Chapter 21

The next day, as Nik made her way to the galley, she could hear yelling from inside. Turning the corner, she saw Naomi standing in the door watching whatever was going on inside. She heard Holden yelling at someone.

"…reckless. You put all of us in danger, damnit! Don't you ever stop to think before you do shit like that?"

"What's going on?" Nik stepped up to Naomi to look past her. The only person in the galley besides Holden was Amos. While the captain was pacing furiously and waving his arms around while he yelled, Amos sat calmly at the table just watching him. At her voice, both turned towards the door.

"You!" Holden pointed, walking towards the door. "Did you know about this?"

As he approached, Amos stood up.

"Sit the fuck down, Amos," Holden ordered.

Naomi moved to block Nic completely, "Jim, you need to calm down."

"Calm down?" He pointed to Amos, "he spaced someone on MY ship! Don't tell me to calm down."

"You're going to scare her, yelling like that," she told him in a reasonable voice.

"No, he's not," Nik pushed between the woman and the door frame to enter the room. She strode up to Holden and looked up at him, "you have something you want to ask me?"

"Did you know?"

"That he spaced someone? Why would I know? I just found out. In fact, with the way you're yelling, the entire damn system just found out."

He started to reply, but a soft "Jim" from Naomi stopped him and he spun away, running a hand through his already tousled hair.

"Will someone tell me what's going on?" she asked.

Holden motioned towards Amos, who had sat back down when Holden turned away, "why don't you ask him. Maybe you'll get a better answer than me."

Nik looked at Amos, who was still standing despite his captain's order to sit, "what happened?"

He waited three breaths before answering.

"Lebron came after you yesterday, didn't he?"

That was the last thing she expected to hear.

"Yes, but I took care of it, that's why I didn't say anything."

"Lebron didn't consider it taken care of."

"Then I would have dealt with it, again," she stepped up to him. "I'm not some helpless kid that needs to be looked after constantly. I've been taking care of myself for almost twenty years now without your interference. You need to quit trying to be my savior. I don't need you!"

The last she yelled as she shoved hard on his chest, but she might as well have been shoving a bulkhead as he looked down at her with that slightly bemused expression she hated.

"Damnit! Nakangepensa!" she spat at him, then she spun and pushed past Naomi a second time. She didn't stop until she reached her room and was curled up into a ball in her wardrobe. She didn't know why the tears started but did nothing to stop them and cried herself into a fitful sleep.

Her headache was back with a vengeance. Laying completely still didn't seem to help, either. Her shoulders and neck tensed up against the pain, making it worse. After forcing her muscles to relax for the fourth time, she gave up and pushed the wardrobe door open. Her eyes, used to the complete dark of her nest, blinked against the dim light in the room.

Leaving her room, she made her way to the galley, but the belters were all crammed in the small space talking and laughing as they ate. The thought of food made her stomach roll and the noise made her wince, so she continued past with a short wave in response to their greetings.

Alex was up in the bridge listening to vintage country-western music. That was a big nope. No way she was going to subject herself to that, even if she was curious about piloting the ship.

The maintenance shop was definitely a no-go, also. Amos was assuredly in there if he was anywhere on the ship other than his room and she had no desire or energy to get into it with him again.

During the last few days on the Roci, Nik had realized why he unnerved her so much. She couldn't read him. At all. For someone whose survival over the last two decades had hinged on being able to read people - to tell if they were friend or foe, if they wanted something from her or not, if they intended harm or were benign - this was very disconcerting. Nothing in his mannerisms or his expression gave away his thoughts.

Damnit all! She had just started to, well, not really like him, but dislike him less maybe. He was quiet, undemanding, and easy to be around when he wasn't staring at her like a puzzle to be figured out. And he had saved her at least twice, she grudgingly admitted. Even without being able to read him like the others, she couldn't find any reason to continue to distrust him. Then he had to go and do something stupid.

Without thinking she found herself outside the cargo bay. Looking through the thick poly-glass window in the door, she could see that it was dimly lit, so there probably wasn't anyone in there working. The door opened with a soft whoosh and she floated in. Not only was it dark, but it was also cooler than the rest of the ship. And quiet. With just the hum of the ship's ventilation system, she could hear her own breathing. Closing her eyes, she allowed herself to drift and relax.

You would think that being in zero gravity, you could just float motionlessly in midair, but you'd be wrong. Newton's third law was amplified when gravity and friction were taken out of the equation. Every breath taken pulled in air, pulling, while your chest expanded, pushing away; not quite cancelling each other out. Breathing out was like using a thruster, pushing you away from the direction of the exhalation. Even factoring out the act of breathing, your body is never really completely still. There are micro movements happening all the time that you aren't even aware of. Muscles making tiny adjustments to maintain balance and position.

If Nik had ever floated in a pool or any body of water, she most likely would have compared floating in space to that. In order to maintain a neutral position, she had to constantly make small movements with her hands and feet. Still it was relaxing, she thought as she allowed some of the tension she had been carrying to seep out of her body while she floated serenely in the center of the bay.

"It's not safe to do that," Amos' voice startled her.

She twisted, sending her body into a spin that she was only able to stop by grabbing the rail of the mezzanine around the upper level of the bay. Turning to face the source of some of her stress, she frowned at him from across the bay.

"It's not safe to sneak up on people, either."

"If Alex was to maneuver the ship, you'd have a bad fall," he continued, ignoring her comment. "That's why we stay close to walls and hand-holds when we're on the float."

She hadn't thought about that. "I'll keep that in mind."

She waited for Amos to either say something or to leave, but he did neither, letting the silence stretch out between them. For the first time, she could see that he was struggling with something. Used to working with angry or traumatized children, realization dawned. Shit, she had been expecting him to act like a typical adult. What if he wasn't a typical adult? She had already likened him to the mentally sick boy they had spaced years ago, now she took it a step further. She knew some of the children she had encountered over the years had never truly recovered from what happened to them; some never made it to adulthood, others had become bullies and, later, thugs. Most had disappeared and she never saw them again. Was Amos one of the possible outcomes?

Right now, Nik used the same strategy she did with them in this kind of situation; she remained silent and gave him the time he needed to work his way through whatever was going on in his head.

"I know you're not a kid," he broke the silence between them with the simple statement.

"Men like Lebron prey on the weak." He held up his hand to forestall her response. "I know, you're not weak, but most people can't tell that by looking at you. People like him just don't stop, though. Once you hurt him, he wasn't going to stop until he hurt you back worse."

He was right, she knew. She had run into many people like Lebron on the Tycho.

"And if he didn't hurt you, he would go on to hurt others. Others that might not be able to take care of themselves like you, or who don't have someone to take care of them."

Nik thought of Mouse at the mercy of such a man and swallowed down the panic at that idea.

"He won't get a chance to hurt anyone else now," he shrugged.

Nik pushed away from the wall and glided across the space that divided them, grabbing the rail a meter away from him and pulling herself up and over before engaging her boots to stand beside him.

"He deserved it, I'm not angry about that," she told him in a soft voice. "It's the fact that you put all of your crew, your family, at risk doing it to protect me. There were smarter ways to get rid of him. If there wasn't anyone else on board, we might have been able to cover it up, but now…?" she paused. "Now, we are going to have to deal with the Martians over it. You see that, right?"

Amos blew out a breath and leaned against the rail, staring at the far side of the bay. "Yeah, I usually fuck up when I make decisions on my own."

She snorted a laugh, "don't we all?"

He didn't laugh in return.

She stepped up to his side and leaned on the rail, mimicking his stance.

"I had to space a kid once," she said quietly, not looking at him. Quickly, she told him the story.

"I was the oldest, so I pushed the button. He was screaming at me the whole time about the horrible things that he would do to me if he got out. It was still hard," she sniffled and swiped at a tear that threatened to fall. "I don't think I would have been able to do it if he had been begging for his life, though. And I still wonder sometimes if I did the right thing. I mean, he was just a kid. The same age as Hopper and Lucky. What if he could have been saved?"

"Nah," Amos pushed himself up from the rail to look down at her, "it was too late for that kid. Once someone gets to that point, there's no saving them."

"You can't know that for sure."

"Yes. Yes, I do."

With that, he turned and strode out of the bay, leaving a baffled Nik behind.