The silence stretches. He reads it again, slower.
Then his lips part, and I see it—raw, stunned joy. Open and unguarded, like something cracked clean through the granite he usually keeps around his heart.
“You’re sure?” he asks, voice rougher than usual.
I nod once. “Confirmed today.”
He lowers the pad, looks at me like I’ve just rewritten every rule of physics.
And then he laughs—deep and full, not loud, but real.
He crosses the space between us in two long strides and crushes me to his chest. I sink into it, let myself breathe him in. He smells like heat and leather and the faint mechanical tang of lubricant from the console.
“I didn’t think,” he starts, then stops. Presses his forehead to mine. “I didn’t dare hope.”
“I wasn’t sure how to feel,” I admit. “Still not. But I knew I needed to tell you right. No dramatics. No waiting.”
He leans back enough to look at me. “Thank you.”
We just stand there a while. Wrapped up in the quiet and the gravity of it.
Later,over strong black caf and a plate of ration toast he burned on one side, we talk logistics. Not names. Not nurseries. That comes later.
Now it’s routes, contingencies, comm failsafes, priority med evac contacts. The boring, essential things.
“We’ll need to scrub any future solo contract work,” I say. “Any jump zones outside signal range, too.”
“Already rerouting,” he replies, biting into the too-hard edge of the toast. “Cynna’ll kill me, but I’ll tell her we’re adding a delay trigger to the relay code. She’ll cave.”
“You’re assuming I wasn’t going to ask her myself.”
He grins. “You’re more persuasive.”
“And you’re more reckless.”
“Not anymore.”
I glance up. “No?”
He shakes his head. “I’ve got skin in the game now.”
I snort. “You had skin in the game when you jumped in front of a missile for me.”
“That was reflex. This isstrategy.”
I let the silence settle again. Stir my caf. The heat from the mug curls around my fingers, anchoring me in the now.
“Vrok,” I say quietly. “This doesn’t change who I am.”
His hand reaches across the table. Covers mine. “Good. Because who you are is the reason I want this.”
My throat tightens.
“I just need to know we’re aligned,” I say. “I won’t stop being me. Won’t stop fighting. Won’t stopchoosinghow I move through the galaxy.”
He nods, expression sober now. “I don’t want a different version of you. I wantyou.As you are. As you’ll become. That’s the bond. That’sus.”
After he sleeps—andit takes him a while, even with me wrapped around his side like a second blanket—I sit at the console and stare at the security overlay of our last op.
