Page 48 of Bonds of Shame, Bonds of Lust

I held very still. If I moved, if I spoke too soon, the pressure against the back of my eyes was going to come loose, and I had never once let it come loose in front of a patient, and I was not going to start with this one. So I breathed. I waited until I was sure of my own voice. But it still hitched.

"Oh, Jess." It came out barely above a murmur. "If I ever had a little girl of my own, I would want her to be exactly like you."

She pulled back, unsatisfied, and patted my cheek, businesslike.

"No, really, Dr. Lacey. Ask Daddy. You're really pretty. And Daddy likes pretty."

A sound escaped me. Half a laugh, half a thing with no name, and letting even that much out was a relief.

"Ask Daddy what, Tiger?"

Derek's voice. From the doorway.

I didn't know how long he'd been standing there. Long enough.

He crossed the room and scooped Jessica from me in one easy motion, settling her against his chest, where she went at once, arms around his neck, already drooping again. He was smiling, the easy warm one he kept for her. But his eyes, when they found mine over the top of her head, weren't doing the easy thing at all. Whatever else was underneath that went by too fast, and then he was only Derek again, holding his kid.

"Dr. Lacey isn't a mommy yet," Jessica informed him, her voice blurring at the edges with exhaustion. "Can she be my mommy? She tells really good stories. And she's really pretty. And she fixed my heart."

Derek's throat worked. When the answer came it was rougher than his usual voice, and slower, like he had to find each word and turn it over before he let it out.

"It's not that simple, Tiger." He rubbed her back, slow circles, the automatic gesture of a man who'd been doing it for four years. "But she's a wonderful doctor, and you get to see her every month, and not every kid gets that. That's a pretty special thing all on its own."

"Okay," Jessica said.

Then she yawned, full-body, complete, and shivered once.

Derek's hand was at her forehead before she'd finished, checking, his whole attention contracting to her. "You okay, baby?"

"Tired, Daddy." She pressed her face into his shoulder. "And cold."

He pulled her closer, tucking her in, one hand spreading warm across her small back. "I've got you." He glanced at me over her head, and his voice dropped. "Bonds. Can we cut it short?"

"Of course. She was wonderful the whole way through."

Jessica reached out one hand toward me, fingers opening, and I took it and held it for a moment. Her grip was already loose with sleep.

"Thank you for the tour, Dr. Lacey," she murmured. "It's the best place."

"You can visit anytime," I said. "The spaceship will be waiting."

She smiled without opening her eyes.

We walked back through the wing in the quiet that falls around a sleeping child. Both of us moving carefully, the bright murals passing, the sounds of the hospital muffled and distant. Derek had her fully against his chest, her head on his shoulder. His hand never stopped its slow circles on her back.

In the lobby he shifted her to one arm and extended his free hand to me.

I shook it. His grip was warm and firm, and he held it a beat past where a handshake ends, then seemed to notice, and let go. He'd done it before, at the gala. I'd never quite known what to do with it.

"Thanks for today, Bonds." His voice was low, careful of the sleeping child between us in the only way that mattered. "It was enlightening."

"She makes everything better," I said. "Bring her back whenever."

He studied me for a moment. Then he nodded, adjusted Jessica's weight, and turned toward the doors.

I watched them go.

His stride slowed to protect her sleep. The deliberate pace of a man carrying something irreplaceable. The automatic doors slid open and the afternoon swallowed them. The tall man and the small girl, her ponytail loose against his shoulder, his hand still moving in those slow circles on her back even as they walked away, even outside in the light, even when she couldn't feel it anymore.