Rocks and Shoals
Part Two: To the Seabed
Chapter Six: Ceasefire
"Was it so wrong to want out? Was it so wrong to admit to it? Was it so wrong, not wanting to be alone anymore? They had gotten so good at lying." - In a post-war galaxy, Kolyat and Oriana found each other when they went looking for themselves.
"In the name of all that is holy, why is it always so heinously hot?" Oriana ended her rhetorical question on a groan, throwing her head back while she continued to slump along. She held her arms out as though something were actually dripping from the limbs – quite possibly her own melting flesh.
It wasn't like it was an altogether new experience. Every time they travelled to one of the processing centers they had to make their way through the many refugee camps littering the wards of the decimated Citadel - refugee camps that were grossly over-populated and thus, essentially living furnaces. While the initial concerns about housing and feeding the refugees after the Reaper War were immediately addressed, there was never going to be an overnight fix. Don't even ask about the mission of getting basic plumbing transferred to all the business and market plazas where the majority of refugee camps were set up. And really, Oriana had to thank Bailey for at least making that a priority. The cooling and heating systems were impossible to nail down as of yet. Too much power being drawn where it was needed elsewhere. The hospitals, feeding stations, C-Sec precincts, docking stations for incoming ships – these all took precedence. So Oriana found herself making the trek to the nearest processing station to C-Sec's Precinct 12, ready to test the new software her Safe Homes team back on Earth had put together to help the efforts of C-Sec's Victim's Tracing Department, all while wearing another skin made entirely of her own sweat.
It was disgusting, really.
She gave another groan, dropping her hands back to her sides in a huff.
Think of the families, Oriana, she told herself. Yes, this was all for them. All for reuniting the war-torn families.
Even if it meant losing a few pounds of salt a day.
"We can never have a quiet trip there, can we?" Kolyat said beside her, hands stuffed in his pants pockets, a resigned sigh falling from his lips.
Oriana suddenly remembered the terror at her side.
Kolyat continued beside her as they walked through the camp's main alleyway, lined on either side by a hodge-podge of residences that were equal parts scrap metal found in the aftermath of the Reaper attack and bits of what pre-fab and modular buildings C-Sec was able to provide. Stale panels of light that sometimes flickered and sometimes didn't cast a dim shadow over the sea of shanties. Each 'home', if you could call it that, had some form of opening to the main alleyway, or was missing an entire wall even, so that Oriana could see the multiple families huddled on the floors sharing their food or tuning their omni-radios. Gaggles of laughing children of all races ran past the pair along their way, the adults unable or unwilling to scold them. Oriana had to admit she was loath to stop them either. She didn't have the heart to snuff out what little fun they had managed to find in this dark place.
Kolyat frowned as a young salarian jostled him while running past. He stumbled, but steadied himself easily, his hands never leaving his pockets. He stopped to stare angrily at the retreating child.
Oriana halted next to him with a raised brow. "And I'm the unreasonable one?"
Kolyat looked at her, a hint of irritation playing on his features, but instead of voicing it he just shook his head and waved a hand forward. "Come on. Let's just keep it moving."
He was already walking away from her and she huffed in annoyance as she caught up, pulling at the collar of her blouse to get some airflow going. "Geez, it's hot."
Kolyat eyed the motion out of his peripheral, his brow plates narrowing down in confused frustration. "Why are you wearing a jacket if it's so hot?"
She glanced up at him, and then back down to the worn leather jacket – two sizes too big – that adorned her. Her hands gripped at the zipper ends while they walked. "It was cold back in the precinct," she said softly. It wasn't really the right reason, but then, she couldn't exactly say the right reason. Not now. Not to him.
"Well, it's not anymore."
"But we're already out here. I can't take it back." Oriana maneuvered around several passing asari before she returned to his side. The crowds were getting thicker as they got closer to the processing center.
Once beside her again, Kolyat grabbed at one side of the jacket and shook it pointedly. "Then take it off."
She slapped his hand away, giving him a face full of offense. "Excuse you, rude much? What, do you go around grabbing all the girls' clothes?"
Kolyat let his hand slip back into his pocket and shook his head in annoyance. "You're being ridiculous. Take it off."
She hugged it tighter around herself. "I'm not taking the jacket off."
He threw a hand into the air. "Then stop fucking complaining." He groaned his exasperation, looking back ahead where PC1, Rakasi ward's first and most expansive victim's processing center, was stationed. The flood of refugees waiting in lines to access the boards registering lost family members left little to no standing room left. Kolyat groaned and started edging around the crowd toward the C-Sec access point on the west side of the manned booths. Oriana followed instinctively while the crowds kept pushing in.
It didn't seem the right moment to tell him the jacket was her father's. The real one. The right one. The only one. The one who taught her how to drive her first shuttlecar and how to patch her first omni-tool and how to tell the first boy she ever liked just how much she wanted to hold his hand.
Thomas Shaw taught her many things but never how to say goodbye, and certainly not how to say it to him. So she learned to carry him with her. In the torn and battered leather bomber jacket she wore around the Citadel like an armor from all the havoc and tragedy and exhaustion.
And she hated that sometimes she wondered what would have happened had he been wearing it when he died. Would she have peeled it from his broken body? Would she have scrubbed the blood stains out? Would she have clutched so feverishly and so terribly to its warmth (his warmth, still present – and oh, how she woke screaming some nights just thinking of it)? Would she have still needed it so?
But Oriana didn't like to think about those things.
So she didn't. She tucked her hands deep into the pockets and told herself it was better not to wonder.
She opened her mouth to unleash something righteous and scathing at Kolyat when he grabbed at her wrist, pulling her hand from her pocket and holding it to the back of his uniform. "Hold on. I'm making a line." He didn't wait for her before he started pushing steadily through the throngs of people.
He wouldn't understand anyway, she told herself.
Oriana stumbled after him, her fingers gripping at the material instinctually, even while she glared at the space between his shoulder blades. "Don't worry, Krios. If I ever get separated from you, I just need to follow the sound of pre-pubescent whining and we're sure to be reunited." She offered him a cheeky grin he couldn't see.
"Do you ever get tired of hearing your own fucking voice?" He huffed, but continued on.
"At least I'm not the one with the vocabulary of a vorcha who took one too many to the head."
"No, but maybe the face of one," he shot back instantly, glancing back with a smug grin, brows waggling.
"Hey!" Oriana shoved her fist into his back where it was balled up in his uniform.
"Watch it, Lawson." He tensed slightly, eyeing her with a sudden and sharp frown over his shoulder.
She jutted her chin out at him. "You watch it." And then she had to clamp her mouth shut. God, she was even beginning to sound like him now. She shook her head, nudging him. "Just hurry up. I have a software update to download and you have a job to slack on."
"Your faith in my competence inspires me, truly." With a roll of his eyes, Kolyat turned back ahead fully, breaking through the crowd right at the C-Sec access point. Oriana spilled out from behind him, releasing the back of his uniform, and the two gave their greetings to the two officers standing guard. They walked past the identification sensor, their omni-tools pinging softly at the read-out from the security scanners, and made their way past the majority of booths where officers sat processing new arrivals to Rakasi ward.
"Miss Lawson!"
Oriana turned at the sound of her name, watching as Agent Duskin approached, datapad in hand, a new haircut – dark hair shorn close to his head – his sepia skin rich and warm in the dull lights overhead.
"Duskin," she greeted. "How you been?"
He stopped before her, nodding. "Been good, ma'am." His lack of a smile didn't exactly affirm the sentiment but Oriana was used to frowning faces at this point. He held the datapad out to her. "I have the software update your team from Earth sent. De Soria was especially helpful when we were trying to configure the algorithms to kellios standard."
Kolyat cocked an interested brow plate, arms crossed. "'De Soria'?"
Oriana spared him a half-moment's consideration as she took the datapad form Duskin. "My Research and Development lead back on Earth for Safe Homes. She should be coming up with the next transport."
He pursed his lips at the answer. "'Bout time your company started pitching in."
She scowled at him, but before she could say anything in return, Duskin interrupted.
"We're having trouble with the bio-readings though." He frowned, brows furrowed, as he held his hands behind his back. "Kaz says it's going to take a lot more database building and some pricey hardware to get that up and running again."
Oriana scrolled through the datapad silently, her eyes fixed to the screen, brows creased, before finally glancing back up, a soft smile gracing her features. "Don't worry about the cost. Safe Homes has prepared for this. We're going to get that equipment here, I promise."
Duskin nodded, the soft lilt of an almost-smile touching his lips. "Good to have you with us, Miss Lawson." He glanced to Kolyat, a respectful tilt of his head accompanied by a tempered smile, and then he was off.
Kolyat stood staring at Oriana with his arms crossed as she tapped along the datapad, oblivious to his attention. Finally, when she lifted her head, mouth opening to beckon him inside the Comm. Hub with her, she caught him staring, and stopped.
She gave him a look of impatience. "What?"
"About how much money does Safe Homes really deal in?" He leaned his weight back on one foot, arms still crossed over his chest.
Oriana rolled her eyes. "Enough," she answered, clipped and pointed. She turned to walk into the Comm. Hub, the compact building just behind the processing center, housing all the inter-relay communications data and census information. Kolyat trudged in behind her. It was much darker inside the building then out where the manned booths were, aisles of full-length computers and processing hardware running through the small building, only the blinking lights along the computers giving any form of illumination in the place. They continued down one aisle, greeting and passing one of the day shift's Comm. Hub technicians as they went.
"Enough to maybe buy yourself a new jacket?" Kolyat prodded as he followed her.
She glanced back with narrowed eyes. "Why the fixation on my jacket?" She stopped at the end of the aisle, opening the case door on one of the computers, looking for the correct input node.
Kolyat shrugged, leaning back against the opposite computers along the aisle. "You just never seem to take it off."
Oriana pulled out a wire and then plugged it into her datapad, waiting for the connection to secure. She kept her eyes on the screen before her, her back to the drell. It wasn't like he was going to be dropping this any time soon. "It was my father's," she said softly.
Kolyat was silent a moment, and then, "The real one or the adoptive one?"
She couldn't help the glare she sent him over her shoulder. "My adoptive father was my real father."
Kolyat sighed. "I mean the biological one." He motioned in the air with his hand as he said it.
Oriana pursed her lips in annoyance, looking back to the datapad as it beeped its connectivity. She started the download and set the pad on the top ledge of the computer, settling in to wait. She turned to face Kolyat and leaned back along the computers on her side, mirroring him. Crossing her arms over her chest, she considered him with narrowed eyes.
She was beginning to regret ever opening up to him about her past. It was a moment of intense vulnerability. She had been thinking about Miranda, and the long stretch of time where there had been no word from her – still wasn't word – and talking about the idea of closure and finality and seeing the unexpected, impossibly small glimpse of pain from the drell – she had cracked. Spilled her guts to the most reticent, maladjusted asshole she knew.
She told herself it was the lack of sleep.
But she knew better.
He had just looked so pained as he said it. So lost and regretful and beaten.
"Sometimes the not knowing is worse than anything definitive."
Definitive. Like the last breath his father ever drew. Like the flowers they had placed at his memorial. Like the death certificate he had surely signed.
Family of the deceased it would have read.
Oriana gulped inaudibly. She had yet to sign her own parents' certificates. Too much chaos in the moments before, too much procedure thrown out the window in the midst of the war.
No one would ever really know if they had lived or died. History would never tell their stories, and no list or log or casualty report would ever bear their names because she had been the only witness left. Their bodies were disposed of quickly – Henry Lawson was never one to let things fester. And the only proof of their life and their death and everything in between – everything they had been and done and loved – was her.
She was all that was left of them.
Definitive.
Was this what Kolyat called closure? Was this what he called 'better'?
She thought of Miranda. And then she realized he was right. Because she would give anything to know. Dead or alive. She had to know.
Dead or alive.
Anything was better than this cliff she hovered at the edge of every morning when she woke – this precipice of not-quite-realization, this nauseous, unending question, this clench of her gut that took her and wouldn't let go. This aching in her bones and her skin and her chest. This halted breath in her lungs.
She only wanted to breathe.
She only wanted to breathe.
Oriana peered at Kolyat, silent, unexplainably furious.
He shouldn't understand quite as easily as he seemed to. No one should. And it was frightening to think that someone knew now how lost and alone and confused she was.
It was frightening to think that someone knew she was just as fucked up as the rest of them.
And it was frightening beyond anything else to know that that someone was Kolyat Krios.
Her fingers dug into her arms as she held them crossed over her chest. "Let me be clear about something. Henry Lawson was no father to me."
"I wasn't saying he was."
"Then what were you saying?"
Kolyat picked at the imaginary lint on his sleeve. "I was asking about your damn jacket, that's all."
"And I answered."
Kolyat scoffed. "Sure."
She narrowed her eyes. "What's that supposed to mean?"
He sighed, exasperated. "Whatever you want it to, Lawson."
Oriana's jaw clenched, her teeth grinding. "Why do you always have to get an attitude with me?"
"Why do you always get so defensive?"
"Maybe because you're so insensitive."
"I'm not the one making an issue out of a fucking jacket."
"Except you are."
"Because you never take the damn thing off."
"Because I don't want to."
"Then that's your fucking prerogative, fine. Just get off my fucking back about it."
Oriana's nostrils flared. "Well, I'd appreciate you not making a joke out of what I told you concerning my parents."
"It's not like you're the only one with a sob story about dads, Lawson. Come off it."
"I never said I was."
"At least yours wanted you in some way." And then Kolyat stopped, pursed his lips, looked as though he thought about taking it back. In the end, he only shrugged and looked off to the wall. "Fucked up as it is," he finished in a mumble.
She took it back. Kolyat didn't understand a goddamn thing.
"Wow," she gaped, her lips elongating the 'o' sound until she had to forcefully shut her mouth. Her eyebrows were lost somewhere in her hairline. "Are you really playing a game of 'World's Shittiest Dad' with me right now? I mean, are you really?"
He had the decency not to look her in the eye.
Oriana blew an incredulous breath from her lips. "Look, I'm quite familiar with paternal assholery, thank you very much. I don't need a lesson in it."
He finally looked at her. "I didn't mean it like that."
"Didn't you?"
"I just meant that – you know – maybe he was…fuck, I don't know."
"No, you don't know. So stop talking about it like you do."
Kolyat pushed off the line of computers. "Fuck, Lawson, could you chill? You're taking this way too personally."
Oriana huffed, pushing from her lean as well. "How the hell else am I supposed to take it?"
"Why are you getting so fucking sensitive about this shit? Why did you even tell me about it to begin with? What do you even want from me?"
"I don't know!" she cried, hands thrown in the air. She turned and paced away. And then paced back. She glared at him, hands balling into fists at her sides. "I wish I never said anything in the first place."
Kolyat narrowed his eyes at her, deadly still. "Well, you did."
"I know."
"And I never asked you to."
"I know." She glared at him, her fingers itching to go for his throat.
It would be so easy. Just leave his body here in the dark.
God, she was even fantasizing about killing him now. How scared was she? How wrapped up in fear and anxiety and exhaustion was she, that it became such a natural urge to take it out on him?
Somewhere along the line it had become instinct to lash out at him, to place her dread and regret and stress into perfectly sharpened little words aimed purposely toward him. And she had to question herself. When had he become such an obvious target for her unhappiness?
Maybe – just maybe – it was when he had made her his own target.
Oriana stopped. That's right. She wasn't the one who started this. And sure, maybe it was a bit (a lot) childish to whittle it down to 'he started it' but she was just so tired of having to defend herself. So tired of the standoffishness, the easily slung hurt, the clear and obvious way they stepped around the elephant in the room that screamed 'pain' and 'family' and 'please someone help me I'm scared and alone and don't know what to do' and she just hated that he reduced her to this tiny, horrible person.
He was just so angry, and anger had done nothing in her life but take those she loved.
Because Henry Lawson had been angry, too.
And it was his face she saw in her nightmares.
Oriana stilled.
Kolyat seemed to notice. He blinked at her, shoulders tensing. His lips thinned into a tight line. "What?"
Oriana looked at him, really looked at him. She cocked her head and regarded him in silence. Her fingers slowly uncurled, her fists releasing at her sides. She sighed, and the weight of it sunk her shoulders down.
"What do you even want from me?"
She didn't know. She really didn't. At first it had been cooperation. And then it had been silence. And now…now it was…
She shook her head. It couldn't be understanding. Because that might be impossible between them. And she wasn't naïve enough to expect that they'd ever get to that point.
Though she would never admit to wanting to get to that point.
"Honesty."
Kolyat blinked at her, his teal-scaled brow plates angling down, eyes impossibly dark.
"I want honesty." Oriana surprised herself with her words.
Kolyat frowned, arms coming up to cross over his chest again as he leaned his weight back on one foot, away from her.
Oriana noticed the defensive move. Filed it away in her memory. She didn't allow herself the small hint of recognition as she watched him. The small inkling in the back of her mind that screamed familiarity.
Because caution would always be familiar and it was already the norm between them.
"What do you mean?" he breathed.
Oriana looked down at her hands as they moved to grasp each other before her. "Can we not…can we not pretend like everything's alright?"
Kolyat swallowed thickly, eyes riveted to her.
She glanced up, unblinking. And she didn't think it'd hurt so much to look at him when she said it. She didn't think it'd take so much of her. "Because things aren't alright. We are not alright. And I'm…I'm tired of pretending like we are. I'm tired of this smokescreen we put up, like it's unfathomable to show hurt in front of each other. Like we're lesser for acknowledging pain." She took a deep breath, licked her lips. "I mean, don't you find it pointless to keep up this act? To keep showing face like you're some big, bad, untouchable pillar of stone or some shit? Because you're not. Clearly." She motioned toward him, and before he could answer her in whatever scathing, spitting, pretentious remark she was sure was already ready on his lips, she continued, breathlessly. "And I'm certainly not. I'm a mess, Krios. I'm a fucking mess, and you know it, and I know it, and that's okay, really. It has to be okay. Because I don't know any other way to be right now, and I'm trying so hard, and I…I know you are, too. I do. Even if neither of us will admit to it. And none of this is supposed to be easy, I get that. But can we just…can we just stop? Can we stop trying to prove to each other that we're any less fucked up than the other? Can we just be honest? Can we please – please because I think I might drown if we don't – please can we both just admit that it hurts? It hurts and there's no helping it and that's okay. That's fine. Because we know now – we know we aren't the only ones."
She was breathing so hard. Her chest was heaving with the release, her hand bunching in her blouse somewhere along the way, her heart pounding beneath the weight of it.
Was it so wrong to want out? Was it so wrong to admit to it?
Was it so wrong, not wanting to be alone anymore?
They had gotten so good at lying.
"I'm sorry," she said. And she meant it. She well and truly meant it. "I'm sorry I…I snap and deride and…try to downplay your own hurt because I'm so caught up in mine. And I'm…I'm sorry that I never said it before. And I'm sorry I never gave you the chance to be open and free about things. And I'm sorry if I ever made you feel lesser for it. And I'm…I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I don't want this. Please, I don't want this."
Kolyat stared at her, his arms slowly uncrossing as they slid to his sides. Shadows played over his face in the dark room, so that she couldn't tell if he was scowling or smirking or just blank. Just blank and empty and unsure.
She would never know how little he felt in that moment, how unworthy.
And he would never tell her.
She reached for him. "I'm sorry," she repeated, a faint whisper.
He pulled back. "Stop."
She did stop, bit her lip in hesitance, but then she tried again. Her fingers brushed his elbow before he jerked it from her grasp.
"I said stop."
Oriana sighed, her lips twisting into a frown. Her brows quivered above her unblinking eyes. "Look, I'm just…just trying to make this work."
"What is it that you want to make work?" he questioned lowly, suddenly stilling. Suddenly all sharp angles and harsh shadow. His shoulders were wide and set. He stopped pulling away.
Oriana's hand curled in midair, stilling mid-reach for him, before dropping back down to her side. She pulled her lip between her teeth. "Whatever...this is between us."
Kolyat took a step toward her. She reflexively stepped back. "You assume I care about what this is between us."
Her brows furrowed, consternation marring her face. "You can't not."
He stepped closer. She responded as before, moving back. She stopped when her back hit the computer wall.
Kolyat cocked his head as he looked down at her. "Why can't I?"
Oriana glared up at him, swallowing thickly. "Because then you'd be lying."
This was the lie:
The war was over.
Clean and abrupt. As simple as the last dying Reaper, a burning, careening mess of cold metal and circuitry- crashing into the far horizon. As sudden as a blink. The moment the air had stopped tinting red, the moment the mechanized cries had screeched to a halt, the moment dark space had opened up and swallowed its corruption whole.
Over, they had said. Finished. Done. The war was over, they had said.
How fucking wrong they were.
Because Oriana had seen the worst of it. Not what the Reapers had done to them. But what they had done to each other. People like her father.
Even people like her.
What 'people' would do to survive.
That's why it wasn't over. Could never be over. Not until their generation had left this galaxy and even then – even then there would be some remnant, some scar, some taint of their existence. Because war took even the survivors and not one of them could call themselves free.
Looking at Kolyat – just looking at him – Oriana knew.
It wasn't over for him either.
The lie was that he had accepted that.
Oriana stepped into him, suddenly unafraid, and he frowned at the proximity, but he didn't move back. They stood staring at each other in the near dark. "You do care."
"Why does it matter whether I do or not?" he breathed.
She considered him a moment, and then she sighed, barely there. "I don't have that answer yet."
He frowned, and it was becoming so common to see that she was beginning to forget what he even looked like without frowning.
She continued unabashedly. "But I think…I need it. And I think you do, too."
Needed a little honesty, a little bareness, a little open, unadulterated self-realization.
A little acceptance.
A little time.
A little hope.
Because it hurt too much to keep it all inside. And she wasn't afraid to call him on it, either.
Kolyat looked away, and she could see the muscles in his throat working as he tried to form words. She couldn't keep her eyes from the motion.
"Okay," he said, barely a whisper. He cleared his throat, looked back down to her in the sparse space between them. "Okay, Lawson. You want honesty." He released a humorless chuckle. "You want honesty."
"I do." She nodded firmly, never taking her eyes from his.
Kolyat drew a deep breath in, wiped his hand down his face. He licked his lips and shook his head. "The honest truth is that I don't know what to do with you."
She opened her mouth to respond, then shut it tightly, confusion sliding over her features. "I don't…I don't know what you…"
He grasped her shoulders, and she was so surprised she stumbled back into the wall of computers. He followed her closely, his grip never leaving her.
"I don't know what to do with you, Lawson, when you say these fucking things to me."
She stared heatedly at him, her hands reaching for his arms. Her fingers bunched in the material of his uniform. That pristine, idolized, blue C-Sec uniform. "What are you even talking about?"
Kolyat scowled, the faint light of the computers glinting off his teal scales, and she couldn't take her eyes from him. "I'm talking about that nosy little way you weasel into everybody's business, when they never asked you to. I'm talking about how absolutely and mind-numbingly frustrating it is when you push and push and never let go. I'm talking about how you don't apologize for completely shitting on anyone and everyone's boundaries. I'm talking about the way you talk as though you know. As though you know." At this his grip tightened on her shoulders, his whole body slumping forward. He ground his teeth and stared her down. "But you can never really know."
She swallowed tightly, never looking away. "Why are you so afraid of that? Why are you so afraid for someone to see you?"
"I'm not," he growled.
"You are."
He clenched his jaw, his dark eyes unreadable in the shadowy room. "You don't fucking know me, Lawson."
"At this rate, nobody will," she countered, near spitting her words.
"Then why do you even care?"
"I don't fucking know!" she shouted, tearing his arms from her and watching him stumble back. She heaved a tight breath and stared at him, her teeth grinding. "I don't know, okay? I just…I just do." She pulled her lip between her teeth and sighed, her shoulders slumping. "Don't ask me why," she whispered, eyes lowering to watch his boots – scuffed and worn.
Kolyat stopped, blinked at her, drew a single, slow breath through his lips. And then he turned away from her, his back a tense line. They stood in silence for many moments, Oriana still slumped against the line of computers.
"I can't fucking understand you," he finally breathed, barely loud enough for her to hear.
But she did. She stepped away from the wall, steadying her uneven breaths, a hand to her chest. "I never asked you to. I only asked that you…that you talk to me. Just talk to me, Krios. And maybe then, this will all be a little easier."
"Easier?" he asked disbelievingly, glancing over his shoulder.
"Well," she chuckled roughly, looking down to her shoes, and then back up, brushing a strand of dark hair from her cheek, "bearable, at least."
He kept his gaze on her over his shoulder.
She outstretched a hand. "Ceasefire?"
It took many moments before he finally turned fully to her, and the look on his face was…completely foreign. To call it blank would be to call it emotionless. But that would have been wrong. It was the kind of emotion that turned trembling lips into tight lines of hesitance, and deep, furrowed brows into grooves of keen anxiety, and dark, hollow eyes into promising hope – though cautious and wary as it was.
It was the kind of face that told her he would be worth it in the end.
Kolyat looked down at her offered hand, and then slowly – agonizingly and exhilaratingly if she thought too hard about it – he reached to take it.
They stood in the dark aisle of the Comm. Hub, computers flanking either side of them, the silence broken only by the staccato beeping of the working machines around them and their own steady breathing.
They stood there holding hands, and holding more.
They stood there at the precipice. At the start.
Oriana would never say aloud how right the weight of his palm had felt in hers.