She was close enough to feel the heat of him, to see his chest move with each breath. But she was a ghost, as insubstantial as air. He did not look at her when she shifted her weight, as her hands reached out for him and then folded back empty. When she stood and as she skirted the shards of glass on the floor, he stayed frozen, cradling his head in his hands. She left him there.
The base was quiet and because it was terrestrial, the night seemed real, unlike the aquarium-like darkness of the Finalizer. Almost all First Order bases were laid out in a circle and she paced the level. She walked quickly, bootheels echoing on the polished floor. The turbulence of her thoughts completely obscured all other senses: she did not see the droids as they slowly swept down the dim hallways, she did not mark the third shift storm troopers at their rounds. The cold did not bite into her skin as it reached out from draughty windows, the glass not yet set perfectly into the frame. She tried to order her mind.
He wanted her, she knew this for certain now, and this made him afraid. Dropping his defenses so completely, even for just a moment, was to Armitage so terrifying that he lashed out because he had never been vulnerable without violence or fear. He had never known safety. There were more episodes of abuse, she was sure of it, and the weight of what she didn't know made her grieve.
Disturbing images of Armitage cowering on the floor kept flashing in her mind. Sorrow for his hurt strangled her, so her sobs stayed locked in her chest. There was fury there too, something so hot and potent that she had never experienced its like. It rose in her without outlet because she was powerless to change the past, powerless to punish those that hurt him, and she possessed no means of fixing him.
She had wanted to touch him, to take away the hurt that bent his shoulders, but she didn't know how. She could comfort with a warm but aloof touch on the back, she could hand someone a tissue and make soothing noises, but all of these measures were learned, not instinctual. He needed more than these frosty, automatic gestures, but they were all that she had and they were all wrong. So she had stood apart from him, witness to the storm breaking around her because she couldn't figure out how to enter into the violence with him.
But even as she bit back her own fierce despair, her mouth remembered the shape of his, her body his form. She'd been kissed before but it had never been electric like that. His hands had been everywhere: her back, her hips, her neck. His fingers were long and elegant, like they had been specifically made for tasks that called for deftness. It was easy to picture him holding a scalpel, easy to imagine what that light touch would feel like elsewhere.
Everything that had happened that night brought her deeper into him and he had not succeeded in scaring her off. Armitage was not an easy person but she liked his teasing and his awkward courtesy. She even appreciated his prickly ego. His humor was cutting and his intellect sharp, indeed, equal to hers. There were sparks when they sparred. He was an acerbic bastard, though she shouldn't use that word now, but she wouldn't have him another way.
She eventually stumbled back to the MOs' dormitory, exhausted from her mental and physical pacing. A dim light was on in the corner, but most of the MOs of her shift were asleep. She crept to her bunk, cursed to always be top bunk over Adriana. Under the single sheet and grey blanket, she stared up at the ceiling, imagining him profoundly alone in his quarters. He probably thought she didn't care. She'd likely ruined everything.
Her first thought the next morning was of Armitage. Nothing had been settled in her dreams and her thoughts were still restless. Exhausted, she allowed herself to be swept along as her triad went about their usual morning routine. She nodded along as Adriana opined about their new quarters, as Bard asked to borrow her toothpaste because he had misplaced his in packing.
"Where were you last night?" Adriana asked as they walked towards the mess.
"I went for a walk."
"Where? There is literally nowhere to go." Bard was still clearly upset about the move to Star Killer Base.
"I walked a level."
Adriana and Bard shared a skeptical look as they badged into the A mess hall, one of two given the size of Star Killer Base. Long tables wet with streaks from the cleaning rags stretched the length of the hall and their nostrils were assaulted by the smell of bleach. The main dining hall for the warrant and medical officers was separated from the private dining area for the commissioned officers. The high ranking officers had droids provide table service, while everyone else had to get a tray and file along the food counter. Breakfast was grains in some kind of slurry with dried fruit that tasted like nothing. It was slopped onto their trays by droids with questionable aim.
They took their seats and Adriana diplomatically sat in the middle. Content to be ignored, Beatrice pulled out Armitage's book, pressing the spine flat against the table as she mindlessly ate with the other hand. She was getting to the good part of the novel: she had a feeling that Roland's love interest was going to be burned at the stake and that it would be at least partly his fault.
"Are you serious? You can't even be bothered to eat breakfast with us? What is this anyway?" Bard huffed. He reached across Adriana and snatched the book out of Beatrice's hands. He leafed through it.
"Excuse me!" Beatrice said sharply. Adriana grabbed the book back from Bard. The other MOs around them stilled and turned away, watching the drama out of the corners of their eyes. Unstable triads were the choicest subject of MO gossip.
"You are being mean," Adriana said to Bard before turning to Beatrice, "And you are being rude. The both of you need to knock it off. The universe feels off when you two are fighting." Bardolph raised his hands up in a dismissive apology. She continued, "I think it would be for the best if we spent some time together. We could do a journal club after our shift."
Beatrice had to stop her eyes from rolling. She ate with them, exercised with them, worked with them and slept with them. She wanted to spend an hour or two with Armitage. The remaining twenty two hours of the day could belong to her triad.
"Sure, let's do journal club," she said, forcing herself to not sound sarcastic. She didn't want to waste energy that she didn't have on stupid fights with her triad.
"Did you hear about the new sepsis paper out of the Spire?" Bard asked her, apparently content to drop his irritation with her for now.
"Steroids! Who knew?" Beatrice said, gratefully accepting the truce and they settled into their familiar rhythm. Adriana, as usual, set about to poking holes in the paper and expressing her skepticism, though this particular topic was not her area of expertise, while Bard and Beatrice began to enthuse about pathophysiology. Things felt normal again.
They traded rumors about the new infirmary in anticipation of their imminent shift as they bussed their dishes. Bard tossed his tray in the bin with a crashing flourish just as the nearby door to the private officer's dining quarters opened. Armitage and Captain Phasma stepped directly into the middle of their conversation. In a normal setting, the MOs would move to the side and the officers would pretend that they didn't exist. Instead, Beatrice and Armitage froze as though time itself had stopped. He immediately flushed, ears an impressive crimson. Beatrice's traitorous smile blazed across her face to make her attraction glaringly obvious to everyone. He maintained control of his expression and drew his body up, away from her. Bard shot Beatrice a look of intense disappointment, while Adriana's sharp golden eyes darted between the five of them, her face carefully blank. Captain Phasma appeared to shake her head.
"Officers," Armitage said stiffly with a curt nod.
"Sir." Adriana and Bard replied at a normal volume; Beatrice whispered.
"So you lied about last night," Bard said when they were in the hall. Beatrice said nothing.
During the lull in her shift, she penned a note. She agonized over what to say: everything seemed wrong. This would be the first time that she had summoned him. She had never so brazenly defied protocol.
"I'm going for a walk today after my shift, and if you can, I'd like for you to come with me. I think I understand why you made me start with the fourth cycle," she signed it simply "Yours, Bea."
His reply read: "I can't make it until mid-second, but I'd like to come with you. Yours utterly, Gage".
He was waiting for her near the stairwell exit, in black coat and gloves that had been cut to fit him exactly. Beatrice, in contrast, had to check her jacket out of the supply room. The coat was too massive, and the mittens were too big for her small hands: the unfilled tip of the thumbs flopped in a way that was ridiculous.
"You look absurd," he laughed, but there was tenderness in his voice, "Come, Officer North." He held the door open for her and they walked out onto the salted pavement and from there onto the packed trail made by the snowmobile track. It was so cold that the snow itself was loud, creaking underfoot with every step. Her breath frosted in front of her face and the wet of her eyes seemed apt to freeze. The trees were stark and black trailing deep blue shadows beside them in the snow. They didn't have much of the wane daylight. Distantly, they could hear the sounds of construction equipment, but refracted by distance and the trees it sounded almost like horns.
"So, I assume we are here to discuss terms?" he asked at last. Since they started walking, he hadn't looked at her once, his face a careful blank.
"Terms?"
"Of our," he struggled to find the word, "denouement."
"What are we doing here, Armitage?"
"It would appear that I'm courting you against my better judgement." He kept his eyes fixed on the path ahead, "I think it's a mistake, and so does Phasma. But I don't know what you want. You come when I call, but that's meaningless because you have to. I don't know your mind. Particularly after my performance last night. It's maddening."
"Last night didn't change anything for me."
"You left." His tone was brittle. He still refused to look at her. The words hit like a blow. She'd been too cowardly to touch him, and now he thought that she had left in disgust.
"I didn't know that you wanted me to stay."
"I didn't want you to do anything." He shoved his hands in his pockets.
"You're upset-"
"Don't tell me how I feel. You have no idea," he said with an acidic laugh.
"You're right. I have no idea. But you asked me if my opinion of you had changed, and it hasn't. So you can accept that I'm telling the truth or continue to believe that I'm lying when everything points to the contrary. I wanted to comfort you-"
"I don't need to be comforted," he sneered.
"I didn't know what to do and you were acting like I was invisible, so I left. But if you want me to, next time, I'll stay."
"Why?"
"Because I like being with you. And I agree with you, and Captain Phasma and Bard and everyone else. This will end badly. But let's make it worth it."
The end that Beatrice had written for them was informed by her understanding of Alcean relationships, which burned ember bright for an evening and faded just as quickly. Once consummated, his ardor would wane and they would grow sick at the sight of each other. Hopefully her surgeon's mindset would bring her to cut out before the inevitable decay set in, or perhaps, having conquered her, his general's disposition would lead him elsewhere.
This was the lie that she told herself. Deeply, in the subterranean levels of Beatrice's ordered brain, something was waking up and it wanted him, all of him. It was jealous of any thoughts he had that weren't of her, jealous of the glove on his hand, of the water on his body as he bathed. She stopped walking, the wood around them silent other than the creaking of the pines as the wind shivered through the needles. She wanted to remember how he looked just now, his face framed with the black spires of the tree tops against the grey twilight sky.
"Let's make such an end to it, then." He tried to deliver his words with a kind of bitter levity, but his voice was too solemn and pitched too low, like he was saying a vow instead. The tone seemed to harmonize with the greedy dark waking up in Beatrice. Before, he wouldn't meet her gaze, now his eyes were locked on her.
They groped for each other's hands and he held hers awkwardly through the thick mittens. She stood on tip toe as he bent down. The kiss was quick, a sealing. He didn't let go of her hands, though, and he pulled her close, kissing her again and this time they lingered a moment afterward, her forehead resting on his cheek, his breath warm in her ear. It was too cold for anything more intimate, and they began to walk again. He kept her hand clasped in his.
"You mentioned the book in your note. Are you liking it?"
"I am. You were right."
"You'll find that's often the case." She butted into him with her shoulder as he gave her his not-smile smile.
"That will never get tiresome, I'm sure."
"Oh you'll love it."
"So how many girls have you convinced to read this before me?" Her question unbalanced him, and he took a moment to answer.
"Just you. You're the most bookish. As for the other girls, I got drunk a few times towards the end of my training. There was a girl who would get similarly drunk." He left it there with a half shrug. She sensed he was withholding.
"No time for literature with your drunken cadet?"
"No."
"What about the other one? You said girls." She raised her eyebrows suggestively. He sighed and withdrew his body from her, putting his hands in his pockets.
"There was a courtesan. Once."
She couldn't help but see him with his eyes shut tight at some whore's ministrations. With the drunken cadet, she imagined clumsy, desperate intimacy. The courtesan, however, could play men like an instrument; Beatrice could never hope to be as good at giving him pleasure as a professional. She had never before wanted to hurt someone, but she would have slapped that slut across the face for getting to him first. The force of the feeling was surprising, and Beatrice incorrectly categorized it as anger, because jealousy had never felt this violent. She didn't do it consciously, but her gait got faster.
"It was only the one time. I deal with it on my own now," he said quickly, noticing the change in her affect.
It was a surprising gaff. Armitage was usually exceedingly careful with words. She realized the admission before he did and insecurity made her cruel.
"All on your own. It must be hard for you," she said with a wicked smile, throwing the pun in his face like a projectile. He made his embarrassed expression and rubbed his gloved fingers over his eyes.
"Could you pretend, for me, that I didn't say that?"
"I can't just gloss over your hardship." She couldn't help herself.
"Bea, I'm being serious. Please?" He was actually upset, and he continued defensively, "And what about you then?"
"You have heard the expression before? That Alceans rut but don't kiss?"
"I hadn't," he admitted after balking and clearing his throat. She'd been successful in weaponizing his need to be circumspect.
"My first and second times were part of my training. I've been propositioned twice. I said yes both times. She was D-year so I was moving on and she wasn't. And Travers was a MO III on the Principle; he and I met at a conference. But there is no such thing as romance or marriage. And if you get caught with a bastard, you are shunned." She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth.
"How do you feel about being with a bastard, then?" He immediately pulled away from her. She had been so careless and had gone too far. She cursed herself.
"Well, it would mean that you weren't raised a blunt Alcean with no tact, so I feel pretty good about my choice," She nudged his arm and took his hand again, "I'm sorry. You might have to have patience with me; this is new."
"I suppose I can be patient for my beer-swilling, tactless gangster."
"You make me sound so charming." He looked like was about to say something teasing, but he swallowed his words and fought not to smile. He squeezed her hand harder instead.
They walked a few moments in silence as the twilight sunk in more fully. It started to snow, coming down in a fine glittering powder that dusted his black coat. He asked, "You never told me, what was your theory? Why did I start you at the fourth cycle?" They crested a ridge, showing the awful clearing where the star killer rested.
"Because we'll burn in the end," she said quietly, staring at the fell machine.