Author's Note: Believe me, no one is more stunned than I am that I am writing this pairing. I hope it works as well for you as it did for me.
Allen Higgins hadn't known what to expect when he came aboard Imperator. He only knew it hadn't been this.
And there was no conceivable way that he could mistake the inhumanly beautiful woman sitting next to his queen.
"What in the name of God is going on here?" He could hardly recognize his own voice, though he dimly registered Sonja's sharp breath of shock. "Begging your pardon, Your Majesty, Madame President," he managed eventually.
It was Admiral White Haven who answered his question. "It's called the Grand Alliance," the First Lord of the Admiralty said quietly. "And I think it's the answer to our prayers."
Still stunned, he and Sonja dropped into the seats that had suddenly materialized for them, and he shook his head. "I don't understand."
"It's a very long story," the queen said with a dry chuckle. "And I promise we'll explain everything. All you need to know right now, though, is that the war between Manticore and Haven is over - and we're no longer standing alone against the Solarian League."
Dumbly, he shook his head. "What? Us - and Haven? How?"
"Admiral, I swear we'll answer all your questions," said a distinctly innocuous-looking brown-haired admiral in the unmistakable accent of Nouveau Paris, and Allen nearly choked when he recognized Thomas Theisman. "But there's one thing you of all people should know, Admiral. And it gives me more pleasure than I can say to tell you that your Grendelsbane people have come home."
The world whited out as his head spun, and Allen found himself choking back the sting of tears. "You've brought them home?"
"He did." That was the queen, Allen thought numbly. "All of them, Allen. All of them."
Through blurry eyes he could see her smiling radiantly, and he clutched the arm of his chair as though the world might spin out from under him.
"I won't apologize for military action," Secretary Theisman went on, "and I have no doubt you understand why. But I want you to know that I do know how hard it must have been for you to do what you did, and that is something I am sorry for. Something I will always be sorry for."
"It doesn't matter." Trembling all over, Allen shook his head. "I swear it doesn't matter. That was just business, Mr Secretary. They're safe, and they are home. That's all that matters now." Furiously, he wiped the tears from his cheeks. "I'm sorry. I don't mean -"
"Don't apologise," someone said sharply, and Allen noticed dimly that Eloise Pritchart's voice was as beautiful as the rest of her. "Your people have come home, Admiral. There's nothing to be ashamed of."
"It wasn't that I thought they were being mistreated," he babbled, hardly aware of what he was saying. "That, at least, I could trust - thanks in large part to you, Mr. Secretary. But they were still my people, and I still failed them. I still lost them. And now…"
Choking on his own breath, he fled.
The meeting room was deathly silent for a handful of seconds.
Then, to the surprise of everybody in the room save Eloise Pritchart and Honor Harrington, Thomas Theisman rose from his own chair. "Excuse me," he said quietly, and left.
"If you want me to go," said that Nouveau Paris accent quietly in the darkness of the unused guest quarters currently serving as Allen Higgins' refuge, "I will."
He should have said that he did. He was an Admiral of the Green, for God's sake, not some half-baked ensign fresh from his snotty cruise! In fact, he thought with a wet chuckle, thinking of one young Grayson lieutenant with hair to her waist, I can think of quite a few jay-gees who wouldn't lose it this way!
But something about the other man's presence, for all that they had never met before, eased the terrible crush of mingled guilt and relief in his heart, and he couldn't bring himself to do what he knew he should.
"I don't."
Theisman came forward then, saying nothing. Instead he sank into a chair and crossed his legs, relaxing into his seat and looking around the room with idle curiosity.
It was quite some time before Allen spoke again.
"Don't they need you in there?"
"No," said Theisman, his voice almost unnaturally calm. "That is, eventually, yes, but Eloise - President Pritchart - and I have worked together for so long that she knows what I'd suggest anyway - and if she doesn't, Duchess Harrington will."
"You're very close, aren't you? You and the president, I mean."
"She's probably the best friend I have in the universe," he said simply. "At least, she is now."
Theisman's eyes darkened as he remembered Javier Giscard, Alfredo Yu, Warner Caslet… lost in different ways, but all of them lost, and Allen turned to him, something dark and anguished in his eyes.
"I'm sorry," he choked. "Here I am, moping over people who were perfectly healthy, if not undoubtedly impatient to get home, and you…"
"Don't," said Theisman sharply. "Yes, Eloise lost Javier, and so did I. We've all lost friends in war. But I, at least, know my friends died for something. So does Eloise. And if losing them brought our star nations to this point, then they - and I, if I were ever in their place - would die for it gladly."
"Then why am I blubbering over something like this? My people at Grendelsbane got out alive, damn it, when so many others didn't - for God's sake, I had to watch our entire infrastructure destroyed in minutes, had to watch thousands of people die in the one place they should have been safe, and God knows I'll never forget the horror of it. I couldn't stop it, Tom. I couldn't, and that will haunt me forever. And yet it's still Grendelsbane that haunts me more."
"Because at Grendelsbane you had to do the hardest thing anyone has ever been asked to do for their star nation and their navy," said Theisman with that unflagging calm, but something was blooming in his voice, a touch of passion that hadn't yet reached the surface. "The Yawata Strike came out of nowhere. There was nothing anyone could have done, and you know that. Of course you'll still have the nightmares. But the destruction wasn't by your hand then. It was an enemy attack - and that is what you know how to face.
"When you join the service, you're prepared to die, if that's what it takes. What nobody ever prepares you for is what it means to live. To live in the face of what looks like failure. To retreat instead of stand your ground, to destroy what you helped to build - it doesn't matter to know you're doing the right thing when you're going against every instinct you have. We're in this service to protect, Allen. And when we can't, it's a violation of everything we are."
Allen looked up into unfathomable brown eyes, an echo of memory glowing there, and remembered a story he had once heard… "Lady Harrington," he whispered, and Theisman nodded, all the helpless, sickening horror of being forced to stand aside as a psychopath planned Honor Harrington's destruction shining plain and clear in his eyes.
And suddenly, suddenly, Allen understood why Tom Theisman had followed him. Why he'd had no choice, though they'd only met less than an hour ago.
The memory of watching Grendelsbane burn would haunt him all his days, he knew. But somehow, by some miracle, some gift of Providence he didn't quite understand, he found the burden shared, lightened. No longer forced to live alone with guilt and grief, he took a deep breath and felt the sick, sour edge of isolated panic wash away from him as though by a cleansing rain.
As he bent his head and cried healing tears at last, one hand flexing helplessly in a needy, subconscious plea, weathered, callused fingers - so unfamiliar, and yet more familiar than anything ever had been before - slipped into his, and he clung to Thomas Theisman's hand as the storm inside him guttered to a squall, and then to a sputter, and then, at last, to nothing at all.
"Allen," said a rough voice in his ear, and their lips met as though it were the most natural, the most inevitable thing in the world.
Tom kissed him as though they'd been kissing for years, as though their whole lives had been leading up to this moment. Lips touched and withdrew and touched again, then parted on a moan as fingers clutched at clothes and tongues danced in fire. They kissed as though nothing else existed save the two of them, as though the world would end when their lips parted.
They kissed as though they'd found heaven, and somewhere in the back of his mind, Allen finally believed he had.
"Please," he said, not entirely sure what he was asking for, and then gentle hands were framing his face.
"Breathe." Tom's voice was as rough as his, but there was something… "Just breathe, all right? We have time. We have so much time."
"I don't know what's happening to me." His shaking hands clutched at Tom's shoulders. "I don't know where we go from here."
Slowly, lingeringly, with almost unbearable gentleness, Tom kissed him again, soft and sweet. "We go back in there," said Tom, resting his forehead against Allen's, "and we work out how to get the bastards that did this to you and your home system. As for us," a wicked smile flashed on his face before his eyes became serious once more, "we take this one day at a time. We see what happens tomorrow - and then, we see what happens the day after that. We don't have to rush, Allen. We'll find our way."
"Okay," murmured Allen, clinging just a little, holding on for just a little longer before they had to face the world again. "Okay."
"There we are." Tom's arms closed tight around him, and he sank into them, sank into safety for just one moment longer.
Before they left the room, left to return to duty, Allen kissed Tom, felt him gasp in surprise and nearly drowned in the rush of joyous power. He kissed him with heart, with courage, with all the things he'd forgotten he had after the horrors of Grendelsbane and the Yawata Strike. He kissed as though he finally knew where he was going, as though he'd found a way out of the drowning mire that had clutched him for far too long. And he kissed the man in his arms because, if it was Tom who had shown him the way out, it was Allen who had finally found the strength to walk it.
Allen took a deep breath, remembered courage, remembered passion, remembered understanding. Remembered the utterly unremarkable, wholly extraordinary man at his side.
Then he took one step forward. And another, and another. And, because he could, one more yet.