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Jim woke up, left Naomi still sleeping and went to the bridge to relieve Amos.
The big man grinned, yawned, clapped Jim on the shoulder and disappeared in the direction of his cabin.
"Are you supposed to be up?" Miller asked him.
Jim sipped from his coffee and said, "It's my shift."
"Not what I asked," Miller informed him.
Jim shrugged. "I'm good actually."
"Are you?" Miller was peering at him through his fringe of hair.
Jim's shoulders slumped. "As well as I can. I did what I had to." His eyes went far away as he remembered the med ship.
"You did," Miller told him. "You being you, that probably sucks."
Jim let's out a hollow laugh. "You're not wrong. I never wanted anyone to die and they, they deserved better."
"A whole lot of people deserved better," Miller said, "Everyone on Eros deserved better. Julie deserved better. The crew of the Scorpuli. Everybody who ever got in Protogen's way."
"I can't blame the death of the Marasmus on Protogen," Jim told him.
"You did what you did because they were infected. You gave them a choice. Naomi told me. They chose the wrong one. You made the choice that was best for the most amount of people. Sadly, that was the best move you ever did to prevent war."
"That doesn't make me feel better," Jim told him. Miller shrugged. "You did the best you could in a shitty situation. Don't beat yourself up."
Jim sighed. "Thanks,"
"You're welcome," said Miller and fell silent for the rest if the shift. Or he would have if Amos hadn't bounded back on deck.
"Weren't you going to sleep?" Jim asked.
"That was the plan," said Amos "only when I got there I found I couldn't sleep. Figured I might as well be out here than staring up at the roof."
"Coffee?" Offered Miller.
"Sure," said Amos.
Miller heaved himself up and over to the lift to get to the kitchen.
When he was gone, Amos lolled his head towards Jim. "He still screaming?"
"I don't know," said Jim, "I usually wake him before he gets the chance to."
Amos shrugged and grunted. "He'll get over it. He's tough and cynical."
"He's human," Jim rejoined.
"I know that captain," said Amos. "That's why he screams. Heck we all have stuff we probably scream about."
"Do you?" Asked Jim peering at Amos in much the same way Miller had looked at him earlier.
Amos shrugged again. "I'm not like you. But I figure there's probably some stuff I should scream about." He paused and then added slowly, "Most of it is probably myself."
"Not anymore," Jim says. Amos cocks his head at Jim and raises an eyebrow.
"Not anymore," Jim says firmly. Amos hears the promise in the words and smirks but he is strangely touched anyway.
"Am I interrupting something?" Miller asks.
"Nope," says Jim. Miller looks at them both then hands Amos his coffee. Amos takes it, mutters, "Thanks man," and takes a careful sip.
The three of them relapse into silence until Jim asks "Boy, girl, animal, place, thing, plant?
Amos gives him a look and Miller says, "What?"
He freezes when they both give him disbelieving looks.
"Ok," said Amos, "that's about as bad as not knowing 'I spy',"
"What?" says Miller.
Jim and Amos share a look and then Amos said in pure confusion, "then how did you become a detective?"
Jim bursts into laughter.
When Alex stumbles onto the bridge woken from a nightmare they are deep within the throes of boy, girl, animal, place, thing, plant, with rounds of I spy in between.
"You guys are not serious," he groans and collapses into the pilot's seat. Amos magnanimously hands over the last of his coffee and Alex gulps it like a lifeline. Jim volunteers for the next coffee run and when he returns Alex is halfway through the rules for a Martian word game consisting of rhyming definitions.
Jim listens enough to know that his vocabulary is nowhere wide enough for him to get past even the first round and settles back to figure out how to cheat his way through.
Eventually the game devolves into who can cheat best. Amos wins of course but Miller is a close second. Jim comes last. Amos wins that bet too.
When Naomi comes up for her shift refreshed and ready for the day the three of them are in a coffee stupor and Alex still rhymes on occasion.
She chases all of them, except for Alex whose shift it is, to bed muttering unsavory things in a belter dialect so thick Miller is the only one who knows what she is saying.
Jim wakes up half an hour later to Miller's scream but before he can get there, there is the sound of a muffled cry and then silence. When he reaches Miller's cabin it's to find Amos standing over Miller's cot and Miller out cold.
"Well he's asleep," Amos says.
Jim closes his eyes and rubs his forehead.
"He's unconscious, I'm fairly sure there's a difference." Amos shrugs and Jim goes in search of an ice pack.
When he gets back with it Amos holds out his hand and Jim hands it to him. He then sits in the corner of the cot, leans against the wall and falls asleep to the sight of Amos pressing the ice pack on Miller's face.
His crew was strange and not all there but they were amazing and he wouldn't trade them for the entire solar system.
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