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Secret Admirer
(Prompt: Court)

On the Stations, the labs where she usually worked were kept securely locked, with access-card control and biometric sensors. Gail Denner had gotten used to that, so it had been an adjustment when she realized there was no way to secure the makeshift work area she used at Winter Camp. In fact, at first she hadn't even had a door, but Cameron and Danziger had at least been able to make one of those for her. It even had a very basic lock on it, though anyone with any knowledge of mechanics could easily pick or break it.

Still, she'd appreciated their efforts, and had made a point to keep the key strictly under supervision.

Which meant that there was absolutely no way anyone should have been able to get in here to leave the flowers on her desk.

Picking up the spray of wildflowers — and where had anyone been able to find those? — she turned them over. A handwritten card fell out. Happy birthday! Hope it's a wonderful one!

It was unsigned, and she didn't recognize the handwriting. Gail wondered why that was. Given that most of the Eden Advancers used typed or verbal records, it wasn't odd that she couldn't recognize who had written the card. What was odd was that it wasn't signed in the first place.

As Danziger had pointed out while installing the door, there really wasn't a lot of room for anonymity here anyway. If anyone did break in to her lab, it likely wouldn't be hard to figure it out. That right there gave her a measure of security that was never present on the Stations.

So why was anyone even trying?

It was just flowers, though, and she had to admit they were pretty. She also admitted she appreciated the effort to recognize her birthday. It was her thirtieth, and this definitely wasn't how she'd planned on celebrating that particular milestone.

Smiling, Gail found an unused beaker, filled it partway with water, and put the flowers up on a shelf. At least her secret admirer had had the sense not to put them on top of her samples.

The next gift showed up two weeks later. It'd been a late night, and she was tired, but when she unzipped the sleeping bag on her cot it was lying right there. Her secret admirer had somehow managed to sneak into the tent she shared with Magus while they were both out, and left a rough-woven length of cloth at the head.

You've been shivering too much, the accompanying note said in its familiar-but-unrecognized handwriting.

Picking up the cloth, she examined it. It was a little too wide to be a scarf and a little too narrow to be a shawl, but was longer than either might be. Wrapping it around herself, Gail also realized it was perfectly proportioned to cover both shoulders and upper back, with some overlap but without preventing the use of her arms.

Her secret admirer had been paying attention to more than just her shivering and whether or not her tent was empty.

She supposed she should consider that creepy, but it also occurred to her that the admirer was right; she had been shivering a lot lately. Some of the lab tests she'd been running for Mazatl could be compromised by heated environments, so she'd been keeping the room as cold as she could stand it.

Perhaps he was the secret admirer.

Gail shook her head as soon as the thought crossed her mind. They weren't obnoxious about it, but anyone who paid attention knew that Mazatl and Eben were still an item despite the apparent distance that was growing between them. Neither of them was the kind to potentially cause a rift in the group by becoming involved with someone else.

Unzipping her sleeping bag all the way, she smoothed the length of cloth down the front so it could act as a liner. She'd need to think about it before she'd be willing to appear wrapped in it around the other Advancers, but nobody could see it here.

Danziger and Adair had argued again, a really bad one this time, and supper was a somber affair afterward. Both of them had retired early, but there was still leftover tension lingering in the air. Even Bess was uncharacteristically quiet, and Gail hoped that the entire Advance team would decide to make it an early night. She certainly intended to, though she planned to get back to the lab and check on the cultures she was growing one last time first.

Passing through the line, she barely even noticed the food as she thought about the cultures and what she might do if there was a problem. It was only when she sat down between Walman and Magus that she realized her tray was different than everyone else's.

An unfamiliar white shape lay in one corner. It didn't look particularly inedible, but Gail had learned the hard way about new foods on this new world. So she was careful when she broke off a corner to taste it.

It was sweet, just like the sugar they'd run out of so long before. She closed her eyes, savoring for a long moment, before something told her she was being watched. That should have been creepy, too, but somehow it wasn't. After all, there were no strangers here in Winter Camp, and only two people were on the serving line.

She opened her eyes just in time to see a flush appear on Cameron's cheeks before he dropped his gaze and looked away toward the next person with an empty tray.