She sat with a group of Petty Officers in the mess. They were young, most of them serving their first posts, or so Fred had gathered from some discreet eavesdropping. A mixture of males and females. The blond she sat beside every day, he was the one she had borrowed the deck of playing cards from. Why this mattered, why any of it mattered, he didn't know. But he could nevertheless not help but covertly watch her from the table he shared with his teammates every mealtime which happened to coincide with hers. Four so far, since that night they'd sat on her bunk and played cards. He ate, listened to Kelly draw as much conversation from John or Linda as either was wont to participate in, and did his best not to obviously ignore them. It wasn't working. He was the one who generally kept up the other end of the discussion, and in the absence of his contributions, things were stilted. But other than a few passing quips from Kelly, no one was questioning him outright. Three things Fred had come to realize; John was uncomfortable with broaching the subject, Linda was studiously avoiding being drawn into any stance on it, and Kelly was doing her best to keep things normal. Keep the routine they all thrived within. Whether any of them were yet aware of the cause of his behaviour, he didn't know. John had to suspect something since that day he'd found Khae waiting outside their quarters, but he'd yet to bring it up. Social interactions were not John's strong suit. When John did question him, he expected it would be in relation to his lagging performance stats and not the strange female loitering by their cabins. Not at first, anyway.

She had said not to return unless he wanted to. He wanted to, and that was precisely the problem. How badly he wanted to disturbed him. The burning curiosity to learn what it was she had meant when she'd requested to be allowed to love him consumed him. Was it wrong to want to understand a word which so completely eluded him? He knew the premise, the definition. But that felt… different than understanding it, than experiencing it. He cared for his teammates as though they were an extension of his own being, they were fixtures in his life as indistinguishable from himself as his own arm or lung. Contemplating life without one of them was about as close as Fred had ever come to mentally crumbling, and so he stubbornly refused to do so. Blue team was whole and would remain that way. But that wasn't the same as what Khae had referred to, he comprehended that much. The love to which she eluded was a different thing, one he hadn't even discerned he had any interest in before now, nevermind acknowledged.

At the other table, everyone began to laugh. There was some jostling of shoulders, an action Fred judged to be nothing more than good natured ribbing between the soldiers. At the end, next to the blond, Khae was smiling with her lips, but not her eyes. They darted in his direction and the curve left her mouth. It was the briefest of moments, but he sensed despite the appearance of enjoying her companions, she was not happy. Was he the reason? Was it her overall circumstances? She took her tray, food half eaten, and carried it to the disposal chute, then left. The Petty Officers continued their conversation. The blond stood suddenly and left his tray where it was, proceeding in the direction Khae had gone. Fred's stomach churned. He stared down at his meal, nearly finished. John, Kelly, and Linda were done. They, too, would depart shortly. Indecision soured the food which now weighed heavily in his gut. He got up.

"Forgot something in my cabin," he offered lamely when Linda's sharp gaze shot to this abnormal departure from their usual habits. He didn't give them an opportunity to say anything, simply brought his tray to one of the chutes and dumped the contents, set it in the rack with a clatter, and left through a different exit than the one Khae had used. He went to the lifts, optimistically concluding she would return to her cabin - and having no other recourse. When he emerged on the appropriate deck, he could hear them in the corridor ahead.

"...still an open offer, y'know. Must get pretty boring for you around here."

"I wasn't really expecting entertainment along with being fed and clothed."

More laughter. "What can I say, the UNSC aims to please. Sometimes." He rounded a corner and spotted them ahead, walking towards her door at a leisurely pace. The blond strode at her side at a respectable distance. "Come on, it's just a few games of cards. You do owe me for borrowing them, right?" The blond turned his head towards her, and Fred's jaw tightened at the grin he wore.

"I do?" Khae didn't sound amused by the gentle pressure.

"Sure." The blond shrugged. "I mean, I'm a nice guy and all, but humouring is the least you can do. Lee and Hempstead will be there, it's not like you'll be the only female. We have a laugh, it passes a couple hours. Harmless fun. We can usually filch a few snacks from mess and Kaworski smuggled some booze aboard, enough for a drink or two left I bet."

They'd reached her quarters and paused. Fred continued towards them as Khae lingered by the panel but failed to use it to open her door. Because she was considering this offer, or because she didn't want to risk the blond inviting himself in? It was evident she was trying to decide how to respond. Then she saw him - he was hard to miss, even out of his MJOLNIR, and was frankly unimpressed it was her and not the Petty Officer to notice.

The blond turned belatedly and raised a brow, but then looked back to Khae, probably assuming he would bypass them on his way to wherever he was going.

Khae didn't share this assumption. She watched him approach, her back to her door now while the blond continued to await her answer. "I don't know. I think I have plans, actually," she dared to venture, eyes never leaving Fred.

He stopped when he reached them, which caused the Petty Officer to look his way again, this time with some disgruntlement though he kept his mouth wisely shut when he noted he was outranked. Barely. They regarded each other silently, Fred's head tilted down and the blond's up. Despite interrupting, he had no notion what he meant to say, a fact which seemed ill planned in hindsight. In his peripherals, he thought he read amusement in Khae's carefully composed expression.

The Petty Officer eventually gave in. "Well, if you change your mind…" Without finishing the sentence, he about faced and stalked back the way they'd come.

Fred tracked him until he rounded the bend, then shifted his attention to the slight black-haired woman standing before him. Her arched brows lifted slowly as the silence stretched on between them. He swallowed. "What time should I come back?"

"When you're ready," she offered unhelpfully, though she had appeared to relax her stance somewhat after the question.

He considered this. "I'll be available by 2000." Despite only requiring four or five hours of sleep, his responsibilities were usually fulfilled by then.

She nodded. The high ponytail she had gathered her hair into bobbed perkily. He wanted to pull it down and press his face into the cool dark strands. Even at this proximity, her scent invaded his awareness, making the need to get closer almost a physical force. "Fred," she breathed on a sigh. "You've got to stop looking at me that way."

"I don't think I can." He didn't understand how he was meant to look at her, and he wasn't convinced he could do it even if he did understand. "Do you not like it?" She hadn't worded it in such a way as to suggest as such, but this was the second time she'd brought it up. He didn't want to make her uncomfortable.

Her expression softened. "No… I think I could get used to it, that's the problem." When she saw this only puzzled him further, she reached out to curl her fingers around his wrist. "I'll see you later." She squeezed his arm, made as though to release it, then seemed to think better and tugged on him instead.

Fred leaned towards her, obliging the persistent pressure she was applying, and felt her warm lips against his cheek. He closed his eyes for a moment, then straightened up when she backed away again. Without another word, she turned and disappeared inside her cabin.

There were no cards when he returned at 2013 hours. She greeted him, fully clothed, and they situated themselves once more on the bunk.

She told him about Harvest, about her siblings, about her parents. About life in Gladsheim. About the vineyards, the orchards, the sweet smells of ripe fruit during the harvest season, the blossoming foliage and pungent earth scents in the sowing season. The masses of starlings circling the skies like a vast and writhing natural kaleidoscope as the setting sun reflected off their wings. The small bat her twin sisters had rehabbed when it had fallen from its roost in the rafters of their father's repair shop and how they'd sneaked it into their room despite their mother's protests and enlisted her to gather crickets and other insects to feed it, much to their little brother's delight. The machinery oil forever beneath her father's fingernails and the scolding her mother forever levelled onto him for soiling whatever he touched with it. The birthday they'd finally given her the kitten she'd been pestering them for for years on end, and the few short weeks later when it had run away, never to be seen again. The frog her brother had presented her with to replace it. The laughter.

Fred had sat, enraptured by her humble retelling of a childhood he'd never had the opportunity to experience. And he ached inside. Not for himself, because he still had John, Linda, and Kelly. She'd lost everything. But she didn't speak about the attack or their escape, instead focusing on the pleasant portions of her memories, and he sensed despite her tears on the cruiser, that she had come to terms with what had happened. There was a quiet strength in her, he was coming to appreciate. It wasn't the sort of resolve he possessed to persevere in the face of any and all odds, but the resolve not to live in fear in spite of her circumstances and her past. She was afraid to die, but then so were most when it came down to it. He did not fault her for that most basic of instincts for self preservation. He listened to her, watched the emotions play across her features, and said very little in exchange. Nor did she expect it of him.

When her stories petered off to a natural conclusion, it was a comfortable quiet which followed. He had come to rest with his back against the wall the bunk was affixed to, she facing him with her shoulder against the same wall. With a small yawn, she laid back onto the pillow instead.

"Will you stay with me for a little while?"

He checked the time on the panel by the door, taken aback by the hours which had passed. Still only 2438. He still had time. "I can stay."

She rolled to her side and scooted back tighter to the wall, patting the mattress in invitation.

Fred shifted to join her, stretching out as best he could on the not quite Spartan-sized bed, his careful positioning drawing a laugh from her.

"I'm guessing not fitting in or on things gets old."

"Used to it," he responded with a noncommittal lift of his shoulders, which took up nearly the entire breadth of the bunk. He angled himself on his side so she wasn't as crammed into the wall.

"It would annoy me." With his back turned to the small lamp on the desk she'd left on, blocking the light, her body was thrown into shadow. Her fingers slid over the blanket and up his chest slowly. "You obviously have more patience."

He nearly shrugged again, but thought better of it. He'd contributed basically nothing to the conversation up until now. "I've been this way for a long time. It's not patience. It did take getting used to. But that happened a while ago." It was divulging more than he normally did to anyone outside the program, but it still didn't offer any details. He felt it was safe.

Her eyes flickered across his face and down over his form before returning to meet his again. "I'm not going to ask you about it. I think you're worried about that, but you don't have to be." Her hand was moving across his collarbone, index finger tracing the ceramic carbide grafting.

Tension he hadn't even been aware had entered his body melted away at that simple reassurance. She had shared so much of herself, and he wasn't capable of reciprocating. Even if he'd been comfortable about her not having brought it up thus far, to hear her voice that she had no intentions of doing so was still immensely relieving.

"You've never asked me about things I can't talk about," she went on, and he deduced her more recent history was what she was referring to. Her fingertips skimmed his mouth and his heart thudded heavily behind his ribs in response to the light touch. "It's impossible to not touch you, you know."

"You didn't touch me last time I was here," he somehow managed to logically reason even while blood was deserting his brain and rushing to much lower regions.

Her lips curved. "That was hard."

So was he now. Painfully so. He cleared his throat, which seemed to have tightened, but wasn't sure what to say. She hadn't exactly indicated she wanted anything more from him physically, even if she couldn't keep her fingers to herself. He focused on taking even breaths. He wasn't going to hurt her. "I think I should go." Best not to test things.

Her soft perusal halted, fingers poised on his jaw. "Why?" She sounded caught off guard.

"I can't… I don't think I can do this. I don't want to hurt you again." He knew colour was suffusing his face, he could feel his skin burning. He would have sat up and gotten off the bed and put some distance between them if not for her hand on his cheek. It slid around to the back of his neck, as though sensing his intention.

"Fred, don't. That was… as much my fault as yours. I can't explain, I'm sorry," she said, brows drawn down remorsefully. "But please don't go. You're not going to hurt me. I'll make you stop if you do."

He almost snorted at those assurances. "You wouldn't be able to make me stop," he pointed out, distressed at just the idea of placing the responsibility on her. Not only would she never overpower him, it would be too late once he'd already hurt her even if she could.

"You'll stop if I tell you to. You already did." Her grip on the back of his head was not something he would struggle to disengage from, but still he found himself arrested by it, and by the conviction of her assertions. "Stay. Stay with me. You won't hurt me."

"I already did." He wanted to believe her, to believe in his own self-control the way she seemed to, but he'd already proven himself incapable of reining in his baser instincts.

"You didn't hurt me, I wanted it rough - I wanted it that way, I shouldn't have…" Her fingernails dug into his scalp as she fought to maintain eye contact. "...made you do that, it was wrong of me. I'm not normal. I told you, you shouldn't look at me like I'm more than a whore, I'm not. I'm broken and what happened, it was on me. It isn't you. I just wanted-"

"No," he cut her off, as much to his own dismay as hers. He wasn't in the habit of interrupting people, but neither could he allow her to take the blame for what had happened. He might not understand what it was she was attempting to impart, but he knew he'd been in the wrong. She might have wanted him to be rough, but he hadn't intended that - he'd done it out of frustration and had failed to keep himself in check, which someone of his physical capabilities could never do. He might have done much, much worse to her, might have sent her to the infirmary. "I did hurt you. I saw you move afterwards. I hurt you. No excuses. And I can't do that again." He watched as she squeezed her eyes shut.

"We keep messing this up."

"Yes." He hesitated, knowing the noble and sensible thing to do would be to reason that further contact of this nature was likely to garner the same outcome. He had no clue what he was doing, had never before entered into a relationship of this nature. But he knew this wasn't the right way to go about it. Before he could muster up the will to do it, however, she shifted forward and pushed her face into the crook of his neck. Her hand fell lower against his back to clutch herself to him.

"Please… please stay," she mumbled into his shirt. "We can just lay here."

Fred assessed the situation. He wasn't in a state of arousal any longer. He didn't know what he was. Not calm, but not mindless with lust either. If all they did was lay still, he felt he could maintain his equanimity. Even if he knew that wasn't what he should do. "I can stay," he repeated his earlier answer, wondering if he was going to come to regret it.