Chapter Thirty Four

"The difference between a boss and a leader:
a boss says, 'Go!'
-a leader says, 'Let's go!'."

E.M. Kelly

Valaree Anders fastened the buttons a clean pair of denim overalls. Under them, she was wearing a plain blue t-shirt—something simple. Something she hoped would look respectable to a man like Jack Harkness. She swallowed hard, but the lump in her throat refused to go away. She had never expected to see her cousin again. No one who ever went to the Red Houses was ever seen again…then again, no one ever looked for anybody who was ever sent there, either.

Guilt plagued at her, had kept her awake most of the night; she should have at least tried. She might not have been able to buy his contract back but she should have tried!

I'm a pilot, that's all… but how could that be? Kam was so sweet-faced, he always had been... and she'd heard stories of how sometimes people in private Service made themselves believe they really did care for the men or women they were forced to Serve, men and women who would never return it. Those who Served were bodies to be used, nothing more. But maybe it was easier for Kam to love Harkness than it was for him to hate him. Fighting back the bile rising in her gut, Ree locked up her shop and made her way down to the spaceport at the edge of town.

She had little trouble finding Harkness' ship once she got there. She guessed accurately that they had arrived in the last few days and besides, there was only ship in the whole yard with a pair of humans…well, a human and a cyborg, at any rate… working on the hull. The big bulking man-machine hopped down from the work-platform as soon as he became aware of her approach. He was frighteningly huge…

"Something we can do for you?" he inquired; his voice surprised her. It was so… human. His countenance on the other hand… Ree swallowed hard and concentrated on looking at the human side of his face, wishing it had been the woman who had come down to talk to her.

The cyborg cleared its throat. His throat. It was obvious he'd once been male.

"I'm sorry… is this the Welshman ?" Ree managed to ask in a steady tone, even though she knew that it was.

"Yes, Ma'am," he beamed with pride that surprised her. She didn't know much about ships but the ones she'd been on, getting from her little home colony to Tunga Prime, hadn't been filled with men and women who seemed particularly enthusiastic about their postings. Maybe it was in his programming or something; Ree doubted the cyborg was within the 'legal limits' to be considered human any more. There was no telling how much of his brain was hardwired.

"What can we do for you?" he repeated his query, the humanness of his voice continuing to unnerve her.

"I… I was wondering…that is… is Kamden Anders on board?" Ree asked.

At that, Roberta Tolbert finally joined her fellow engineer on the ground. Unlike Buddy, she'd heard the whole story--including the way Kam's uncle had treated him--from their young pilot last night. To say that he was rattled by seeing his cousin again after all this time would have been an understatement, especially in the wake of the nightmares he'd been having about his past, the Houses, bad dreams he didn't want to tell Jack about (or Anna because he was afraid she might feel like she had to tell him, even though she always said she wouldn't.) Roberta was glad he'd come to her last night, glad he trusted her with his deepest darkest secrets, even if a part of her did wish she had never found out about what Avi had said to him, what he'd expected of the young pilot. She didn't like the way her feelings had turned sour towards the salvager… but that's what friends are for, she'd assured Kam when he apologized for spilling his guts out about that, late one night/day in her quarters, over tears, hot chocolate and cheese toasties a couple of weeks ago. Everybody needed somebody they could turn to and sometimes that somebody wasn't the man they were sleeping with.

"Kam went off on an errand for the Captain," she said to the woman in a chilly tone; the cloud that came over Buddy's face escaped her.

Kam had gone off with Anneke Strickson, something Roberta didn't find unusual. She wasn't quite sure what was going on between Jack, Kam and Anneke, but she was pretty sure Kam would have told her if it was more than just a budding friendship. Not that she cared one way or the other. What other people did behind closed doors didn't concern her, just so long as everybody was there because they wanted to be. And there was no doubt in her mind that if Jack was involved there was no way anyone was pushing Kam into anything he didn't want to do—as if she could see Anneke trying. It just wasn't in the girl's nature.

What she didn't know was what had transpired between Buddy and Anneke just a few weeks before, or the assumptions the big engineer made about the nature of the Anneke's and Kam's relationship. (If she had been privy to his thoughts, she would have pointed out the obvious…after giving him a good one upside the head for being dense.)

As it was, she just wiped her greasy hands off on her coveralls and gave the woman standing before her a penetrating glare. Part of her wanted to send her away, she certainly had no rights to Kam's company… but good manners prevailed. "He shouldn't be much longer. I suppose you can wait around if you want." She hoped she wouldn't.

Casting another nervous look up at the cyborg, Ree nodded; she was fairly certain that she wasn't really welcome. The feeling increased, right along with her tension, when Harkness appeared just then on the gangplank.

"Ms Anders," he greeted in a tone even cooler than the female engineer had used. "Nice to see you again."

Which Ree knew was a lie. Just the same, when he offered her his hand and invited her onto his ship, she accepted, wondering if anyone would even notice if she disappeared. After all, not only was a Captain a god on his own ship, but they were so far outside of Empire territory that human laws didn't apply anyway and the local authorities didn't care one whit about the sole human inhabitant of Tunga Prime.

"Can I offer you a cup of coffee?" he asked.

Startled, she stuttered, "Th-thank you."

"I assume you're here to see Kam," he said, leading the way towards the mess. It wasn't a question; it didn't need to be.

"Yes, Sir," she answered anyway. "They…your crewman… said he was running… that is, that he'd be back soon…"

"He should be," he told her curtly. He'd hoped that getting Kam out of the ship for a while would be good for him, so he'd manufactured an errand—and called ahead to ask Larissa to provide an 'appropriate' distraction for the two youngest members of his crew, emphasis on the word 'appropriate.'

But despite everything, he knew he could trust her, just as long as he reminded her clearly and firmly that Kam was his partner and Anneke… well, telling an Adonian that she was as inexperienced as she was would have proven too much of a temptation, so Jack made it easy on all of them by laying claim on the young woman as well. One thing Larissa would never do, he very was sure, was to poach someone from his bed, at least not unless he was in it as well—and then she'd just do her best to insert herself into it with them. She did have a very big bed…

Even buried in his thoughts, habit made Jack step aside to allow Kam's cousin walk into the mess ahead of him.

She blinked a moment, unsure… Usually when someone wanted you to go first it meant there was somebody waiting up ahead to grab you so they could… but that seemed silly. This was his ship and he looked plenty strong enough to handle her on his own, if that was his intent. She flashed a smile that she hoped didn't look too nervous and stepped into the mess with the Captain just behind her. No grabbing ensued.

There was a small knot of crewmen sitting at one of the tables, drinking coffee, carrying on what seemed like a light hearted conversation. They looked up, but they didn't jump to their feet at the sight of their Captain or even stop talking for longer than it to notice him.

"At ease, gentleman, Doc," Harkness said anyway, his tone suggestive of teasing. He shot a cursory wink in the direction of the one female at the table. She was in her thirties, but she was one of the prettiest women Ree had ever seen.

To his comment and wink, the woman merely chuckled, her smile deepening. She hauled herself to her feet and picked up an empty coffee cup, joining them at the coffee maker. "Captain. And…?"

"Ms Valarie Anders," Jack told her.

The older woman nodded; if she had any thoughts about Ree's identity, she kept them to herself. She filled up her coffee cup and rejoined her compatriots without further ado.

"Ms Anders?" Jack prompted.

She blinked. Nothing about the last few minutes made any sense at all. The Captain, his crew... She hadn't been on a lot of ships, but she'd talked to her fair share of spacers. They all told her the same thing: keep you head down and stay out of the Captain's way. She knew she was a pretty woman, although in space that didn't really matter much… a hole was a hole, after all. Male, female, it didn't really matter to most... and she couldn't think of anyone she'd ever talked to who would have acted the way that woman just had, the way any of them were, even if they were the senior officers.

"Coffee…tea?" Harkness repeated.

"Erm…?"

He was giving her an odd look.

"Whatever you're having is fine, Sir," she finally managed to gather up her wits enough to say. "Thank you," she added, "I mean…" she hadn't meant that she expected him to actually serve her…

But he picked up a pair of mugs and filled them with strong black coffee, handing one over to her and nodded at the sugar and milk. She took neither. She watched him fix his cup out of the corner of her eye.

"I'll show you to my office," he told her; there seemed nothing particularly menacing about either his tone or his manner.

As soon as he got her settled, he excused himself a moment to contact Larissa; as much as he hated to cut short whatever wild (and probably completely true) story she was telling them about her homeworld, he didn't want to entertain Kam's cousin alone any longer than he had to. It was one thing for people to be wary of him. He was the Captain of a ship, he knew what that meant in the world in which he lived, but the girl honestly looked like… she looks at me like Kam used to, he realized, as he wrapped up his conversation with the Adonian's butler. Valaree Anders was as afraid of him as Kam had once been and he hated that memory…

………………………………………………………………….

Ree was almost past being surprised by anything when Harkness offered to leave her and Kam alone in his office. He'd stepped out for a few moments after he first settled her there, inviting her to make to 'make herself at home', but then returned. And started doing paperwork. With a polite word or two to excuse himself for ignoring her… but… paperwork… and… and he didn't look up again until Kam came in twenty minutes later. In that twenty minutes time, Harkness hadn't done any of the ten things she might have expected, not that she wasn't relieved, it was just…just nothing about the man was making any sense!

But when she saw Kam's expression… nervousness… anxiety… and the cold lump settled itself back into the pit of her gut, causing her to miss the look of genuine affection that passed her cousin and his Captain as the latter slipped out to, in his own words, give them a little privacy.

"What are you doing here?" Kam wanted to know, just as soon as the door was shut again.

"I just… I needed to know that you were all right," she told him honestly as she rose to her feet. "Please tell me I haven't made it worse…" she stepped towards him.

Kam stepped back. "What are you talking about?"

"Coming here. Please tell me he's not going to…" she swallowed hard. Just tell me he won't take it out on you if he's angry…

"Ree… " he shook his head at her. "I'm fine, really. I'm happy. I told you that yesterday."

She looked him over again, more thoughtfully than she had before. He was wearing a short sleeved t-shirt. It showed off exactly how good of shape he was in. He was well fed, muscular… lean… he stood up straight, his shoulders back. There was a brightness in his eyes. "You look happy," she was forced to admit. It wasn't just that he was in good shape, it something else, something she couldn't define. Something she hadn't quite noticed before.

"I love him, Ree. It's not one sided."

"But he's the Captain…" despite what Kam was saying, the expression on his face, it couldn't possibly be an equally balanced relationship, not when one person had all the power. Harkness could do anything he wanted and if Kam didn't like it…

"When we're on the bridge, he is the Captain," he agreed. "But the rest of the time… the rest of the time we're partners," he said, unable to keep the wonder out of his voice. "I know we're not really equals, how could we be? But that's not how he sees it. Even though he's older than me and smarter and he's been everywhere there is to go—I'm not saying he's perfect," he added to her incredulous look. He knew the picture he painted of Jack was even more amazing than the real thing. But for Kam the fact that he was real, human, fallible, made him all the more wonderful. "He uses the coffee table as a chair and it took me three weeks to train him to use the bloody clothes hamper," he all but rolled his eyes at the memory.

"Honestly Cariad, would it kill you to use the hamper?" And even if it did, it wasn't like he wouldn't come right back… he hadn't understood why Jack had laughed so hard, how much he'd sounded like the ghost of a memory. But after that he'd stopped leaving his things strewn all over their cabin.

And Ree was gawking.

Kam understood. By rights, he should just go along with however Jack wanted to do things and be grateful for a place to call home. And he was grateful for his berth on the Welshman. He was grateful for Jack and everything he gave him, everything he meant to him. But that wasn't what their relationship was about, it wasn't Jack lording over him even though he could.

"He not like anybody else in the whole world, Ree. He's not perfect, but he is incredible and he makes me so happy. I know you haven't had much cause to trust anybody, neither have I, but Jack… Jack is the single best person I've ever met in my whole life. He's kind and generous and fair…" and out of everybody in the whole universe, he chose me… he wants me. He loves me. "Come on, it's almost lunch time. Why don't you eat with us?"

She gave him an askance look. What would Harkness say to him inviting…

But he just smiled. "I told you, when we're on the bridge he's my Captain. The rest of the time he's my partner," although he wasn't going to tell her how often Jack tried to blur those lines on those long dull shifts, especially when he convinced the rest of the bridge crew to go stretch their legs for ten minutes leaving the two of them alone…. "Besides, how long has it been since you've had a real tomato right off the vine?" he couldn't help the brightness of his grin.