two.
"You dance like a monkey," Catie says, standing in front of the mirror on the door as she pulls hairpins from her not-quite-regulation bun.

Face down on her bunk, her head pounding like the beat of the bass in the club, Emma says, "Oh?"

"I've been thinking about it," Catie says, and the sound of tearing paper tells Emma she's also removing the letter with her service assignment from where a drunken fellow firstie had taped it to her back. A real, paper letter—but the Academy on Arcturus was known for little shows of Earthly extravagance. Darzi had thought he'd been being funny, letting everyone know she'd gotten Intelligence, "'cause she's gonna be a spy, get it?"

Not a spy. An analyst. Safe. Safe, like Emma's assignment, tucked into an inside pocket of her dress blues, to be bragged about some other time. It hadn't been easy to get, after all. There had been interviews. Physical fitness tests, the usual and then the grueling nigh-impossible ones. A full psychological panel, just in case, proving at least that she wasn't crazier than any of the others. There'd only been a handful from their class to make it this year. It's an honor, and damn it, she is proud of herself.

Catie is still talking. "...maybe like an elephant's trunk? And I also thought hanar, but you've only got the two arms, so, monkey."

"Thanks," Emma says into her starched sheets, so tightly stretched across the bed wrinkles can't even entertain the thought of forming. "Not all of us studied under an asari."

"You've got rhythm," Catie says, rightly ignoring her deflection. "I know you do. So why don't you put it to use?"

"We have this argument after every dance," Emma says, finally flopping onto her back. "Why does it bother you?"

"It doesn't!" Catie says. "I just don't understand why you don't try to be better at it."

"Because I don't need to be," Emma says.

"Well," Catie says, with a strange note in her voice, and then she stops talking entirely. For a few moments Emma is glad of the silence, and then she spends the next few deciding that part of her headache is that she hasn't taken her hair down and she really ought to muster the energy to get to work on it, and just when the silence is getting worrisome there's the creak of Catie climbing the ladder to the top bunk. And then she's there, rolling Emma back onto her stomach, and then her fingers are at work on her hairpins, digging into her scalp in a no-nonsense massage for which Emma is profoundly grateful.

There's a cost, of course. "You might need to get better at it," Catie says. "Is everything all right with you and Chiz?"

Her eyes are already closed. She closes them harder. "We're fine."

"Because he told me he thought you were going Celestial Cartography," Catie says. "I thought he was joking and said something about you not being able to handle all the wavy lines, but he didn't laugh. Didn't you tell him?"

"Yes," she says.

"He seemed upset."

"He's not."

She didn't understand the disappointment on his face, didn't want to deal with it, tried to surround herself with everyone else's excitement, but he caught her arm before they went into the bar to celebrate, pulled her into an empty comm booth while Darzi catcalled and Vasile hollered. It was close quarters, but it was private, and she appreciated that. She appreciated so many things about him; she didn't—

"Since when are you going Marine?" he asked.

"Since forever," she said, her arm still in his grip. "Congrats on Medical, by the way. I know your parents are going to be so proud."

He didn't let go. "You know I'm going to med school."

"Yeah," she said. "And I'm not."

"I know that, I didn't mean—" His eyes were dark and focused on her and she forced herself to meet them, to meet the fact that his concern scared her. "I just thought—I thought you'd be doing something safe."

"Safe?"

"Look, your initial obligation will be up once I'm done with school, I thought—"

The look in his eyes wasn't just surprise, wasn't just disappointment. He was worried, and he looked a little crushed, and if she had to spend another minute in the booth with him she was going to suffocate.

"Can we talk about this later?" she said, pulling a little against his grip.

He let go immediately. She appreciated that about him; maybe she wished he wouldn't give in so quickly. "Yeah, I mean, yeah. It's time to celebrate," he said, but his excitement was hollow. "I just—"

"Later," she said, opening the door to the booth.

He caught her hand. "Promise?"

"Yes," she said, her other hand still on the door, not looking at him, feeling the familiar roughness of his skin against hers, and then he let go again, this time of his own accord, and she wondered—

Later.

"Emma Jane..."

She'd pull away, but her sister's fingers are as soothing as they are insistent. "It's fine," she says.

Catie sighs and stops, shifting her weight as she gathers up hairpins and makes her way back down the ladder. "If you say so," she says. "Let me know if that changes?"

"Yeah," Emma says, but it won't. It's fine. It's not like her heart is breaking, which is perhaps the problem, but—it doesn't bother her.

But he didn't even offer congratulations. Not once. And Mom is going to be furious, and Catie's supportive but she doesn't understand, and her grandmother would have frowned mightily and her father—

Dad would have understood, would have been pleased, but he's out there somewhere in the dark and thinking about the grin on his face hurts more than she wants to admit. It's been ten years; she should be used to it by now.

And in any case, none of it matters. She's proud of herself, even if she's the only one; she's proud enough to make up for the rest of them. She's going to be a Marine, and the best damn one the Alliance has ever seen, and maybe then—maybe once she's proved it, though how, she can't imagine—maybe they'll believe in her, too.