۞
Tark felt at odds with himself. Part of him wanted nothing more than to take care of these people, assimilate them into the station’s workings, and give them new lives. Realistically though, he knew it couldn’t last. Sooner or later, someone would notice, or one of his own people would let it slip.
Now he had two other members of this strange little party, along with Antonio’s unsettling tale. He left the window that had held his dazed attention, and made his way to the commercial district. Once he got there, he’d call Sa’andy to have her meet him, and they could talk all this through. That was if she’d left her work yet. She tended to get lost in it.
He wandered around the district, trying to smell everything, and figure out what he was in the mood for. Sa’andy had pulled the girl trick; she didn’t care, he could choose where they ate. Seafood? Vegetarian? Comfort? Healthy? There were, as always, a few too many options. Nothing was piquing his interest just yet, so he started reading all the specials boards.
From the corner of his eye, he saw a familiar form walking by. He turned his head, in time to see Dmitry walking with Maeve, in very close quarters. Tark frowned and took a step forward, only then seeing something that gave him pause. He recognized the look on Dmitry’s face, as well as the protective arm that was firmly around her waist. It was the expression of a man wrestling with love.
“Bonswa, mes amis.” He shook his head in awe. “I will not forget that too soon.” He wondered whether this was because of the mysterious Maeve, or whether Dmitry had simply arrived.
“What will you not forget, my love?” Sa’andy smiled at him from around his shoulder.
“You will never believe it when I tell you.”
۞
Wallace was lost, especially in the literal sense at this particular moment. He had no clue where he was. He hadn’t meant to get turned around, away from his duties, away from what mattered. Jules was going to kick him in the ass, if he ever found his way back. Fergus, you’re up shit creek, and you don’t even have a boat, let alone paddles. Wearily, he leaned against a wall, and soon found himself sitting. There he sat with a glazed look about him until he focused on a pair of feet in front of him. He didn’t want to look up.
“My night is made. We’ve been looking for you.” Shit. That maniac was the last person he’d wanted to run into.
“Look, you Scandinavian fruitcake, we’re all on the same side here.”
“Relax, I’m not going to kill you. All I want to do is make life a little more…painful. Trust me, you’ll get over it.”
“Leif, can you back off a little?” Josh was clearly worried; Wallace shot him a look of relieved thanks. “If you want to hurt him, we can’t do it out in public.”
“What the hell! Can’t you guys let go of anything?”
“No.” They were set to jackboot him back to someone’s quarters. That would make things less conspicuous, at least.
“Well, boys, this wasn’t how I planned the reunion, but here we are. Can you drop him, please?” They turned around as one.
“Jules? Jeez, we didn’t know you were here, too. Glad to see you!” Leif thumped her shoulder happily. Her expression remained unchanged.
“You’re going to break him.” They looked at Wallace. Leif shrugged noncommittally.
“No big deal. Modern medicine is amazing these days.”
“I’m asking nicely. I like you guys. Always did.” Julieta Ramirez was not to be taken lightly. She’d been a Brazilian jiu-jitsu and muay thai champ back when they’d first met her. One might imagine that she was still up to par on those skills. That thought having resurfaced, they let go of Wallace in unison. “Thanks. Now, I’d think you might like to hear what we’ve been up to.”
“I do have one big question, well, okay, two questions, but I reserve the right to more.” Josh held up two fingers, flicking a third up and down.
“Two years.”
“Two? Seriously?” Josh paced a bit, mulling this over.
“The answer to your second question has a lot to do with our mission.”
“Come on. You can’t expect us to believe that a three hundred year-old mission could possibly still be relevant.” Leif gave a firm shove to Wallace, hoping it would make him feel better.
“I can and do. If anything, it’s going to be harder than we originally thought it would be. I mean, we’ve been cooling our heels for two years, trying to make a plan. We were trying to figure out how to come get you, but a bit of luck fell our way.”
“Yeah, someone found us by accident.”
“It wasn’t any accident. We just had somebody offer to make the ‘discovery’, as it were.” Julieta let that sink in. “Why don’t we go get with the others? I don’t want to tell this story two times.”
۞
“You don’t have to stay.” She was clear-eyed, if not completely sober. There was a challenge in her voice. An hour and some food had made a difference. Dmitry had waited while she’d showered, as his thoughts turned over and over.
“That’s not the question for the moment. It’s whether you want me here.”
Maeve could feel time slow for her consideration. She looked at him, his blue eyes meeting hers with equal intensity. For the first time she noticed that his hair was not completely brown, but more of a dark reddish brown. It would probably show up more in his beard. What would he look like with a beard? He was still waiting for an answer.
“I’d like it if you stayed.” Her breath caught in her chest. “If you don’t have anything better to do.”
“Don’t do that.” He sat up in the chair he been waiting in, his jaw set in a heated angle.
“What?” Maeve’s eyes stayed on his face. The trouble with military men was that they had to shave every day. Clearly, her thoughts were rapidly progressing past moderation.
“Go hot and cold.” He stood and walked over to her. Her hair was still wet; the smell of whatever she’d washed with lingered. “It drives me a little crazy.”
“You keep using that word.”
“You have a tendency to bring it to mind. Frequently.” How long ago had they met? He’d lost track. Some moments it seemed like it had been ages. Then he’d blink and realize how brief it had actually been. But a month? That was the longest he’d ever waited, wasn’t it? He was still hesitating on the edge of something…what?
“I’m sorry if I upset you. Earlier.” She seemed to know that he was at a tipping point.
“I wasn’t upset. I find myself more concerned about and for you than I had expected.” Great, I sound like an idiot out of Austen.
Maeve raised an eyebrow.
“Still sounds like you think I’m crazy.”
“Crazy, no. Complicated?” There was a palpable sense of temperature. Neither one of them dared move; each willing the other to do so.
“I can deal with that.”
“Good.”
“Indeed.” Less than a foot of distance stood between them. She held up a mug, “Coffee?”
“Screw coffee. Coffee can go to hell.” He closed the gap and picked her up off her feet.
۞
“You think he’s in love? Really?” Sa’andy was slowly twirling some spaghetti squash around her plate. Tark had told her everything that had transpired over the past several hours. She was a bit surprised that he’d put so much together in so little time. Leaving aside the question of his best friend, she knew it was time to be honest with him. She smiled, hoping that he would not be angry with her.
“I can feel you growing stronger. What conclusion have you arrived at?”
“Do you have to be so clinical sounding? They’re people, not ratifications of a treaty.” He pouted, staring at his goat cheese crostini. Had he ordered this? “I’m going to have to protect their interests no matter what happens.”
She smiled, having goaded him into a discourse with his conscience, and he didn’t even apparently realize it.
“Even if that eventually means the end of everyt
hing you’ve worked for? Even if it means you find yourself fighting a war?”
“Even when it means that all I have left is you, baby. You’re the only thing I won’t surrender. What’s this talk about war, though?” He didn’t like it. War was something he preferred to avoid at any cost. Not for the sake of cowardice, but that he knew what came with it.
“Never mind. You’re sure?” He nodded, his look of confidence her answer, and she knew that she could proceed. “Then I have to tell you a few things.”
۞
It took a bit to catch back up with everyone else. Antonio had scarpered off to “figure some stuff out”. Jemi had been back in her room. Grace had been with some personnel she’d met in the weapons section. It seemed she was considering trying to go back into the service. Josh had to laugh at that. For someone who didn’t want to go back to school, she was happy to overlook that if it meant being able to handle large arms again. Boom.
It had been a semi-happy reunion. Everyone was pleased to see Jules (Jemi thought someone might be more than typically happy to see her). None of them seemed able to muster up the same enthusiasm for Wallace.
“I’m not taking this personally, just so you know.” Wallace hadn’t expected a warm welcome, but this was way worse.
“Well, you could. Because it is.”
“You know, Josh, Grace, we didn’t really know each other. Jemi either, but she seems to be able to give me the benefit of the doubt.” He gestured over to the latter subject, who drew back and began to run her fingers through her curls. She was still trying to get used to them. She figured her head needed a rest after a couple hundred years in plaits.
“Um, well, I just don’t like saying mean things.” She kept her eyes on her hair.
Wallace threw his hands up in the air and flopped down onto a couch.
“Great.” He waved to Julieta. “You might as well get this show on the road. We have a compressed timeline, as you keep reminding me.”
“Timeline?”
“Yes, Grace. I mentioned to Josh and Leif, we uh, still have our original mission.”
“Say what?”
۞
It felt like they’d fallen off the edge of forever. Maeve had lost all concept of time while Dmitry held her, her toes just brushing the floor. She fought down the turning of her brain to other ideas and tried to hold herself in the moment. It was more than a simple kiss. Those were everyday. Even the kiss from when they’d gone out that first night seemed trivial; significant of nothing. If they had gone their separate ways afterwards, neither of them would have thought twice about that kiss.
This was different.
This was the opening of a door.
An invitation to investigate from every angle.
A long pent-up shudder and sigh worked its way from deep within her body, escaping with force. Dmitry paused, drew back to look at her, held her more tightly.
“What color are your eyes, anyway?” He looked into them, and grinned at her in a way that stole the breath from her lips.
“That’s what you’re going to ask?” She tried to resist, but his gravity pulled at her relentlessly.
“I already know where your bed is.” He clearly had a handle on roguishness. She laughed quietly, and he realized he hadn’t heard that before. “You need to do that more often.”
“So do you.” She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against his, listening only to the sound of their breathing. “Someone was knocking at the door earlier, weren’t they?”
“Couldn’t have been too important. They went away.” He resumed his investigating.
۞
“Let me think about this. It’s a lot to consider.”
“I realize that this comes as a shock, most likely, but I’ve waited as long as I could. I feel very strongly about it.”
“I can tell. Give me a minute.”
“Jorge, just be honest with me.” Tark knelt next to the bed where Sa’andy still sat, taking her hands, gazing pointedly into