If it had happened then, that almost-kiss that wasn't and if it had been, surely would have turned into more - it would have been impulse. His impulse. Flattering, reassuring, just nice to be the object of another's uncomplicated want.
He killed the man who shot her. The man who shot her was a member of her own crew, someone who's name she knew, who she'd smiled and joked with days before. He prioritized her care; her baby still died. Her baby wouldn't have died if they, the Lucian Alliance, hadn't attacked - for that matter, if it weren't for the Alliance, she'd be sitting up studying in some apartment on Earth right now. He is, at least in some vague and associative way, responsible for every loss and pain she's felt in the last year.
Nearly every loss, anyway.
He saved her life today. He is a good man; she knows this in her bones, whatever he's been a part of in the past.
It occurs to TJ, standing outside Varro's room with the taste of fresh meat still on her tongue, her face and hands still greasy, that she's got a pretty warped definition of uncomplicated.
Doing this - this won't make anything less complicated.
But she wants, and it's been a long, painful time since she's wanted anything she could have.
So she knocks, quick, tentative even as she's decided. Varro looks surprised when he opens the door; he smells of strange blood and spices, dried herbs gathered on a dozen worlds, none of the scents familiar - and something about that is perfect, right, makes her body clench and her heart pound. She doesn't want familiar.
"Hi," he says, pleased but questioning.
"Hi," she repeats back - smiling. Giving him nothing. His turn.
"Do you want to come in?" he offers, gesturing, and her smile widens and she ducks her head in the door.
"You're a good cook," she offers as the door closes; looking around the room to give herself a second not to look at him. There's not much to see; it's a room, standard crew quarters, and he has no possessions to speak of, nothing to personalize it. It's only been his a few hours.
"I kept one of the pelts, but it needs to dry," Varro says - as if she'd spoken her thoughts. "I was thinking, the wall over there?" He points.
"Nice," TJ says; not the decor she'd choose, but she can see that it would suit him, this other him that he keeps trying to show her - the man he was before the Alliance. The man he would have been, somewhere else, some other time.
"I asked for a few of the larger bones for carving, too," Varro says. "I'm not what you could call an artist, but it's tradition, where I'm from. This place is too plain. Not that I'm complaining," he hastens to add.
"No, I know what you mean," TJ says, giving him a reassuring smile and hooking her thumbs in her beltloops to keep from fidgeting; the way he watches her says he knows exactly why she's there, and yet neither of them are moving. "My people, back on earth - my ancestors, a long time ago - they did something similar. Abstract patterns, like animals, but . . intricate. Woven together."
He's nodding - maybe appreciating the symbolism of Norse artwork as she's roughly described it, maybe just being polite, TJ doesn't know, doesn't care, wants to feel connected and is willing not to poke at it too much.
Varro doesn't ask the questions someone else might, there - does she miss her home, her family? He just holds her gaze, quiet and intent.
TJ closes the distance in two steps and takes his face in her hands, placing a soft kiss on his lips and then stepping back. She holds his gaze for a brave moment, then has to look down, flushing.
He tips her chin up and kisses her back, and there's nothing uncertain or tentative about it. Her hands find the hem of his shirt, and he helps her get it off him.
He didn't need another scar; he's got plenty. He's warm, solid, deft with the fastenings of her uniform.
TJ doesn't know what she expected; maybe she had no expectations, and maybe that's the point. He's . . appreciative. TJ knows what she looks like, and is used to that sort of appreciation, but this isn't that - he talks to her, the whole time, and somehow the headlong rush she'd had in mind when she came here slows down (and she wonders if maybe somewhere along the line she forgot how to be otherwise, sleeping with a man she had no right to touch, feeling as if she couldn't give herself time to consider what she was doing.)
It turns into a companionable exploration of sore muscles and cramped toes, the slow removal of each pin from her hair and his hands strong and steady on her scalp. It's warm and comfortable and TJ finds that she has more to say herself than she realized, some of it coherent, some of it not. He gives her time to feel at home in her skin again, to get to know his body, and it's something she didn't realize she wanted but would suddenly, just like that, walk through hell to keep.
Maybe this won't make anything less complicated, but it feels more right than anything has in a long, long time.
"Do you have, uh -" He falters, at the point of finally going where she'd imagined they'd be within five minutes of her getting in the door. "I don't know the right word, what you use on Earth."
"What we - ?" TJ asks, frowning. She can't think of anything she needs, except him.
He looks regretful before he speaks, his hand large and warm on her hip, fingertips tightening just a little as some of the easiness of the moment leaves him. "To prevent pregnancy."
It's like being thrown out naked in the cold; how could she not have thought of that? How is it even remotely possible that such a thing slipped her mind? It isn't possible. There's no way in any world that she could have planned to have unprotected sex. To risk -
- unless some part of her wanted that.
She pulls the sheet up over her chest and scrambles off the bed.
"I'm sorry," Varro says, following her across the room - totally unabashed in his nakedness, his flagging arousal.
"It's not your fault," TJ mutters to the far wall, clutching the sheet to herself, biting her lip. "I should have thought of -"
"Well I should have too," he says. "I'm sorry. Tamara." His hands settle carefully on her shoulders, heavy, gentle. "I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault," TJ repeats. "It's just -" Just what? The way things are? Fate? Destiny? She makes a sound that's half a hiccoughing laugh and half her trying not to cry.
His arms slide around her, and she lets herself be pulled back against his chest. "Tell me what you need," he says.
"I don't know," she admits, shaking her head.
"We can make do," he suggests. "Or we can just talk. Or I can go."
She does snort at this. "This is your room."
"And you don't need to walk back to yours upset," he says.
"I don't want you to go," she says, reaching up and wrapping her fingers around one of his hands, where they're pressed against her middle.
"Good," he says simply.
"Can we talk?" she asks; it seems like the worst of all possible bad ideas, them talking. So many pitfalls, so much terrible history, so many things they could both say to make them hate each other. She doesn't want that.
"Sure," he says, and releases all but her hand, tugging her back toward the bed. TJ goes, wrapped in her sheet-toga; he just takes a corner of the bedspread and pulls it across his lap. It makes her smile.
"Want me to get dressed?" Varro asks.
"It's fine," she says. He smiles back.
And then there's nothing to say. She can feel herself growing cold.
He reaches out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, and she tenses - Everett used to do that, and damn it, she'd almost managed not to think of him at all. Varro must see something in her face, because he stills, eyes searching her, fingers hovering at her cheek.
You're so beautiful, Tamara thinks - waits for him to say it. Maybe then she'll have the brains to leave.
But what he says is, "Tell me more about your ancestors - the ones who carved the interconnected animals."
TJ lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding; his hand cups her cheek, just briefly, his thumb brushing the corner of her lopsided attempt at a smile before falling away.
"Tell me what you're proud of," he says.
So many pitfalls, but maybe it's worth building bridges.
"My ancestors," TJ says on another long exhale, "were proud of being fearless."