"The ship is small," I say. "We can't avoid each other for two days."
"Watch me."
"Astra—"
She turns then. Fast. Her green eyes lock on mine, and the intensity in them would drop a lesser man. I've stared down enemy commanders who flinched under less.
"Don't." Her voice is flat. Dead. The tone that means she's given up on something—or she's pretending to. "Don't use my name like we're friendly. Don't stand close like we're comfortable. Don't act like last night was anything except another tactical error in a long line of them."
"Is that what it was?"
Her jaw tightens. I feel the spike of her anger, sharp as a blade against my awareness. Copper and ice and something underneath that tastes like grief.
She's so fucking angry. All the time. The rage goes bone-deep, structural, part of her foundation now.
Six years ago, she wasn't like this.
Six years ago, she laughed. Not often, but real when it came. She used to touch my arm when she was making a point, lean against me when we were reviewing tactical displays, exist in my space without that rigid control.
I killed that. The woman who could be easy around me.
All that's left is this. The weapon who learned to walk. The soldier who rewrote herself to never need retrieval again.
And I still want her so badly I can taste it.
"The kiss was a mistake," she says. Each word deliberate. Clinical. "It won't happen again."
"All right."
"I mean it."
"I know you do."
She searches my face for something. I don't know what. Can't read it through her walls—they're too good, too thick, built over six years of learning to lock out anyone who tries to sense her.
"This is a mission," she continues. "Professional. We find Webb, we extract intel, we return. That's all."
"Agreed."
"Good."
She turns back to the weapons rack. Dismissal. Clear as spoken words.
I should leave. Should retreat to my quarters, run the mission parameters, check Kesh's work on the navigation plotting.
I don't.
"I meant what I said last night." The words are out before I can calculate whether they're strategic. "On the observation deck. Before the alarm."
Her hands still on a rifle charge pack.
"About what?"
"About—" Fuck. "About loving you. Then. Six years ago. About what I was going to say."
Silence.
The ship's systems hum around us. Life support cycling. Gravity generators maintaining the comfortable lie of down and up.
