A/N: yall i went to the Royal BC Museum with my friends (following all covid rules n stuff, dont worry) and it was so fun omg. they have an orca exhibit right now and there's a little main street set in, like, gold rush times that you can walk through and it's so cool. we all wore our cutest fits and took too many pictures :)

Kaz sat at his desk, trying to catch up on the work he had been neglecting over the past few days. Inej was leaving in the morning, headed back out to sea after three days in Ketterdam. He couldn't help but dread the ticking of the clock as it counted down the time he had left with her. Inej was currently stocking up her ship with supplies for the next two months and rounding up the members of her crew who had lost themselves in the lucrative gambling dens of the Barrel.

He shuffled papers around on his desk, trying to find something that would hold his interest for more than a few seconds. Try as he might, Kaz's mind was elsewhere and he set his pen down with a huff of frustration.

He could tell she was there before she spoke.

"The ship's ready," Inej said by way of greeting as she slipped in through the window.

Kaz nodded, glancing up at her, before looking back down at the heap of papers in front of him. He watched her out of the corner of his eye as she crossed the room and tugged off her tunic, wet from the persistent rains of Ketterdam. She glanced over at him as she pulled one of his shirts from the closet and shrugged it on over her shoulders. He looked away, feeling embarrassed to be caught staring.

Inej buttoned the shirt up halfway over her close fitting tank top and slipped off her rubber soled shoes before sliding a book from Kaz's shelf and settling onto the windowsill to read. Kaz thumbed through the reports stacked on his desk, blindly sorting them into piles and trying very, very hard not to stare at Inej.

He forced himself to focus, tearing his attention away from her. Still, a mixture of anxiety and excitement bubbled in his stomach. This was her last night before she left again. What if she was expecting something more than the very limited contact he had managed over the past few days? As much as Kaz wanted to touch her, to hold her, he was equally repulsed by the thought of being that close to anyone, even if it was Inej. He trained his eyes on the report in front of him and demanded his brain to cooperate and push thoughts of Inej aside.

By the time Kaz had struggled through his pile of papers, Inej was halfway through her book and the rainy sky outside had grown even more dark as night fell. She set down the book as Kaz stood, turning her head to watch him. Kaz crossed the room to her, his cane tapping against the wooden floor.

"I almost wish I didn't have to leave," Inej said as Kaz leaned against the back of the armchair, facing her.

"Who would terrorize the slavers without you patrolling the sea, Wraith?" he said.

Inej found his eyes in the dimness of the dark room. "I'll miss you," she said quietly,

"I wish," Kaz stopped himself, before starting again. "I wish-"

"What do you wish for, Kaz?" Inej asked as he stopped again.

"I wish you wouldn't say things like that," he ground out. Stupid, stupid stupid, he thought to himself. Why on earth had he said that, of all things?

The glimmer of sincerity in Inej's eyes vanished and she turned away from him, reaching to open the window. "I think I'll go to Wylan's then."

"Inej," he was beside her in a flash, a gloved hand on hers, not stopping her from opening the window, but pausing her exit. "I wish you wouldn't say things like that because you make me hope. You make me think that the world is filled with possibility and kindness and all the good promised in your Suli proverbs. And it's not. Even when you're gone, I can hear your voice in my head and it fills my mind with the luxury of integrity that I cannot afford."

"Kaz," Inej said. She dropped her hand from the window, but kept her grip on his gloved fingers. "Why is that bad? Why is it bad to hope?"

"How can I expect the worst when the best thing to ever happen to me is sitting right in front of me?" Kaz said, the words leaping from his mouth before he could force them back down his throat. "You make me into a person. People get hurt, and monsters don't. Ketterdam is a game and hope is the worst card in the deck."

"Then leave the table," Inej said.

"It's not that easy," Kaz said. "There's too much for me here. Too much left to do."

"What is there left for you to do, Kaz?" Inej demanded. "Why are you trapping yourself here? You have your fortune, you have your reputation, just leave."

"You think I can walk away without repaying the people who have hurt me? The people who have hurt you?" He stepped close to her. "I can't leave until they've met their justice, and it sure as hell isn't going to come from Ghezen's law, or your Saints or whatever other kind of karmic force some fool has dreamed up. It's going to come from me, and I won't stop until my legacy is the rubble of the empires of the people who have hurt you."

He stood so close to her now that he could feel the warmth of her skin, both startling and welcome against the chill of the rainy night. When she let out a heavy exhale, he could feel her breath on his skin.

"My revenge is my own, Kaz," Inej said. "And justice is a long game to play, but I'll play until the deck runs out with you."

He looked down at her, her face tilted up towards his. He moved an inch closer, then two.

Inej nodded slightly, still looking into his eyes.

Swallowing his fear, Kaz shifted so he stood in front of where she sat on the windowsill, his hands braced on the frame on either side of her legs. He hesitated, before leaning in.

His lips brushed her cheek and the bit of wind slipping in from the gaps in the window frame brushed a sheath of her hair against his face, enveloping him in the jasmine scent of her. He could feel her unsteady exhale on his neck as his hands came up to her waist. Kaz breathed deeply through his nose, his shaking lips still pressed against Inej's cheek as he struggled to determine whether the pounding of his heart was from fear or from being this close to her.

"Kaz," Inej said.

He pulled away, stumbling backwards into the armchair, his breathing heavy and anomalus. A wave of nausea swept over him and he bent over, sinking deeper into the chair with his elbows braced against his knees. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay he told himself, the frantic thoughts matching the racing of his heart.

Kaz looked up to see Inej with her eyes closed, pressed back against the pane of glass, her lips moving in what might have been a silent prayer. He pushed himself to his feet and her eyes flashed open. He saw a flicker of fear cross her face, quickly replaced by determination.

"Inej," he said shakily, stepping a bit farther away from her, trying to give her space to recover. "What do you need?"

Her chest still shuddering with unsteady breaths, she slid down from the ledge. She didn't say anything as she drew closer to him, before collapsing against his chest, her arms winding around his middle. It wasn't the skin on skin contact that Kaz had come to dread and he found his own arms coming up to cradle her slight body as she trembled against his chest.

"I'm sorry," she whispered into his shirt.

"You never have to apologize to me, Inej," he told her. "Ghezen knows I never apologize to you."

She let out a small laugh, still pressed against him.

"Do you want to go to bed?" he said into her hair.

Kaz felt her nod against his chest in response and walked her over to the mound of blankets piled onto his mattress - he had scrounged up every one he could find after seeing her shiver on the first night she had spent in his room. Inej slid gratefully beneath them.

Kaz turned away from her, and closed his eyes against the rising tide of both panic and anger. He was still terrified to be that close to her, scared that at any moment, he would be back in the harbor, back under the water. It scared him to let Inej, or anyone for that matter, see him so vulnerable. But she was his Wraith, his collector of secrets. At least he knew that she would never tell anyone about his weaknesses. The anger came at the result of seeing her so scared. While it was comforting, in some twisted way, to know that she could barely handle any more contact than he could, seeing Inej, usually so brave and determined, paralyzed with fear made him more angry than he could have expressed to her. What Kaz wanted, more than anything, more than being able to be with her, to touch her, was to hurt the people who had done this to her.

But his little Suli idealist would have nothing of his vengeance. She was far too self-righteous to permit senseless massacre in the name of her own justice.

Kaz changed quickly, but decided against washing his face, afraid of what memories the water would bring back. He peeled off his gloves and laid them down on his desk as he passed it. He limped back across the room to Inej. He had barely felt the persistent pain in his leg these past few days, but it was beginning to get bad again. Like his body could sense that Inej was leaving.

Inej had taken the side of the bed closest to the window, so he settled into the side closer to the door. He couldn't tell if she had done it subconsciously, or if she had intentionally positioned them closer to their escape routes of choice.

Just as she had the last few nights, after a minute or two, Inej moved her hand, palm up, waiting for whatever small amount of contact Kaz was willing to offer. He took a deep breath before moving his hand to meet hers.

Kaz had found, in the past few days, that focusing on the warmth of her body, whether it was her hand or just the heat radiating from her skin, as well as the rhythm of her breathing helped to keep him from slipping back into his memories. He listened to the rise and fall of her breath now, as he moved his hand farther, interlocking their fingers. Their palms were little more than a hair's breadth apart, closer than they had managed in the time Inej had been back. Kaz's heart pounded against his rib cage, but he forced himself to remain in the bed, to keep holding onto Inej's hand.

"Inej," he whispered after a moment, "I'll miss you, too."

Though he couldn't see in the darkness, Inej was smiling.

She left before he woke in the morning, taking with her both Kaz's favourite shirt and, his heart.