"Fast learner." She kisses me, warm. "Now get dressed before someone investigates the crash."
Evening. Room 314. The couch that hasn't been broken yet. Station food shared between two beings who ate jungle rations for nine days and find adequate miraculous.
Krilly is reviewing the datapad, making notes on the first assignment: medical supply run to Frontier Station Kappa. Mother approved the route this afternoon, along with the provisional courier partnership, pending three successful low-risk runs. The combat certification pushed it through.
My hand rests on her ankle. Not the one with the tracker. The other, the one she sprained in the jungle, healed but carrying memory.
"What are you thinking?" she asks without looking up.
"Two days ago I couldn't choose a shirt. Tonight I have a security certification, a broken bench, and a woman who argued her superior officer into letting me fly beside her."
"That's someone learning." She puts the datapad down. "The cafeteria was hard. The clothing terminal was hard. The gym was easy. The sex was spectacularly easy." Her grin reaches me. "You're figuring out which parts of freedom fit and which parts need practice."
"The hard parts will get easier?"
"The hard parts will get easier. The easy parts will stay easy. And the parts involving station furniture will continue to be extremely entertaining."
"Bebo," I say, because the AI has been suspiciously quiet. "Status."
"I have been in low-observation mode per Krilly's request." A pause. "However, the station maintenance log now contains a repair request for the Level Seven gym listing 'structural failure during protective escort training' as the cause. The maintenance supervisor has flagged it for review."
"Flagged how?"
"With a note reading 'third bench this quarter, please advise couriers that equipment has weight limits.'"
"Third?" Krilly looks at me. "Other people have broken gym benches?"
"I am not at liberty to disclose which courier teams were responsible. However, I can confirm that the Cross-Maxone maintenance requests used remarkably similar language."
Krilly's expression shifts. "Crash and Zola broke benches too?"
"I can neither confirm nor deny. But if you asked Crash, I suspect the conversation would be illuminating."
Not the first bonded pair to exceed station furniture tolerances. The thought is absurdly comforting.
"Bed," Krilly says, standing, stretching. The borrowed sleep clothes shift, the shirt slipping off one shoulder.
"Bed." I pull her into my lap as she passes, and she comes willingly. The bond hums with the specific contentment of proximity.
"Best part of today?" she asks, head against my shoulder.
"The laughter." She tilts up. "In the gym. After the bench. You laughed like someone who just discovered they're allowed to be ridiculous."
My chest tightens. "I have not had much practice."
"You'll get more. Being ridiculous together is our thing." She kisses my jaw, the circuit tracery, the edge of the marking where the claiming color pulses. "Murder jungle. Specimens named after desserts and weather. Stompy. A truth fruit incident Bebo has a dataset about. And a broken gym bench."
"Ridiculous professionals."
"Ridiculous professionals." She grins. "First assignment in three days. Medical supplies to Kappa. Our first real run as partners."
We go to bed. Our room, our locked door, the viewport full of stars. She curls against my chest in the position that has become ours: head on my shoulder, hand over my heart, my arm around her waist, heartbeats synced.
"Horgox?"
"Yes."
"I love you. Even when you break furniture."
