Page 129 of Commander’s Mate

“You do not need to be impressed.” I set the food on the small table. “Only fed.”

We ate facing each other. She took cautious bites, then larger ones. Watching her eat should not have satisfied me so deeply, but it did. Feeding her felt like an answer to the helplessness that had gripped me when she cried.

“This is good,” she said. “Strange, but good.”

“I am glad.”

“You keep looking at me like I’m going to disappear.”

She softened at once. “Sorry. Too close?”

“No. Accurate.”

“My world disappeared,” I said. “Not literally. The ground remains. The mountains, rivers, winter fields, village roads. But everything that made it home was taken. When I look at you, some part of me fears the universe will take you too if I look away.”

Harper’s eyes shone again, but she did not cry. “I understand that more than I want to.”

“My home is still there. That almost makes it worse. People are still buying groceries and complaining about gas prices and watching TV. My house is still there. Maybe the police taped it off. Maybe someone fed my plants. Maybe no one did. The world didn’t end. I was just removed from it.”

“I am sorry,” I said.

“I know.”

We finished eating. She yawned once and tried to hide it.

“You need rest,” I said.

“I need a shower. Or whatever you call it.”

“A shower.”

That made her smile. “Finally. One easy word.”

I showed her the cleansing room, how to control water temperature, where towels emerged, how the oral washer worked. Her curiosity returned in flickers, dimmed by exhaustion but not extinguished. I gave her a clean inner shirt, then turned to leave.

“Zared.”

I stopped in the doorway.

She stood in the small cleansing room under bright light, still in the shirt she had worn since rescue, hair mussed, face pale with fatigue. “You don’t have to vanish. I mean, I’m going to clean up, but you don’t have to act like being near me is dangerous.”

“It is dangerous.”

I added, “Not because I will harm you. Because I want you very badly, and you are tired, grieving, and newly safe. I will not take advantage of that.”

“What if I want to be wanted?”

“Then I will want you where you can see it,” I said. “And still wait for you to decide what you want done with that wanting.”

She stared at me for a long moment. Then she whispered, “Okay.”

While she showered, I sent messages: Scarlet Andrews would be told Harper was safe and resting; the door would remain responsive to Harper’s voice; I was not to be disturbed unless command required it. Then I stripped off my uniform jacket because it smelled faintly of smoke, metal, and Harper’s tears.

When she emerged, clean and wearing my shirt, every thought I possessed scattered.

The garment fell to mid-thigh. Her legs were bare. Her hair was damp and darker around her face. Her skin had warmed from the water. She looked smaller, softer, and more dangerously real than she had in the office.

She saw my expression and stopped.