failsafes, priority med evac contacts. The boring, essential things.
“We’ll need to scrub any future solo contract work,” I say. “Any jump zones outside signal range, too.”
“Already rerouting,” he replies, biting into the too-hard edge of the toast. “Cynna’ll kill me, but I’ll tell her we’re adding a delay trigger to the relay code. She’ll cave.”
“You’re assuming I wasn’t going to ask her myself.”
He grins. “You’re more persuasive.”
“And you’re more reckless.”
“Not anymore.”
I glance up. “No?”
He shakes his head. “I’ve got skin in the game now.”
I snort. “You had skin in the game when you jumped in front of a missile for me.”
“That was reflex. This is strategy.”
I let the silence settle again. Stir my caf. The heat from the mug curls around my fingers, anchoring me in the now.
“Vrok,” I say quietly. “This doesn’t change who I am.”
His hand reaches across the table. Covers mine. “Good. Because who you are is the reason I want this.”
My throat tightens.
“I just need to know we’re aligned,” I say. “I won’t stop being me. Won’t stop fighting. Won’t stop choosing how I move through the galaxy.”
He nods, expression sober now. “I don’t want a different version of you. I want you. As you are. As you’ll become. That’s the bond. That’s us.”
After he sleeps—and it takes him a while, even with me wrapped around his side like a second blanket—I sit at the console and stare at the security overlay of our last op.
I trace the pattern with my eyes.
I remember every choice. Every bluff. Every quiet tilt of my head that made grown killers twitch in their boots.
I remember being terrified in a locked apartment, once.
I remember feeling like I didn’t own my name, let alone my body.
I remember shaking in a broken chair, praying no one would knock at the door.
And now I shape syndicate policy with a look. Now I enter rooms without a weapon drawn and come out the last one standing.
The Butcher isn’t a shadow anymore. She’s a construct of my making. A banner I wave with intention. A tool I sharpen, then sheathe when it suits me.
And now... she’s going to be someone’s mother.
Not because I was punished.
Not because I lost control.
Because I fucking chose.
Vrok wakes just before jump prep, eyes still heavy with sleep, but alert the moment I touch his arm.
“I was dreaming,” he murmurs, voice low.
“Good dream?”
His arms wrap around me again. “You. A desert sky. The sound of a heartbeat that wasn’t mine.”
I don’t say anything.
I don’t need to.
We’re building a life with danger in its margins, not in its foundation. We’re not waiting for peace—we’re carving it, moment by moment.
The galaxy’s still on fire. But we’re no longer burning with it.
We’re lighting a path forward.