"...and I think that concludes our business for today. Tom?"
"All clear on my end, Honor. Lester? Allen? Judah? Alfredo?"
All four men shook their heads, and Honor smiled. "Good. I'll talk with Mercedes, Andrea, and Alice, if you'll brief Jennifer, Oliver, and Sampson?" Lester Tourville nodded, then smiled - a particularly unnerving, wolfish smile. "Very well then, gentlemen, you'd best be about it."
The hint was polite but unmistakable, and the commanders of Second Fleet, Home Fleet, the Grayson Space Navy, and the Protector's Own all filed out of the room, talking cheerfully among themselves. Only Theisman stayed, tilting back in his chair with a bottle of Old Tillman and a particularly satisfied sigh. "To absent friends," he said, raising his bottle in salute, "and to a job well done."
"To absent friends, and a job well done," said Honor, raising her own bottle with a smile, and then the amusement faded, and Honor became serious once more. "It's looking good, Tom. It's looking very good. We don't dare rest on our laurels, of course, but…"
"-but it's looking damn good," said Theisman with a nod. "Do you have somewhere to scurry off to, then? Or have you got time for a wayward Secretary and a chat?"
"I always have time for a wayward Secretary and a chat, but to answer you question, no, I don't - for once. I'm meeting with Eloise in half an hour, but I think she was going to ask you to join us anyway, so don't worry about that. Did the wayward Secretary have something in particular on his mind?"
Theisman shook his head almost bemusedly. "Yes, and no." He went silent for a minute, then said, "Allen's looking much better."
"He is," said Honor, a definite note of relief in her voice. "I don't mind admitting, I was worried for a while there - he took the Yawata Strike hard. But he is looking better - considerably. He says you've been a great help in that department, by the way."
"It's the least I could do," said Tom, a bit sharply. "He didn't deserve Grendelsbane."
"Nobody deserved that blasted war," said Honor darkly. "Which, if you'll recall, is why we're going to do something about it. A number of somethings, in fact."
"Yes," Tom said, his voice just as dark. "I think a part of Eloise would go back to the StateSec days, if it meant being on that bridge when we finally take the bastards down. And a part of me wants to let her." He raised a hand to forestall a protest that wasn't forthcoming. "Damn it! Every time I think about what those jack-shit bastards did to her - about what they forced her to do, about what they cost her - God help me, Honor, I'd pull the trigger myself if I could. That damn war, I could almost forgive them for. Almost. It wouldn't be the first time someone tried to foment a war to serve their own ends. But what they took from her - " His teeth bared in a snarl. "That, Honor, I will never forgive them for. I've given her too much bad news. I have seen her cry too goddamned many times. Never again, do you hear me? Never again."
Honor was staring at him, a peculiar light in her eyes, and Tom's heart dropped to the floor. "Oh God."
"You love her." The soft words weren't a question.
"Yes," he admitted raggedly. "From the moment I met her. But it didn't matter, Honor. I swear to God it didn't matter. She's always been Javier's." The words were only truth, and Honor didn't need Nimitz or her empathic abilities to know that Thomas Theisman loved Eloise Pritchart far too much to do anything but love her in silence.
"And she never knew?"
"How could she? The thought would never cross her mind. When I say she is Javier's, Honor, I mean that she is Javier's. Body, heart and soul, for as long as she lives. She would never think of another man, not now, not ever. She loves him far too much for that."
"I think," said a familiar voice from the doorway, "that your intelligence on that score might be a bit faulty, Secretary Theisman."
A glass bottle tumbled to the floor.
"You're right," the voice continued quietly. "I was Javier's. I am Javier's." Still soundless, in casual, creamy cotton slacks and an icy blue, flowing top that did incredible things for her platinum hair, Eloise Pritchart walked into the room, her eyes unwaveringly fixed on Thomas Theisman. "Body, heart and soul, for the rest of my life."
Theisman swallowed heavily. "I know."
"But that doesn't mean," Eloise continued softly, and neither of them noticed as Honor slipped out of the room, "that I have to stop living. And you, of all people, should know that."
"Eloise, I - "
"Hush." She settled in the chair next to him, reached out, curled her fingers around his, and smiled to herself when he squeezed back without seeming to register he was doing it. "I loved him, Tom. I always will. But the wonderful thing about love," she said, with a soft, wistful smile, "is that it's bottomless. Because just when you think you can't love any more, you do." Her beautiful topaz eyes sharpened, and Tom caught his breath. "Don't think I don't know who it's been, standing by my side for all the hours we've spent rebuilding this nation of ours. Don't think I don't know who it's been, holding my hand when I'm faced with the hardest decisions of my life. Don't think I don't know whose shirt I've soaked with my tears, on the nights when I miss him too much to bear and think I might shatter from the loneliness. And don't think," she finished, her eyes holding his, "that he doesn't know, either."
"Eloise?" This time the word came out on a gasp.
"I will always love him. Always. He was - he is - the great love of my life." Gently, her hand came up to caress his cheek. "As Haven is yours."
Silently, he tilted his head into her hand, and couldn't care about the tears spilling down his cheeks.
"Eloise, what are you saying?"
"We're neither of us each other's first loves, Tom," she said quietly. "But that doesn't mean we can't make our own kind of happiness." Her eyes held his. "Do you want me?"
"I've wanted you from the first moment I saw you."
The words were nothing more than absolute truth, and she smiled, brilliant and lovely and heartbreakingly beautiful. "Then take me. Please."
Weak with wanting, with relief, with a thousand things he couldn't name, he tipped his face against her neck and felt her hand come up to card through his hair.
"As you wish," he said, roughly, and pressed his lips to her collarbone.
Neither of them said much of anything, after that.