Afterwards, wrapped in his arms, I felt something I'd spent years running from.
Peace. Home. The certainty that I was exactly where I belonged.
"I love you," I whispered into the darkness.
"I love you too." His chest rumbled under my ear. "My impossible, brilliant, stubborn healer."
"Your healer."
"Mine."
Morning came too soon. Emergency medical call, routine, not crisis. A crew member with elevated blood pressure needed assessment.
We suited up together. Moved through the medical bay in perfect synchronization. The new normal we'd built as partners in every way, professional and personal boundaries blurred beyond recognition.
When the crew member left, stabilized and prescribed appropriate medication, Zorn caught my hand.
"Zandovian coffee?" he suggested.
"Always."
We headed for the dining area together, and I realized something fundamental had shifted. Not just in me, though I'd changed, healed, learned to accept care and connection, but in how I moved through Mothership's corridors.
This was home now. Not a temporary stop. Not survival. Home.
The found family we'd built. The work that mattered. The man walking beside me who'd taught me that healing meant accepting love, not just giving it.
I'd come to Mothership broken. Running from trauma. Using work as medication and distance as armor.
I'd found a man who saw through the armor to the person underneath. Who taught me that scars weren't shameful.That accepting help wasn't a weakness. That the best medicine was connection.
The dining area was crowded with shift change bringing crew members from a dozen species together. Dana and Er'dox sat at their usual table, heads together over some engineering schematic. Jalina and Zor'go occupied the corner booth, sketching while he calculated something on his datapad.
Elena sat alone at a window table, staring out at the stars with that haunted expression that reminded me uncomfortably of my own reflection six months ago.
"I need to talk to her," I said quietly to Zorn.
"I know." He squeezed my hand. "After coffee. She needs help, but she needs it from someone who understands where she is."
He was right. Elena was where I'd been, drowning in work, pushing away connection, punishing herself for surviving. She needed intervention before she destroyed herself completely.
But first, coffee. And breakfast. And sitting with the man I loved in the space we'd claimed as ours.
The found family grew stronger every day. The home we'd built from wreckage and hope.
I looked at Zorn, my partner, my healer, my home, and smiled.
Tomorrow we'd save Elena. Tomorrow we'd face whatever new crisis Mothership encountered. Tomorrow we'd keep building this impossible family in this impossible place.
But right now, we'd have coffee, Zandovian style.
And that was enough.
Chapter
Fourteen
Bea
