Anika grimaces when the nurse shines a ridiculously bright little flashlight directly into her pupils, moving the light side to side. She clicks it off, then back on. "Hmm…Did you hit your head?" she asks, finally lowering it.

"I think I might have?" Anika replies, uncertain.

The nurse feels the back of her head, only to drop her hand when Anika winces in pain. She hit a tender spot, a bump right at the back.

"Feels like you cracked it pretty good. How many fingers am I holding up?" The nurse holds up two fingers, which are now clear to Anika. Whatever wooziness she'd experienced right after the explosion is gone, her vision fine.

"Two. I feel okay," she insists.

"Did you vomit? Or have any ringing in the ears?" the woman persists.

"Well, I was nauseous. And there was a little ringing in my ears. But there was a lot of smoke, and the explosion was loud, so…" Anika trails off with a shrug. The nurse looks dissatisfied.

"Stay here, we'll observe you for a few hours to make sure it doesn't get worse."

The nurse turns to leave, nearly running into Darial when she comes through the partition. Her friend nods to the woman exiting the tiny exam room, waiting until she pulls the curtain back closed before rushing over to Anika.

"What happened!?" Darial asks urgently, face concerned.

Anika tries to relax back on the gurney, but it isn't exactly comfortable. Hopefully she won't need to stay long enough to be transferred to a permanent room. "I don't know. The shuttle just blew up."

Darial's eyes widen dramatically. "Kriff! Why would it do that? That's absolutely insane."

"Beats me. I didn't touch the thing," Anika insists.

Her friend sits on the squeaky examination stool by the side of the gurney. "I was so upset when they told me you were brought in! I thought maybe your mind was in the gutter, and the commander actually did something to you…"

"Oh, no," Anika shakes her head, stopping when it causes a headache to start throbbing. "Though he did come over to see if I was okay right afterward. Which was kind of weird."

"Maybe he was just concerned? That's actually nice," Darial replies thoughtfully.

Anika stares at her. Leave it to Darial to think the best of people. She was hopelessly optimistic, always trying to give others the benefit of the doubt.

"Yeah. You know our commander. Has a real reputation for being a nice guy," she drawls sarcastically. And yet… He had been right there, almost like his first reaction was to check on her. Weird… First the chocolate and card, then this…

She pales when she remembers what she'd blurted out at his retreating back. Had she thanked him for the present, while his personal shuttle was ablaze and all hell was breaking loose? Had she really done that? Anika wants to crawl into a hole.

"Well, maybe he's not as bad as everyone says he is," Darial says. "You know people say terrible things about General Hux, but he's always been very sweet to me."

"That's because General Hux wants to get into your pa-"

Anika's snarky retort is cut off by someone out in the medbay shouting for Darial. "We've got two more troopers, these ones from the shuttle explosion! We need you out here!"

"Are you feeling okay other than the bump? Not dizzy or disoriented?" Darial asks, standing up.

"I'm good. Go do your thing, doctor gorgeous," Anika assures her. Her friend rolls her eyes good-naturedly.

"I'll be back to check on you as soon as I can!" she assures, bustling out of the curtain and snapping it back closed.

For a while, Anika stares at the ceiling and tries to make sense of the noises she hears out in the main area. There's groaning and whining, then a period of silence. Then, she can hear the low voices of a muffled conversation.

She quickly gets bored, wishing she had a datapad. Or anything to do, really. The ceiling here is so bland, a shiny white. She supposes it's better than the rest of the base, which is various shades of black and slightly less reflective black.

Anika shifts onto her side, trying to get pressure off the tender spot of her skull. She suppresses a yawn, searching the wall instead. It's also, shockingly, white. Probably makes it easier to spot all the bodily fluids that get spewed.

She wrinkles up her nose at the thought. Whoever had designed the base had lacked a creative touch. While Anika really couldn't complain about her job or the pay, the doom and gloom appearance of the place left a lot to be desired. Then again, it is meant to blow up entire star systems, so… doom and gloom is probably fitting.

She lets her eyes close, tired of staring at a blank wall. She feels herself getting tired, and doesn't bother to stop sleep from drifting over her mind.

Later

"Anika! Wake up!"

She jerks awake at Darial's frustrated voice, shoving herself up on the gurney. Darial's standing near her feet, a hand on her hip. Anika groans in discomfort, her body feels sore from sleeping in an odd position.

"What? I was just taking a nap," Anika complains.

"You aren't supposed to sleep, what if you have a concussion?" her friend chides. "You have some serious explaining to do."

"What? I'm fine. I slept, and I didn't die," Anika says, raising her eyebrows with confusion at Darial's attitude. Her friend doesn't sit on the stool like earlier, instead she narrows suspicious eyes at her. "What!?" she exclaims, confused.

Darial raises a hand, pointing at the narrow metal cart beside the wall. Anika follows the gesture, eyes landing on a teddy bear. She furrows her brow. "Um…Thank you for the stuffed animal?" she guesses. "You didn't have to get me something, I just bumped my head-"

"I did not get you the bear, Anika."

"Um, who did then?" she asks in confusion.

Darial's eyes are still narrowed, searching her face critically as if to detect something there. "A very nervous officer dropped it off, right after Commander Ren stopped by," she explains. "He wanted to personally inquire about your condition."

Anika's eyes widen. She gives the bear a second glance, picking it up to read the message stitched onto the lighter fur of it's stomach:

I hope you feel better beary soon!

"What the fuck," Anika spits out, sitting the bear back down gingerly as if afraid of it.

"My thoughts exactly," Darial agrees.

She gives her friend an incredulous look. "What!? I have no idea what's going on!"

Darial's eyes finally relent from the suspicious glare. "You're not sleeping with the commander?"

"What!? NO! No, I am not!" Anika insists frantically. "Did you really think I would do that and keep it from you!? Why would I have been so nervous about working with him if I were sleeping with him!?"

Her friend shrugs, giving her an apologetic look. "I thought maybe you were nervous, because it would make it look like you got the position by sleeping with him? I don't know."

"Well I'm not."

"I'm sorry."

An awkward silence stretches between them, and Anika fidgets before giving up on getting comfortable. She sits up on the gurney, dropping her legs down to dangle above the floor. Though she still has a little bit of a headache, she feels fine otherwise.

"Do you think he wants to sleep with you?" Darial asks hesitantly.

Anika's eyes widen as she stares quite stubbornly at her shoes. Oh, sweet force…Oh no. That might actually… Could it actually…

"I just mean, that's rather unusual for the commander to check on a tech himself? I've never seen him in here. Not even when one of his Knights are injured, and they are way higher up than a technician," Darial rambles. "And to send you a get well soon gift, well that just seems like something a man would do when he's interested-"

Anika raises her hand, and thankfully Darial takes the hint. She stops rambling, letting silence fall between them again. Does Commander Ren want to… Is that why he's sending the presents? And rearranging my work shifts to be near him? Oh, kriff…

Her stomach flops anxiously. It couldn't be, could it? In all her time on base, the commander was never in the company of women for any social purposes. She'd have heard about it, she's certain. She heard about General Hux's liaisons. Gossip spread fast. At some point news would have spread if Kylo Ren had affairs. At least, if the women lived to talk about them, anyway.

"Nope. Nope, I don't think that's it," Anika insists, her voice nearly squeaky with how high pitched it's coming out. She can hear the denial in her tone, false and panicky.

"Anika, I don't mean to alarm you. But that really could be a possibility-"

"That's not it! Not it at all!" Anika cuts off Darial, giving her a wild look. Her friend holds her hands up.

"Alright, fine. That's not it."

"Okay, so, I'm going to go back to my quarters. And I'm going to just… take another nap. Yeah," Anika decides, jumping down off the gurney. Nothing like a nap to hide from life's problems.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea, your head-" Darial begins.

"Is absolutely fine."

"Fine. Stubborn."

Anika darts around her friend, yanking back the curtain to the rest of the medbay. She's ready to flee this conversation, flee whatever conclusion she's unfortunately drawn about Commander Ren's recent attention to her.

"Don't forget your teddy bear," Darial calls, grabbing the stuffed animal and holding it out to Anika when she turns around.

She stares at it, not wanting to take it.

"Anika…" Darial's face is sympathetic as she frowns. "I don't think you have to panic…"

"Would you not panic if the commander started sending you presents?"

"Presents? With an s at the end?" Darial picks up on the slip immediately, an eyebrow quirking high.

Anika groans, snatching the teddy bear and hugging it to her chest with defeat. "He sent chocolates. After Liam died."

"Oh…" Darial darts forward to snap the curtain back closed, as if the flimsy material will somehow provide more privacy from anyone nearby in the medbay. "You know, this might not be a bad thing?"

"You remember Tim?" Anika asks. Darial winces, indeed remembering. "Ren crushed a vending machine, by throwing Tim into it. They still haven't replaced that vending machine, too, and it had my favorite snacks."

"Tim was kind of a dick," Darial says, shrugging. "He whined the whole time he was in here recovering, I was ready to tape his mouth shut. I just mean, under that whole get-up, the commander is…just a man. Maybe he's lonely?"

"How do you know he's a man? He could be anything under that mask," Anika points out. Her head is filled with visions of creatures, aliens, and bizarrely, the head of a parakeet sitting on the oversized shoulders of Commander Ren. What is wrong with my imagination…

"No, he's really just a guy," Darial insists. "Jorran worked on him the last time he was injured. He said he's just a really tall, really built guy."

Anika realizes she's crushing the teddy bear, her anxious grip too tense. She doesn't like where this is headed, not one bit. He said that Kylo Ren had an eight pack. That Kylo Ren was shredded. "Okay, well, I'm going to go back to my room. I'll message you later."

"Please don't do that thing, where you panic and hyperventilate?" Darial asks, face worried.

"I won't," Anika agrees, darting out of the exam room as fast as she can. I'm definitely going to do that thing, where I panic and hyperventilate.

Minutes Later

Anika's rushing down the dark hallways of the base, trying to ignore the way the lights reflect off the shiny floors. It makes her headache twinge more painfully, and all she wants is to get back to her quarters before she completely freaks out. But her mind is running away, chasing down a nagging thought.

Why is Commander Ren just now interested in her? What could have possibly grabbed his attention?

Anika's breath catches when she considers the possibilities. Could it be that all her worry over not letting him see her fantasies was for nothing? What if he already knows what I've thought about him… What if that's why he's doing this? But those were just fantasies, I would never…I could never…

She's so caught up in her thoughts, she doesn't even look when she rounds a corner. Anika smashes, face-first, into someone's chest. She tries to recoil, losing her balance and nearly going down. Fortunately, whoever she ran into has quicker reflexes and he grabs her, balancing her upright.

She looks up, surprised to see Matt's concerned face. He releases his grip of her shoulders, stepping back to leave a space between them.

"Hi," Matt greets her, before he seems to fumble for words for a moment. "I was just coming back to check on-Are you okay? You're breathing really fast."

Anika shakes her head. "I'm hyperventilating."

Matt's eyes widen, made even more comical looking behind the thick lens of the glasses. "What? Stop it!"

She's dizzy feeling, shooting out a hand to hang onto the wall. "I don't know how much experience you have with calming people down, but typically shouting 'Stop it' at them doesn't help!"

Matt grabs her arm, and she doesn't resist as he pulls her down the hallway to the first door. He hits the control panel, and it slides open to an empty meeting room. Anika complies when he pulls her in, plopping her down onto one of the chairs. She fumbles the bear, and it tumbles next to her feet.

"Try to focus on breathing slower. Stop thinking about anything else," Matt suggests.

She tries to do what he suggests, to focus on dragging out each breath instead of rapidly gasping them in. But her mind is carrying itself away. Matt crouches down in front of her, and she's surprised when he takes her hand. Her fingers disappear in his grasp, his thumb coming to rest across her knuckles.

Anika's even more surprised at the way it calms her, her body immediately releasing the tension that was carrying it away. She stares at their joined hands, working on holding each lungful of air before allowing herself to release it.

"There you go," Matt murmurs, voice low. "That's it."

Sparks dance up her wrist when his thumb strokes over her knuckles slowly, once, twice. She licks her lips, trying to ignore how much she likes his voice like that. Husky, soft. Not now, you moron, just breathe. And she does, deeper inhales with slow exhales until she feels a lot more normal.

"Feel better?" he asks.

Anika nods, raising her gaze to catch his. "I, um, actually wanted to apologize," she admits quietly. Might as well get this out of the way.

"What? What for?" Matt asks, confused. She notices his hand doesn't release hers, her skin warm against his.

"For making you uncomfortable the other night," Anika says, dropping her eyes from his with embarrassment. "I shouldn't have talked about that, and I hope you can still work with me. I can be more professional-"

Matt interrupts her, his hand giving her fingers a slight squeeze. "You don't have to apologize, really. I wouldn't have asked you to talk about it, if I didn't want to hear it."

"But you ran off," Anika points out in confusion. "Like, you literally ran out of my room."

"I know," Matt groans. His glasses have slid down yet again, and he drops her hand to shove them up his noise. He looks irritated, glancing away from her. "I'm not good at-I don't really do this-"

"I think you're cute," she blurts out, before stopping herself. What has gotten into her? Somewhere between a shuttle exploding in front of her face, and nearly having a meltdown over the thought of Commander Ren pursuing her, she's lost any last shred of common sense. But it's true, she realizes. She likes Matt.

Matt's eyes shoot back up to hers, the irritation vanishing. His lips part with confusion. "You what?"

She shrugs. How can today get any worse? "I just… think you're really cute. I mean your clothes are too baggy, and those glasses are awful, but they're kind of growing on me."

Anika watches the blush creep up Matt's pale neck, splotching his cheeks. His lips still hang open, as if he doesn't know what to say. His eyes dart between hers, searching for something, full of doubt. She can't help herself. She leans forward, before she loses her nerve, and presses her lips against his.

Matt's lips are warm, soft even. But they're frozen against hers, unmoving. Barely a heartbeat passes before she realizes she's messed up, again. He isn't kissing her back.

Anika flinches backwards, breaking the contact. "Kriff, I'm sorry!" she whispers in horror. She snatches the stupid teddy bear off the ground, standing quickly to escape the situation. But she doesn't make it passed Matt before he stands straight as well, grabbing onto her wrist.

"Wait."

She hesitates at his voice, looking up at his face questioningly. One minute he's staring down at the floor, his expression almost tentative with uncertainty. Then the next, he's stooping down to her level. She tilts her face up for him, her breath catching when his mouth covers hers.

But there's more this time, he presses his lips to hers, his grip staying loose around her wrist. She dares to shift her lips down just a bit, centering her kiss on his full lower lip, only to feel him catch her upper lip in exchange. She darts the tip of her tongue out in the smallest little stroke across his skin, exploring the taste of him. She hears a noise in Matt's throat, a catch in his breath.

When he drags his lips away from hers, it's so slow, so lingering. His fingers fall away from her wrist as he steps back, and Anika flutters her eyes back open. She feels breathless, at a loss for words. She's never at a loss for words.

"I, um…I actually do have to go," Matt says. When she dares to meet his eyes, they're apologetic. "Not to run away, don't think that."

"Right." Anika agrees, in a daze.

"They think it was an insider job, the shuttle exploding. I'm going to check over some of the systems for sabotage," Matt explains. "Can you get back to your quarters alright?"

"What? Yeah, definitely. I'm good," she assures him, awkwardness creeping in post-kiss. Matt seems to become aware of it, too. He backs up further, nodding.

"Good. That's good," he says. "I'm glad you're okay. After what happened."

She makes a noise of agreement, giving him a small smile as he retreats to the door. It isn't until it's slid closed behind him that she fully realizes everything he's said. Why would they have Matt inspect the remains of the shuttle? He isn't even a full technician yet. It would make much more sense to have someone more experienced analyze the systems.

Anika stares down at the stuffed animal, narrowing her eyes. Suddenly, she's feeling beary suspicious.