A'Vanti goes very still. Her eyes search my face, and then that flush spreads across her throat again. The one that means I've triggered a deep primal instinct.
"Yes," she says, her voice slightly rough. "You got that one right."
"A'Vanti. My fa'ren."
The sound she makes is not even remotely dignified. She's out of the pool and pulling me after her before I've finished the sentence, water streaming off both of us, and I'm laughing as she hauls me back toward the shelter with single-minded determination.
"That was an accident!" I protest, laughing and stumbling after her. "I wasn't trying to abuse the cheat code, I swear?—"
"Accident or not." She shoves me through the shelter opening. "You said it. Now face the consequences."
Much later,we lie in the cozy cocoon of our shelter, her head on my chest, my hand once again making slow passes through her hair. The lantern casts amber light across the rock walls, and the distant sound of the storm has faded to a low murmur. Weaker than before. It's losing its grip.
"Cody."
"Yeah?"
"When we return." She traces a pattern on my chest, the same knotwork symbol we saw in the ancient carvings, I realize. "I would like you to be my mate. Formally. Before the others."
My hand stills in her hair. "You mean like a ceremony?"
"Not immediately. There will be time for formal traditions later. But I want them to know. L'Zaen and D'Rett and Chelsea.I want to walk off that shuttle beside you and have there be no question about what we are to each other."
Joy fills my chest, so large it barely fits inside my ribs.
"A'Vanti." I tilt her chin up so I can see her face. "I would walk through a hundred sandstorms to stand beside you. In front of anyone. Anywhere."
Her eyes shine in the lantern light. She presses a kiss to my chest, right over my heart, and settles back against me with a sigh that sounds like every good thing in the universe distilled into a single breath.
We fall asleep tangled together, her head on my chest, my arms around her. It is the most content I have ever been.
That's probably why it happens.
There's a theory about nightmares – I read it somewhere, maybe one of the articles Dr. Singh sent around – that they come hardest when the body finally feels safe enough to let its guard down. That trauma waits for the one quiet moment when you stop bracing, and then it rushes in through the gap.
I don't know if that's true. But I know that I fall asleep on the best night of my life, and I wake up in a memory.
The dream starts the way it always does. Not at the beginning, but dropped right into the middle, because that's how memory works. I'm in the bird, engines running, holding position at the extraction point. The sun is hammering down on the canopy, and the cockpit is an oven even with the vents going. There's a fly buzzing somewhere near my left ear, and I can't swat it because my hands are on the controls. The air smells like exhaust and hot metal and dust. Beyond the windscreen, the building sits low and flat against the scrubby terrain, and I can see the door that the ground team went through eleven minutes ago.
Comms are steady. I'm listening to the status updates and watching that door and doing what I always do on extractionruns: keeping the bird hot, ready to go, and counting the minutes until they come out.
Danny's voice pipes up in my ear, easy and clear."Goober, package is secure. We're coming to you."
"Copy that, Books,"I hear myself say."Ready when you are."
And then a burst of noise on the comms, a combination of shouts and gunfire. Then Danny's voice cuts through.
"Goober, I'm hit— I'm?—"
Then static. Just static.
In real life, I stayed in my seat. That's the job. You don't leave the aircraft. But in the dream, I do what I couldn't do that day. I unbuckle my harness and climb out and start running toward the building. But it still doesn't matter. The ground stretches under my boots like it's made of something liquid, and the door keeps receding no matter how fast I move.
I can hear the engines behind me, still turning because I left them running, and the fly is still buzzing in my ear, and the static fills my brain until I can't breathe?—
"Cody."
A hand on my face. Warm and solid.
