Page 26 of Cloverleaf Station

“Are you kidding me? You sailed in out of nowhere to save her! You’re basically her knight in a shining greenie suit. She won’t stop asking about you—honestly, half the reason I’m glad you’re awake is so she can see for herself that you’re getting better because shit, is she worried about you.”

“Your … ship is worried about me?”

Elenus sighed. “Not just a ship, remember? Catalina is sentient. She’s an entirely new AI-based life-form, and she’s got all of the hang-ups that come along with that, including unreasonable crushes. I think it’s safe to say that she’s crushing hard on you.”

Kieron would have thought this was all a dream if not for the fact that you didn’t dream on Regen. He decided to change the subject—ships with feelings for him were just too much to deal with right now. “Why are my eyes blurry?”

“Ah.” Elenus patted the side of the Regen tank. “Did you know that there’s actually a limit to how much radiation damage Regen can repair at one time, without completely draining the tank and renewing the fluid?”

“I …” Kieron did know that, actually, but that was a huge amount of radiation, far more than any person would ever be able to survive long enough to need fixing.

“Well, I drained and refreshed this puppy twice for you. Slow and steady progress was made each time, but there were some unintended side effects, and one of those was consistent malfunction of some of your more delicate neurons. Not in your brain,” he added, and Kieron breathed a sigh of relief. “Your brain actually came out of the bullshit you put it through way better than I’d have thought. The greenie helmets are better shielded than the rest of the suit since they’re not intended to be flexible. But enough seeped through that your vision, your sense of smell, and your sense of taste are going to take some time to reemerge.

“The first few attempts at new eyes were completely scrapped by the Regen, in fact—the neurons just wouldn’t connect the way they needed to in order to be effective.” He shook his head. “Congratulations on surviving something that the computer put your chances of living through at point three percent.”

Huh. “When did you calculate that?” he asked.

“When I was trying to figure out what the fuck was going on with you after you went silent, of course,” Elenus replied, and now there was no lightness whatsoever in his voice, nothing but a flat tone with a faint edge of desperation. “You didn’t think I was just going to stick around back here, waiting for you forever, right? I was halfway through making a plan to massively upgrade your ship’s shielding when Catalina announced her presence.”

He sighed again. “I didn’t know what had happened to you. I thought maybe you’d hit an asteroid and lost functionality or been crushed altogether. I did not think you’d free-sailed your way through radioactive space to retake Catalina by force, but to be fair, I don’t think anyone in the known universe would have gone with that option.” He hesitated, then reached out and pressed the flat of his palm to Kieron’s face. Elenus’s skin was even warmer than the Regen, and the pressure against his brand-new skin was startling enough to make Kieron gasp.

“Thank you,” Elenus said, “for bringing my baby back to me. I know you don’t really understand her yet but try to accept that you probably saved my life when you rescued her from Deysan. I appreciate it more than I can ever tell you, but … Kieron, I never wanted it to cost you your life.”

Elenus must not know about the bomb. “I didn’t have a choice,” Kieron said.

Elenus snorted. “There’s always a choice. Are you thinking of the little present Deysan stuck to the ship? Just off the top of my head, I can think of three different ways you could have gotten that bomb off the top of the Lizzie instead of flying through space, and I’m sure you could too if you put a little effort into it.

“Listen, I’m grateful, all right? Just … you’re not unimportant in the grand scheme of things, Kieron. Not to the universe, and not to me. Okay?”

Kieron didn’t know if he could accept that as truth but hearing it made him feel unexpectedly emotional. He swallowed. Now wasn’t the time for arguments, and besides … it was kind of nice to hear that someone thought he was important even if it was just a tender lie. “Okay.”

***

Being stuck in the Regen tank for another full day was embarrassing. But getting out of it was even worse. It was one thing to hear that Regen had done all it could for you, and that the only thing left for it was nature and time—it was another to feel his arms tremble as he tried to push himself upright in the fluid.

Tremble. Tremble. Kieron had never felt so weak in all his life, not even when he was a child. And now, a fully grown man capable of surviving incredible feats, he was on the verge of collapse just from sitting upright? Ridiculous.

“—might think about adding some handholds in parts of your room, and—whoa!” Elenus stopped his idle chatter as he looked at the readouts on the side of the machine when Kieron, determined to get out of the fucking tank by himself, heaved his upper body over the side and basically slopped himself down onto the floor. “What are you even doing? I’m here; ask me for help, don’t throw yourself overboard like you’re living out your illicit pirate fantasies, good fucking grief.” He had his arm around Kieron and was helping him upright again in an instant, completely unmindful of the Regen fluid staining his fancy clothes or Kieron’s nudity.

Ah. Right. Kieron was naked because that’s how you had to be in a Regen tank, and now he was naked and gooey and cold on the floor, and his ass hurt, and he was quivering with fatigue that had no place in his body, no place, but he couldn’t stop himself, and it didn’t hurt, but it seemed like it should hurt. Kieron realized a second later that he was hyperventilating. He tried to slow his breaths down, but he couldn’t—the shock of being helpless was too strong, the discomfort of his situation too present.

Was he ever going to get back to normal? Was this what he had to look forward to for the rest of his life?

“You’re going to be fine,” Elenus assured him. Kieron wasn’t sure whether he said it because Kieron had spoken his thoughts out loud, or if it was just that easy to read them off his face. He could barely feel his own body, could barely feel anything at all beyond panic. “Kieron, I’m not lying to you, I swear. I had plenty of time to research your condition while you were under, and this has happened to other people before. Not an exact replica of your conditions but close enough. The survivors usually make very good recoveries, but it takes a lot longer than we’re used to. More like how a natural would heal instead of someone who can use Regen.”

He shrugged. “Your body hit its limits. Regen is a miracle cure, but it can’t replace muscle memory. You’re going to have to learn how to do some things again, but I think in a few months, you’ll be right as rain.”

“Months?” Kieron’s voice was barely audible, having to force his throat to cooperate while the rest of his body was preoccupied with shivering and shaking.

“Months, yeah. But you’ll be better by the time Cloverleaf opens up again, I promise. And in the meantime?” Elenus smiled, and this close, Kieron could see the edges of his teeth, see how the lines along the side of his mouth changed the shape of his sculpted beard, making the flow of the lines go from smooth to jagged in an instant. It was an arresting expression, hard to look away from. Kieron focused on it desperately—he didn’t want to look at himself right now. “In the meantime, there’s no better person around to help you handle a slow recovery than me. Now, c’mon. We need to get you cleaned up.”

The clinic had a shower, which Kieron made grateful use of as he sat on a chair that pulled out from the wall. He should have been watching the water meter—he wasn’t going to get a fresh infusion from a supply run for a long time, so he couldn’t afford to use too much of it. But it just felt so good to sit and let the warm water pummel his brand-new skin, washing away the sticky Regen remnants and leaving him fresh and clean. Not better, but it felt so good to be clean.

He made himself stand up to dry off but couldn’t stay upright long enough to step into the soft sweatpants that Elenus brought him. Very soft and rolled up at the bottom.

“These are your clothes.”

“You’re a sharp one, Sparky,” Elenus said, already maneuvering Kieron’s arms into a long-sleeved shirt. That was too big as well—at least, it was too long. The shoulders were honestly a little tight. “I believe in indulging in the little luxuries in life, and that includes comfortable fabrics. Whereas you.” He grimaced. “I felt up the stuff in your closet. Do you wear that cheap, scratchy shit because it’s the closest you can come to a genuine hair shirt, or do you do it because you really can’t tell the difference between the good fabric and that garbage?”