The question surprised me less than it should have. Bea's insecurity occasionally surfaced like this as quiet doubts about her worthiness, fears that she was somehow tricking me into staying. We'd been working on it in therapy, but trauma ran deep and healing wasn't linear.
"Never," I said firmly. "Not once. Not for a single moment."
"Even when I was barely functional? When I fought you on every suggestion, when I worked myself to exhaustion rather than deal with my feelings?"
"Especially then. Because even at your worst, I could see your strength. Could see the person you'd be once you let yourself heal." I turned to face her properly, making sure she could read the truth in my expression. "You didn't trick me into loving you, Bea. I chose you, the whole complicated, traumatized, brilliant, stubborn package. And I'd choose you again every single time."
Tears welled in her eyes. "I don't deserve you."
"You deserve everything good this universe has to offer. You just needed to believe it." I wiped away the tears with gentle thumbs. "Do you believe it now? That you deserve happiness? That you're worthy of love?"
She was quiet for a long moment, thinking. Finally: "Most days. Some days I still struggle. But yeah. Most days I believe it."
"That's enough. The struggling days will get fewer. The believing days will increase. That's how healing works, not linear progress but gradual improvement over time."
"Speaking from experience?"
I thought about my own losses, the failures I carried. The patients I couldn't save, the people I'd loved and lost, the weight of responsibility that came with healing work. "Yes. Speaking from experience."
She shifted closer, pressed her forehead against my chest. "We're quite a pair. Two healers trying to fix everyone else while slowly healing ourselves."
"At least we're doing it together."
"Yeah. Together."
We lay in comfortable silence, wrapped in each other and the quiet security of our shared space. Outside, Mothership continued its eternal journey through the dark, rescuing, healing, carrying beings from crisis toward hope. Inside, we'd built something small and precious: a home, a partnership, a future.
My wrist comm chimed, emergency frequency. I tensed immediately, years of medical training making the response automatic. Bea was already sitting up, reaching for her uniform.
"Medical bay, respond." Captain Tor'van's voice, clipped and urgent. "We're receiving distress calls from a colony transport. Major casualties. Multiple species. They're requesting immediate medical intervention."
I was on my feet, pulling on my uniform with practiced efficiency. "Location?"
"Twelve hours out at maximum warp. Prepare full trauma teams. They're reporting forty-plus critical injuries and limited local medical capability."
"Acknowledged. We'll be ready." I cut the connection, turned to find Bea already dressed and checked her medical kit.
"Forty critical injuries," she said, voice shifting into the crisp professional tone that meant she was cataloging resources and calculating logistics. "We'll need every qualified trauma surgeon we have. Extra anesthesia supplies. Portable surgical equipment if their facilities are inadequate."
"I'll call in off-duty staff. You coordinate with our surgical teams." I caught her hand as she moved toward the door. "Be careful. Come back to me."
She smiled, fierce and confident and absolutely fearless. "Always. You're my home now, remember? I'm not going anywhere."
The kiss we shared before leaving was brief but intense, tasting of promise and trust and six months of learning to be partners in every sense. Then we were moving, splitting up to handle separate coordination tasks, falling into the practiced rhythm of medical emergency response.
The medical bay transformed in minutes. Off-duty staff arriving, surgical suites being prepped, equipment being inventoried and organized. Bea moved through the chaos like a general commanding troops—directing traffic, assigning duties, maintaining calm efficiency despite the urgency.
I watched her work while managing my own coordination tasks, feeling pride and love tangle together in my chest. This was who she'd become: confident, capable, leading trauma response with the same expertise she'd once used to avoid dealing with her own pain.
Dana and Jalina appeared together, both responding to the general emergency call despite not being medical staff. They found Bea immediately, the three human women gravitating toward each other with the automatic cohesion of found family.
"What do you need?" Dana asked.
"Engineering support if their medical bay has damaged systems," Bea said without hesitation. "Jalina, pull anyonefrom hydroponics who has field medic training. We're going to need all hands."
They scattered to their tasks, and I felt a moment of gratitude for the community we'd built aboard Mothership. Not just individual beings working together, but a genuine family, bonded couples and close friends, humans and Zandovians integrated so completely it was impossible to remember a time before.
Er'dox appeared at my elbow, his massive frame somehow managing to look concerned despite his naturally stoic expression. "Need anything from Engineering?"
