Ellie fucks the man who bought her a drink at the bar in Fallbrook.
It's not that she didn't want to – the guy was charming and handsome and rugged, a real adventurer, a thrill seeker, only in town for a short while, then moving on to greater, unknown things, like herself. And it's not because she had no desire to – it had been quite a while, she supposed, and a girl has her needs too, you know.
It was because she needed to, to prove to herself… something. She's not quite sure yet. Maybe that she doesn't need anybody, doesn't need anybody needing her.
"You know, he looks an awful lot like a certain captain," Nyoka muses, somehow annoyingly already over her hangover. "A certain ship captain we both know."
And fuck it, but the hunter is right.
"No he fucking doesn't," she argues, but not with enough bite to it. She sits down beside the hunter on the front porch of their rented house, and she shivers in the morning air. "He looks nothing like the Captain."
"Sure, sure, whatever helps you sober up. Speaking of – here," she says, handing Ellie a bottle of some foul-smelling brown sludge. "It's no Caffenoid, but it'll do the trick."
It tastes like sprat piss. She tells Nyoka that.
"It is sprat piss, Fenhill."
"Ew. Fucking gross."
"I'm only shitting you, Doc."
"Fine."
She takes another sip.
"It's actually sprat jizz."
Ellie throws the bottle into the street, with the laughing of a certain asshole hunter piercing the quiet morning.
Then Hawthorne sways out the front entrance of the bar across the street, blinking in the sunlight.
Catherine Malin comes out after him, a little too close. She's smiling that smile she gives people when they try to dip out of their Sublight contracts, only more feral. She hooks her fingers round his belt hoops, and then she leans up and whispers something in his ear, and the way her hand travels down his side is much too friendly. He whispers something back, and that makes her smile turn downright predatory, and then she ushers him away, but not before she blatantly gives his ass a good squeeze. She watches him go down the steps, akin to a raptidon hunting down its prey.
Hawthorne notices his crew on the porch, and tries to look like he's going in some other direction, anywhere but there. He fails miserably, curves away out towards the waterfall, rubs his neck awkwardly.
Something like anger begins to simmer inside Ellie's chest.
And she doesn't know why – she has no hold on the man, no claim to him, and she knows that – she told him that – and yet she can't hide the severe scowl she pitches at his back.
"Hm. Y'know," Nyoka begins, "Catherine looks an awful lot like a certain sawbones me and the Captain both know."
Ellie's stomach churns in deep knots, and she doesn't think it has anything to do with the sprat jizz.
000
"So… you and the Captain –"
"Shove it, Felix, I don't want to talk about this with you."
"About what? I was only going to say it seems like you're angry at him or something. What did he do?"
"Catherine," she snaps, and Felix's eyes go wide with understanding.
000
Hawthorne leaves her on the ship this time.
And she gets it, she really does. Nyoka is their guide, after all, and truly, Ellie needs some down time. Max goes with them, as per their silent agreement.
But fuck it if she isn't bored.
She putters around the Unreliable, secretly eating cans of boarstwurst and tileritos, and buffing her pistol – again – and shooing SAM out of her room as he attempts to sneak in and clean the clutter.
She even goes down the landing pad and wanders around Fallbrook, after managing to shake Parvati and Felix. She takes in the enormous waterfall, and the dazzling lights in the grotto, and she makes small talk with some of the residents there, maybe covertly scouting out leads on jobs for the crew.
She turns the corner and almost collides with the adventurer she screwed the other night.
"Oh – hey… you," she manages, entirely forgetting the man's name. Boris? Benson? Something.
"Booker," he smirks. "And you're Ellie. See, I can remember a good shag."
"Right."
"Care for a drink? I'll buy."
"Sure. Not in the mood to schtup, though, so if that's your poison, better look elsewhere."
"Nah, me neither. I mean, not just yet. I paint my best pictures at night, if you know what I mean."
"Please don't use that line on anybody ever again."
She drinks away the afternoon with him, hearing about his reckless adventures and his speedy little ship and all the fake monsters he's slain, and she ends up in bed with him anyway, drunk once again, high on the feeling of forgetting about Hawthorne for a while.
Only, she doesn't forget about him. In fact, it's all she can do to look away from Booker as he's slamming into her, over and over. His hair is short like the Captain's but not quite short enough for her. His skin is tanned but not as dark as the Captain's, either. He has scars riddled across his chest but not in the same places as Hawthorne's. And the way he says her name, soft and urgent all at once, is almost how she imagines Alex might say her name were he here, but still, not quite.
And she's furious at him for that.
000
"ADA, what are the chances you'll let me take the ship offworld?"
"Zero."
"Just to do a couple Sublight runs? Only while Hawthorne is out."
"Zero."
"I'll buy you a brand new coupler – "
"No."
"And make Parvati install it –"
"Nope."
"Fuck, you're no fun."
000
Parvati fixes her pistol without telling her, and Ellie is furious.
"The fuck is this, Holcomb? Thought I told you I didn't want you touching any of my stuff."
The girl winces and lets a wrench slip through her fingers, clattering away beneath the thrumming engine.
"Oh! Oh, I mean, I'm mighty sorry, Miss Fenhill!" she stammers, wiping the sweat and grease from her brow. "I – I know you said not to do anythin' to it, but it – I mean your slide, it warn't fully recoilin', and it was due for a new spring, so I… only took a little look at it, see, and popped a new one in for you."
Ellie sighs, running a hand through her hair. "Fine. It's done now, I guess. How much do I owe you?"
Parvati blinks. "Owe? Oh, Law, Doc, it don't cost nothin'. I had a spare spring in my back pocket, see."
"Everything's got a price, Parvati."
"No, truly, it don't cost you a thing. I won't take nothin' from you, on account of bein' crew and all."
Ellie eyes the engineer warily.
Parvati doesn't notice.
"You take real good care of your pistol, Dr. Fenhill. I see you oil it almost every night."
"I oughta. It's kept me alive this long."
"I mean you treat it nice. Makes me happy to see, 'cus I feel the same way 'bout my wrench."
"Look, it's a tool that does a job. Feeling's got nothing to do with it."
"Oh, I don't believe that for a second, Doc. I mean, it's saved your life more than any person in the system, right? It's been everywhere with you, through every fight 'n lazy day, too. And it's right there, right against your side, closer than anyone. Almost like people, ain't it?"
Ellie looks down at her pistol.
It carried her through all her battles. Killed dozens of people that might otherwise have killed her. It ended Caster's life. It's been with her longer than her days spent in Byzantium. Been here longer than her parents. And it's never let her down.
Ellie shrugs. "Huh. Yeah, maybe a little."
"You know," Parvati says, "you oughta name it. I name all my favourite tools."
"Why?"
"It's people. People need a name. I've been thinking, what about Virginia?"
"For my gun? You just come up with that out of the blue?"
"I might've been thinkin' 'bout it for a while. But I mean, it's okay if you don't like it!"
Ellie smiles, running her fingers down the worn silver barrel softly.
An old friend.
"Actually, it's perfect. Virginia it is."
Huh.
The kid might not be so bad, after all.
A new friend.
000
"You know I grew up in the Back Bays, right Doc?"
"Yeah, Millstone, you still reek like it too."
"Har har. But listen, I wanna tell you something."
"Shoot."
"Growing up, I had people all around me. Spacers, junkies, other orphans, everyone on the Groundbreaker, I guess. I was always surrounded by people. Good people, bad people, people kinda in-between. And I didn't mind it, 'cause I used to think the worst thing in life was to be alone. Live alone, die alone, you know. But, well, it's not. The worst thing in life is to be surrounded by people who make you feel alone. And I didn't realise till I left, but…"
Felix pauses, looking out across the Monarch wilderness. He shrugs. "It's nice to finally not feel alone."
Ellie's chest tightens.
"Yeah," she says. "Yeah, I get it kid. Me too."
000
Booker groans deep, fully spent, then collapses on the bed beside her.
"Hey… you didn't come?"
"Nah, I'm just… tired, is all."
"Wasn't me, then?"
No, she says, which is true and false all at once.
"Good. Good. Hey, can I ask you something?"
Ellie reaches over to the bedside table and lights up a Stogie Slim, sucking deep.
"Sure."
"You want to come with me?"
She snorts. "Fuck, my man, do you have some stamina."
"No, not like that," he chuckles, taking a drag of her stogie and handing it back. "I mean, do you want to come away with me. On my ship."
Ellie's heart stops a moment.
"I mean, the ship's a good one, if a little cramped, and it'll just be the two of us, but I could really use a sawbones onboard. And some company. It gets a little lonely out in space, you know."
"Yeah. I know."
And Ellie really, truly considers it.
In any other reality, she might flat-out refuse. Construct some excuse as to why she can't go, some vague reason to mask her flakiness, her circumspect. But she doesn't this time.
Because she could go with him. She could be his second, his partner in crime. They could traverse the cosmos together, free from debts, from blood-sucking parents, running contracts across the stars.
And despite the fact it sounded something like a relationship, she knows the man won't hold her to that standard. He's cut from the same cloth as she is, after all.
It wouldn't be a bad life.
But… he's simply too similar to someone else, and she can't do that to him. To herself.
She can't forever live a life of not quite.
She sighs, wishing she were in some other timeline, perhaps, one where she maybe never let the Captain square her debt with Jessie in the Med Bay.
"I can't," she concedes. "I've already got another ship. Another Captain."
He nods, and maybe he already knows. "Yeah. I figured. Had to ask, though. But next time we meet, you're buying the booze."
She smiles, maybe a little sad. "Sure."
"There's something about it, you know. I think people like you and me aren't meant for all that. Like dust motes, I think, blowing around all accidental-like in the breeze."
"Ha. Like entropy, you mean. The degree of disorder or randomness in a system. I know a priest who might argue with that. Say we all have a purpose here, a destiny or something."
Booker smiles, and it almost breaks her heart.
"Well, maybe it's a little bit of both."
000
Ellie does not hold on to grudges, doesn't let people sink their teeth in, grab hold of her with their bony fingers and make her think and wonder. She has neither room nor time for such things.
And yet… she simply can't shake Hawthorne. Can't push him from her mind, no matter how hard she scrubs her pistol, or how deep she delves into her poetry, or how loud she moans when Booker is fucking her. He's burrowing into her mind like a parasite, and she's beginning to wonder how long before it kills her.
Exhibit A of Why Ellie Doesn't Do Crewmembers or Captains:
Things get too messy.
And there is nothing particularly spectacular about the man, absolutely nothing that should hook her in, make her falter, plague her mind. Booker is just as good-looking, just as cutthroat charming and confident. Max is smarter. Felix is bolder. Parvati is better with machines. Nyoka is better at most things.
The only thing he's good at is telling lies and leading them nowhere.
000
They anger a particularly large band of marauders and leave Monarch for a while, at least until things cool down on the ground. Catherine pretty much kicks them out of Fallbrook with her steel-toe boots.
They orbit around the moon passively, and Ellie's in the control room, watching the opaline storms on Olympus rage violently on in an unending battle with itself, Monarch an almost infinitesimal speck revolving around the vast kaleidoscope that is the gas giant – and the gas giant is, in itself, a mote of dust in the undying darkness of space.
So what does that make her?
She hears his footsteps before he comes to stand beside her, yet that doesn't stop the uncomfortable bristle when he says her name.
"Hey, Ellie."
Ellie. Not Els.
"Hey."
"Wow. It's… remarkable, isn't it? So dangerous. Feels like we're standing right on the edge of the void."
"Hm. Nah, this isn't the edge. You ever been right to the very end of the system, out on the fringe? Have you ever stood and stared out into the nothingness?"
"No."
"Makes you feel small."
"Like this?" he gestures out to Olympus, so utterly vast they cannot see the stars past its girth.
"Smaller."
"Hm. Well. It sort of makes me feel big. Like I'm a part of all this. You'll have to show me one day."
"Right."
She wonders how long it will take before he leaves – she cannot stand this idle small talk, these empty words filling the empty room.
She can't even stand to look at his face any more, and she's angrier at herself than at him, because it's foolish and she cannot fathom why.
He hasn't mentioned that night in the prefab, and neither has she, nor the morning after they both lost themselves in someone else – in fact, she has barely spoke a word to the man since – but it's still there, that deep shift in gravity, that slide into more, and the simple knowledge of it vibrates like static between them, putting her on edge. They revolve around each other like Monarch around Olympus, unstable in its orbit.
"I'm going to convince Zora to supplant Graham," he says, still gazing out into the storm.
Ellie blinks. "What? Why?"
"Graham is going to launch an attack on Stellar Bay. He's leading the Iconoclasts to their death. Zora won't."
"So?"
Now it's his turn to blink.
"Didn't you hear? He's going to get them all killed."
"I heard you loud and clear."
"And?"
"And who cares. Let them fight it out," she seethes. "Last one standing wins. Maybe they all deserve it."
He opens his mouth like he's going to say something, then closes it. Makes for the door.
Then he decides to open it again.
"See, that's your problem, Fenhill. You think you're being rebellious by leaving it all behind, but you're a walking billboard of Board propaganda."
Ellie grinds her teeth and rounds on him.
"What the fuck did you call me?"
"This," he hisses, gesturing at Ellie's whole being. "This… whole lone wolf, dissident, survival of the fittest mentality is word-for-word Board doctrine."
"You better explain yourself Hawthorne, right fucking now."
"Explain?" he huffs. "You want me to explain? Fine, I will. Of fucking course you believe that the strong survive and the weak are never worthy of living – because that's exactly what gave you the high-class life you had in the first place, what Byzantium was built on, and your fucking selfishness means you embrace that wholeheartedly."
"You don't know a fucking thing about what I went through to get here."
"Oh, I don't?"
"Fuck off. Go fuck your Sublight whore again – what's her name, Catherine itty-bitty tits?"
"At least she's done something with her life."
"Fuck you."
"No, fuck you, Ellie fucking Fenhill," he spits, catching her off guard. "You refuse to see the only reason you were able to leave is because of your fucking social class, not because you were any good at it. You're just some rich girl playing make-believe out of unearned boredom. You still have that greed, that – that callousness that infects the entire upper class like a fucking disease. Every one of those people down there work harder in a day than you have your entire life – they've built roads, and cities, and done more for the system than someone like you could ever understand."
"Someone like me?"
"Yeah, someone like you. Someone who's been given everything and yet it's still not enough. You can't shake your selfishness for long enough to see that - yet you don't care. Their lives are somehow worth less than yours?"
Ellie can hardly breathe with the violent bitterness blistering across her skin. Bitterness, and maybe something a little too close to shame.
"I never said that."
"Fine, maybe not less, but not worthy of giving a single fuck about."
"I've kicked people's ass for far less, Hawthorne. I'm not afraid to fuck you up."
He flashes his fist upward like he might clout her himself, and she shrinks back – infinitesimally – but he sees it.
"Just a fucking show," he spits, lowering his fist. "Everything about you is a sham."
He goes to leave but pauses in the doorway, turning back to her. There's disgust in his eyes – something she's seen from other people, and yet she cannot remember being so injured by it.
"You're always on about how you're nothing like them, like your parents – how the wealthy and the corporations are all just husks without souls or any human feelings – but you're the coldest fucking person I've ever met. Absolute fucking zero."
And he leaves her all alone in the control room, with nothing but the storm of Olympus, and beyond, the icy blackness of nothing, behind her.
000
Ellie has that dream again.
That nightmare again.
But this time, when the rabid canids usually dissolve into her parents and Caster, they don't. Instead, they all melt away and Hawthorne is standing there in the white streets of Byzantium.
"You're cold, Ellie," he says, the disgust on his face again. "Cold, cold, cold. Absolute zero."
He slams his hand on the Unreliable's airlock release, and she's sucked out into the velvet of space, so frigid and hollow that she floats there forever.
Harder than Chaw and colder than space.
000
The Unreliable touches back down on Fallbrook's landing pad, and Ellie leaves.
Or, she tries to.
"Where are you going?" Hawthorne says, suited up and checking over his rifle by the lockers. Nyoka is gearing up too, and sliding a few bottles of Zero Gee beneath her overcoat for good measure.
Ellie has what little belongings she brought along, her entire world packed into a single bag.
"Not sure yet."
And it's true – she could try work for that greasy little sprat, Nelson. Or she could get some runs from Catherine, however hard it might be to look her in the face and not see herself. Or maybe she'd go find Booker, and take him up on his offer.
"We're gonna check out the UDL gunship that crash-landed out by Bolpock's Ridge," Nyoka says. "If looters haven't already stripped it clean – I told you we should have gone sooner, Cap –"
"Yeah, yeah, you're right, I'm wrong, we all know," he smirks, waving her off.
"It's about goddamned time you realised that, Hawthorne."
Hawthorne notices the way Ellie's hesitating in the doorway, unsure.
"Well? Get suited up, Fenhill. We've got to get there and back by nightfall. Don't want another mantiqueen trying to chew my ass off again."
"What, you didn't have fun last time?"
"Hey, I know your idea of a good time involves face-melting acid and alcohol, Nyoka, but that's not mine. Not the mantiqueen kind, anyhow."
They leave, and Ellie flounders like a saltuna.
Only a moment.
"I'm not –?"
"Not ready? Yeah, I know. Hurry up Ellie, Nyoka's going to start punching some innocent civilians soon."
A tiny smile plays at her lips.
She drops her bag and grabs her pistol instead.
This time, there is no hesitation.
000
Her datapad pings.
Ellie.
I'm sorry for what I said, back in the control room. Didn't really mean it. I was tired and frustrated we were in orbit while marauders picked over that crash site. I shouldn't have lost my cool. Won't happen again.
It must have taken some real guts to leave everything behind like you did. It couldn't have been easy to leave the safety of Byzantium's walls for the unknown, for the constant threat of death. Not many people could do that, no matter why they did it.
If it's any consolation, if the people of Halcyon were half as stubborn as you, maybe they wouldn't be in such a mess.
She sends back:
Thanks. I figure it's because Halcyon is half as annoying as you. So, we good?
Deserved that, he pings. Yeah, we good.
000
"So, Max. Got any interesting prison stories? Do you really trade cigarettes and blowjobs like bits?"
"I told you, I wasn't technically in prison. And no. You watch way too many Aetherwave dramas."
"Got any recipes for bathtub hooch? I've always wanted to try the real stuff."
"No. And we didn't have bathtubs – we made it in toilets."
"Ah, right. That's why you're always spewing shit."
000
Hawthorne vomits behind a rock one evening, and tries to hide the blood from Ellie, but she sees it and makes them go back to Groundbreaker right away to buy those reactive kinematics for his hibernation sickness.
"Oh. Hello, Miss Fenhill."
"Hey, Mfuru. Long time no see."
"Unfortunately."
"I get the feeling you're not as excited as I am for this little pow-wow."
"What gave it away?"
The doctor agrees to perform the surgery on Hawthorne, to install the kinematics. Ellie refuses. Conflict of interest, she says. But she simply couldn't live with herself if anything went wrong during the procedure.
Not that she'll ever tell anyone, mind you.
"The kinematics cost three months worth of fuel for the Unreliable," she says, sitting in the waiting room, reading the ship manifest to the rest of the crew. "Now, we can cut out our weekly purchases of Purpleberry Crunch – I know that'll be hard, Felix, but you'll survive – and we'll have to drink water tabs instead of Rizzo's drinks for a while. I've been talking to Lilya up in Sublight, and she's agreed to let us do that Scylla run. If that goes well, she'll give us the Goodsprings one."
"And then?" Max groans.
"And then… we'll still owe two months of fuel."
Ellie expects grumbles from the crew, expects them to bitch and moan and maybe even get up and walk away forever – but they don't.
"I have a few guns I could spare," Parvati pipes up. "I mean, I was savin' 'em to trade for some new engine parts, and they won't get big bits at the gun shop, but at least it's somethin'."
"I may have a few texts I could part with," the Vicar adds. "Some of them are quite rare and, with the right buyer, could give us a good boost in needed funds."
"Yeah, I guess me and the bucket of bolts here could pull our weight and see if we can catch some odd jobs around the ship."
"An excellent idea, Miss Nyoka Ramnarim-Wentworth III!"
"SAM, what did I tell you about calling me that in public?"
"I have a Ceiren Fraser tossball card I could sell!" Felix chirps. "It's worth a fortune! I was waiting until I had the Cameron Fraser card to make a set, but the Captain needs it more than I do."
Ellie is speechless. She cannot mask the expression of pure shock on her face, and the rest of the crew notices.
"Ellie? You okay?"
"You… you guys are willing to give up your things?" she gawks. "Why?"
"What do you mean 'why?'"
"Yeah. The Captain's our Captain, Miss Fenhill," Parvati says, as if it were a simple, known thing. "He's family. Family helps each other out. We'd do the same thing for you if you needed it."
Ellie doesn't answer. But she feels her cold, cold heart begin to warm a little, in the company of these misfits around her – the engineer, the Vicar, the hunter, the muscle, the robot – and her. All a little broken in their own way, but all mostly whole, together.
Huh.
Some family.
000
Ellie doesn't like being wrong. Means she slipped up, made some mistake. And mistakes are what get you killed.
But she's beginning to think that maybe what Hawthorne said in the control room is right.
Which means she's wrong.
Which means she's fucking pissed at herself.
Which means she hates Hawthorne a little more.
And likes him a lot more for it.
000
There's a traveller on the road between Cascadia and Stellar Bay who's lost, and asks for water tabs when they cross paths.
Parvati doesn't have any, and neither does the Captain. Ellie gives the traveller an entire blister pack of her own without even realising it.
"That was a real swell thing you did back there, Miss Fenhill," Parvati says. "Real swell."
Ellie-from-two-months-ago might have smacked the girl for that. Ellie-from-right-now rather likes the smile she gets from Alex.
000
Ellie hears retching from the washrooms again.
It's Hawthorne. Again.
"Hey, Cap?" she ventures, tapping on the door with a metallic click. The rest of the crew watches from the kitchen – or, pretends to ignore the exchange while raptly eavesdropping.
"What?"
"Can I come in?"
There's a pause. The kitchen holds its breath.
"Fine. Yeah, come on in."
The door slides open.
Hawthorne's a fucking mess.
He's pale and wilting and cradling the toilet seat like it's the only thing anchoring him to the world of the living. It smells like sweat and bile and cleaning product, and its more sombre than a graveyard.
She takes a seat on the tile beside him.
"You look like shit, Cap."
He chuckles weakly. "Ha. Don't feel much better."
"Mfuru mentioned possible side effects from your kinematics. I'm assuming you might have a few."
"No shit."
"Should pass in a day or so, I'm sure."
"You're sure?"
"No. The only guarantees in life are taxes and death."
"Well, I guarantee I'm dying, then."
"Nah, you'll live. Probably."
"Thanks, I –"
He heaves into the toilet again, the words torn from his mouth, and its nothing but clear bile. All the muscles in his body must be aching, his stomach must be yellow and sour.
She sits there with him in silence, a hand on his shoulder sympathetically. It's a little awkward, mostly because Ellie's not used to… comforting anyone, but Alex lets her, so she continues.
"Can I tell you something?" he breathes.
"Sure."
"Is it… is it strange, I guess, that I can sort of… pause time?"
Ellie blinks.
"What?"
"I can make time stop, almost. I don't know how, and I can't hardly control it. Comes in useful in a fight, I guess. The whole world just sort of… slows right down, turns kind of grey. Like an old film played back at half-speed. But me, I'm still moving normally. Or faster, I suppose. Depends on how you want to look at it. And when I do this… slowing-down thing, my head feels likes its fucking splitting open. And there's a shooting pain down my arm."
He pauses, flexing his arm, rotating his wrist – something he's always done, but Ellie had not noticed before now that it looks… feebler than the other one. Withered, almost, like it's malnourished or something, like a good blow with a tossball stick might just shatter him to a million little pieces. No one might notice except a doctor. A good fucking doctor at that.
"It's getting worse, I think. The pain. It shoots farther, and stays longer. And my head aches like a motherfucker."
He pauses a moment.
"I think I'm dying."
Ellie frowns at this.
"You're not dying, Cap, so quit your theatrics."
She's had little experience with hibernation sickness, in all actuality, but she's read before about some… strange instances. The human body is not meant to be played with like that, to be paused and resumed like a fucking Aetherwave drama.
"It's… it's perfectly normal," she lies. "Your time distortion. It might simply be your mind experiencing space-time relapse approximation –"
"Dumb it down for all the folks who aren't doctors, please."
"Your brain is experiencing its own little skip, like a ship through space. Like your body is the ship, and your mind is travelling at or near the speed of light, and essentially time stands still."
"Ah. Right."
"How long were you in hibernation, Captain?"
He hesitates.
"Long enough."
Ellie huffs.
"Just – take it easy, Cap. Get some rest. Let your body get used to your kinematics. I'm sure you'll be ripping out mantisaur hearts by next week."
"Yeah. Sure. Thanks, Els."
"Don't mention it."
Ellie leaves.
She scours the Aetherwaves for articles, for medical journals, for peer-reviewed papers on hibernation side-effects, and she cannot find a single thing regarding mind skips.
She's not sure if that's a good thing or not.
000
"Nyoka, if I never smell another rapt, it'll be too soon."
"Aren't you a sawbones, Fenhill? Figured you ought to have smelled worse."
"Sure, but those things reek like bad after-shave. Like that awful perfume they spray in Byzantium public washrooms. It's different."
"Ha. I'm with you there. At least humans have the courtesy to wait a while before their bodies start to stink."
Ellie punches Felix playfully in the shoulder.
"Most of 'em."
000
Ellie can't sleep.
So she wanders into the kitchen in the middle of the night-cycle, intent on stealing some tileritos, maybe.
Hawthorne is there.
"Looking for something?"
"Shit, Cap, you scared the fuck outta me. Why are you being all creepy, wandering the halls at night?"
"Why are you?"
"Can't sleep, I guess."
"Yeah. Me neither. Tea?"
Ellie huffs, sitting down in the seat near him. "Yeah, 'cause that'll help me fall asleep."
"Not supposed to. Supposed to keep you from falling asleep tomorrow, during a fight with a pissed-off spacer."
"Right. Sure, thanks."
He gets up and makes her one, sliding it across the table.
Ellie smirks.
"Never figured you for the domestic kind, Cap. You'd make a good housewife some day, you know."
Hawthorne laughs. "You'd make a terrible husband too, just saying. Always out late, never thinking of the kids –"
"Hey, I made sure Felix and Parvati were in bed before I watched my porn vids this time, okay? I'm a pretty good dad, I'll have you know."
He chuckles. "Right."
Ellie bites her lip, hesitant. But ventures further.
"What about you, Alex? What are your parents like?"
He pauses a moment, sipping his tea, then Ellie watches as a slow smile spreads across his face, a faraway look in his eyes.
"They're… great. The best. Always made sure I had what I needed. Never lacked for anything. Wasn't spoiled, mind you, but I didn't have a hard life. Mom, she was always fretting about one thing or another, could never get her to simmer down, to just enjoy herself without making sure we all were taken care of first. She had the kindest heart. And dad," Hawthorne laughs, "dad was so fucking funny. He could weasel a smile out of an asscrack. He was the only one who could make mom unwind, if only for a little while. They were perfect for each other."
Hawthorne's smile falters, and he swallows.
"Cap?"
"I guess they're gone now. Died years ago, I assume."
"Oh. I'm sorry."
"Nah, it's fine. These things happen. Taxes and death, like you said. People die. Can't expect anything different."
"I guess."
Ellie's not too sure what to say to him. She can't relate – not really.
Well, not fully.
She reaches out and puts a hand over his, and he blinks at the sudden contact.
"You don't have to pretend, Alex."
"Pretend?"
"To be Captain all the time. Like these things don't bother you. You're allowed to be human once in a while."
He smiles a small smile.
"Thanks."
He's a good-looking man, really, his features sharp and his smile soft and his nose slightly crooked, like maybe its been broken once or twice, and his short hair is always unruly, like it can never be truly tamed. He's unknowable and untouchable, the dashing Captain Hawthorne, shrouded in mystery, always talking but never speaking, always going but never moving. Never arriving, always in the process of leaving.
Sort of like herself, she reckons.
She does something stupid then, or maybe something great, she doesn't yet know.
She reaches out and traces his jawline, pulling him closer. But she doesn't kiss him this time – she comes close enough that their noses are touching, that their breath is intermingling in the space between.
"You're a good man, Alex Hawthorne," she breathes. "Or whoever you are. Just… needed you to know. That's all."
She could kiss him. Architect knows she wants to. And Ellie always does what she wants – unless, of course, it interferes with what's best for her. And not being vulnerable, not getting a knife between the ribs is always what's best. Staying alive is best.
Right?
She lets him go, and pulls away.
"Right," she says. "Now that all the mushy shit is out of the way, I'm gonna go punch a wall. See you tomorrow, Cap. And thanks for the tea."
"Goodnight, Els."
She leaves the ship and finds Booker in the bar again, and loses herself in him, and uses him to burn away the face of Caster, the face of her parents, the face of Hawthorne.
Mostly Hawthorne.
000
Ellie does something she hasn't done in – well, ever, she supposes.
She asks for help.
Well, not exactly help, but something close to… advice, perhaps.
She's living on a spaceship full of trash disasters, surrounded by idiots of the highest calibre, but she supposes the Vicar is probably the most sane of them all – notwithstanding the fact he spent time in prison, strangled a man to death in front of her, and frequently throws textbooks down the hall in some sort of French-induced rampage, flinging out swear words even Ellie has not heard.
She knocks on his door and enters.
He's fucking baked out of his mind.
"Welcome, Miss Fenhill. Please, take a seat."
He's poring over his texts again, hunched over the desk, eyes bloodshot and darting, and it smells like Primal ass in here.
"Vicky… where the fuck did you get Giggle Smoke?"
"Once again, Miss Fenhill, it's Vicar, not Vicky."
"Fine, Vicar. Spill. That shit's worth three hundred bits a toke. Also outlawed everywhere but Monarch, and even here you can't hardly find a dealer."
The Vicar smiles lazily, leaning back in his chair. "I have my ways, Doctor."
"Fine, be all cryptic and shit. I'll find out sooner or later."
"Hm. You are good at that. Snooping."
"Isn't that against your religion? Or something?"
"Scientism isn't really a religion, Ellie. It's more of a line of thinking, a way of being."
"Sure. Whatever."
She takes a seat on his bed, swiping some papers and texts onto the floor without a care. "You know, that stuff's pretty bad for you. Coats your lungs in glycerin and ethylene, eventually suffocating you."
"I find it… relaxes me, yet focuses my attention at the same time. Particularly useful when I feel I'm coming close to a breakthrough in my research. But I could say much the same about your black tar cigarettes now, couldn't I?"
"Yeah, but my Stogies are made from tobaccorn – yours are from toxic genetically modified mushflowers on Scylla."
"Oh, so you're here to debate the health effects of a recreational puff of scyllantis trojanis then? Or perhaps the moral debacle presented with genetically modified foodstuffs?"
Ellie bites her lip.
"No. I… wanted to ask you something."
Max's smile widens.
"Well. It must be important if you've come to grace your presence in my humble abode. Go on, then," he says, closing the book in front of him. "I'm all ears."
Ellie's not quite sure what to say to him, now that she's here.
The Vicar must see her dilemma plain as day. He plucks his tightly-wrapped mushflower toke from the ashtray on his desk, smoke still curling in the air.
"Sometimes there's things in life we simply cannot answer," he says, tapping that book he's been researching. "Not right away. So we need a little help along the path. And that's okay."
He hands her the toke.
She smokes it.
It dulls the thoughts plaguing her mind, for a little while. And for a little while, she forgets.
She tells Max all about her parents, about how hollow and cruel they were, like pretty, empty shells up on the shore. She talks about her youth, her university days, how the halls of the medical school bleed red with students clawing like savage animals to the top. She tells him how she hated it all, how she felt like a splinter in the flesh, how she simply knew she didn't belong. She even tells him about the Silvercove, about Caster. About Booker.
And it… feels good, just talking to someone about these things. Feels like maybe she needn't have held onto them for so long. And that maybe it's okay, you know, for someone else to help carry them too. A little. Maybe. Because it's not like he can use these things against her at some point.
But there is, she realises. He could. And yet she understands, at the same moment, that she knows he won't. She knows. She trusts him.
It's a foreign thing. Heavy, but not uncomfortable.
"Max…" she hesitates, blowing out, the toke almost all spent now. "What do you do if there's… something you want, but you can't have it?"
"To what degree?"
"The highest."
"Ah, the ever-present challenge of self-denial – the willingness to forgo personal pleasures, or undergo personal trials, in the pursuit of the good."
"The… good?"
"Yes, of course. The improvement of one's self, or the advancement of society – or science – as a whole."
"The… good…"
Huh.
Ellie's never been good. She's never had any interest in improving herself, of progressing anything other than the girth of her wallet, the ammo in her back pocket, the thrill of the adventure.
"So… what you're saying is… I should fuck him."
"I – what?"
"If denying yourself something you want is purely for the improvement of yourself or society, but you have no interest in either of those, then there's really no good reason why you shouldn't then, right?"
"I – I suppose –"
"And what about self-preservation?"
"Self-preservation? Well, one could assume that the notion is fruitless. The only way forward along the Path, the only way to grow, is to cast aside all reasonable doubts and advance headlong. Your Path is predetermined, after all. You end up exactly where you need to be."
She laughs. "Fuck, Vicky, this whole time I was being prudish as a goddamned nun, for fuck's sake. Self-denial sacrificial bullshit, pursuit of the good my ass –"
"Ellie, what in Creation are you talking about?"
"It's so simple, really. Fuck, preacher, this is some powerful shit you've got," she chuckles, handing him back the toke. "Thanks, Max, really, this has been – enlightening, for sure, but I think that's enough globetrotting for me tonight. I'm gonna go crash."
She leaves, but stops in his doorway.
"And… thanks. For, you know. Listening and stuff."
He smiles, still slightly confused, but conceding to the fact he might never know.
"The door is always open, my friend."
My friend.
She cannot help but smile back.
000
"Organic obstacle is blocking this unit's intended path. Rerouting… unsuccessful. Preparing to remove the obstacle."
"I'll remove that cleaning attachment and shove it up your exhaust pipe, SAM."
"…rerouting successful…"
000
"Hey, Ellie. Ellie. Ellie."
"What?"
"When was it that you realised the Board was crushing the life outta this colony? In school? In Byzantium? Did you see some exec sacrifice a hundred virgins just so he could get his fancy marmalade?"
"Felix – what the fuck are you going on about?"
"The Board! The Machine of Oppression! Ain't that why you became a pirate? 'Cause you wanted to be free and all?"
"I'm just after a paycheck, kid."
"That ain't true. I'll get you to tell me one of these days."
"I have no problem sacrificing just one virgin to the Board if it gets him to fuck the fuck off."
"Ah, classic space pirate Ellie. I'm taking notes on this."
000
Ellie wonders why he hides himself, why he pretends to be Alex Hawthorne when he's not. She wants to know if it's because he's hiding something, or maybe running from someone, or if he's really desperate to be seen. Does he think this isn't real? That he's not a real person?
Ellie's seen the way he stares out into the nothingness of space, knows the look on his face – that he's looking for something out there. For what, she doesn't know. She's not sure he even knows. But she knows the feeling of being lost yet never truly belonging in the first place.
Maybe he prefers to be lost and wandering. Maybe it's easier.
000
Hawthorne does what he said he would do.
He puts Zora in charge of the Iconoclasts and prevents a slaughter.
And not only that, he convinces Sanjar to play nice with them.
There's a huge celebration in Stellar Bay that night, the city opening its gates to the Iconoclasts, the saltuna warehouse closing early, and The Yacht Club serving half-price liquor.
So, naturally, the crew are smashed beyond all sensible parameters.
Ellie is five drinks in when the edges of her vision start to blur. Parvati's gone missing, and so is Max, and Nyoka's trying to push another drink onto the cute girl up at the bar, while Felix goes and vomits in the corner.
Hawthorne sits across the booth from her, and he's smiling. She rather likes his smile. Makes him look more handsome. Better than that stupid scowl he wears.
"I rather like your smile, Cap. Makes you look more handsome. Better than that stupid scowl you wear."
He chuckles. "Well, thanks. I guess. Though I figured you for someone who gets off on scowls. You've got a prize-winning frown, you know."
She punches him. Only in the shoulder, don't worry.
"Looks like Nyoka's gonna have some company tonight," Ellie smirks, glancing over at the hunter, the girl standing very close to her, hand resting lightly on her hip.
"Yeah. Guess so." He sighs, almost wistfully. "Seems like only yesterday we were in this same bar and hired her on – after, you know, we slapped the hangover out of her."
"I don't think you can ever slap the hangover out of that woman."
"Yeah, I think you're right."
Hawthorne takes a long swig of his Zero Gee.
"I was thinking of asking her to stay on a while longer. Giver her her own room on the ship, make her a real part of the crew. What do you think?"
"I think she's already one of us, Cap."
He raises an eyebrow. "One of us?"
Ellie rolls her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I know. You're all a bunch of bad fucking influences. You're stuck with me now."
"Good," he smirks. "Good." His grin turns playful. "But what about you? Anyone catch your eye in here?"
"Hey Cap, this isn't exactly workplace-appropriate conversation. But seeing as this isn't exactly the workplace, I'll indulge you." She pauses, taking a swig of her Iceberg whiskey. "No."
"Oh. Thought Booker might be here or something."
That gives her pause.
Booker. He knows about Booker.
He gave enough of a shit to ask about Booker.
She swirls her Iceberg around, the ice clattering against the sweating glass.
"No. He's gone. Left about a week ago now. Don't know where, he didn't tell me."
"Oh."
"Surprised Catherine's not here. This seems right up her alley."
"Look, it's not like that –"
"Then what's it like?"
"She – that was a… business deal. Look, I don't have to explain anything to you."
"Hey, you started this."
He looks about ready to defend himself, but thinks twice.
"Yeah," he deflates a little. "Yeah, I guess I did. Sorry."
There's an obstinate silence, a refined bitterness hanging in the air, and Ellie washes it away with another long swig of Iceberg.
"I heard he asked you to go with him. I heard you told him no."
Ellie winces at the memory but covers it with the whiskey burn.
"Alright, who spilled?"
"No one."
"Nyoka? Wasn't it?"
"Felix, actually. Didn't take much."
"Figured. Kid's as squishy as a sprat."
"So did you? Almost leave?"
Ellie shrugs. "Might've. What's it matter, I'm here now, ain't I?"
"Why'd you stay?"
"Architect, what is this, twenty questions or something? I'm not a fucking encyclopedia."
He doesn't say anything. He lets her answer in her own time.
"Already got a crew, I guess."
"You hate the crew."
"No I don't. Who said that?"
"You. Literally all the time."
"Yeah, well, I don't mean it. Guess I'm just not used to, you know… feelings and shit. My parents sucked. Never grew up knowing what it was like to have someone – I don't know – care about you. And I sure as fuck didn't care about anyone back then."
"And now?"
"Fuck, what do you want me to say, Hawthorne? That I had everything – everything as a kid, but it wasn't good enough? I was too selfish, I had to fill the hole of my parents not giving a shit with all the money they could throw at me? That I had the best education in Halcyon but I don't know a damn thing about being human? Because I fucking know, alright?"
It wasn't an apology – not really. It wasn't an admittance, either. It was more of an… acceptance. Ellie's not sure she's ever done that before. Simply accepted: who she had been, what she'd done, who she was now. What she might do tomorrow.
"Well," he says. "That was… constructive."
She lets out an airy laugh. "No fucking shit. Look, Hawthorne – and I know you're not really Hawthorne – I don't know what you're up to and I don't know why you're talking with Welles – I don't know where you came from and I have no fucking clue where you're going, but I'll be there on your ship and not Booker's because A: you're paying me way more than he ever could, and B: you're not as annoying as he is. Not by fucking much though."
Ellie works her jaw and runs a hand through her hair. "Shit, I haven't talked this much since my thesis defense. Shut up now, and let's get fucked."
"Fine by me."
So they do.
She's eleven or twelve drinks in now, and the world is going sort of hazy, and Nyoka left with that girl, and Max reappears only to disappear again after stealing a lighter but no smokes, and Felix might actually be dead over in the corner.
They talk about Roseway. They talk about Edgewater. They talk about Nyoka and Parvati and ADA and the Asscrack Expander. They talk about mantisaurs and Sanjar and rifle specs and the nastiest thing Ellie's ever had to patch up and they talk about everything but Hawthorne.
And she can see it in his eyes again, just like back at the prefab – that subtle slide into more, the longer they talk, that deeper gaze he's giving her, the way he's leaning in closer, and he can't hide it. He can hide his name and his story and everything about himself but he can't hide this.
He wants her.
Ellie would be lying if she said she didn't wonder if she's been burrowing into his mind, too, if she's been plaguing his thoughts and dreams. She's curious if he pictures her while he's fucking Catherine Malin – if her hair is too short, her skin too light, her voice just off pitch for him.
She wants to know if he turned down a life with her so he didn't ever lose a chance with his someone else.
Ellie downs the rest of her whiskey and gets up to get another.
"Want anything?" she asks, brushing his hand with her fingertips, lingering there a little longer than necessary.
He falters, and she rather enjoys this dumbstruck Alex, this Alex who doesn't know what to say.
"Uh… sure."
"Whiskey?"
"Please."
She leaves and comes back, sliding in the seat beside him.
"Here."
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it. You know, seems like only yesterday we were in this same bar and Felix thought you were bent."
"Right," he squeaks, then clears his throat. "Right. I think you proved him wrong, didn't you?"
"Yeah, I think I did."
"Well, I recall –"
Already tiring of all the talk, and never one for words, unlike the Captain, Ellie leans in and slides a hand across Hawthorne's thigh, making his breath hitch a little, and she smiles dangerously.
"Look, Alex – we both have problems that banging isn't going to fix, but it's not gonna make it worse, either." Her hand wanders higher and she's whispering in his ear, now. "So here's what I'm thinking: we go back to the ship, fool around a little, and then you can finish the rest of your sentence, alright?"
"But, Ellie, I thought –"
"I know what I said, Cap. I'm a woman. I'm allowed to change my mind."
She downs the rest of her whisky in one gulp, then steals his from between his fingers and downs it, too.
She gets up and leaves, then, leaves the bar and the thronging crowd behind her, totters out into the cool, starry, sulfurous night. She doesn't look behind her to see if Hawthorne is there, to make sure he's following behind.
She's not entirely sure she's thought this through, either. But most of her decisions are like that, she supposes.
It's like what Booker once said to her – everything is disorganized, and random, and everyone is just dust in the wind, floating around without a purpose, without an end or a beginning. And if that's the case, whatever she does won't truly matter in the end. Not to the Path, not to the Grand Scheme of All Things, not to the Architect. Only to her.
And maybe that's enough.
There aren't any guards at the landing pad, and hardly no one in the streets, and ADA opens the Unreliable's hatch for her.
"Welcome aboard, Doctor Fenhill," she says.
And then, only a moment later:
"Welcome aboard, Captain."
She smiles.
Hawthorne growls and swings her around, pinning her against the locker bay walls. His hands are needy and his mouth is roaming over her lips, her neck, her jaw, his body pressed against hers, flush with hers, barely an inch of him not touching her. He tastes like Iceberg and smokes, smells like leather and sweat, and his movements are slow, dulled by drink, yet sharpened by need, by knowing what to do. It's an intoxicating blend and she sucks it all in. Ellie runs her fingers through his unruly hair and gasps when he thrusts against her, wild and destitute, and she can already feel him through his jeans, hard against her pelvis.
"Fuck, Els," he rumbles – and there it is again, there's his nickname for her, the one he keeps only for her – "you don't know how long I – fuck."
"I'm about to find out, I reckon."
He laughs, an airy, breathy thing, his hands roaming across her skin, cool and burning all at once.
She slips a hand between their bodies and fumbles with his belt, palms him through his jeans, and he growls like a feral animal. In turn, he paws at her breasts, his thumb brushing against them, and she growls back. There's a wild look in his eye, and probably in hers, too, and for a fleeting moment she thinks she might perhaps be seeing a glimpse into the Before-Hawthorne, the man he used to be.
They make their way up the stairs to his room, hands and mouth roaming sloppy and drunk, and ADA slides that door open for them without a word.
It's big in here, and tidy and lonely, almost, and Ellie realises then that she's never actually been in his room before.
She undresses hastily, tossing her boots and slacks aside, throwing her leather jacket across the desk, her shoulder patch just barely visible in the dark: harder than Chaw and colder than space.
She smirks at that.
He's already undressed before her, broad-chested and skin riddled with scars both new and old, and he's – definitely ready.
In a rare moment of contemplation, he reaches out and brushes his fingers against her stomach softly. "Jesus, Els, you're – beautiful," he breathes, hands roaming lower, making her throw her head back and moan shamelessly. "Are you sure you want –?"
"Shut up," she hisses, swallowing his words with an impoverished kiss. "Just, for once in your fucking life – shut up."
He smirks. "Yes, ma'am."
He takes her, and she takes him, violently and softly all at once, and she knows the other crewmembers can hear behind the thin prefab walls but she doesn't care. She fucking relishes the sounds she can coax from him, and she unabashedly shows him hers, too. It's sloppy and sluggish and loud and needy, and everything she needs right now.
Everything she wants right now.
And it doesn't feel wrong, so it can't be.
And, true to his word, he doesn't say a thing until they're done, until he's spent and collapses beside her on his too-small bed, tangled in sheets and covered in sex and sweat.
"Fuck. Fuck," he pants. "Fuck. Did we just fuck?"
"You're fucking right we fucked, Cap."
"Fuck. Was that a mistake?"
"Fuck. Probably."
"Fuck."
She gets up to leave.
"Hey – where you going?"
"Back to my room," she says, grabbing his towel and cleaning herself off.
"Oh."
"Look – that was fun, Alex, and fuck, I needed that – but this doesn't have to mean anything."
"Right."
She shrugs into her clothing and pauses in the doorway. "Just – let me know if you want this to be a one-time thing. Or not. Preferably not."
He smiles, hair ruffled and skin glistening in sweat and half-naked under the sheets, and her heart leaps in her throat: she's not sure if he's ever looked quite so handsome as he does right now.
"Definitely not," he says.
Ellie grins.