"You smell different." He wrinkles his brow, shifting slightly, as he leans onto my lab bench.
"I do?" Why does his statement feel so intimate? He knows my scent? But of course he does. I know his. Intimately. I've caught whiffs of it in so many places and in so many ways over the years.
When a fresh breeze blows past as we exit a wormhole on some new unexplored planet and I'm filled with excitement, but also that nagging bit of worry that today is the day our luck finally runs out. I can smell them all, all my boys. But his smell, his is the strongest as I breathe in the knowledge that we're as safe as we can possibly be with him at the helm.
When I'm hurt or exhausted and I'd never admit it or ask but he just knows and, without judgment, offers me the comfort of his arms. And when I rest my head on his shoulder, his scent is deeper and more pungent, betraying his bravado and revealing that he, too, had been terrified by another close call.
When he's sitting beside me, smiling, as I wake up in the infirmary and he smells pure and clean from the shower I know he took only after being assured and then reassured that I'd again pull through and be just fine.
When we're all alive and healthy and here, on planet earth, enjoying a quiet Sunday in his yard and I briefly lose him, surrounded by the smells of freshly cut grass, beer, and charred meat. But then he leans over, reaching for something, and his neck is exposed mere inches in front of me and I find him again. I smile and he sees it and grins at me in that... way.
And suddenly I feel like I've betrayed him. Like the innocent act of switching my shampoo has robbed him of his own sense of comfort. Or like there's something about honey and vanilla that hits him the wrong way and I should have known that.
"I changed my shampoo."
"It's nice," he says, leaning in towards me and sniffing as I hold my breath. But he's lower than where he should be and then I know. He's not put off. He's just learning. Finding me again beneath the unfamiliar. Because he needs to. He needs to be able to find me at all times, as I do him.
He backs away and smiles warmly at me having found, I assume, what he was looking for.
"I'll let you get some work done." He starts to leave but turns back before reaching the door. "Lunch, Carter? Thirteen hundred?"
I nod.
"Excellent," he says, "smell ya later!"
Shaking my head and only rolling my eyes slightly, I can't help but smile as I sit, content in the lingering aroma of safety, respect, and unwavering devotion.