"Yeah." Dana studied me over the rim of her cup. "Jalina mentioned Zorn's been pushing you to slow down. Said you didn't attend her bonding ceremony because you were monitoring patients who didn't actually need monitoring."
The observation stung because it was accurate. "They were stable but?—"
"But you needed an excuse to avoid celebrating other people's happiness." Dana's tone wasn't judgmental, just matter-of-fact. The engineer is analyzing a problem. "I get it. I did the same thing for weeks after arriving on Mothership. Easier to focus on work than deal with the fact thatwe're stranded billions of light-years from everything we knew."
I sipped the terrible coffee, buying time. Dana and I weren't close, not like she was with Jalina or Elena. We were cordial colleagues who shared quarters initially, then diverged when she moved in with Er'dox. But she'd always been perceptive, seeing patterns others missed.
"The work matters," I said.
"The work always matters. That's why it's such an effective hiding place." Dana set down her cup, giving me her full attention. "But Bea, you can't run forever. Eventually you crash. Trust me, I tried. Nearly got Kim killed in the process."
Kim. The saboteur, the human woman who'd tried to destroy Dana's relationship with Er'dox out of desperation and misguided loyalty. She was in rehabilitation now, working through her own demons under careful supervision.
"I'm not sabotaging anything," I said.
"You're sabotaging yourself. Different method, same result." Dana's green eyes were gentle but unyielding. "Zorn cares about you. Anyone with functional vision can see it. And unless I'm completely misreading you, you care about him too. So why are you fighting it so hard?"
Because caring about someone meant vulnerability. Meant risk. Meant the possibility of loss, and I'd already lost so much that the thought of losing more was unbearable.
I didn't say that. Couldn't say it without the words cracking something open inside me.
"He ordered me into therapy," I said instead.
"Good. You need therapy."
"You're supposed to be on my side."
"I am on your side. That's why I'm not enabling your self-destruction." Dana stood, picked up her cup. "Look, I'm not going to tell you what to do. But I watched you work yourself to collapse at Veridian Station because you couldn't stop long enough to feel anything. And I watched Zorn catch you when you fell, literally and metaphorically. At some point, you have to decide if you're going to keep running or if you're going to let someone help carry the weight."
She left before I could respond. Before I could build a defense or deflect or change the subject to something safer.
I sat alone in the medical bay, drinking burnt-circuit coffee and hating that she was right.
The door chimed again. This time it was the person I'd been avoiding.
Zorn entered with his characteristic careful movements, ducking slightly through the doorway even though it was designed for Zandovian proportions. His forest-green skin caught the overhead lights, the gold healing markings along his arms and shoulders seeming to shimmer with their own internal luminescence. He'd changed from his outbreak response uniform into standard medical attire, his dark green hair pulled back in a tie that somehow made his golden-brown eyes more prominent.
He was beautiful. I'd been trying not to notice that for two months.
"Bea." His voice was warm, concerned. "I hoped I'd find you here."
"I work here."
"You live here." Not an accusation, just an observation. "I checked the shift schedules. You've logged ninety-seven hours in the past week. That's?—"
"Necessary. We had the Veridian outbreak, and before that the mining accident, and?—"
"And before that, other crises you used as excuses to avoid addressing your own needs." He moved closer, not crowding but definitely entering my personal space. His size should have been intimidating, eight feet of solid Zandovian male, but instead felt oddly comforting. Like a shelter rather than a threat. "I have the commendation ceremony in two hours. Captain Tor'van wants to formally recognize the outbreak response team. You need to attend."
Ceremony. Public attention. Praise for work that felt insufficient because we'd still lost three colonists in the initial phase, three beings who died before we arrived, three names I couldn't save that would join the tally in my head.
"I'd rather not."
"I know. That's why I'm telling you it's mandatory." Zorn pulled out a datapad, displayed something that made my stomach sink. "These are your medical scans from Veridian Station. Stress hormone levels, cortisol markers, sleep deprivation indicators. Bea, you're exhibiting classic burnout patterns. Your body is breaking down."
The clinical data stared back at me. Numbers that confirmed what I'd been refusing to acknowledge, that my coping mechanisms were killing me slowly, that work-as-medication wasn't sustainable, that I was destroying myself in the name of helping others.
"I'm functional," I said, the same defense I always used.
