“You sing?” she asks, amused.
“Badly,” I admit. “But with enthusiasm.”
“I’ll believe it when I hear it.”
“One day,” I promise.
Silence again.
Then, softly, she says, “I used to be terrified of the dark.”
I glance sideways, even though I can’t really see her face. “Used to?”
She shrugs. “Now I’m just… tired of pretending I’m not.”
I swallow hard. “Yeah. Same.”
The air shifts. Not the kind of shift from the failing HVAC or storm pressure, but something inside the space between us. Something real. Something dangerous.
“I almost died in a mech once,” she says.
My gut tightens. “When?”
“Before Whiplash. Training exercise. My first pilot panicked and overrode the emergency protocols. Fried the core. I was in the repair bay, rebalancing the neural load when it blew. Knocked me out cold.”
I don’t say anything for a second.
Then: “That why you hate Meld?”
She doesn’t answer immediately. Then— “It’s part of it. I don’t like giving up control. Trusting someone else with my body, my brain. It’s like offering your spine and praying they don’t snap it.”
“I get that,” I say. “I do.”
She looks over her shoulder, just slightly. “Do you?”
“Vakutan warriors Meld before our first real mission. We have to. Sometimes it’s with someone we barely know. You learn real fast that trust isn’t about logic. It’s about choosing to fall anyway.”
She shivers. Not from cold.
“I don’t know how to do that,” she whispers.
“I’ll wait until you do,” I say. “Even if it takes a war and a thousand windstorms.”
She doesn’t respond, but her hand—her fingers—brush mine. Light. Almost nothing.
But not nothing.
Outside, the winds begin to fade. The storm’s passing. The pressure starts to ease. The base systems groan and flicker, trying to come back to life.
“I guess that’s our cue,” she murmurs.
“Yeah.”
We stand together, slowly. Not rushing. The air still hums with something heavy and unspoken. She doesn’t step away this time. Neither do I.
We walk out of the maintenance corridor shoulder to shoulder.
And I swear—every step feels like a promise.
