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In the night, he gravitated to her warmth. Neither had woken for it. The lights rose in the morning, and she untangled herself from him. He could feel her slip away. “Kira?”
His hair frazzled, he felt rather bewildered. It took him a few minutes to figure out what had happened. Blinking slowly as he realized that they just spent the night sleeping on the same “bed.”
“You can go back to sleep.” The lights were already dimming back from the array.
“You aren’t.”
“Yes, well, I have a ship to launch. But you are now a passenger and thus are free to sleep in.” He could hear the amusement in her voice.
Remaining without her felt insignificant. So they departed, her untangling her hair without offering a true goodbye at the bottom of the ladder, leaving things unsaid between them, but what could he have said?
Chapter Sixteen
KIRA
Watson leaned against the doorframe, one leg crossed at the ankle, both hands resting in pockets on the black slacks he chose from the fabricator. Kira peered over, watching every slow inhale and exhale through the baby blue sweater he paired them with. The tight-knit material clung to him in unexpected ways.
A spark of jealousy flew through her at the idea he’d never have to work to maintain his new form. It faded as quickly as it hit because she’d miss food. “This feels like a memory.” She began re-shelving a book, her room still disheveled. Jackets across her chair, her bed barely thrown together so that the pillow vaguely covered, books everywhere, pens everywhere, and her data pad halfway covered where it sat on the table.
“Except your room is bigger,” Watson spoke cheekily, eyes roving over the mess.
There was no discernible reason for him to have to look so earnestly. Kira knew he’d memorized it the instant the door had opened. His programming allowed that. Quinn was the same way. But he was- she shook her head, dark hair revealing purple sheen in the light as it covered her cheeks. “Well, it was a smaller ship.”
“Much smaller.” Stepping in so the door would close, he found a space of wall free of posters to lean into.
“I wasn’t captain then.” Pulling the line of books forward on the shelf, she evened out their placement.
“No, you weren’t.”
“Do you remember old Hues?”
“I remember him well, and that chewing out you got when you subverted his orders.”
Kira tossed the pillow off her chair at him with a broad grin. “I seem to remember you supported me. Then you laughed at me after he got done tearing me a new one.”
“I seem to recall,” he said, catching the pillow without issue, squeezing it. “That it was rather hilarious to see you put in your place. Hues even reported it to Toke.”
“Did he?”
“Yes, he did. He received back the equivalent of ‘good luck’ regarding you.” The pillow made its way back across the room.
It hit her squarely. So light, yet so heavy, bearing a weight she couldn’t explain. “Hues didn’t deserve what I put him through.”
“Hey… hey.” The room was swallowed in a few brief steps, and he supported her, holding her upper arms to keep her steady. “Nothing that happened was your fault. You did your best.”
His skin relayed warmth. Even through her shirt she felt it, the way it spread over her. He breathed, his heart beat falsely. If she felt for pulses, they’d be there. Yet he didn’t feel real because underneath it all she knew he was somewhere between a machine and a man… just as Quinn was.
Watson’s eyes were a deeper blue, resembling deep water pure enough to just be so blue all the way down. No light flashed behind his eyes, but no stars rested there either, like they’d done in Quinn’s last night.
“I did,” she finally agreed, lost back to that day when she peered up at those different depths.
Five years prior.
A shrill alarm woke her, ringing in her ears, alerting her to an emergency on the ship. A voice called to her, not over the comm, but from the hall. “Kira! There’s a fire!”
Knocking accompanied the yelling, as if the alarm hadn’t been enough to wake her. Leaving no time for precautions, and no time to worry about what she looked like. She bolted up and out of her cabin, wearing a thin one piece suit that was loose over her limbs, akin to an Earthen flight suit that did its job to protect the skin.
Hair whipped around her face as she came face to face with a frightened boy. Only fifteen, just an ensign assigned to the ship sent to get her, “The captain, he is-”
