A soft knock sounded at the door. Two taps, a pause, then a third.
Mac was off the bunk and crossing the room before the sound faded. He opened it.
Melvin stood in the corridor, face shadowed. He didn’t speak right away. He just looked at Mac, and Mac saw the same quiet storm that had been rolling around in his own head.
“Come in,” Mac said, voice low. He stepped back.
Melvin entered. Mac closed the door, the latch clicking final. The room felt smaller with him in it. Charged.
Melvin turned and leaned back against the door, just as Mac had minutes ago.
“Baxter,” Melvin said.
“Yeah.”
“He pulled me aside after you left the TOC.” Melvin’s eyes stayed on Mac’s. “He didn’t ask about us. Not directly.”
Mac waited.
“He said we work well together.” Melvin swallowed once, like he didn’t want the next part to matter as much as it did. “Then he said he won’t ask questions he doesn’t need answers to.”
Mac’s jaw tightened.
“And then,” Melvin continued, “he said, ‘There’s no need to ignore instincts that make you whole.’”
Melvin let out a short breath. “What does that mean?”
Mac felt the words land. It wasn’t permission or a blessing. More like a commander laying down a boundary nobody else could see. “Itmeans he sees something,” Mac said. “How much, or what exactly, I don’t know.”
“When he says instincts,” Melvin said, “is he talking about us as a couple, or us as… us?”
His shoulders loosened a fraction. “It scared the hell out of me. And then it didn’t.”
Mac reached out and took his hand anyway. Thumb tracing slow circles over Melvin’s knuckles. Could be two different truths in their world. Each with its own weight.
“Could be both,” Mac said. “The way we work together. The way we are. It’s not separate for us.”
Melvin watched his face, searching. “Do you think he knows what we are underneath?”
Mac didn’t answer right away.
Baxter wasn’t careless with language. Not in briefings, reports, or private. “Instincts that make you whole” wasn’t something a commander said by accident. Mac shifted, crossing his arms.
“He knows something about Reynolds changed,” Mac said. “He’s had to sign off on too much weirdness not to. The isolation, the secure channels, and the quiet authorizations. Even if nobody spells it out, a good commander notices patterns.”
Melvin nodded slowly. “It didn’t feel like a guess.”
“No,” Mac agreed. “It felt like recognition.”
Mac rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Baxter watches people like he’s reading a report nobody else can see.”
Melvin’s voice lowered. “Do you think he’s like us?”
Mac shook his head after a moment. “I don’t know what he is. But he’s not blind. And he’s not surprised.”
Melvin held that for a beat, then pushed off the door. “I need to get back before someone notices I’ve been gone too long.”
Mac nodded and stepped aside, forcing himself not to reach out as Melvin moved past.
