"You're sure this won't raise any alarms?" Ursula turned a blank, plastic security badge in her fingers over and over, as if to verify that it was actually real.

"It's an identical copy of the original," explained William, the scrawny IT technician she called on for requests like this. "It's a total copy of the card it's copied from, even down to the unique badge ID. As far as the system is concerned, they're the same computer security card."

"And this one," Ursula tapped the plastic ID badge on her desk, doing her best to not comment on the gaudy lanyard it was clipped to. "Same deal for this one?"

"I mean, other than the picture, yeah," William shuffled his feet, clearly nervous to be discussing the matter at hand. "Nobody will question you if you use it instead of your regular one though. Unless they see you using it somewhere you shouldn't, I mean. I can't hack people's eyeballs."

"Noted," She scooped up the ID card and unclipped it from the lanyard, tossing the loop of fabric back at William. He scrambled to catch it, but she didn't pay him any mind. Her thoughts were focused entirely on more pressing matters now.

"So… is that everything?" William asked, his nerves making his voice crack at the end of his question. He was jumpier than usual, but Ursula couldn't really blame him for that. What she had asked him to do was a step above what she normally asked of him, and this could have real consequences for him if he got caught.

Ursula reached into her pocket and drew a slim stack of wrinkled money from her wallet. She held it out, gesturing for William to take it. He hesitated, eyeing the wad of faux-paper suspiciously.

"Hazard pay," She told him, waving it in front of his face. The technician only hesitated for a moment before snatching it, skimming the numbers on the bills.

"Are… are you sure this is right?" William looked skeptically at her, but notably didn't hand her the money back. "I'm already charging double my normal fee, and this…"

William fingered the wad of bills in his hand, "This is a lot of money."

"It's all yours," Ursula answered the unspoken question. Her attention was already back on the forged duplicate access cards in her hand.

Will nodded and turned to go, but Ursula called out after him. "Hey Will!"

The skinny man glanced over his shoulder, hand on the handle to her office. "Yeah?"

"Next chance you get, you should take a vacation," Her eyebrows raised and she looked pointedly at him. "Offworld."

Will's irises almost disappeared; his eyes went so wide. His already pale face almost looked grey. William gave her the slightest of nods, then practically sprinted out of her office, slamming the door behind him.

Good, he got the message, Ursula was pretty sure the sum of money she'd handed him would have sent the message by itself, but it didn't hurt to give him a nudge in the right direction. Will was a good guy. He deserved better than being a corrupt low-level IT technician at the ass-end of human space.

But he was very good at his job. Ursula eyed the two pieces of plastic. Together, they were worth far more than any sum she could name.

To her, they were priceless.

"Alright Goodwin, let's find out what you've been up to."

Their little campsite hadn't changed at all in their absence. It was the same barely organized chaos of boxes, books, cans of food, and blankets that had become home to Steven & Valen over their short stay in the forest.

"God damn, this place beats any hotel I've stayed at," Steven groaned and stretched his back. He and Valen had just arrived back at their little camp after the hike back. Thankfully they'd left all of the gear they had taken camping back at the site. Still, all the walking he did today was hell on his lumbar.

"Can you pass me something to eat Valen?" Steven asked as he plopped into the small pile of blankets and pillows he used for a bed. There was an air mattress there at some point, but Valen was equal parts cuddly and sharp, so it hadn't lasted long.

Valen made no move to fetch a pack of food, approach him, or even answer him. Valen had even been quiet on the hike back from the campsite, barely responding to Steven's jabs or obvious invitations to rib him.

He's nervous, Steven reminded himself. Even though they both knew by now what Steven would say, Valen was still nervous about hearing it. He was like a shy teenage boy who was out on a first date with his crush, unsure of whether or not his date actually liked him or not.

Steven took pity on Valen & broke the ice for him, "You know, you're cute when you're shy."

I… you… Valen stammered, fumbling to make a snarky reply. His usual sharp wit was dulled by his nerves & embarrassment at the compliment.

"Just take the compliment, and get over here idiot." Steven slapped the ground next to him.

…Fine, Valen rolled his eyes, But not because you told me to.

"I regret ever introducing you to manga," Steven faked a gag, but didn't stop smiling either.

Valen flopped down beside, keeping a respectful amount of distance between them. Steven wasn't having any of that. He rolled over and wedged himself into his normal spot up against his chest. "Don't think you're getting away with not cuddling me now big guy."

That made him purr ever so gently. Not his usual motorboat purring, but it was better than nothing. So… I heard from someone that you might wanna tell me something.

"Well you heard correctly," Steven did his best to smile and put on a brave face, but on the inside he was growing increasingly nervous. His heart beat loud in his chest, sweat ran down his face, and he had to remind himself to stay calm.

He was anxious about how to say the words he wanted to say; to tell Valen what he needed to hear. They weren't happening at some point in the future, it was now... "I do have something I wanna say to you."

And… Valen seemed hesitant, picking up on his sudden nervousness. What might that be?

"Well... it's a lot of things actually," Steven admitted. "So I need you to hang on to the sarcastic retorts until the end."

I only promise to try, the barest glimmer of smug sass snuck through the layers of anxiety in Valen's words.

That made Steven crack a smile. It was barely there, just a tiny one that tugged at the corners of his mouth, but it was there all the same. Steven inhaled, taking a deep breath to calm himself; to gather his thoughts. And then he spoke.

"When I first met you, I wasn't a very happy person. I had just fled my old life because I felt that I had nothing left in it. Sure I had a fancy degree, but I didn't know what to do with it, I didn't have any goals, or anyone left that cared about me."

Steven's voice caught in his throat, choking on the swell of emotions trying to escape all at once. A deep breath, then another. And another. Riding the tide of feeling until it was calm once more.

And so he continued. "You were my first real friend Valen. You were someone I could talk to. Someone I could spend my time with. Someone who I could trust with anything. I never knew how badly I needed it - how badly I was starved for it - until I met you."

Is… Is that what I am to you? Valen's voice was neutral, but he knew that Steven could feel how hard he was trying to keep it that way. I'm your friend?

"Of course you're my friend Valen," Steven hugged one of his arms to his chest. "You're the best friend I've ever had."

Oh… Valen did his best to not let his growing sense of dejection get out of control. Not now. Not until Steven was finished. Later, when he had time to be alone he could…

"But… you're also so, so, so much more than a friend." Steven's words cut through his consciousness like a sword through air, sending his spiraling thoughts out into oblivion.

Wha... What? Was all that Valen could think to say.

"I mean that you're so much more than a friend Valen," Steven shifted so he was looking directly up at his face. "I just… I wish that we didn't meet each other in this place."

But then we never would have met, Valen said, his hurt & confusion competing for dominance as he spoke.

"I know… It's just…" Steven bit his lip. How many times have I been the one to hurt Valen ? "You know. I know you do."

Steven… There were no words for what Valen wanted to say. No way to tell Steven what he needed to say, what he wanted him to hear…

"It's not fair that we've been abused for the sake of some vague 'science'." The memory of molten-hot chemicals burning through his veins, still as sharp as the day it happened.

"But I can't change that now… And not everything has been awful."

Like what? Valen asked as gently as he could.

Steven pulled Valen's arm in closer, hugging him tighter. "Like how I've gotten to know you. The real you." Valen leaping from tree to tree. Laughing when he lost at board games. Secretly waiting to tell Valen about a book that he found for him.

"And knowing what I know now… I think I would have fallen for you no matter where we met…"

Kir… Steven, Valen felt confused. As hard as he tried, he just couldn't see where Steven was going with all this. What does that have to do with us?

"It means that I don't feel the way I do because of our circumstances." Steven waved his arms, as if to gesture to everything that had happened since they met. "If we had met under completely different circumstances, in a different time, in a different place, I would have still fallen for you."

Steven… That doesn't matter to me.

"It matters to me." Steven rolled over to see him. All of him.

"I love you Valen. For who you are. All of you."

I… I love you too Steven.

As if pulled together by a fundamental force, Steven & Valen leaned into one another…

…and Steven's as lips brushed gently against Valen's maw, something shattered.

In that moment, the barriers that separated Steven & Valen seemed to dissolve.

The unseen yet infinite distance between their minds, bridged only by Valen's ability to peer through that distance into Steven's, seemed to collapse all at once. One second they were intimate, connected, yet inexorably separated. In the next, there was a total absence of distance. Of separation. Of loneliness.

They came together.

There was no distinction between their thoughts, their memories, their emotions, their subconscious. All mixed and swirled and danced together in a sparkling fountain of color; of emotion; of sentiment.

The true intimacy of absolute & unspoken understanding; the feeling as two yet as one, more together than when apart; the harmony of the internal conflict played out with absolute knowledge of the other.

They spoke no words; a salve of the desperate, infinitely separate and yet playing at understanding; lamenting wails that cried for true connection and yet would never know it.

It was freedom so absolute that words cannot truly describe their connection, for there was no connection.

Nothing else existed in this short, blissful eternity. Merely reveling in their existence as one.

Together... they just were.

…Until as seamlessly as they came together, they drifted apart. Torn apart; ripped back into the imprisoned sanctuary of separation. Their identity split and reduced to its components; a sudden reversal of emotional entropy that left only the memory of its fleeting existence…

…and they were just Steven & Valen again;

locked together in an awkward kiss;

at their comfortable forest campground;

deep underground in an airtight, hermetically sealed bunker;

in a highly secured planetary research facility;

on an isolated green rock;

orbiting an unremarkable sun;

floating through the void;

an infinitely tiny speck in an infinitely massive universe;

But they were together.

Valen felt himself snap back to… well himself. His head was still spinning, barely able to comprehend what had just happened. Reflexively, he reached out, trying to find the white star of Steven's thoughts in the dull space… but he couldn't do it.

Instead of intuitively forming the link to him, it felt as if he… missed; like he'd overshot and landed in the sea of nothingness. He was drawing, unable to find his way back to himself…

Until Steven was there. A shining star in the blackness. Enveloping him in the safe harbor of his thoughts, his emotions, his comforting familiarity.

Just focus on my voice Valen. Steven told him. Just focus on me. It'll be ok, just stay with me here okay?

This connection was familiar. Comfortable. Safe. Valen had grown so accustomed to the sensation of Steven's mind that it was almost… no, it was home. A private, safe space where he could hide from the rest of his life.

Valen let himself be embraced by the man that he loved, fading into the aura of comfort and warmth of his mind; his companionship; his very presence...

And there they stayed, not talking about anything in particular, not trying to process some difficult emotion, not trying to create a half-baked plan to survive.

They just were.

Goddamn she hated computers.

Ursula slapped the side metal box, trying to make the stupid security card reader read the damn card. It wasn't an issue with the card, she'd tested out on a public terminal in a breakroom by looking up a staff directory.

The card wasn't bad, but it was this damned stupid terminal that was the problem. That was it. Not her, the computer.

Angrily, Ursula gave the terminal another solid slap. Unfortunately, her computer troubleshooting knowledge stopped just beyond "percussive maintenance", so if this didn't work then she'd have to find another access point for the data she needed.

Currently, she was hunched over a decrepit piece-of-junk terminal in her office. Her old office, the cramped, dirty, out of the way office space that she'd been relegated to before her recent promotion.

When the reader still didn't accept her card, Ursula contemplated finding a hammer and threatening the machine to make it work right. Besides the computer in her new office, this was the one terminal that she knew that she had private access to. If this didn't work, she'd have to use the one in her office or a public terminal, but the risk of someone spotting her or looking over her shoulder was far greater.

When she want to try the card again, she noticed a half, worn sticker on the card reader. It was hard to make out, but if she squinted she could just make out a little picture of a security card, with a directional arrow printed on it.

Ursula pulled the computer access card out and inspected it.

…Then she flipped the card lengthways, pushed the card into the slot, and watched in annoyance as a green light on the terminal flickered to life.

Fucking… stupidass thing, Ursula grumbled to herself as she waited for the machine to connect to the network. It was slow, and old, and according to William it was 'a miracle that this thing hasn't spontaneously combusted'.

But it did have one feature that made it invaluable. When she had William deliver it to her back when she was trying to gather dirt on Julius, he'd installed software on the computer that wiped any sort of access logs from both the computer, and more importantly from the server.

At least that's how he'd explained it to her. The real answer was some complex technical solution that Will was immensely proud of devising, but that had flown over her head completely.

What she did understand is that she could still pull data from the servers all the computers stored & pulled data from. And with her forged duplicate of Goodwin's computer security access card, she could pull anything Goodwin had ever written, ever documented, or ever sent on a computer.

As Ursula started to delve into the documents and files that Goodwin had committed to electronic format, she couldn't help the smug smirk that cut a line across her face.

Right there, in the first folder she accessed named 'Important Documents' was a plethora of communications, memos, and most important to her, archived electronic mail messages between Goodwin and someone named "Guest Account - J. Gavin".

Oh this is too easy, Ursula grinned. Reflexively, she reached for her coffee mug… only to realize that her favorite mug was in her new office. The office that had never really been hers.

Ursula shook her head. She could afford to be melancholy later. Rights now, she had some digging to do. She opened the first file that caught her eye and read.

FROM: "Goodwin Oswald-Gavin"

TO: "Guest Account - J. Gavin"

CC:

BCC:

SUBJECT: RE: Getting my job back!1!

Julius,

You need to stop pestering me for progress updates every 30 minutes.

I know you're impatient to get your job back, but if you can't lay low and just let me handle this then you're gonna fuck everything up. I'm not a miracle worker, and if you insist on telling me how to do my job then I'll just let you do everything.

Just chill out.

I already have some suspicions that she is catching onto me because you've been too insistent on punishing her. The Board can't outright fire her because they don't have a replacement for her. (You don't count)

We just need to keep applying pressure, and the moment she slips up we can use that to cast doubt on everything she's said. But you need to be patient.

I have time on Friday to visit. Just take it easy on the liquor ok.

Maybe we can watch a movie or something to get your mind off things?

Goodwin

"Well at least Julius is consistent," Ursula muttered. "Trying to micromanage everything himself."

That proved it. Goodwin was working to get Julius back into his old job, and Julius was… well it looked like Julius hadn't changed one bit after his 'dismissal'. He was the same angry, vindictive, controlling man-child as before. That wasn't much of a surprise though.

What was a surprise was how close Goodwin and Julius seemed to be. This wasn't stiff, formal business communications, this was just casual conversation. And Goodwin's last name… It could just be a coincidence, but it was just too convenient for Ursula to ignore.

Whatever, She thought to herself. With a few short keystrokes; some subsequent swearing; quickly followed by a slightly different set of keystrokes; she copied the message onto a storage drive plugged into the computer, and moved onto the next file.

She had a lot of work to do, and Goodwin was going to have a lot to answer for.

Gradually, Valen felt his world stop spinning, solidifying back into something approaching normal. The connection he felt to Steven felt more stable… more contained. He could feel his surroundings again, see the shapes of the trees around him, feel the cool breeze on his carapace, and he could still feel the radiating warms of Steven in his arms. Valen could see from his thoughts that he had been hugging him through the entire experience.

Can you still hear me? Valen asked experimentally, shifting himself into a more comfortable position on his side.

"Yeah, I can hear you just fine," Steven's reply was clear and firm. He made no move to back away from him as he adjusted himself, clinging onto him; unwilling to let him go. "Can you hear me?"

Yes I can. I… Valen's emotions had calmed, but the emotional shock was still taking a toll on him. What happened?

Honestly, I don't know. I'm just as lost as you are, Steven tried to reassure him, but he didn't know anything more than Valen did. I wouldn't want to take it back though.

So much had happened so quickly. Valen still felt like parts of him were reeling, but Steven wasn't. He'd been an integral part of the same experience, and yet he already knew that he didn't regret it... I'm sorry.

For what? Steven was perplexed by the apology. To him, Valen hadn't done anything that he needed to apologize for. How could a human, one so physically weak and one so mentally damaged still be so much stronger than him?

For making you protect me again, Valen made no effort to hide the guilt he felt. It was too much effort, and after what they had experienced together… I'm the one who is supposed to be durable and strong... and yet you've already hurt so much for me. I should be protecting you...

"I don't need you to protect me," Steven's smile felt unimaginably gentle and understanding. "I'm an adult Valen, I can fend for myself."

Really? If Valen had eyebrows at that moment, they'd be raised to the ceiling.

"What?" Steven's voice was high with indignation. "What!?"

You're telling me that youcan fend for yourself? Seriously? Valen tried to shake his head, but his sideways position on the ground stopped him from doing more than waggling his head. Have you met yourself?

"Okay, fair point," Steven raised his hands in surrender briefly before wrapping them back around his chest. "But in my defense, I'm not normally prone to being experimented on by lunatics."

Your track record says otherwise, Valen snarked, feeling relieved that they were falling back into their normal dynamic. You're 1 for 1.

"Huh…" Steven pondered that for a moment. "I guess being medically experimented on and tortured for 'science' really isn't all that common, is it?"

How should we know? Valen snarked. We're not a good sample size. You should know that Mr. Scientist.

"Fair enough," He conceded the point. "But since we're both subjects, maybe we should try to be strong for each other instead trying to - 'nobly sacrifice ourselves so the other may live' -huh?"

That's a good idea hun. Valen agreed.

"Hun!?" Steven's head twisted to look at him. His smirk and his amusement tried to tell Valen that he thought the pet name was silly, but Valen was telepathic. And Steven couldn't hide the jolt of delight at hearing Valen give him a cute pet name, and his annoyance at feeling so happy. "Did you just call me 'hun'?"

Oh yeah, try to act like you're too cool for a pet name, Valen wasn't playing that game. His own smirk was far more smug and confident that anything Steven could muster. It's not like I can feel that you hate how much you love it or anything.

"Whatever grandma," It was Steven's turn to flush with embarrassment.

You're cute when you're shy, Valen shot Steven's own compliment back at him.

"I… It just caught me off guard, okay!" Steven buried his head into Valen's chest, making him purr and hum in delight. "Where did you even learn that word?"

It was in one of your books I think, Valen tried to recall exactly which one, but the title had faded from memory. Are you feeling ok? No effects from... us?

"No, I feel fine," Steven answered dismissively.

Steven, Valen tightened his arms around Steven protectively, preventing anything from getting to him, and preventing him from getting away. Answer the question, are you ok?

"I really am fine Valen, I'd tell you if I wasn't. I... I'm just..." Steven sighed. "Sorry, I'm still wrapping my head around this whole 'being a test subject' thing."

He waggled his arms. "I've never given it that much thought before now. It's just weird, y'know?"

I know better than anyone else, ever, what it's like to be a test subject, Valen relaxed, letting himself uncurl and wrapped himself more comfortably around Steven; pulling him in closer. We're both test subjects now, I'm just more used to it. I was born to be one.

God that… That is beyond depressing. That thought was so bleak that Steven was having trouble processing it. It felt like the gears spinning in his head had jammed for second. That's like, existentially depressing.

Self-awareness is overrated. Valen rasped a cynical laugh. In a way, I envy all the other Xenomorphs I've met. They at least don't have the awareness of what was being done to them... Not the same level of understanding anyways.

Still though… Steven shook his head, forcing himself to stop thinking about it. Nevermind, forget I brought it up. I'm tired of being upset about things I can't control.

Like your virginity? Valen snarked. He told himself it was to jab at Steven like he normally did, to break the heavy mood that had settled over them...

But now that they were starting to settle back into their comfortable verbal routine, Valen couldn't lie that he was also growing more genuinely curious about Steven more intimately.

"As if! You're the virgin here big guy," Steven jabbed Valen in the ribs. Knowing bemusement rolled off him in waves, completely aware of where he was trying to steer the conversation. "I know I've got you beat there. Why are you asking about that all of a sudden?"

No reason, Valen did his best not to let his embarrassment show, focusing on a suddenly interesting patch of grass facing away from Steven's knowing stare.

"Uh huh. Yeah, sure. Real subtle big guy." For a second, Valen worried that he might have upset Steven again. He knew that Steven was sensitive about the subject of sex because of his… unfortunate past. But there was no anger, no upset, no emotional backlash.

Only a smug, playful bemusement that grew stronger as Steven watched Valen squirm, because he knew that Valen would be in tune with his emotions and he'd be hearing his thoughts right about now.

I don't know what you're talking about, Valen whined, doing his absolute best to play dumb.

"Oh yeah big guy?" Steven wrapped his arms tighter around Valen's chest, pressing his soft, warm body against Valen's sturdy chest. While he did, Steven let his thoughts shift to more… intimate topics. "You'd like it if I took yours, wouldn't you?"

I… That's not… I mean I… If Valen had cheeks right now, they could start a forest fire from how hot they would be burning. His whole body felt as if it had been lit aflame. The radiating heat of Steven pressing against him & the smoldering fire of his own embarrassed excitement at the touch; together they made him feel as if he were about to melt.

Steven smirked for a satisfied moment, then shifted upwards to kiss him on the chin. "That's what I thought."

Ursula found Goodwin in the cafeteria. Apparently it was lunch time. She'd lost track of time sifting through Goodwin's classified documents, of which there was a lot. After a while Ursula had stopped trying to find relevant information and just copied as much of the data onto a drive as she could before storming off to find him.

She still didn't know the full scale of what he had been up to. There was simply too much information to process in such a short time. However, what she did know was that Goodwin was a lying, manipulative piece of shit.

"Dr. Nigel, what a pleasant surprise," It was clear from the tone of his voice that the surprise of her interrupting his lunch was about as pleasant as a wet fart in an elevator. "I was finishing my lunch before I headed down to collect your reports for the day."

A sheaf of papers emerged from a folder under her arm. She tossed them at Goodwin, spraying loose paper all over the table, his other papers, and the remains of his lunch.

"Oops, sorry. The paperclip must have come loose," Ursula lied. There was no paperclip.

"That wasn't very professional of you Ursula," Goodwin glared at her. He was barely bothering to hide his contempt for her now.

"Neither is trying to get Julius his job back when he should rightfully be on trial," she shrugged. "But hey, nobody's perfect."

Keenly, she watched his face, his body language, his expression

"...What do you want Ursula?" Whatever emotions Goodwin was feeling were swept away in an instant. In its place was stone faced neutrality.

That pissed Ursula off. Goodwin had been casually flexing his authority over her for months, and only now that she had all but threatened him did he even make an attempt to be polite and professional with her. After he was afraid of her learning his secrets.

"What I want," Ursula fumed at the slimy rat faced bureaucrat, "Is for you & Julius to stop trying to fuck me over, and just let me do my goddamn job in peace!"

"So you did know about us," Goodwin didn't even have the decency to look surprised or upset that she'd found him out.

"Is that all you have to say?" Maybe if she glared at him hard enough, he would spontaneously combust and solve all her problems for her. "I know you've been trying to fuck me over because Julius is a petty man-child."

"You don't know that," Goodwin snapped, sharp and clipped. "Your performance evaluations are entirely based on measurable metrics, and you have always...!"

"Oh cut the shit Goodwin," Ursula rolled her eyes. "You know Julius just as well as I do. He's smart, and talented, but he's also an egotistical control-freak who has to have everything go his way."

No response this time. No point in denying the truth when it was staring him in the face.

"Nothing else to say? Did I get the gist of the matter?" She asked, putting as much condescension into her words as possible; flipping the script on him.

"So let me tell you what I think happened. I called Julius out on his bullshit and now he's finally suffering the consequences of his actions," She continued. "And Julius doesn't like that. He blames me for fucking him over."

Still, no reply from Goodwin. His face was remaining impressively neutral, despite the vein bulging on his forehead. Still, she was getting to him. Perhaps it was time to come at him from the personal angle.

"Why the fuck are you even trying to get Julius his job back?" Ursula asked. "Why would you ever want to help such a despicable torturer …"

"Alleged torturer," Goodwin cut in, snapping at her.

"Oh, my apologies!" Ursula gave Goodwin a derisive look that told him her apology was about as genuine as a crayon forgery. "Alleged torturer. That makes it so much better!"

"Julianne was the one who tortured Steven anyways," Goodwin wasn't letting this point go. "Julius didn't do anything wrong."

"Bull-fucking-shit!" Ursula slammed her hand down on Goodwin's tray, knocking his glass of water over & spilling it on his lap. "Just because he didn't push the needle in himself doesn't make him any less culpable!"

"Besides, Julianne was an android," Ursula snarled at the memory of Julius' former assistant. "She just followed her programming."

"She's an android, so…" Goodwin kept pushing, but Ursula wasn't having any of it.

"Because she was an android means she can't be held legally liable," Ursula cut him off. She explained it to him slowly, as if Goodwin had the mental capacity of a rotten lima bean. "That means the person who gave her instructions will be held liable in her stead, meaning Julius."

Goodwin didn't respond this time. He didn't even meet her eyes. Instead he just absorbed himself in drying the water from his soaked trousers with the few napkins that had come with his tray lunch.

"I just don't get it. Why would you do this?" She asked him. "Why would you put your neck out for Julius? He's an arrogant, spiteful, vindictive narcissistic..."

"He's my little brother!" Goodwin hissed, his voice dripping with enough venom to kill an elephant. His fists were balled so hard his knuckles were turning white & trembling with suppressed rage. "And you... You cost him everything! All that he's ever worked for, everything Ihelped him achieve. Poof, gone!"

He rose from his chair as his tirade against her grew louder & louder, his hiss morphing into a growl. "You submitted an Ethics complaint, and now he basically has a black mark on his career! A torture charge with physical video evidence… There's no coming back from that! Nobody will ever hire him again! Hell, do you know how close he was to being prosecuted under the Ripley Conventions?"

"As a matter of fact, I know that a Human Experimentation & Torture charge carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years in prison, with no chance of parole for 20 years." She recited, as if reading it directly from a textbook.

"And I also know that the Bernard Company could be held liable under Article III, Subsection II, Paragraph I, which states that," Ursula took a deep breath, and took a moment to gather her thoughts. "Any organization or entity that is found to be harboring, concealing, or otherwise obstructing any of the articles contained herein will be subject to a total seizure of assets by the I.C.C.J. Said assets will be subject to liquidation or destruction of said assets if they are found to be in violation of Article I of the conventions."

Ursula leaned in so she was almost nose to nose with Goodwin. "Don't fucking quote the Ripley Conventions for sympathy bait with me Goodwin. I was in the room when my mother wrote them."

Goodwin eyed her cautiously, his lips parting and closing as if debating the best way to retort. Unfortunately, he seemed to realize the best way to stop digging a grave for himself was to stop speaking at all, and shut his mouth before he could say anything else incriminating. It was up to her to continue if she wanted to get more out of him.

"I'm not sorry that your asswipe of a brother lost his job Goodwin," Ursula didn't so much as blink. If she showed any sign of weakness now, he'd pounce on it like the predatory animal he was. "He deserves everything that's coming to him, because I actually believe in the Conventions. He fucking tortured Steven, and he deserves to rot in prison for his crimes."

"And it's sycophants like you," Her voice dropping to a harsh whisper, "Rotten, corrupt little rats who would poison their own mothers if it gave you a leg up on the corporate ladder, are the reason why we have things like the Conventions in the first place."

"So unless you have anything to confess to me Goodwin, then I suggest you drop to your knees and pray to whatever god you worship. At least they will show you mercy. I will not."

Finally, the façade shattered & fell away.

Goodwin's nostrils fumed, eyes blazing with undisguised hatred. There was actually a moment where Ursula thought he'd actually hit her. His fists were clenched; his arm halfcocked; barely suppressed the urge to take a swing at her.

"Go ahead Goodwin," Ursula spread her arms, inviting him to take that swing.

Only then did Goodwin seem to remember that they weren't alone. Several nearby staffers were staring at the commotion. One man had his hands over his mouth; another gaggle of researchers seemed to be engrossed in their trays of barely-adequate food slop; and a very tall, very muscled, and very angry looking woman was staring daggers at him.

Without another word, Goodwin stalked off; the slam of the metal door on his way out punctuating his exit.

Ursula hadn't needed to lash out at Goodwin like that. She didn't need to get Goodwin to confess that he'd been meddling in her affairs. She didn't need to tell him she knew he was using his position to shield Julius. She didn't need him to reveal that Julius was still moving the pieces behind the scenes…

But goddamn it, putting Goodwin in his place like that felt fucking good …

…And that was a mistake. A big fucking mistake.

Lashing out felt good, but a her temper began to fade and she began to hear the blood pounding in her ears... Ursula realized she had just revelated a lot of what she knew to Goodwin while she ranted at him.

She had reveled that she knew about Julius, that she knew they were in contact, and that she knew they had been conspiring to get her fired from her job. And now Goodwin, and by extension Julius knew that she knew.

Fuck. The more she thought about it, the more she realized how big of a fuckup she might have just made. Not only could this hurt her, but also Steven & Valen by proxy. Keeping her research about Valen's Telepathy funded, and by extension keeping Steven and Valen alive.

That was her priority. Humiliating Goodwin wasn't. Provoking Julius wasn't either. And if Goodwin suspected she was gunning for him now, and not just his arrogant prick brother…

"FUCK!" Ursula kicked the shitty plastic of the table's seat, startling the onlookers. Why am I such a fucking idiot?!

She needed to get ahead of this; before it spiraled out of control. Paying no heed to the crowd, Ursula span on her heels & sprinted back towards her office.

I hope I didn't go overboard lol

This is the emotional climax between Steven Valen that I know I and a lot of you have been waiting for so very long for, and I hope you're as satisfied with it as I am.

Originally this was supposed to be the second half of chapter 21, but then the actual plot happening with Ursula and Goodwin got more and more in depth, and I wanted to really give Steven & Valen a memorable first romantic experience beyond just a kiss.

Also, I finally understand (kinda) how semi-colons work outside of programming! I've been using them more and more as I write because it's closer to how my thought process & writing style works, and I'm tired of just using 'and' so much.

Let me know what you think! I do actually read the reviews & DMs you send me- AX 3