Chapter 30 Rhea
RHEA
Night folds around the Red Star like a velvet cloak, stitched with pinprick stars that shimmer through the bridge’s viewport. The hum of the engine is a lullaby I never expected to find comforting, but now it’s the rhythm of our life—steady, low, always there.
We fly again. No destination urgent, no crisis driving us. Just movement. Just choice.
Ripley’s asleep in her bunk, sprawled like a starfish, her fake wings hanging on the hook above her like she might need them in a dream. She kicked the blanket off, as usual. I pull it back up before slipping past her room and heading to the galley.
Valtron’s already there, filling the kettle. He doesn’t turn when I enter—he just says, “Too late for stim, too early for sleep?”
I wrap my arms around his waist from behind, pressing my cheek to his back. “You know me.”
“I always do.”
He pours the tea—fragrant, citrusy, laced with something sweet. I tease him about the sweetness every time. He acts like he hates it, but he keeps drinking it. Ritual. Habit. Us.
“I wrote today,” I say as we settle into the tiny booth that pretends to be a dining table.
He raises an eyebrow.
“Just stories,” I say. “Not news. Not exposes. Just… fiction. People who don’t have to look over their shoulders.”
“You publish?”
I shake my head. “Not yet. Maybe never.”
“Then why?”
“Because it helps,” I whisper.
He nods like he understands. Because he does.
Later, in our room, the lights are low and the sheets cool. We lie tangled together, not for sex, not for anything but the comfort of presence. My fingers trace the old scar along his ribs, the one he got before I ever knew him. Before we were more than fire and friction.
“We’re not the same people,” I say into the silence.
Valtron turns his head. His eyes catch the light just enough to gleam. “We’re better.”
I grin. “Still stubborn.”
He growls low in his throat, the sound more contented than threatening. “Still mine.”
I kiss him, slow and deep, and the stars beyond our viewport watch in silence. They see it all—the way we hold on, the way we choose each other, again and again, across time and trauma and galaxies.
Outside, the universe sprawls infinite and unyielding.
Inside, it’s warm.
Inside, we’ve made a home.
Inside, we’re everything we ever fought for.