Nanowrimo is doing good things for me, as you can tell. Lots of love to dancinwmypinkipod, Poodle warriors, All-I-need, Vintagegirl1912, americanlatinajapanesegirl, Benedict'sZombieGirl, belowfire15, CLTex, and peerme for all your reviews and feedback, and especially Yasmin for giving me a bit of much needed peer review.

Also the title of this chapter is a nod to Interstellar, which is a fantastic new film by Christopher Nolan that you should see.

Chapter 33 – Murphy's Law

She came home that afternoon to see Khan sitting cross-legged and barefoot, hunched over her broken food synthesizer in the middle of the kitchen floor. He wore the same dark, form-fitting trousers he'd worn yesterday, and a white t-shirt covered in grease stains. The way it hugged his body, she wondered for a moment if he'd stolen one of hers, but forgot that ridiculous idea when she realized her gaze still lingered on his chest. She made her way around the various pieces scattered across the floor, eyeing the synthesizer. He'd clearly taken it almost completely apart and was now piecing it back together, without instructions. She wasn't sure whether to be grateful or annoyed.

"I wouldn't bother, to be honest," she said. "It's a first generation."

Khan glanced up. There was grease on his cheek and when his hair fell into his face, he combed it out of the way and smeared grease on his forehead too. "It's a fine piece of technology that deserves better care than you have given it."

She shrugged and pulled a glass of water from the fridge. "There are voice-activated ones out now. I'd rather get one of those."

He let out a sigh, looking up at her from under an exasperated brow.

"Or you can keep working on it. That's fine too."

He must have been so bored out of his mind that he hadn't been able to come up with anything better to do. But it wasn't like she'd asked him to be here. He'd said himself that he'd be here all week, but to do what? Fix her appliances? Why was he so damn insistent on just being here? It was causing her more frustration than she was willing to let on.

"Can I be honest with you about something?"

Khan paused and looked up at her again with a warm expression. "Please do."

Your behavior is really weirding me out. "I thought you would be angrier yesterday. Maybe I was trying to provoke you, I don't know. Obviously I wasn't happy to see you, but I don't understand why you were so keen on seeing me. After what I did to you, I honestly thought I was rid of you for good."

He studied her for a moment. "You're not making a concerted effort to get rid of me now." The statement sounded more like a question, or a jab at her very thin mask.

"That's not… I didn't mean…" She couldn't find the words to say how she felt without actually telling him how she felt. That wasn't a bridge she was going to cross. She sighed and took a long drink from her glass of water.

"Did you see Foster today?"

"Mm," she muttered into her glass. She downed its contents and set it on the counter with a clink. "Yeah, your idea worked. He thinks I'm pregnant."

A gentle smirk, and then he ducked his gaze back to the pieces in his grimy hands. "So, all according to plan?"

She eyed him, suspicious now of that stupid smirk he still wore. "Yeah. What's so funny?"

His refusal to answer was infuriating. He continued working on the pieces in his fingers, reaching around him every now and then for an additional piece. When he reached, his shirt stretched across his chest and Madelyn cursed at herself for paying attention to him.

"No need to be so obvious, Madelyn."

She didn't give him another glance and went quickly from the room, storming down the long hall across the house until she could lock herself in her bedroom. She slammed the door on purpose, making it clear that she didn't want to see or hear from him for the rest of the evening. She had more important things to worry about.

Obviously, he didn't agree.

There was a knock on the door barely a few minutes after she'd slammed it. She'd slipped out of her heels and taken off her earrings, now posed to start shedding clothing. She needed to slip into a cool shower and let it wash away everything she feeling. She didn't want to open the door and see his smirking face.

But he wasn't smirking this time. He wore a keen and serious expression, despite the grease smudges on his face.

"The synthesizer won't be complete until tomorrow. Do you have dinner plans?"

"My plan is to order take-out and wrap up my work on the gala. Then I'm gonna crash."

No dinner date. Don't you dare.

"It's five o'clock. You deserve a break."

"I was about to start my break until you knocked on the door."

There was hesitation in his features, then subtle realization. "Fine." He turned and walked away back down the hall in his bare feet. "Thai or Chinese?"

She had to blink herself back up to the back of his head. "What?"

"Thai sounds promising. I'll take care of dinner. You take care of yourself." He said this without looking at her, and then he disappeared around the corner and went back into the kitchen.

Madelyn shut the door quietly this time. His behavior was continuing to make her feel weird, and strangely guilty. She shouldn't have been so curt. Maybe then she'd have gotten an explanation for that smirk.

Except, in the back of her mind, she already knew. She just couldn't admit it, and he was onto her.

Dinner came to the door just as Khan had promised. She noticed he'd cleaned himself up when she ventured into the kitchen to claim her food, but she didn't linger, instead locking herself up in her bedroom to eat while she worked. At nine pm she finally came out again, to throw away her empty cartons and refill her glass of water. He'd returned to working on the synthesizer, but clearly the greasy, dirty part was over. So he was making progress. Nonetheless, she couldn't resist the urge to prod at him.

"Are you having trouble or is it really that complicated?"

When he looked up at her, it was with fading disinterest. "I am not having trouble."

"I still say you should just stop and let me buy a new one."

He tossed the long piece of metal casing in his hand to the side and stood up. "I think you and I could both use a break from work."

Madelyn eyed him now that he was looking down at her. "What about Foster?"

"Did you lead him on enough?"

It wasn't about whether she'd led him on enough to make him believe she was pregnant so he'd break into her house and try to take samples—or her—whichever he had in mind.

He had something she wanted.

She avoided Khan's gaze as she made her way around him and headed back towards her bedroom. Then she paused. "I meant to ask you earlier. Have you seen the other Augments?" It sounded strange to be referring to them in that way, in front of him. He didn't seem put off. "Since you've been in San Francisco, I mean. Have they allowed you to see them?"

"I have spoken with Cecelia. I have not seen the others, nor have I been privy to the location of my sleeping crew, but Kati turned herself in soon after I arrived and I have managed to spend a great deal of time with her."

"Kati…" she mumbled, feeling a faint pang of jealousy that she pushed away.

"Yes. We work well together. We always have. There are still some people in Starfleet who aren't averse to promoting progress, if it means allowing their prisoners to work in cooperation."

She winced at his use of the word prisoner, but if that was how he saw himself, then his being here made a little more sense. Still, Kati's face clung to her visual cortex.

"So you and Kati, you've worked together before, during the Eugenics Wars?"

"We grew up together. And she has proved herself time and time again to be both loyal and brave. She will always be dear to me." His gaze narrowed at her briefly before loosening with a light of realization. "She's my sister."

Madelyn stopped herself, noting the relief she felt at this revelation.

"We were created from the same genetic material, merely months apart," he continued. "It was only natural that we be raised together. I regret that there is nothing I can do to help her now, since she too is trapped within Starfleet's clutches. She requested that she be allowed to accompany me here, but her request was denied. I imagine they could not trust more than one of us to be free at any given time in the same location, though I feign to call this freedom." He glanced towards the nearest window, obviously referring to the drones hovering ever present above the house, ready to watch and record anything and everything that happened in the vicinity.

Now she almost felt ashamed of herself for even pushing the subject. She could have muttered a sorry, or at least apologized, but she didn't know what to say that could make anything right.

"I'm glad that you've been able to spend time with her," she said finally. "After everything…" She trailed off, not wanting to let herself venture there. Khan was silent as well, and watching her keenly. She realized it was getting late and she needed to get moving so she started to head down the hall towards her bedroom. "I have to go get something I left at the office, so I'll be back in a little."

"I will go with you," Khan replied, as though it was a perfectly natural thing for him to do.

She shook her head, faintly amused at the seriousness in his voice. "I'm sure you can find something to entertain yourself with while I'm not here." Her gaze fell to the mess of small and large mechanical parts that covered her kitchen floor.

"I'd like to see where you work."

She stared at him. She kept staring at him as he advanced on her, until she was staring up.

Shit.

"I am a patient man, Madelyn, but I do not appreciate indecision." His words rolled off his tongue like hot molasses.

Shit shit shit.

"Especially not from someone so transparent."

She rolled her lower lip between her teeth, waiting for the final blow.

There was none.

"I just have to pick something up at the office," she said quietly, filling the tense silence. "I'll be back before you know it."

"What are you really doing?"

There was clearly no getting around this. "Foster knows about my mom."

Khan's gaze burrowed into her a moment longer before he turned away, looking mildly displeased. "And he has something you want."

She let out the breath she'd been holding, watching as he circled the room with his hands behind his back. "He has a storage drive filled with information about her. He knows why she died."

"And you want to steal it from him?"

"When you put it like that, it doesn't sound like a good idea, but—"

"Never let it be said that I stopped you from trying to accomplish anything."

She glared at him from across the room, and he took it like a king. The subtle recessed lights in the ceiling cast an attractive glow on him and enhanced his features in a way she'd never noticed before. She ground her teeth.

Damn you and your fucking cheekbones. And your fucking shoulders.

And your fucking chest.

She turned on her heel and headed for her bedroom before her eyes could travel lower. "Anyway, as I was saying, I need to run to the office," she called, pulling on her flats. When she emerged a few moments later with her keys in hand, Khan was waiting by the door, his arms crossed over his chest. She'd have to skirt by him to leave.

What has my life turned into?

"Do be careful," he said quietly.

She felt the corner of her mouth trying to rise to the occasion at the sight of his faint smirk, but turned away and opened the door before he saw it. "I'll be back in a little," she said, glancing over her shoulder as she climbed into her car. "Don't worry about me."

"You know how hard it would be for me not to," he called, right before she shut herself into her car.

As she pulled away down the street, she chewed so hard on her bottom lip desperately trying to restrain her smile that she tasted blood. She'd never been so angry in all her life, and yet, for some reason, she was smiling.

After easily finding the bit of information she needed in her boss's office the headmaster's office, Madelyn found herself sitting in her car in the dark, in the parking lot of the hotel Foster was staying in. She pulled out her communicator and dialed the hotel's number, and then the extension to Foster's room. He picked answered almost immediately.

"Dr. Foster, this is Madelyn McGivers. I've changed my mind."

"Oh, wonderful! I should like to meet with you as soon as possible."

"Well I'm working late tonight, so if you want to pop by the school, you're more than welcome."

"Excellent! I'm on my way now!"

She ended the call and waited for him to leave the hotel. A few minutes later, he emerged from the front lobby entrance, carrying his briefcase, and headed across the parking lot on foot in the general direction of the school. Once he'd completely disappeared from sight, Madelyn stepped out of her car and headed for the hotel's entrance. If Khan was right about how dangerous Foster was, then chances were he hadn't taken the storage drive with him, because if he thought he was going to get what he wanted, then he would be confident enough to withhold what he'd promised her a second time.

But she wasn't at the school and he was going to find it empty and locked up for the night. She only had a small window of time in which to act.

The clerk at the hotel desk was dead-eyed and staring at a tablet. He barely glanced up when she approached him, putting on her best bubbly act.

"Hi! Um, can you tell me what room Tom Foster is staying in? He's my dad and I told him I'd come by to see him tonight. My parents got in a fight you see, so my mom kicked him out and I—"

"Room 304," the clerk replied with intense boredom, holding out a key card. Madelyn took it and spared another glance at him before shrugging and heading for the lift. That had been surprisingly simple. She made a note never to stay at a hotel in this chain.

She kept an eye on the time on her communicator. Foster would be at the school in a few minutes. It wouldn't take him long to realize what she'd done.

When she arrived on the third floor, she quickly found room 304 and slipped inside, immediately commanding the lights to turn on. She saw nothing unusual at first glance, save for the odd pieces of lab equipment scattered across the work desk under the room's single window. She noticed a large silver box sitting on the floor under the desk and went over to get a better look. Kneeling down, she set her communicator on the carpet so she could run her fingers along the edges of the box's lid. It clicked open with a gentle hiss, revealing itself to be a cooler of some kind.

She slid it out from under the table to get a better look at what was inside. A tray of slender glass vials was packed neatly between cooling packs, each vial emblazoned with a small label and most of them full of a pinkish colored substance.

She reached down and gingerly lifted one of the vials out of its casing. Her breath caught in her throat. The label read "William McGivers – 33%." There was a line of jumbled letters and numbers underneath the name like some kind of catalogue number, and then next to it, a date. Aug. 29 2258. That was the day William was killed.

Not quite believing what she was seeing, she replaced that vial and pulled out another one. This one was labeled "Susan McGivers – 25%" and underneath was the date Dec. 4 2231. The day her mother died giving birth to her. Madelyn felt sick.

She slid that vial back into place, then paused. There was one that was labeled differently and immediately caught her eye due to its bright purple cap. All the other vials had black caps. She pulled it out to read the label. In shock, she barely caught it from falling out of her hand and onto the carpet. She read it again.

"M. McGivers x K. Singh fetal tissue – 90% – Mar. 28 2259."

"No, no, no, no, no. This is all wrong. What the fuck is he doing?"

She quickly glanced over the rest of the vials, turning them with shaking fingers to confirm what she fearfully suspected. Almost all of them were labeled McGivers or Singh. Samples from generations of her family that she had never met, and a few more from Khan. Her stomach churned. How on earth Foster had managed to collect all of this was beyond her. She couldn't let it continue.

Quickly, she pulled the entire tray of vials out of the cooler, gathering them up into her arms with her shirt. Then she ran into the bathroom. She dumped the vials onto the floor in a clatter and one by one, began popping the tops off and emptying their pinkish contents into the toilet. She'd left her communicator in the other room and didn't know how long she sat on the floor, frantically emptying each and every glass vial. She was shaking and her heart was pounding, but Foster could be back any second and she wouldn't let him have any of this.

Finally, she was done. She flushed the toilet, glancing at the red liquid as it swirled away, forever lost to Foster and anyone else who might want it. Then she quickly gathered up the empty vials from the floor and ran back into the room to replace them in the cooler. She shoved them in haphazardly, not caring how as long as they all fit. The moment she pushed the cooler top down with a click, the door behind her opened.

She jumped to her feet, trying to look as unsuspicious as possible. Which was a little pointless when she thought about it. Foster paused in the doorway, gazing at her with his head cocked, as though he was trying to figure out what was happening. Then he seemed to relax.

"Well, this is somewhat unexpected."

He stood between her and the door. She'd have to wait before she could get out.

"I say somewhat, because I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised, considering your… breed."

Every muscle in her body vibrated with disgust. She watched him closely as he slowly set his briefcase on the floor against the wall, never breaking eye contact with her. Then he eased his way towards her. She sidled around him, realizing he wasn't coming for her. He was going for the cooler. A knot twisted in her gut. She hadn't replaced it to its original position back under the desk. It still was in the middle of the floor.

"What do you want?" she managed to say, swallowing through the sting of her mistake. It seemed pointless now as he reached down to inspect the cooler. She shifted her weight to the balls of her feet, poised to make a run for it if he opened it. He glanced at her over his shoulder.

"Since you've seen my little collection, I suppose you know exactly what I want."

She hardly registered the way his eyes flitted over her. The moment he opened the cooler, she sprinted out the door.

She ran down the hallway and crashed through the door to the emergency stairwell, almost stumbling down the steps in her rush to get outside. Running to her car, she heard the door open again behind her and knew it was Foster.

It took all of her willpower to stop her hands from shaking so she could unlock her car. She caught the silver glint of something clutched in his hand as he advanced on her, but ducked inside her car before she realized what it was. Too late. He raised it and fired.

The shock raced through her hands from the steering wheel and she flung herself out the open door before he could trap her in a paralyzed state. She rolled onto the ground, her hands burning from the blast as they scraped across the tarmac. One second too late and she would have been stunned in her own car. She scrambled up from the ground and glanced back as Foster cursed and came after her. She anticipated his next shot and ducked into a stand of trees that surrounded the parking lot. He wouldn't be able to get a good shot on her there. Not bothering to see whether she'd lost him or not, she ran as fast as she could in the direction of home.

She never ran. She'd never seen the point. Now her lungs were burning. Home was several miles across town and by the time she made it she was gasping for air. She didn't see him when she came to the front door. He wasn't as fast of a runner as his long legs made him appear, or maybe she was faster than she thought.

She snagged the spare key from the bushes nearby and worked to unlock it with shaking fingers, cursing when she dropped it and had to try again. Finally she got it open and crashed through, just as a blinding flash of pain wrapped itself around her. She stumbled to the floor.

It took a moment for her to regain her senses as she pushed herself up in the open doorway. She could hear Foster running through the yard and tried desperately to shut the door on him. It locked shut with a click, and for a moment she thought she'd won. Then his phaser burned a hole through the adjacent window, and he crashed through the rest of the way. The house's alarm system screamed to life. She slowly pushed herself to her feet amidst shattering glass, willing the numbness in her limbs to go away, watching as Foster pushed himself slowly to his feet nearby. His face was red.

Still tingly from the phaser blast, she tore into the kitchen, searching out something she could wield to defend herself. Anything, really. A toaster would have sufficed. A piece of metal casing left over from the dismantled food synthesizer was closer. She dragged it across the floor before her adrenaline rush helped her lift it. When she turned, Foster had his phaser practically in her face. She knocked it away with one arm, hoping it landed too far away for him to reach. Then she caught a glimpse of what he clutched in his other hand and didn't think twice about what she was going to do next.

He hesitated a split second. Maybe he realized she'd seen it. She took the chance. She swung the metal casing through the air until its flat side slammed against the side of Foster's skull. He crumbled to the floor.

She felt Khan behind her a moment later, a hand slipping around her back and then to her shoulder. She fought to catch her breath, letting the casing drop to the floor with a clatter. The house alarm was shrill in her ears and made them hurt. Khan pressed fingers to Foster's neck a moment before he looked up at her, and she felt panic creep up into her chest at his expression. She dropped to her knees beside him and felt for a pulse in Foster's neck. There was none. The panic within her multiplied.

"I didn't hit him that hard, I don't think," she gasped, her voice shaking.

Khan's voice was droll. "You hit him quite hard."

She leaned back onto the floor, her adrenaline catching up with her as she pushed a lock of hair from her face with a shaking hand. "I just meant to knock him out. I didn't mean to…" She trailed off, swallowing away the heavy feeling that she had just killed someone.

Khan turned squarely to her, sliding a firm hand around her shoulder. "What happened?"

"He had these vials of… of tissue samples," she breathed. "I don't know what he was doing with them but—"

His hand left her shoulder and cupped her face, his eyes digging into her. "What did you do?"

"I emptied the vials," she said, her breath slowly returning. She glanced down at Foster's motionless body. There was blood seeping from a gash in his scalp. "Into the toilet. I had to get rid of them."

His voice cascaded around her, as calm as ever. "Why?"

"He had samples from my mom and my grandfather, and other McGivers." She swallowed through the nausea that returned at the thought before she said it out loud. "And from our son."

A wash of emotions swept across Khan's face and left a furious glint in his eye.

"He had samples from you too." She stared back down at Foster's motionless body, the realization hitting her. "Oh god," she breathed. "Did I really hit him that hard?"

Khan still cupped her face. "You should have let me handle it."

"I didn't see you!" She froze, remembering, then reached down to pry the syringe from Foster's rigid fingers. The reason she'd reacted. The reason this was happening. She stared down at it before handing it to Khan. "He had this. I didn't what he would do if I didn't…" She trailed off, looking up as red and blue flashing lights illuminated the walls. "Oh. Oh no. No, no, no, no."

The tranquility in his voice was bewildering. "We can still dispose of his body if we move quickly."

She shook her head faintly, her mind whirling for a better solution. If they took the body outside, the drones assigned to watch Khan would see. The police would enter the house at any moment and there would be nothing to see except a body, the murder weapon, and the murderer. It was a fact that she knew, that she didn't have the ability to verbalize. She knew she was in shock and that alone alarmed her.

She'd acted in self-defense, but there was no way to prove it. There was absolutely no way to prove it, and with Khan there it would only give the authorities more ammo.

But Khan hadn't done anything.

She started to push herself to her feet and Khan rose immediately beside her, his gaze locked on her face, his hand drifting down her arm again. She tore her gaze from Foster and looked at him as calmly as she could. "You have to hit me."

His brow tightened and at first he didn't say anything. There was a knock on the front door. She pulled him out of sight of the broken window.

"Khan, you have to hit me! It's the only way."

"I will do no such thing!"

The ache in his voice shook her, but her panic curled back into her stomach even more fiercely. "He didn't even touch me. You have to! If you don't, the police are going to take one look and know exactly what happened, and I'm going to lose everything all over again. It has to look like I acted in self-defense!"

His eyes were wide with anger and indignation. He'd even let go of her arm. She had to know that he was preparing himself to do this. She wished she could see it in his eyes.

"Maddy, I will not."

She barely registered what he called her. There was another knock on the door. "This is the police. We're coming in."

She sent him a pleading gaze, unable to repeat the request. "Just…" The expression on his face was tearing her apart. But she was really going to lose everything this time if he didn't do this, and he knew it. "Khan, please."

The next thing she remembered was his fist sailing towards her face. Unable to see through the stars in her vision, she felt his firm warmth enveloping her, halting her body's path to the floor. She heard other voices coming into the room, the police probably. She was aware of the way her head pressed up against his chest and his strong arms encircled her, but it wasn't until her vision came back to her that she was overwhelmed with a massive flood of pain.

She scrunched her eyes shut and ground her teeth, but it hurt too much to do that. Everything in her skull hurt. What if he'd broken something? Knocked out a few teeth? His voice vibrated through her as he spoke to the police, explaining what had happened—or rather what they wanted to the police to believe happened. He sounded so far away. Something about a burglary. How he had gotten there just in time to see her laying on the floor. It felt like a dream, but the pain was all too real.

She sank deeper into his hold, willing herself to pass out. Anything to make it stop hurting. She leaned her head back into his chest, relaxing into the support his body offered. She could fall asleep inside him. He was so warm. She'd forgotten how warm he always was.

When she finally sank back against him, Khan relaxed his hold on her. All of the tension in her body was gone now and hopefully so was the pain, for now. Her body's resiliency had most likely dragged her consciousness along like a dead rag. Had he struck her differently, she would have passed out immediately, but the consequences would have been more severe.

Cradling her carefully against him, he sank down on the couch, watching as police scurried around the room and through the house, taking evidence and making records of everything. The alarms had been switched off and now the house murmured with low voices and electronics. He answered their obligatory questions with carefully calculated emotion rising in his throat, occasionally dashing the spare tear away. She would need him to play the part if this was to be successful. "Worried, bumbling boyfriend" was easy.

Of course, he was concerned, for her well being after what he'd done to her. He understood the gravity of what this meant for her, for the state of her record, for her desire to live a relatively unscathed life. Everything culminated with him. Her loss of family, friends, career. The least he could do was protect what she had left. A revolting irony that it required him to hurt her in order to safeguard what little she had left to value. Her freedom.

The phrase "necessary evil" came to mind, but it didn't feel right. She'd pleaded with him and he'd had little time to consider the ramifications of actually hitting her, but it was done now and her intentions for it appeared to be holding water with the police.

He let one of the officers inspect her face and snap a few photographs. "She was attacked before I got in," Khan said, lending anxiety to his tone. The officer nodded, asked a few more bland questions, then let them be. Most of the attention was centered on Foster's body, which was being carefully hoisted onto a gurney.

She'd trusted him enough to do this right, and that would have to satiate him for now. But he felt angry, with her for asking him to do this, and especially with himself for not having realized the danger Foster could present. He wondered now whether Foster hadn't set the trap himself, making Madelyn believe she had the upper hand and drawing her right in.

He should have gone with her. Never mind Starfleet and their surveillance. He had little time left anyway. He would have found a way to do it.

He stopped himself. No, no it wouldn't have worked. Not without putting her into a compromising position, potentially risking her life just so he could have his own revenge.

He rummaged through his thoughts for a while, until the police finally left, leaving the house empty and silent. Madelyn was still out cold. A ripe hematoma was beginning to form on her temple. He slipped out from underneath her and carefully lay her down on the couch with the left side of her face up, pulling off her shoes before gently lifting her legs onto the cushions. He found an empty icepack in her medicine cabinet, quickly filled it in the kitchen, and then he was back at her side in moments. The shattered window by the front door had been cleaned up off the floor, but the empty frame would need to be refitted with new glass paneling. He made a note to take care of that before he left.

He slid a chair over and settled into it so he could hold the icepack to her face. She breathed lightly and steadily, her face a picture of serenity, despite the wound he'd inflicted. He hadn't seen her look so calm and at peace in a long time.

He hadn't watched her sleep in a long time.

He sat there for an hour, holding the cold compress in place, memorizing every detail of her face, recording her breathing patterns in his mind, until his arm began to protest at being held out for so long. With the night deepening outside, he realized with no uncertainty that he hadn't slept since the day he'd arrived, partially due to his unflinching determination to repair that damned synthesizer, and partially due to his fear of missing anything she might say or do. The sentimentality of that thought made the corner of his lips twitch, but he wouldn't have felt any differently whether he was free to linger longer or not.

In several weeks time, or less, he would no longer have any say in anything.

Without hesitation, he climbed gingerly over her, sliding his other arm around her waist to keep her from falling off the couch until he'd settled behind her. She didn't stir, still deeply unconscious and breathing evenly. If she didn't wake in the morning, he would need to do it himself. He could monitor her more easily here while keeping the icepack against her skin, but as he let himself begin to relax, he could feel his limbs growing heavy.

He inhaled the scent coming off her hair, faintly sweet with undertones of sweat. It made him ache. He grounded himself by shutting his eyes and playing back every interaction he'd had with her after they'd escaped the Io Facility and crashed in the Bering Sea. Reminders of why he had given her space, why he had respected every unsure signal she gave him, why he had ultimately been able to wait as long as he had before seeing her again.

Because he loved her.