VII. Echo

The debrief was one of the single most frustrating encounters of Carolina's life.

The Director wouldn't look at her, staring out over his monitors and consoles with his hands clasped behind his back. She knew the mission had failed, she knew the leader had gotten away, she knew it had taken the better part of a day to retrieve her missing helmet and weapons from under the water. She wasn't expecting a fucking commendation out of this.

But she wouldn't have said no to an apology.

She spoke maybe a little more plainly than she should have. She asked, again and again, where the hell the Mother of Invention had been during that day, why they'd held off on their rescue mission until it was nearly too late. How the hell the jamming signal had so conveniently disappeared just in time for them to catch the transmission about three Freelancer prisoners. The Director drawled calming, patronizing phrases, barbed half-compliments, "You did as well as could be expected of you, Carolina. Certain aspects of this mission were beyond your need to know."

She remembered, again, what he'd said about bringing only the pieces of you into battle that could stomach the lies. She wondered how often he'd twisted and fragmented himself, becoming what he was.

In the end, she settled for snapping out, "You can't run a war if you don't trust your own damn team, sir," and then she was stalking out the door, breathing hard, and for a moment she wished she was wearing her armor so she could just hit something, just hit something, feel it crumple beneath her fist.

York was propping up the wall in the corridor outside, and she came up short beside him. Even out of armor, he looked a hell of a lot better than he had on the Insurrectionist ship, no more of that worrying tinge of blue around his lips, although his casual lean looked to be about half for cool-guy effect and half for keeping himself on his feet. She made an effort to soften her tone, although the words still came out a little harsher than she'd intended. "I thought you were still in the infirmary."

He shrugged. "They're letting me out-"

"-tomorrow," she finished, and he grinned, and it was the easiest thing in the world to smile back. She wanted... she wasn't sure what she wanted. She wanted to shout at him, to find out just what the hell he'd been thinking, storming the Insurrectionist ship half-dead and with limited backup. She wanted to pin him against the bulkhead behind him, because he was the single most unapologetically reactive partner she'd ever had, because one rough kiss would be all it'd take for him to shudder against her, one roll of her hips would drag out that helpless little throaty groan-

"I could say the same thing to you," he said, apparently oblivious to the turn her thoughts had taken. "How's the shoulder?"

She shrugged it by way of demonstration. "Good. Didn't take much to patch it up."

They'd all spent some time in the infirmary, including Wyoming and Florida, who'd run into trouble meeting them at the landing bay. Well. All except North, who'd made it through the entire incident with nothing more than scrapes and bruises. And Tex, of course.

Of course.

He pushed off from the wall. "I'm headed to the mess for a late-night snack. You game?"

She fell into step beside him. "Late-night?" It was just past ship's noon.

He shrugged. "It's space. It's always late-night." And, yeah, that was definitely a suggestive little waggle to his eyebrows. Maybe not so oblivious after all.

"Real subtle, York."

"I thought it was a good line." His grin faltered, faded a little. "Besides, uh. I guess they're going to be implanting me with that AI in a couple of days. Kind of want to, you know. Take advantage of single-occupancy in here." He tapped a finger against the side of his head.

"Yeah," Carolina said. "That'll be... different."

"Different's a word."

She paused mid-step, waited for him to notice and turn back toward her. "York, how did your debrief go?"

He shrugged, mock-casual. "I pulled the Counselor instead of the Director, so it was pretty much like disappointing a really terrifying teddy bear."

"York."

He exhaled, scrubbed a hand back through his hair. "Okay, so I got a little mad. I'm still a little mad. They didn't even go down to look for you three. It smells like a setup, you know? Internal's been talking to Wash. Maybe they saw the opportunity once we were aboard the ship to send Tex in to spy on us, maybe they suspected something. I don't know. Maybe it was just another one of his experiments."

"The transmissions," Carolina said, and when he glanced up at her, she clarified. "There've been some suspicious transmissions coming from inside the ship. That's why Internal's in a bit of a panic. I guess they just wanted to confirm nobody was trying to desert."

York was staring at her, brow furrowed. "That doesn't bother you? That they mistrust us this much? That they'd suspect us of- of that?"

Carolina wanted to snarl at him, wanted to say, Give me a little fucking credit for critical thinking, York. But she was thinking again about the Director, about the cold necessities of war, about the parts of yourself you split off to save. "They didn't arrest any of us, right? That means we're in the clear."

"That's not the point."

"Look," she said, and lowered her voice to a whisper so suddenly he flinched. "You can't go around talking about this kind of stuff like it's the weather, York. Trust works both ways. We knew what we were getting into when we signed on. You want to keep your spot on that leaderboard, you have to trust the Director. You have to trust him."

York raised his hands, opened his mouth like he was about to say something, then subsided, blowing out a frustrated breath. "No," he said, "I really don't."

"Then trust me," Carolina said, quickly, because it was starting to sink in that they were just standing around in the hallway, that anyone could walk by and hear this, report it back to the Director. "You're my team. I'll get you through this. I brought us all back alive. I always do."

That brought him up short, and then he was just staring at her, breathing hard, the scars on his face standing out like beacons against his lingering pallor. "Yeah," he said, at last, and rubbed at his face with the palm of his hand. "Yeah. If anyone can, it's you."

She turned on her heel, started toward the training room instead of the mess hall, because right now she really, really needed to hit something. After a moment, he followed, soft footsteps echoing hers, and the sound was the distant rumble of thunder, the clouds roiling above placid waters, the distant glimmer of lightning on the horizon.

She thought about his smile. She thought about drowning on dry land. She thought about fracturing, splintering, about all the parts of them that needed saving.

"We'll be okay," she said, and almost believed it.