"Who is currently a patient and will follow medical protocols like everyone else." Kessa's yellow markings flickered with determination. "Doctor's orders. Your own orders, actually, from the post-crisis care manual you wrote three years ago."
Inconvenient, having your own protocols used against you.
Vaxon's mouth twitched. The closest thing to a smile I'd ever seen from the security chief. "She has you there."
"All of you can leave now," I said without heat. "I'm fine."
"You're recovering from near-fatal oxygen deprivation and multiple contusions." Er'dox didn't move. "There's a difference."
Dana stepped closer, her expression shifting into something more serious. "We were terrified," she said quietly. "When the refugee ship exploded and you were missing, Bea was missing—" She stopped, swallowing. "You're part of this. Part of us. The found family we've been building since the rescue. And we protect our own."
The words settled into my chest like stones. Heavy. Solid. Undeniable.
I'd spent so long maintaining professional boundaries, keeping emotional distance, that I'd somehow missed the moment those walls had dissolved. These weren't just colleagues. They were family. The chosen kind, forged through shared crisis and mutual support.
"Thank you," I managed. "For searching. For bringing us home."
"Always," Jalina said simply.
They left eventually with Kessa shooing them out with promises to update them on any changes. The medical bay settled back into quiet efficiency, monitors beeping their steady rhythms, life support systems humming their mechanical lullabies.
I lay there, forcing myself to rest despite every instinct screaming to go to Bea. To touch her, confirm she was real, assure myself that the confessions we'd made hadn't been fever dreams or dying hallucinations.
I'm in love with you.
I love you too.
Simple words. Terrifying words. True words.
My markings flickered gold, the healing color, but also something else. Anticipation. Hope. The complicated emotions that came with realizing you'd found something precious exactly when you'd nearly lost everything.
Sleep claimed me again eventually, pulled under by exhaustion and medication. When I woke the second time, the lighting had shifted to night-cycle dim. And Bea was awake.
I knew before I opened my eyes I sensed the change in the room's energy, the subtle shift in breathing patterns. My eyes snapped open to find her sitting up in her bed, gray-blue gaze already locked on mine across the space between us.
For a moment we just looked at each other. Taking inventory. Confirming reality.
She looked terrible. Pale even by her standards, dark circles under her eyes like bruises, blonde hair tangled from eighteen hours unconscious. Her monitoring equipment showed elevated heart rate, stress markers spiking.
She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
"Zorn." My name came out hoarse. Uncertain. Like she wasn't sure what to say after everything we'd confessed in that dying pod.
I was already moving. Kessa would have medical opinions about patients leaving their beds prematurely, but Kessa wasn't currently in the bay and I'd deal with professional consequences later.
My legs weren't entirely steady, oxygen deprivation recovery took time, but I made it to Bea's bedside without collapsing. Close enough now to see the gold flecks in her gray eyes, the way her pulse jumped in her throat.
Close enough to touch.
I didn't. Not yet. Needed to know if the confessions were still held in daylight, in safety, in the aftermath of the crisis.
"Are we—" Bea started, then stopped. Swallowed. Started again. "Did we really… in the pod?—"
"Yes." One word. All the confirmation needed.
"And you? You meant?—"
"Every word." I reached for her hand slowly, giving her time to pull away. She didn't. Her fingers curled around mine, small and warm and alive. "Did you?"
