Chapter 47
Final Offer
One of these days, Davik would learn to speak Teelish. She had been saying words here and there in her sleep, and he had no way to interpret the meaning.
Is it still considered talking in your sleep if it’s a coma? That’s still sleeping. Just really … long, scary sleep.
It had been about a week. Theos said she would be fine.
It was an intentional and medically induced coma after all.
The team had tapered off the time she needed to spend in medicated tanks down to just one or two hours a day, thank God.
Every time she was in there, it reminded him of the day he had pulled her lifeless form out of the diving bell.
But there was no hard and fast projection on when she would come to. Every time Davik asked, Theos just said, “When she’s ready.”
He was finally here, close enough to touch her.
Yet despite that, technically, they still hadn’t spoken face-to-face for six months.
Unless he counted the brief glimpse of her after he had been rescued from the Karnel, but he was so doped in the moment that he wasn’t even sure if he had said anything back.
She still looked so pale and weak. The deep green markings of hers had yet to return. Just a few sparse sage speckles showed amidst the gray. He wasn’t in a much better state comparatively, but he was upright and walking. Well, shuffling.
He reached out to touch her hand, slipping his fingers along hers and resisting the urge to kiss her knuckles.
“I’m here, Fi. You work on getting better. You’re overdue for a lot of celebration and explanation. And … God, what’s another good word? Communication? No, that goes along with the explanation.”
It felt nice just to ramble to her. Even though she was silent. She was here, and that’s all that mattered. She was here, and she was smiling.
“Dav…?”
He sat bolt upright, watching as her cracked lips parted.
“We … have to stop meeting like this,” she murmured.
She managed a light squeeze of his hand, and he fell apart. All the strength he had found to glue himself together dissolved. Words were too hard to find, so he just let himself sink into the touch.
“You saved them, Davik,” she said with a perilously soft voice. He felt her squeeze his hand again. Her words were slightly tangled and rounded as she spoke.
“And … you saved me. Also, you saved you. Do not tell them, but you were the most important one to save.”
“Your secret is safe with me, Fi. Get some rest. You’re still on the mend. I’ll be here.”
Her smile bloomed brighter, though her eyes were still closed.
“That really is your line.”
The massive cargo freighter Heliovor were using as a hidden base of operations was surprisingly cozy. Davik theorized that was due to the massive population of battle-bonded strangers who had filled all the common areas with mementos and memorials.
The bleak, utilitarian gray was peppered with bright colored drawings and pictures, notes, and vigils. Heliovor had suffered losses, but far fewer than expected. Many had seen this as a one-way trip, and the victorious energy on the ship was infectious.
Davik had spent some time catching up on what he could find on the datastreams between visits to the medic bay.
Things were getting pretty interesting in TC.
Carissa and Marius had been attempting to ping him for weeks.
When he managed to get a message out to them, the barrage of replies was enough to make his head spin.
He assuaged their worries as best he could, while also giving as much information as the Heliovor officers allowed for operational security.
The cloaked freighter was still in a relatively precarious spot, most aboard still patching up and licking their wounds, so sending a naked “Hi, I’m on a giant cargo ship full of violent rebels” message was not advised.
The security team gave him enough leeway to warn Marius and Carissa that Drey was a double-crossing rat, but he hadn’t been given the all-clear to delve into specifically what had taken place.
Not yet. Heliovor leadership had gotten the entire story from him as best he could recall, and they filled in as many gaps as they could offer.
Unfortunately, the rat was still at large. From what he could glean, so was the waxy bastard, General Eklea.
Despite the often tense discussions, debriefing with the officers had been a welcome return to the world after his imprisonment. It was nice just to sit and chat with people, even if it was all business.
Now, if only Fia had been spared more than a moment to talk to me.
Every time he had returned to the med bay, there had been guards at her door telling him to come back in an hour.
That had been going on for almost two days since she woke.
His ego hadn’t swollen to gargantuan proportions yet, but he had been integral in blowing up the Karnel.
He thought that would buy him some influence, at least enough to see her. But it did not.
It garnered him some fantastic snacks and a few free drinks, though. And it allotted him a bit of freedom. Despite not being a rank-and-file member of Heliovor, he was given an access badge to poke around just about everywhere. Even the big, fancy destroyers.
He was swiveling in the pilot’s seat in one of the currently empty ships when he heard footsteps.
“Oh, shit,” he cursed under his breath, putting away the datapad that he had been using to take impressive-looking pictures of himself in the cockpit.
He put on his best I-am-being-respectful-of-this-equipment face and swung the seat around to see a silhouette in the entryway.
A tall silhouette. Tall, leggy, generous hips. Skin-tight suit. Green scales. A slight smile and heavy-lidded eyes that were staring directly at him.
“I was told you might be in here,” Fia murmured as she walked up to take the copilot seat beside him.
“Did you make a break for it, or are you finally out of debrief hell?”
“The latter. I was not in a state to make a grand escape. I wanted to talk to you sooner, Dav, I promise.”
Davik pursed his lips. She sounded genuine, but he felt an odd, conflicting pang.
On the one hand, she was here, and that made his heart do cartwheels. On the other hand, she had been radio silent and distant for the last few days. On the other-other hand, that distance was influenced by there now being a war that she was inextricably in the middle of.
On the other-other-other hand, she had proven she was capable of jamming an entire fleet’s comms networks. She could have sent a message.
“Don’t promise things. Not yet. Just, level with me, Fi. I’m missing a lot of context between the A and B of you telling me ‘I took an oath, goodbye forever’, and then rolling up, guns blazing, blowing up a Fed ship, and telling me you missed me.”
“To be fair, you are the one who blew up the ship.” She paused and quirked a lip. “And you said you missed me first,” she said as she crossed her legs, eyeing him with a proud smirk.
Davik grumbled and suppressed a twinge of a smile.
It felt easy to give in to the ease of being around her again.
But he had endured a lot of hurt, even before he had ended up aboard the Karnel.
He wouldn’t just get bowled over by a tight suit and a soft smile.
Or at least, he would valiantly try not to get bowled over for at least five minutes.
“C’mon,” Davik said, trying his best to keep the internal tumult from affecting his tone.
“I thought— I mean, I assumed we were something. And then, suddenly, we weren’t anything, and you were a stoic, silent soldier.
I don’t know where I stand. Literally and figuratively.
” He gestured out the front windows of the destroyer, towards the innards of the massive cargo ship they were all entombed within.
Fia nodded and uncrossed her legs, putting both of her hands in her lap and examining her palms as she flexed and curled her fingers for a good while, staying silent. It was a familiar nervous gesture of hers that tugged at his heart enough to elicit a reflexive clench of his own hands.
“I had come to terms with the risks I brought you when I was imagining a future of localized conflicts alongside TCIP,” she finally said, still keeping her eyes on her hands.
“But when we rescued the commander, the scope … changed. A full-scale war with my Fleet involved is something you would not, could not, be safe from. It would destroy everything you knew here. It still might. And…”
She took a long, shaky breath. “When we met with the Sovereign, the Fleet itself was divided in twain. Half wanted to spark a final war fueled by vengeance. Half wished to leave this system and abandon the cause.” A regretful expression flickered on her face, but she still didn’t meet his gaze.
“And the Council chose to flee. Not just to another settled system, but into a world on the other side of the galaxy.”
“And you didn’t think to just ask me if I wanted to come with? Or, I don’t know. Just not go? Ditch ‘em, stay here? You can’t lie and say my cooking isn’t worth abandoning your Sovereign.”
Fia’s laugh brightened the room and made his heart swell with a distant memory of cozy laughter and entwined limbs. This felt too good and too easy. He was back in the happy haze, all over again.
Four more minutes at least. Don’t get bowled over by the pretty lady who broke your heart for at least four more minutes.
“Do know, every moment I spent in the canteen staring at a bowl of colorless carbohydrate was agony.”
“I’ll add that to my resume then. That I can cook rehydrated noodles that are so good, they’ll get a woman to go to war for you.”
This time, they both broke into a laugh that ended with them catching each other’s gaze.
“I missed you so much, Davik.”
Okay, maybe just one more minute. Just one. You had six months of silence. You’re owed a bit more than that.