Chapter 2 - 2368
Romp, Shaw thought later, when he could form words in his mind again. That was most definitely a romp. A hell of a romp.
And then, aloud, "Foyer."
"Hmmmm?" Becca murmured. She was curled against his side, languid.
"The little room by the kitchen. I thought air lock and I couldn't remember the right word. It's foyer."
"Ehhh. Proper houses have foyers. Cottages have mud rooms."
"Oh." He sighed, content. "I like your cottage."
"Thanks." She shifted, pulled a thick comforter over them. "You good?"
"God yes."
"Cottage, crack the windows and turn out the lights please."
The room went dark except for the moonlight through the lace curtain. The window beside the bed rose until a gap about the width of his thumb opened at its base. Cool air seeped in, and the sound of the ocean. "Let me know if you get too cold," Becca said.
Wild air. He pulled the comforter up a little higher. The bed had a proper heavy comforter, not the thin blankets of a starship. "I like it," he said. "Weird. Where I come from a cool breeze like that is usually bad news."
"How come?"
"Means you have a hull breech. Which usually means you're well and truly fucked."
"Well, that's accurate."
"Hmm?"
"Emphasis on the well."
Shaw chuckled, pleased.
"We can close it if you'd rather."
"No, it's good." He meant it. The sound of the ocean was not the sound of a smoothly purring warp engine, but it was close enough that he was already falling toward sleep.
Becca shifted again, moved most of her weight off his body but put her hand palm-down over his heart. He laid his own hand on top of hers.
He was nearly asleep when she said, "Liam?"
"Hmmm?"
"I'm glad you said yes."
Shaw smiled without opening his eyes. "So am I."
It was still dark when Shaw woke. Becca's hand was gone from his chest, but he could hear her breathing beside him. Feel the warmth that radiated from her body.
He wondered what had woken him.
He felt – good. Relaxed, comfortable. Calm. It was quiet here. No engine to monitor here by its sound, just the ocean that he could not control. The soft breeze on his face. The warm comforter. The woman. He turned his head to look at her. Becca's mouth was slightly open, her breath heavy, just a little step from softly snoring. She was beautiful.
Last night you only thought she was pretty, he reminded himself.
Last night she took me on a ridiculous adventure, and now she's beautiful.
Newfoundland. He shook his head. Never in a million years—
Outside, a bird sang five quick notes. It paused, then repeated them, clear in the pre-dawn quiet.
That's what woke me, Shaw thought. That bird. But it's not dawn yet. We don't have to go back yet. Shut up, stupid bird. I get to be content for a while longer.
He closed his eyes and drifted back to sleep.
Then he was abruptly wide awake. The room was completely flooded with chaotic noise. "What the hell is that?"
"Do you not have birds in Chicago?" Becca asked sleepily.
"No. Because obviously they're all fucking here." The cacophony was incredible. "It's not even light out yet."
"It's close." She yawned. "Cottage, close the window please."
The window slid shut, and the noise level dropped significantly.
They lay together for a moment. Shaw was comfortable, and from her lack of movement he guessed that Becca was the same.
This was blessedly not going to be an awkward morning after.
"Cottage," she called, "what time is it?"
"The time is 6:34." The cottage computer had a typical generated voice, but this one was soft and well-modulated.
"What time was high tide?"
"High tide occurred at 5:47."
"Perfect." She sat up, let the covers fall to her waist. "You up for another adventure?"
"Sure," Shaw answered. "But you're gonna have to let me hit the head and brush my teeth first."
"Bathroom to the left. Camp kit in the top drawer. Don't bother to shower, we'll do that after. I'll find you a robe." She climbed out of bed.
"Wait. What are we doing?"
She took his face between her hands and kissed him deeply. "Have I led you astray so far?"
"Yes. Yes, you most definitely have."
Becca laughed and flounced out of the room.
Bemused, Shaw climbed out of bed and pulled the covers roughly back into place. Three or four muscles complained about improper warm-ups the night before. He went into the hall and looked around briefly. The cottage was as small as he'd thought it was in the dark. He stood in the central hallway. To his left was the bathroom and a second door, probably another bedroom. Across the hall was the little kitchen they'd come in through. It connected to a living room, overstuffed with comfortable-looking furniture. There was an empty fireplace. Lots of windows, everywhere, but not a hint of a draft.
Becca was nowhere in sight but he thought he heard water running past the kitchen.
There were indeed several camp kits in the top drawer under the bathroom sink. A camp kit, it turned out, was exactly like a guest kit or a refugee kit except for the writing on the outside of the packet. Simple disposable toiletry items for a displaced person.
Thoughtful of her to have them on hand. Unless it meant that she had overnight guests often –
You do not get to be jealous about a woman who brought you home for a study break, he told himself firmly. You got exactly what you wanted and so did she.
He heard a sort of grinding sound while he was brushing his teeth. He paused, but it was faint through the door. Before he could identify it, it stopped. It sounded like a small engine gone very bad, but Becca did not call for help and the sound did not repeat. He finished brushing.
He definitely needed a shower. He returned to the bedroom and found a long black robe on the bed. He slipped it on and belted it around his waist. It was quilted and heavy, but very soft. And it carried the reassuring scent of an item fresh from a replicator.
Becca was in the kitchen, which smelled faintly of coffee. She was wearing a robe much like his, but smaller and faded almost gray. "Ready?"
"Where are we going?"
"Out the airlock." She yanked the door open and trotted down the steps and out the second door onto the grass.
"I don't have any shoes on," Shaw protested.
"Neither do I. Just watch out for the goose poop."
He stopped on the threshold. "The … goose poop?"
"Comes out of a goose's ass. Slippery and smelly. But there shouldn't be much right now. Wrong season."
"Of course." Gingerly he stepped onto the lawn. It wasn't grass; it was something short and cushiony, but cold and damp. Shaw could not remember the last time he'd set foot outside his quarters without some kind of footwear. It was a shock to his system. He stopped and wiggled his toes.
He liked it.
Becca was already half-way to the cliff, and he followed her. On the way he tried to orient himself in the pre-dawn light. Behind him was the cottage; ahead the cliff and the ocean. To the left the forest. In the dawn light he could see where the path they'd walked came out of the trees, half-way between the cottage and the cliff. There was a long, low shed tucked into the trees there. It had been red, but was faded and one of the doors sagged.
To the right was more open grassy space. A board fence, painted white, marked the edge of the large lawn. Beyond was maybe a field with maybe a few trees scattered around, barely visible through thick fog.
"Are we going in the ocean?" Shaw asked.
Becca had reached a barely noticeable cleft in the rock by the time he caught up with her. "No. Yes. Sorta."
"The ocean," he said carefully, "is very cold. And the rocks are very sharp."
"Yes. But not where we're going."
There were three steps carved into the stone. At the bottom was a landing, and at the back, completely invisible from above, was a wooden door. It clicked open at Becca's touch, and she held it while Shaw joined her on the other side. Beyond there were more steps. The staircase wasn't much more than one person wide. Eight steps down, a switch-back landing, eight more, eight more, until Shaw was sure they were at or close to sea level. It ended at a bigger landing, open to the ocean. The waves lapped at the walkway – exactly as cold as Shaw had anticipated – and he looked directly out at the rocky shore.
The Atlantic Ocean was every bit as fantastic by daylight.
"She didn't use to be this close," Becca said.
"The ocean?"
"Uh-huh. Centuries ago. The land was low-lying anyhow, swamps and lakes. Then the ice caps melted, the war caused a seismic shift, and the weather satellites went up."
"We're outside the temperate belt," Shaw observed. This far north, the weather was unregulated. Anyone who chose to live here was pretty much on their own, with only local controls.
"She came inland this far, and then she ran into the rocks, and she's been pissed off ever since."
He nodded. The ocean did look savagely angry. The icy water touched his bare feet and Shaw wondered again what his new lover had in mind.
"I mean, geologically she's so turbulent because she's very shallow here as oceans go, but I like our explanation better."
"I do, too."
"C'mon." Becca turned. Behind them, on the other side of the walkway, was another wood door. The door clicked again, and he followed Becca inside.
Grotto, Shaw thought, but he knew that wasn't right. Grottos involved caves, or partial caves, and in Shaw's mind they were surrounded with flowers and ferns and such. This – enclosure – was roughly round, entirely surrounded by rock, and open to the sky. There were three more steps down from the gate, and then a dry ledge roughly a meter wide all the way around the roughly oval perimeter. At the center was a pool.
The surface of the water steamed softly.
He realized that the rock beneath his bare feet was comfortably warm.
"Is it a hot spring?" he guessed.
"Deep magma vein."
Shaw looked around, picked out the most likely paths to free climb out of the enclosure if they had to. "Stable?"
"For the next five thousand years, give or take. It's deep, but the rock holds and conducts really well."
She walked to the other end of the pool. Shaw sensed that it was shallower there, sloping up to the dry ledge. He stayed where he was, his back to the door, looking around. Something struck him as wrong. He hadn't been very good at geology, but this particular formation couldn't be –
He turned and studied the wall behind him. It was the same color and texture as the other walls, and it was splotched white with dried salt spray, but when he touched it, knocked on it, he realized the truth. "This wall is construcrete."
"Uh-huh."
He looked back at the pool. "How does it stay clean?"
"See the sluices in the wall?" He looked back and down; there were six shuttered openings, all closed. "At high tide four of them let water in. It fills the basin, the rock heats it, high tide plus one hour makes it perfect soak temperature."
"Why only four?"
"The other two fill and hold, so if you need to cool the pool later you can release it."
"Okay."
"The pool basin is a bomb crater in the natural rock. It has cracks. Over the course of about eight hours it drains, and the rest of the water evaporates off. So the pool's completely dry and cooked before the next fill."
"Oh, that is genius."
"Uh-huh. We send a drone down twice a year to scrub off some salt, but for the most part it's self-sustaining." She dropped her robe and walked into the pool.
"But the reserve sluices, don't they get nasty?"
"They open and empty when we leave. And when the cottage is locked, all the sluices stand fully open all the time."
"But they're closed to keep out the wind," Shaw guessed. He bent to study one. It was very simple, mostly raw hydrodynamics, and that was what made it so brilliant. Even if all the mechanics broke down, it would still largely function. He studied the wall for a long moment before he spotted what must be the maintenance hatch, at eye level on his right. He poked at it, but it didn't open. "How do I open this?"
There was no answer. Shaw turned and found that Becca was floating naked on her back in the center of the pool. Her arms were out, her body surrounded by mist and steam. She looked like some kind of water goddess.
Hey, dumb ass, your lover's naked in the pool and you're gettin' your thrills looking at a mechanical door.
He walked to the far end of the pool, looked around unnecessarily, dropped his robe beside hers and waded in.
The water was wonderfully warm. He walked in up to his waist, feeling the smooth, sloping bottom under his feet. Then he turned and lay back and floated next to her.
Just as the Atlantic had immediately captured him, so did the Soak.
It wasn't that he'd never floated in a pool before. Wasn't even that he'd never been skinny dipping. Maybe that the water was almost precisely the same temperature as his blood. Maybe that the saline content made floating effortless. Maybe looking up at the pink-streaked dawn sky. Maybe the damn chorus of birds welcoming the sunrise.
The sore muscle in the back of his right calf relaxed, and then the one in his left thigh. The tightness in his lower back, and then in his shoulder. Even the tiny ache from when he'd fallen on Toby Boyd's ice skate blade and cracked a rib when he was eight years old vanished in the calm of the Soak.
He'd never been any good at meditation. They'd tried to teach it to him in school, as part of regular coursework, and again in his abbreviated counseling after the Constance. His brain would absolutely not cooperate. Shutting down was not an option. But here, not trying, just floating, here he thought he had a taste of what they'd been trying to teach him.
I've come to Newfoundland to take the waters, Shaw thought wryly. Who would have thought.
He wondered exactly how long he could float there before he turned to soup. Or until he fell asleep and drowned.
His hand brushed against Becca's in the water. He turned his forearm just enough to hook her fingers with his. He closed his eyes. This was perfection. This was bliss.
After two or three minutes of complete relaxation, Shaw was bored.
He lowered his feet slowly and stood up, trying not to make too many jostling waves. Here at the center of the pool the water was chin-deep on him. Becca drifted upright herself, casually frog-kicking to keep her head above the surface. "Well?"
"This is fantastic." He caught her fingers again, drew her into his arms and kissed her. "Thank you."
"It's hard to explain in a way that makes is sound appealing."
"Mmmm." He glanced toward the sluices in the wall. "Water does seem to be getting a bit warm."
Becca laughed out loud. "You held out longer than I thought you would."
"What?"
"You've been dying to pull those levers since you laid eyes on them."
Shaw had to laugh, too, because of course she was right.
"Go on." She eased herself out of his arms. "Enjoy."
He swam to the end nearest the door and pushed himself out of the water. The difference between the air and water temperatures was enough to make him shiver.
"You don't want to stand directly in front of it," Becca called.
"I'm not a complete idiot." He touched the cover of the center sluice on the left side. It was distinctly colder than the air, and much colder than the pool. There was a slender lever to the left side, with no apparent lock. He stood carefully to the side and pulled it.
The water that splashed out was absolutely frigid. Shaw danced back from where it splashed on his feet and ankles, watched as a cloud of steam rose from the pool where it hit. As the water pressure ended, the sluice closed and the lever fell back to its original position.
It was so simple. A basic water-table activity. He loved its beautiful simplicity.
"How deep is the water here?" he asked.
Becca shrugged. "Three, four meters."
Shaw thought about diving in, decided against it. Nothing worse than literally breaking your neck trying to impress a girl. He jumped feet-first. When his descent slowed he used his arms to push himself lower. It wasn't far. Maybe closer to five meters. But that would change every minute as the pool drained. He kicked off the bottom and shot to the surface.
He swam back to where Becca treaded water in the center of the pool and gathered her in his arms loosely again. "This is amazing."
"'The cure for anything is salt water,'" she quoted softly, "'sweat, tears or the sea.'"
"Where do I know that from?"
"It's Isak Dinesen."
Shaw shook his head. He didn't remember the name, only the quote. It was apparently true. He felt better than he had in – well, more than a year.
"I should have come here weeks ago," Becca mused.
"But then I wouldn't have been here."
"Ah. I knew I was waiting for someone."
Shaw kissed her again. He mildly considered trying to do more than kiss her, but when he tried to slide his hand over her bare back, it stuck to her skin instead, so that was probably a no-go.
A siren sounded, distant but distinct. "Damn," Becca muttered.
"What is that?"
"Lightning warming."
"That's not good."
"We're safe for probably another ten minutes. And honestly, the odds of lightning hitting the pool are miniscule."
"But if it did we'd be soup."
"Yeah."
"Damn," he echoed.
Reluctantly, they waded out and quickly wrapped their robes around them. The air felt much colder after the heat of the water. Shaw looked back at the pool wistfully. "I'd love to see it when it's empty."
"It's a bomb crater. Just smooth concave rock with some cracks in it," Becca answered. "But come back down after lunch and have a look if you want."
I thought we were going back to San Francisco this morning, Shaw thought, but he managed to keep his mouth shut. If she's offering a longer stay …
… he needed to study.
She needed to work on her thesis.
There wasn't any reason they couldn't do that here. But he couldn't very well just invite himself.
Can I?
He followed her up the narrow steps, mulling over possible ways to approach the subject. A hint or suggestion? An attempt at physical seduction? Maybe just a straight-out ask?
Then, as they left the second gate and climbed into the yard, he glanced over at the white fence where the fog had lifted some and all his plans vanished in the face of a more immediate question: "Are those cows?"
Becca came back to where he stood rooted. "Yes."
"Real cows?"
"No, they're holograms. I just added them for ambiance."
Shaw stared at her, because honestly, that was as good an explanation as any.
Becca laughed out loud. "Yes, those are real cows. Have you ever met one?"
"No."
"Would you like to?"
"No."
"They're very friendly."
"No."
They did actually look perfectly harmless, spread out over the grass of what must, he assumed, be a pasture. Heads down, munching contentedly, occasionally swishing their tails. Some were taller, black and white. Some were smaller, brown with darker heads and feet and big eyes. Cows.
Cows.
"Becca," Shaw said, very slowly, "where the hell are we? And why are there cows?"
"That's Camp Gander," she answered, amused. "Well, actually, everything back to the transporter station is Camp Gander, but as far as the campers know it ends at the fence line."
"Camp …" Shaw squinted at the cows. He had some memory of this place, its name. It wasn't a pleasant one. Something Camp …
Then he had it.
He was ten years old. He was sitting at the table eating his breakfast and studying his tablet. He and Stu and Melka had narrowed their choices down from sixty possible group projects at Mech Camp to ten. They were going to meet later to make a final decision. He needed to rank his choices and then they would compare. He was very excited about going to sleep-away camp with his friends.
Then his mother, who was scrolling through her own tablet, said, "Oh, look at this! Camp Gander! Aunt Jenna went there when she was your age and she had the best time."
Liam glanced sideways at her.
"It's a real working farm. They had real cows there, and she said you could milk them and drink the milk right from the cow while it was still warm."
"Gross!" the boy blurted.
"Liam!" his father snapped.
Liam looked at him, stricken. They'd had a Big Talk the night before, down in the rec room, about Liam's smart mouth and especially about sassing his mother. He hadn't been punished, but he'd promised to do better. "Sorry, Mom."
Somewhat mollified, his father said, "It does sound a bit unsanitary."
His mother went on. "Oh, they have horses. You could ride horses, Liam. And there are sheep and goats and llamas – maybe those are alpacas, I can never tell them apart. And there's a pond, you could learn to kayak. And rock climbing, and hiking … oh, all that fresh air would do you so much good."
"I … really want to go to Mech Camp with Stu and Melka, please," Liam said quietly. He glanced at his father, who nodded his approval. This was the correct way to protest.
"Oh," she continued, flipping through the pictures on her tablet, "and there's an aircraft museum. With real planes."
"Planes?" This was at least mildly interesting. Liam took the tablet gently and studied the pictures.
What they had was about a dozen really really old atmospheric aircraft. There was a picture of kids sitting in the passenger compartment. There were roped-off cockpits. There were engines under glass. "They won't let me touch anything," he said sadly, passing the device back.
She sighed heavily. "You really do have a one-track mind, don't you?"
Liam shrugged. "I like to take things apart."
"Seems like a long way to send the boy for him to be miserable for two weeks," his father offered gently.
"Well. I suppose." She ruffled his hair fondly. "They made maple sugar candy there. I wonder if they still do."
"What's that?"
"It's good," she answered. "Well, someday I'll get some again."
Liam glanced at his dad again, got a little approving smile. Then he picked up his own tablet and went back to rating projects.
"Camp Gander," Shaw repeated slowly.
"Were you a camper?"
"No."
"Did you want to be?"
"No. Oh no."
Becca laughed at his emphasis. "Well, it's not for everybody."
"But – is that how you ended up here? Were you a camper?"
"I was born here." She gestured across the pasture. "There. My family runs the place."
"And then you ran away to join the Diplomatic Corps?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
A big gust of wind hit them, and with it the sound of distant thunder. Becca nodded toward the cottage, and Shaw followed her. "The cows will get wet."
"They'll go under the trees, but they don't really care."
"What if they get struck by lightning?"
"There are diverters in the field. It does happen sometimes, though."
"You don't eat them, do you?"
"Oh, of course not." Then, "They're dairy cows, not beef cattle."
He hadn't been aware that there was a difference. "Do you have beef cows, too?"
"No."
"Good."
"And we won't discuss the pigs and the chickens."
Shaw was pretty sure she was joking. But he wasn't certain. And he was genuinely afraid to ask.
They went in the mudroom door, but instead of up into the kitchen, Becca opened a door to the side and led him into a narrow tiled room equipped with a long bench on one side and two showerheads on the opposite wall. Beyond there was a tiny bathroom, where he guessed that she had washed up while he was in the main bathroom. "The salt will destroy your skin," she explained. She slipped off her robe and hung it on a hook, then slapped on both showerheads.
Naked in water, but now absent the salt content, it seemed inevitable that they would make love again, and they did. Then they dried off, put on dry robes – lighter, flannel, and again Shaw noted that his was replicator-fresh and hers was well worn – and went inside.
The cottage smelled like fresh coffee.
"You made coffee."
"Started it before we went out." She got mugs down. "You drink coffee, don't you?"
"I do." He went around the little breakfast bar that separated the kitchen from the living room and perched on a stool.
"Good. Should have asked before. I'd hate to find out now that we're fundamentally incompatible."
"I'm pretty sure we just established that we're compatible."
She poured from the old-style pot. "Cream? Sugar?"
"Black's fine."
"It's hot." She slid a mug over to him.
He frowned a little – when wasn't coffee hot? But when he touched the mug he realized that it was much hotter than any replicator would have made it.
It smelled better, too.
He remembered the sound he'd heard earlier. "Did you actually grind coffee beans this morning?"
"Uh-huh. Well, the brewer does it."
"You could just make coffee with the replicator, you know."
Becca cocked her head. "I could. But this is better."
He took a sip. It was better. It was much better. Damn it, she's going to spoil all future coffee for me.
She came around the bar and sat on the other barstool facing him, their knees touching. "So. We have a couple options."
"Options?"
"We can finish our coffee, get dressed, and go back to San Francisco."
On cue, rain began to pound on the cottage roof. They both looked up, then back at each other.
"Or," Becca continued, "we can finish our coffee, have breakfast, wait out the storm, and go back."
"Okay."
"Or, we can finish our coffee, have breakfast, lay around half-naked and study here, and go back tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the day after that."
Shaw nodded. "I like that last option."
"You sure? I don't want you to feel like I'm trapping you here."
"I don't want you to feel like you brought me here and now you can't get rid of me."
She leaned forward and kissed him gently, at length. "I'll let you know when I want to get rid of you."
"I'll let you know when I want to leave."
"Breakfast, then. Eggs?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"Don't care."
"Bacon? Sausage?"
"Sausage. Links."
"Toast?"
"French toast?"
"I don't have any maple syrup."
"The replicator can make maple syrup."
"Oh. No. Absolutely not. Not here."
"Oh. Sorry."
Becca slid to her feet. "You've never had real maple syrup, have you?"
"Does it matter?"
"I had no idea that city children were so deprived." She rounded the bar back into the tiny kitchen. "I'll run up and get some later. We can have French toast tomorrow."
"You want some help?"
She gestured around the tiny kitchen. "No. Thanks."
"Then I'll go start a fire."
"Oh – it's broke."
"The fireplace?"
"At least I think it is. It wouldn't light last time I was here."
"I'll take a look."
He went and crouched in front of the fireplace. It had a pretty simple mechanism – ignitor, fuel line vented feeder pipe behind fake but attractively realistic logs. He found the starter button and pressed it. The ignitor indicator light lit, but nothing happened.
Shaw leaned closer to listen and pressed the button again. The ignitor clicked, but there was no hiss of fuel. It might have been a compressor malfunction, but they were sealed units, usually reliable. Frowning, he reached over the logs and ran his fingertip along the feeder line. It seemed fine, vents clear. He continued to the incoming line and there was a bit of roughness, like sand. He drew his finger back and examined it, then stood and went back to the counter.
Becca was cracking eggs into a skillet; sausage was already browning. Shaw started to say that the replicator could make already-cooked food, but he was sure she knew that. Besides, the cottage was starting to smell wonderful. He examined his fingertip in the light. The grit from the fuel line was various shades of black and brown, and various sizes. There were a few very short strands of hair as well. "This doesn't look like sand."
She leaned over to the bar to look. "Seeds," she pronounced. "Mouse or chipmunk, probably."
"You got a bowl you don't mind cycling, and a screwdriver?"
"You don't have to fix it, Liam."
Shaw looked at her.
"Maybe you do." She handed him a bowl. "Screwdriver maybe in the drawer by your left knee. Otherwise out in the mudroom, in the cupboards to the right. Or the shed, heaven help you."
He opened the drawer under the breakfast bar and looked in dismay at the chaos within. Every house had a junk drawer, he imagined, but this was beyond the pale. It was jammed full of tools and hand lights and string and ties and a bottle opener and some kind of aerosol can and a hundred other things – all randomly mixed.
"Sorry," Becca said. "That was Phillip. My brother. He lived here before me. I've cleaned up some, but I haven't got to that yet."
"Ah. I was afraid I was about to find out we were fundamentally incompatible."
"Phillip had many good qualities. Neatness and order were not among them."
Shaw pawed around in the drawer. "Had?"
"He died a couple years ago. Speedboat. Turns out being really drunk doesn't grant you immunity from the laws of inertia."
"I'm sorry."
She shrugged and turned back to the stove.
He recognized that gesture. Please don't. It was too raw to talk about. He probably made it himself, for different reasons. He continued his search until he found a screwdriver.
Shaw sat down on the rug in front of the fireplace. He pulled his robe up above his knees so he could move without strangling himself; it was weird for him not to be dressed. He tried to reach over the logs to remove the line. Of course there was no easy angle. He bent to his left and then discovered that the standard screwdriver he had was much too big for the tiny screws that secured the pipe. He swore softly and sat back. Nothing to do but look for another one. Given the amount of crap in the drawer, he liked his chances.
As he moved to stand up, his foot kicked the facing beneath the firebox. It clicked softly and part of it popped out a few centimeters. Shaw sat back down and used his fingertips to open the small hidden drawer. It contained the exact tiny screwdriver he needed, three replacement feeder pipes, tied in a tidy bundle, five pipe cleaners, also neatly bundled, and a clear container the size of his thumb tip that held replacement screwed. "Thank you, Phillip," he said aloud.
From the kitchen, Becca said, "What did you find?"
"A secret drawer with everything I need to fix this."
She peered over the bar, grinned. "That's not Phillip. That's Uncle Otto."
"Thank you, Uncle Otto," Shaw corrected. He unplugged the ignitor, then all but stood on his head again to get to the feeder line. At least he had the right tool to get it loose now. "Is he still around?"
"Uncle Otto? No. He's been gone a long time. Great-uncle, actually. He lived here before Phillip. He did all the upgrades."
"Ahh." For all that the cottage looked rustic, its tech was largely modern, from the automated draft-tight windows to the replicator in the kitchen.
"Well, except for the curtains. I think my grandma made those."
The pipe came free and Shaw cradled it gently until it was over the bowl. Then he tipped it and watched while an impressive quantity of seeds fell out. He climbed back in with the pipe cleaner and cleaned out the connecting pipes as well as he could. There was significantly more debris in the line to the outside.
"He did a good job," he commented. "Otto."
"Yeah. He was shipbuilder. Very fussy about his tools and making sure they got put back where they belonged."
Shaw pulled his head out of the fireplace and dusted his hands off over the bowl. "Man after my own heart." He reached back in with the new pipe piece, used Otto's screwdriver to complete the repair, then re-connected the ignitor and flipped the switch. It hesitated, sputtered, and then the fire lit. There was a bit of a burning smell as the last of the debris cooked off, but it passed. "Fire," he announced. He put the tools away neatly and closed the secret drawer.
"Breakfast," Becca announced back. She set plates on the counter, refilled their coffee mugs, then came back around to sit on a bar stool. "That's nice," she gestured to the fire. "Thank you."
"It must be a recurring problem, or he wouldn't have put a drawer there."
"Yeah, the struggle against small rodents never ends. If I lived here full time I'd get a cat."
"You think you ever will?"
"What, live here full time?" Becca shrugged. "Maybe when I retire. Ask me in thirty years."
"I'll make a note."
Shaw cleaned up after breakfast. He guessed, correctly, that this close to the ocean the cottage ran on hydro, and that the supply for energy far exceeded the demand.
They poured more coffee and settled on opposite ends of the couch with their feet up and tangled under a blanket in the middle. Then, finally, they got back to studying.
Shaw was anxious about the amount of study time he'd missed, but he was pleasantly surprised to find that the general section he'd reviewed in the bar the night before had stuck. He went over it briefly, then opened the self-quiz and breezed through it. That was the easy part of the quals, he knew, but at least he had it down. The hours he'd spent not studying had not put him behind his own schedule in the least.
He opened the engineering section of the quals. His mind immediately started sorting every item into two categories: Identical to the Constance, Different from the Constance. He really only needed to learn those in the Different category; anything in the Identical column he already knew. It was all easy. He grasped everything immediately.
So immediately, in fact, that Shaw didn't trust it. He went through the first section, then immediately turned to the self-quiz.
He got every question right.
He sat back and sipped his coffee. It was tepid, but he was used to that. It still tasted good.
He had barely passed his quals on his previous ship. His chief had given him a lot of time and leeway; everybody felt sorry for him. But this time was so damn easy …
Very different situations, of course. Then emotions had been raw and right at the surface – his and everyone else's. There had been palpable desperation in the air. People around him wanted to support him, to help him, but also – Starfleet had lost forty ships and they needed every even passingly able body back on duty. Shaw had felt like he was sleepwalking through it all. Trying not to feel anything, because everything he felt was horrible.
But now, almost two years out, apparently he'd healed some. Being here, so far from everything familiar, helped. No warp cores here to worry about. Cows. Moose. No engines humming in the background; instead an angry ocean that never shut up. It was interesting and not threatening. He was well-fed, well-Soaked, and frankly, well-laid. He had excellent coffee. He was comfortable.
He could learn here.
Shaw glanced up. This is all her, he thought. All Becca. Without her, this place is just a weird silent cottage, a place to hide out from everyone. Without her I might as well have gotten a tiny hotel room in San Francisco.
She glanced up, raised an eyebrow. "You okay?"
"Yeah. You?"
"Eh."
"What's the problem?" He reached under the blanket and lightly caressed her bare foot.
"My thesis advisor thinks my opening pages are boring. I don't know how to make statistics not boring."
"Then don't start with statistics."
"It's a formal academic paper."
"Give it a prologue. Put that story in. Goaw. It's what got you interested, isn't it?"
Becca stared at him, expressionless, for so long that Shaw backed down. "Sorry, that might be a terrible idea, I don't know much about formal academic papers …"
"It might be genius," she said slowly. "I just – I'm not sure."
"Worst case they hate it and you have to put it back where it is now."
"And it means I have to re-structure the whole center section of the paper."
"Save a draft."
She nodded slowly. "It might work. Worth a shot. Thank you."
"You want some more coffee?"
"Sure."
He untangled his feet and got more coffee for each of them. Then he settled in again and opened section two of his engineering quals.
After several productive hours, they took a break. Becca walked across the pasture to the camp to get syrup and supplies and lunch, and to say hello to her family. She offered to take Shaw with her – I'm not hiding you – but they agreed that this was not a meet-the-parents sort of visit. And also, he wanted to view the Soak while it was dry.
"Keys by the back door," Becca told him as she left.
Shaw got dressed, put his boots on and went to the kitchen. He grabbed the screwdriver out of the drawer and dropped it in his pocket.
There were no keys by the back door.
He looked around. He probably wasn't looking for anything as big as a comm badge. But there was nothing at all on the counter. He moved the toaster, but nothing had gotten pushed behind it. He opened the cupboard nearest the door. Nothing.
Perplexed, he went back to the living room and came into the kitchen again. The only thing by the back door –
– was an old wicker basket hung by a blue and white checked ribbon, tied in a bow.
"There are cows here," Shaw reminded himself. He reached into the basket. There were half a dozen button-shaped comm devices. He shook his head and tucked one into his pocket.
The storm had stopped an hour or so before, but the grass was still wet and everything smelled like dirt, leaves, rain, and what he assumed was cow shit. Shaw took a good full breath and then another. Chicago didn't smell like this, ever. Space sure as hell didn't.
He went down the steps to the first gate. It clicked open, responding to his approach. Shaw pushed it half-way open. It wasn't wood, despite its appearance. It was too light, too smooth. He knocked and found that it was hollow. Like most corridor doors on a starship. He grinned. "Hello, Uncle Otto." He studied the lock mechanism. Then he found the well-disguised access panel. It was simple: powered by a palm-sized solar panel on top of the rocks, containing a small battery and a simple transmitter keyed to the button and the cottage. A basic lever served as the safety override. Its entire function was to keep stray campers – and perhaps stray cows? – out of the ocean and the pool. It was designed to do precisely that and nothing more.
Shaw appreciated the simplicity.
Inside the gate was an identical panel. At the bottom of the steps, the door was the same construction and had the same locking mechanism.
The pool was mostly empty, except for a half-meter of rain water that stood steaming in the deepest end. As Becca had said, it was simply a mostly-smooth stone basin with a few cracks in it. The bottom was bright white with salt deposits, streaked by the morning's rain.
The control panel for the sluices was crusted with salt from the spray; he used the screwdriver to pry it open. Inside the mechanism was as simple as the gate locks had been. Uncle Otto was not a fancy designer. What he built served its purpose in the simplest possible manner. Shaw might have made it all fancier, with more redundancies. But it all worked perfectly.
His curiosity satisfied, he went back out to the landing and looked out at the sea. It had retreated significantly with the tide. The rocks were still wet, jagged and probably slick, and the wind blew relentlessly, but most of the spray fell short of him now. He sat down on the edge of the landing, with his feet on the rocks, and gazed out at the waves.
I could just sit here forever, he thought.
A shadow passed over his head and then a big-ass bird set down ten meters from him. It had long legs and neck, a long sharp beak and a blue-gray body. Crane, he thought, or maybe heron. No idea what the difference is. The bird eyed him for a moment. Becca skipped over birds in her wildlife defense briefing. Gonna go with waving and shouting as a first line if that bastard comes at me. Then the bird looked at its feet. It dropped its head suddenly into a little tide pool and came up with a palm-sized fish, flopping. The bird ate it in a single gulp, then returned to studying the tide pool.
Savage. Beautiful, but savage.
Which reminded him.
Reluctantly, Shaw drew his comm badge out of his pocket and held it cupped against the wind. "Shaw to Lubar."
There was a long pause. He was about to repeat himself when Lubar answered. "Oh there you are. Thought we'd lost you. Where'd you go?"
"I went home with a girl."
"You did not."
Shaw looked out at the sea and grinned wryly. "I did."
"What, the girl from the bar?"
"Yes."
"The one you sat and ignored for hours?"
"Yes."
"How the hell does that work? You didn't even speak to her."
Shaw shook his head. "Any word on our missing parts?"
"No. And Carr is smoking mad about it, so wherever you are, keep your head down."
"Isn't there anything that needs to be done on the ship?" There were always repairs needed on a starship, in Shaw's experience, even if they were really minor ones.
"We had a punch list three weeks ago. We did everything. Everything. Carr sent us on shore leave just to get us out from under her feet. So girl or no girl, you want to keep her from snapping your head off, stay away from the ship until she calls us back."
"Understood."
"But, uh, you might take a minute to look at those quals, yeah?"
"Working on it," Shaw assured him.
"Good." And then, "You're going to teach me how you did it, right? Once we're underway?"
"Did what?"
"Went home with a girl you didn't even talk to."
"Shaw, out." He tucked the comm away, grinning. Sure, he would gladly share how he'd ended up here. Shut up when she wants to study. Don't eat the onions. Say yes when you're invited.
Find the very specific girl that that approach works with.
He stood and climbed back to the yard.
A cow, one of the smaller brown ones, stood right against the fence. She looked at him calmly. Reluctantly, Shaw walked over to her. "Hello."
The cow chewed thoughtfully, swished her tail.
Cautiously, Shaw reached out his hand and touched her shoulder. She twitched, as if he were a fly. He made the touch firmer, stroked her fur. It was short and smooth, like a dog. A big dog. He scratched lightly.
The cow turned her face toward him, and half by instinct he scratched her face between her eyes. She pressed against him, clearly enjoying it, and he scratched a little harder. After a long moment, she dropped her head to graze again.
Shaw put his hand down. "So now I've met a cow. Mom will be so thrilled."
Becca came back while he was washing his hands, which seemed like a logical thing to do after his cow encounter. She carrier two white totes. One had fresh strawberries and two meal-heat containers. The other had syrup and several dozen small boxes. She opened one and held out a small light brown object about the size of Shaw's thumb nail. "Bite," she instructed.
"What is it?"
"Trust me."
He took a tiny bite, chewed thoughtfully. "That's just – that's just pure sugar." He went back and gently bit the rest of the piece from between her fingers.
"Maple sugar. And a little butter. We make it here at the camp."
"My mom wanted me to come to Camp Gander just so I could bring her some, I think."
"We can send her a box."
"She would love that."
"I brought lunch," she said, gesturing to the meal-heats. "Fish and chips. Then it occurred to me that I didn't know if you liked either of those things. We can make something else."
"It's fine." He carried the totes over to the counter. "How's the family?"
"Good. Busy, because it's come-and-go day, so I got in, said hi, grabbed food, and got out."
"Come and go day?"
"Last week's campers left this morning, new campers come in this afternoon."
"How many campers?"
"Fifteen hundred, more or less."
Shaw picked up a piece of fish. It was still almost too hot to hold. "That's a big damn operation."
"Some groups stay two or three weeks, so it's not complete turn-over, but it's a lot."
"Where's the shuttle pad? I haven't seen any shuttles all day."
"We can't use shuttles because of the rookeries."
"The … rookeries?" He blew on the fish, took a bite. "Oh god that's good."
"Sea birds nest all along the cliffs on the coast. Shuttles scare them off their nests, or else they attack them. So shuttle usage is very rare."
"Lev rail?" he guessed.
"Moose."
"Ohhhh. Elevated?"
"Into the trees. Birds."
"And not underground," he understood immediately, "because of the magma."
"And the rest is solid rock."
"So they transport all those kids in every week? And supplies, too?" Shaw squinted. That was a massive amount of energy usage.
And they doubtless got all the energy they could use from the sea.
"That's why," he realized, "you can use the transporter any time you want."
Becca nodded. "My coming and going isn't even a statistical blip. There's a big platform just the other side of the pasture. You can see it in the winter when the leaves fall."
"You must need a whole engineering team to keep this place running."
"We do."
"Transporters, hydro power, desalinization, weather controls, grounds and buildings -"
"Medical. Nutrition. And all the farm equipment," she added. "You want to meet them?"
Shaw hesitated. "Are they all family?"
"Some are. But most come in for the season – spring to fall. And some live here year-round."
"Damn. I thought it was some little 'tents in the back yard' kind of place."
"Nope. It's a whole-ass little city."
It was tempting, to go see how this place worked, to get a look behind the scenes. He felt the familiar lure of unknown machinery. But, "I should study."
"Okay." Becca took another bite of fish. "Maybe next time."
"Oh, am I coming back, then?"
"Probably."
Shaw grinned. "I look forward to it already."
Shaw growled and let the PADD fall onto the carpet.
He was lying on his back on the floor, with his feet up on the couch, twined under the blanket with Becca's.
She put her tablet down. "What's the problem?"
"Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt you."
"It's okay. I need to get up and stretch anyhow." She eased her feet down and sat up. "What's wrong?"
"I learn the stuff," Shaw said, "I know I know it cold, and then I open the quiz and it's gone."
"Oh, I can fix that."
Shaw gazed up at her. "Does it involve sex?"
Becca laughed. "Try this. Open the quiz, look at the subject only, and then don't think about it."
"Hmmm?"
"Take a deep breath, hold it while you count to five, then exhale. But pretend, consciously pretend, that your brain is a PADD, and that it needs that five-count to upload the data on that subject. By the time you exhale, it's all right there on the imaginary screen right on front of you."
"That sounds like nonsense."
"Try it." She stood up, stretched toward the ceiling. "You want some more coffee?"
"Sure."
She collected their mugs and went to the kitchen.
Shaw grumbled, but he tried her technique. "Damn it." He sat up and took his coffee. "If I tell you it works, are you going to be smug about it?"
"Oh hell yes I am."
They lived by the time of the tides. Day and night dissolved into an impulse-driven blend of sleep, sex, sustenance, and study. The only clock that mattered was the soft chime that told them the Soak was ready to be enjoyed.
So it was either very late at night or very early in the morning when Shaw offered to make Chicago-style pizza. He went to the tiny kitchen and considered the replicator. It would make adequate pizza, he was sure. But it wouldn't fill the cottage with that very distinctive garlicky scent. He dialed up dough, because he had no confidence in his ability to make it, and sauce, because he didn't have a day to simmer it, and after consultation, cheeses and toppings but not his preferred onions. A minor sacrifice.
Becca kept him company from the other side of the breakfast bar; the kitchen was absolutely too small for two adults to function in it. "I feel like this needs beer with it."
"It does," Shaw agreed, heaping the cheese across the thick dough. "But it would have to be lager. Stout's too heavy."
"Why's the crust so thin?"
"Who's making this pizza, you or me?"
She made a little face.
"You'll like it, I promise. Probably." He reached for the sauce. "My mother always enjoyed a nice glass of ripple with her pie."
"Ripple?"
"Sweet red wine, cheap, with a screw top."
"Oh." Then, "Otto has some wine in the office. Behind the plaque."
He had no idea what she was talking about. "What kind?"
"Um … red? I never looked very closely."
He rinsed his hands, then turned the oven on to pre-heat. "Should have done that before. Let's go have a look."
He followed her into the office. It was obviously originally the second bedroom; it was the exact same size and floor plan. Shaw had glanced through the doorway – desk, day bed – but never gone in. From the center of the room he could see wall hangings that were clearly left from Otto. An oil painting of a ship under full sails. A shadow box with dozens of different knots in clean white rope, each neatly labeled underneath. A framed poster with semaphore flags at the top and the Morse code alphabet at the bottom.
But on the other wall, there was a massive engraved plaque.
At the top, large, was the Starfleet Emblem. Below, it read:
Presented with Gratitude to
Otto Radford
In Honor of His Years of Service
"Oh, shit," Shaw breathed. He should have put that together immediately. Well I was a little distracted. Otto Radford. That Otto Radford. He knew that name well. Everyone who came through Starfleet training knew that name. For a terrible reason.
Below the name was a massive list, tiny print, five columns wide, names and stardates.
"You said he was a ship builder," he said. "I thought you meant –" He gestured toward the painting of the sailing ship.
"Oh. No. Starships. Sorry."
Then Shaw froze. Because right there, second column, third from the top, was her name. Constance. And the date of her birth.
But not the date of her death.
He felt icy. Nauseous. He couldn't move.
"Are you okay?" Becca asked softly.
"Yeah," Shaw lied.
He could hear his own breathing, raspy and shallow. It's just that it caught me off guard. I just need a minute …
Becca sought you out, he thought wildly, she found you because you were the last man to leave that ship alive, her beloved uncle's ship, he built it and you were the last man off and that's why she found you, that's why she brought you here, out of pity, out of fucking pity –
He felt tears gather in his eyes and shut them quickly. When he opened them he'd lost his focus on Constance and he was looking at another name: Saratoga.
Shaw blew out a big breath. You raging dumbass. He built what, two hundred ships? And thirty-nine were lost – how many were his? He scanned the names frantically. Melbourne. Roosevelt. Of the ships Otto Radford had helped build, dozens were no longer in service. Becca doesn't know.
I should tell her.
Not now. But I should tell her.
I am not here because of the Constance.
Becca was behind his right shoulder, her body lightly against him, her arm across the small of his back, her hand on his waist. Time had passed – two minutes? Three? But she had not moved, had not spoken. She had stayed there, close and warm, and she had waited while he sorted it through. He felt his body relax, felt his ice melt against her warmth.
From the kitchen, the oven peeped its readiness for baking.
Shaw shifted, took another deep breath. "Where's the wine?"
She ran her hand along the left side of the plaque. A latch clicked and the front swung open. Behind it was a shallow case that formed the frame. There was space for a dozen bottles of wine, suspended at an angle in two rows, corks down; eleven remained. "Obviously Phillip never found it or it would all be gone."
"You sure you don't mind?"
"Nope." Becca took a bottle down and read the label. "Malbec. Never heard of it."
Shaw closed the box reverently. "I'll bake, you read."
They went back to the kitchen. Shaw fussed with the pizza, keeping his eyes down. He was still shaken. He expected Becca to ask questions. She couldn't have missed how upset he'd been. He wasn't ready to talk about it, and he didn't know how to avoid the conversation without being an asshole.
But she sat back on the bar stool, set the bottle on the counter, and brought out her tablet. "Okay. Grown in high altitudes in Argentina and Arizona, among others. Dry, full-bodied, rich dark fruit nose. Pairs well with food."
"Pizza's food."
"It is. I wonder if we have a corkscrew."
Shaw put the pizza in the oven, shut the door, and opened drawers until he found one. "I wonder if we're supposed to let it – settle or breathe or something."
"Probably. It can settle until the pizza's done."
He searched for glasses, tried to think of something, anything, that would keep her from asking questions. "Tell me about Otto. Do you remember him?"
"Sure. Otto built ships for thirty-two years, and then he was in a really bad accident."
He found dusty glasses in the very top cupboard and washed them by hand with far more attention than the task warranted.
"He was a mess. They told him he only had a few weeks to live. So he came home to be with the family. I was five, maybe six. One of my first memories is of him on the porch, in the good rocker, all wrapped up in blankets. All us kids were running around catching fireflies, and I distinctly remember him just standing up and saying, 'This is bullshit, I have work to do.' And all the grown-ups were all atwitter and whispering and such for about a week, and I somehow decided that they were upset because he said bullshit in front of the kids."
Shaw held the wine bottle in one hand, the corkscrew in the other. "Hmmmm."
"Here." She took both and wielded the corkscrew with practiced ease. "Week one of FDC school."
"Of course."
She drew the cork, sniffed at the wine. "Well, it's not vinegar yet. That's a good start."
"How long did he live after that?"
"Otto? Nine years."
"What?"
"He moved out here and updated the cottage – it was pretty historically accurate, as they say, when he came. Got some of his friends to come finish the Soak for him, and then he updated all kinds of stuff up at the camp. He was always thin, wasn't very hardy or fast. He worked at his own pace, but he got stuff done."
"I had no idea he lived that long."
"Wait, did you know him?"
"No. But he's – legendary, I guess is the word, at Starfleet. After the accident, while he was still in Medical, he wrote an after-action report that became the SOP for warp engine maintenance in station. He goes into detail about every single regulation that was broken or poorly written or non-existent, every mistake that led up to the accident."
"You've read it?"
"Everyone's read it. It's required reading for all recruits, enlisted or officers. This is why we have regulations and this is why they matter. All SOPs are written in blood. Are you sure you want to be here."
"Can I read it?"
"I don't see why not." He peered into the oven, closed the door again. "But it's pretty grim. His assessment is brutal. It's very professional, but you can read how completely pissed he is between every line. It's scathing."
"He never stopped being pissed," Becca said. "He was angry all the rest of his life."
"He had cause."
She poured a small amount of wine into one glass and held it up to the light. "Hmmm."
Shaw peered at it. "What are we looking at?"
"Color. Intensity. Sediment."
The wine was so deeply purple that no light came through. "I can't see a damn thing."
"Me either. Darkest wine I've ever seen. I wonder if it's supposed to be like this."
"Guess we'll find out."
"Swirl it, then sniff it." She showed him.
"It smells like wine."
"If it had gone really bad you could smell that." She sniffed herself. "Then sip. Swirl it around your mouth and taste it." She took a sip, handed him the glass.
"What am I tasting for?"
Becca shrugged. "That's the advanced class. All those descriptive words I read before, I guess. But what it really comes down to is whether you like it."
"Do you like it?"
"I do."
He sipped as directed. It was far less sweet than his mother's favored wines, which were the only ones he'd had any experience with. It was stronger-tasting, fuller somehow. "Oh, damn. That's good."
"It's very good." She poured a glass for each of them.
Shaw took a bigger sip, then checked on the pizza again. The spicy garlic scent filled the kitchen; the cheese bubbled up under the sauce. Cautiously he took it out of the oven.
"That looks magnificent."
"National dish of Chicago," he proclaimed. "Oh, and you are pretty much guaranteed to burn the shit out of the roof of your mouth with the cheese."
"Something to look forward to."
He got plates, cut the thin pizza into squares, served. Becca told him more about Otto. About his projects, his insistence that every tool be returned to its proper place, his stories of the people he'd met. She was talking, Shaw realized, to give him space. He hadn't offered to explain why he was upset earlier, and she accepted that. Diplomat by training, maybe diplomat by birth.
Maybe she was just observant and kind.
Whatever the answer was, Shaw was grateful.
Malbec went very well with pizza.
He told her in the Soak, on the night before they had to go back. Somehow standing up to his shoulders in warm sea water, looking at the waning moon, while Becca half-floated naked in his arms, made it easier. As if he'd soaked the bandage long enough to rip it off without major damage.
"I was on the Constance," he said without preamble.
She was silent for a moment, and he was suddenly afraid that he would have to explain that the ship had been destroyed at Wolf 359 – it was stupid of him to assume that a civilian knew every ship that had been lost – but then she leaned back enough to look into his eyes. "I'm sorry. That must be so hard for you."
Must be. Not must have been, but must be. Present tense. She was maybe the only person he'd met who understood that it wasn't in his past. It was with him every minute. "It is."
"How can I help? What do you need?"
Shaw had not anticipated that question. "I don't think there's anything I need. I just – thought I should tell you."
Becca snuggled against him, then leaned back again. "She was one of Otto's, wasn't she?"
He nodded. "Her name is on is plaque. It caught me off-guard."
"I bet."
"I think the wine helped take the edge off, though."
"As it does."
Even now, Shaw noted, she didn't pry. She would listen to whatever he wanted to tell her, but she wouldn't press for more than that.
He didn't want to tell her anything. He didn't want to explain explosive decompression, or the air burning, or waiting with fifty friends knowing forty of them would die …
"Maybe I just needed this." He gestured around.
"The Soak? It is therapeutic."
"The Soak, the sea. Pizza at midnight. The rain. Wild air through the window. Cows. Maybe I just needed to be a normal person for a few days." No recirculated air, no narrow corridors, no transparent aluminum. No uniforms, no boots. No clothes at all most of the time.
No alarms. No danger.
"And you," he added belatedly. "Especially you." He kissed her gently.
"Mmmmm," she murmured, unconvinced but unoffended.
"It's not at all what I expected. But it's so much better than staying in some little hotel room."
"Why didn't you just go to Chicago?" she asked. And then, "Sorry, you don't have to answer that."
"No, it's okay." He sighed. "I went home after the Constance. Before my next ship. My parents, they were … they were glad to see me, of course. Relieved. But they thought I was going to leave Starfleet and get a nice safe job somewhere, a mechanic shop or something. Not thought, they expected me to leave. Assumed. My dad had already talked to some people about finding me a job." In fairness, Shaw had to admit, that had been his plan when he'd first signed up, to serve a hitch and then get out, use his experience to get a job. But all that had changed. "They didn't even consider that I'd want to go back out. And when I did – they didn't take it well."
"But …"
"What?"
Becca shook her head. "It's not my place."
"This might be a good time to be a little less diplomatic. Ask."
"Do they not know you at all?"
"My parents?"
"Yes. Because I've known you, what, four days? And I already know you weren't born to live with solid rock beneath your feet."
As close as Shaw could ever come to describing the sensation to himself later was that it felt like she had peeled open his chest and rapped a tuning fork sharply against his sternum. The sensation vibrated through every bone in his body. Shaw shuddered hard. Because that was it, of course. The thing he had always known, the thing that he had never been able to put into words. The thing a woman he'd met in a bar could understand, but his parents never would.
The salt water made his eyes water.
In the next breath he understood why she saw him so clearly. "You aren't meant to live on rock either."
"I am not," she confirmed. "This is my home and I love it here, I love my family, but I was not born to live my whole life here. It's where I'll return, not where I'll live."
"And they're okay with that? Your family?"
"They are."
Shaw sighed. "Think they'd adopt me?"
Quite seriously, Becca answered, "Say the word and they will claim you as one of their own. We don't know what a stranger is here."
At the time he thought she was exaggerating; it would be a few years before he found out how true it was. But it was comforting anyhow. He wrapped her tighter in his arms. His emotions felt raw again, exposed. But he was safe here, safe with her.
It seemed impossible that he was willingly going to leave her, and this place.
And already, he recognized that he was ready to go.