We stood in the corridor for a moment longer than professionally necessary, and I found myself noticing details I shouldn't—the way exhaustion softened her features, the gold flecks in her green eyes, the stubborn determination that wouldn't let her back down even when logic said retreat.
"Quarters," I said finally. "Now. That's a direct order."
"You're very bossy."
"You're very stubborn. We balance each other."
This time she smiled—small but genuine. "I'll rest. But Er'dox? When Kim gets her supervised meeting with the other survivors, I want to be there. Want to help facilitate that reunion."
"Assuming Tor'van approves the recommendation."
"He will. Because you'll convince him it's the right call."
"You have significant confidence in my influence."
"You found me on a burning planet and recruited me into advanced Engineering despite having zero proof I'd succeed. Yes, I have confidence in your ability to make the right calls."
The words did something complicated to my chest that I didn't have time to analyze. "Get some rest, Dana. Tomorrow's going to be complicated enough without you running on empty."
She nodded and headed for crew quarters, leaving me alone in the corridor with thoughts that felt too personal for professional boundaries.
Krev was going to have a field day with this.
I returned to Engineering, reviewed Kim's technical briefing, and tried to focus on system analysis instead of the brilliant human who'd somehow become essential to my department's operations in two weeks.
Failed at that last part, but I'd never claimed to be perfect.
Just careful. And increasingly uncertain about whether careful was still possible where Dana was concerned.
epilogue
Dana
Six months later…
The memorial garden shouldn't have worked.
I stood at its entrance, datapad forgotten in my hand, staring at the impossible space Jalina and Zor'go had carved from Mothership's austere functionality. Living walls climbed toward ceiling panels modified to simulate Earth's sun cycle as warm yellow light that made my chest ache with homesickness I'd learned to carry quietly. Plants from a dozen worlds created something that felt less like careful horticulture and more like controlled chaos, green and growing and alive in ways that defied the sterile corridors beyond.
At the garden's center, a memorial stone. Salvaged Liberty hull plating, etched with names. Three hundred and seventeen crew members who'd never made it past the wormhole. Who'd never see this garden, never know that seventeen of us survived to build something from the wreckage of their dreams.
"You're early." Er'dox's voice, familiar now in ways that still surprised me. Six months, and I'd learned to recognize his footsteps in Engineering's chaos, his presence in a room before I turned around, the particular quality of silence that meanthe was thinking through problems too complex for immediate solutions.
"Couldn't sleep." I didn't look at him, kept my eyes on the memorial stone where morning light, simulated but close enough, made the etched names seem to glow. "Kept thinking about the bonding ceremony. About standing up there in front of everyone and promising to stay. To build a life here instead of waiting for rescue that's never coming."
"Second thoughts?"
"Seventeenth thoughts, maybe. But not second." I finally turned to face him.”You?"
Er'dox moved to stand beside me, his height making me crane my neck slightly to maintain eye contact. Didn't matter. I'd gotten used to feeling small around Zandovians, gotten used to existing in spaces designed for beings twice my size, gotten used to the particular way Er'dox's presence made the galaxy feel slightly less overwhelming.
"I stopped having doubts around month three," he admitted. "When you caught the resonance cascade in the dark matter containment before it became critical. Saved approximately forty-three lives and several billion credits in repair costs. That's when I knew."
"Knew what?"
"That you weren't temporary. That this—" he gestured vaguely between us "—wasn't just a convenient placement of a competent engineer in my department. That I was making decisions about my future that included you in fundamental ways."
My heart did something complicated. We'd been dancing around this for months, ever since Kim's capture forced conversations about loyalty and choice and what it meant to build lives from cosmic disasters. Ever since I'd realized that going home, if home even existed anymore, would mean leavingbehind the person who made Mothership feel less like exile and more like beginning.
