"There will always be a next time. That's the nature of what we do." I pulled her carefully down beside me on the narrow med-bay bed, ignoring Bea's protocols about patient rest. "The question is whether you're going to let fear of future disasters stop you from being happy now."
Elena settled against me carefully, mindful of my injuries, her small body tucked against my side like she belonged there. I wrapped my good arm around her, held her close while her breathing gradually steadied.
"I don't know how to be happy," she said quietly. "I've spent so long just trying to survive, to prove I'm useful, to make up for being the one who made it out. I don't know how to just be."
"Then we'll learn together." I pressed a kiss to the top of her head, breathed in the scent of her, electrical ozone and sweat and something uniquely Elena. "Starting with you going to your quarters and actually sleeping."
"I'm not leaving you."
"Elena—"
"No." She propped herself up on one elbow, glaring down at me with fierce determination. "You don't get to nearly die and then order me around. I'm staying right here until Bea throws me out bodily."
Despite everything, the pain, the exhaustion, the emotional weight of the past hours, I found myself smiling. "You're incredibly stubborn."
"You're incredibly protective. We're both disasters." She settled back against me. "Might as well be disasters together."
"Is that a proposition?"
"It's an acknowledgment of reality." But she was smiling now, small and tentative but genuine. "I'm tired of fighting this. Fighting you. Fighting myself."
"So what do you want instead?"
She was quiet for a long moment, her fingers tracing idle patterns on my chest. When she spoke, her voice was steady despite the vulnerability in the words.
"I want to stop running. Stop taking unnecessary risks because part of me thinks I deserve to die. Stop pushing away the one person who makes me feel like maybe I'm worth keeping alive." She looked up at me. "I want to try. With you. If you'll have me."
If I'll have her. As if there was any question. As if I hadn't been drawn to her from the moment she'd snapped at me six months ago, refusing to back down despite being half my size. As if I hadn't spent countless hours watching her work,admiring her brilliance, wanting her with an intensity that should have terrified me.
"Elena Vasquez," I said carefully, "I would be honored."
Her smile bloomed slowly, transforming her exhausted features into something radiant. "Honored? That's very formal for someone who just convinced me to sleep in his med-bay bed."
"I'm a warrior. We do everything with excessive formality."
"I've noticed." She shifted closer, careful of my shoulder. "So what happens now? We date? Court? Do Zandovians even date?"
"We bond," I said. "When two Zandovians find each other compatible, they enter a formal bonding period. It's?—"
"I know what it is. I watched Dana and Er'dox go through it. Jalina and Zor'go too." She bit her lip. "That's pretty serious."
"It is."
"Are you, I mean, is that what you want? With me?"
I studied her face, memorizing the hope and fear warring in her expression. I'd never considered bonding before. Never imagined finding someone who could tolerate my protective instincts, my guilt, my absolute need to shield others from harm. Never thought I deserved that kind of happiness after failing my unit so catastrophically.
But Elena understood failure. Understood guilt. Understood the weight of survival when others didn't make it. She'd looked at my darkness and hadn't flinched, had matched it with her own and somehow made both burdens lighter.
"Yes," I said. "If you're willing."
"I'm terrified."
"So am I."
"But you almost died, and all I could think was that I never told you how much you matter. How much I—" She stopped, swallowed hard. "How much I've come to need you. Even when you drive me crazy with your overprotectiveness."
"I can't promise to be less protective. It's who I am."
