"And right now, you're choosing to go to Room 314 with the woman who loves you. And what you do when you get there is entirely up to you."
The promise in those words lands with its full weight.
"I believe," I say, "I mentioned something about being comprehensively disrespectful."
Her grin is incandescent. "I believe you did."
I take her hand. We walk.
Behind us, Bebo announces to no one in particular: "For the record, both heart rates have just increased by approximately thirty percent. I am choosing not to speculate on the cause."
Room 314. Our room. Our choice. Our future.
And the woman beside me, whose hand fits in mine like it was designed for the purpose, except it wasn't designed by anyone. It was chosen.
Always chosen.
15
The First Day
Krilly
Room314hasareal bed, and I know this because I have spent the last several hours discovering exactly how much structural integrity a real bed has.
Considerable, as it turns out. Station-standard furniture is built for multi-species occupancy, which means the frame was engineered to withstand forces significantly beyond what two humans would generate. Useful information, given that one of the occupants is a seven-foot-two Varkaani who was, until recently, extremely respectful, and has since become comprehensively disrespectful in exactly the ways he promised.
His contentment radiates against my spine like a second sun. His arm is around my waist, his chest against my back, the claiming color pulsing soft opalescent where his skin touches mine. My body is a pleasant catalogue of places that were attended to thoroughly, and the dual heartbeat in my chest has settled into a slow, synchronised rhythm that feels like the universe's most specific lullaby.
"You're awake," he murmurs against my shoulder. His voice is still rough from the things he said in the dark, and the reminder sends a flush of heat through me that the bond immediately transmits to him.
"I've been awake for ten minutes. You've been pretending to sleep."
"I was not pretending. I was committing sensory data to long-term memory." His thumb traces a lazy circle on my hip. "Specifically: the sound you make when I—"
"If you finish that sentence, we're never leaving this bed."
"I fail to see the problem."
"The problem is that Mother Morrison expects us for debriefs in—" I check the room's chronometer. "Four hours. And we need to eat, shower, acquire clothing that fits, and present ourselves as professional adults who did not spend the night—"
"Being comprehensively disrespectful?"
"That. Yes."
His laugh rumbles against my shoulder blades, and the vibration travels through the bond in both directions, bouncing between us like an echo that doesn't decay. The feedback loop. The thing that makes shared showers a terrible idea and shared beds an exquisite one.
"Bebo," I say. "What time is it?"
"Oh-six-fourteen," Bebo responds from the core unit on the kitchenette counter. "You have three hours and forty-six minutes before your debrief. I would recommend allocating at least forty minutes for food and hygiene, which leaves three hours and six minutes for—"
"Thank you, Bebo."
"—whatever you were doing that caused seventeen distinct biometric anomalies in my overnight monitoring log."
"Thank you, Bebo."
"I am merely noting that several of those anomalies exceeded my sensor calibration thresholds. I may need a hardware adjustment."
