"You took plasma bolts meant for me."
"That's my job."
"Your job is security for the entire ship, not just one reckless electrical engineer who dragged you into a disaster zone because she couldn't let go of her guilt."
The bitterness in her voice was familiar. I'd heard it in my own thoughts for years after losing my unit, that corrosive self-blame that said everything was your fault, every casualty your failure.
"Elena." I waited until she met my eyes. "If our situations were reversed, if I'd been injured protecting someone under my command, would you blame me for doing my duty?"
"That's different."
"How?"
"Because you're—" She stopped, flustered. "You're trained for combat. You're a warrior. It's what you do."
"And you're an engineer. You solve problems. You save people through skill and brilliance rather than violence." I shifted carefully, ignoring the pain that lanced through my shoulder. "We just use different tools for the same goal. Neither of us deserves blame for doing what we do best."
She was quiet for a long moment, her thumb rubbing absent patterns on my hand. When she spoke again, her voice was smaller, more vulnerable than I'd ever heard it.
"I watched you bleed. Watched you go down and thought—" She swallowed hard. "Thought I'd finally gotten someone killed. That my recklessness had finally caught up with me and this time someone I, someone important paid the price."
Someone I. She'd stopped herself before finishing that sentence, but I heard what she hadn't said.
Someone I care about. Someone who matters.
"You didn't get me killed," I said. "You saved my life. Dragged me to cover, returned fire, piloted us out of an impossible situation. You protected me, Elena. Let yourself acknowledge that."
"I shouldn't have needed to. If I'd been faster with the shuttle repairs, if I'd anticipated the raiders earlier, if I hadn't been so fixated on Will?—"
"If, if, if." I pulled her closer, ignoring the protest from my injuries. "You can what-if yourself into paralysis, or you can accept that you made the best decisions possible with imperfect information in a crisis situation. That's all any of us can do."
She studied me, hazel eyes searching. "Is that what you tell yourself? About your unit?"
The question hit like a physical blow. I'd never discussed my lost unit with anyone except Er'dox, had kept that trauma carefully compartmentalized where it couldn't interfere with my duties.
But Elena had just watched me nearly die. Had sat beside me for six hours while I was unconscious, holding my hand like it was the only thing anchoring her to reality. She'd earned honesty, even when it hurt.
"No," I admitted. "I tell myself I failed them. That I should have been faster, smarter, better. That I should have seen the ambush coming, should have positioned them differently, should have taken the hits that killed them instead." The words tasted like ash. "I tell myself that every day. And it doesn't change anything except making the guilt heavier."
Elena's fingers tightened on mine. "How do you live with it?"
"Barely. I threw myself into work, into protecting others, into trying to prevent anyone else from dying on my watch." I met her eyes. "But that's not living, Elena. That's just existing. Just going through motions and telling yourself the weight you carry is necessary penance."
"You're describing my life for the past six months."
"I know." I brought her hand to my lips, pressed a gentle kiss to her knuckles. "And I'm telling you what I'm finally startingto learn, survival isn't enough. Will told you to live. Not exist. Not punish yourself. Live."
"I don't know how to do that."
"Neither do I." The admission felt like surrender, like acknowledging weakness I'd spent years hiding. "But maybe we could figure it out together."
She stared at me for a long moment, something shifting behind her eyes. Fear and hope and desperate longing all tangled together into something that looked like possibility.
"You almost died," she whispered.
"But I didn't. We both made it out."
"What if next time?—"
