The gym was mostly empty by the time they stepped onto the mats.
Late shift meant low lighting. Just the hum of overhead fluorescents, the distant echo of a weight being racked two rooms over, and the rhythmic sound of Leila tightening the straps on her gloves. No crowd. No distractions. Just them.
Jace rolled his shoulders, loose and calm as always, but his eyes never left her. Leila caught the glance and grinned – sharp, a little cocky.
"Don't go easy on me, Wilcox. I'd hate to bruise your ego."
Jace snorted. "I think my ego will survive."
They circled each other slowly, steps light on the padded floor. Gloves raised. Guard steady. She moved like she belonged in a fight – smooth, fast, unafraid of getting in close. He was used to that now. Still hadn't decided if it was a strength or a warning sign.
Leila threw the first jab. He blocked, countered. Quick, controlled. She grinned.
"Is this you not going easy on me?" she asked, dancing back two steps.
"I'm warming up," Jace said.
"You're stalling."
He lunged – low feint, high hook – and she ducked under it, twisting around his guard and landing a light tap against his ribs. He grunted, stepped back, reset.
"Point Dawes," she teased.
He didn't answer. Just smirked and came at her harder.
They fell into rhythm after that. Hit, block, parry, reset. Breath quickening. Space shrinking. Her braid swung behind her like a whip. His boots moved with military precision, but she read his patterns like a book – met him beat for beat. Neither of them let up.
The banter didn't stop, either.
"Thought the Alliance trained you better than this," Leila said, breathless between strikes.
"Thought C-Sec had rules about showing off," Jace shot back.
Every dodge came with a brush of contact. A hand against a hip. A shoulder grazing a chest. A close breath. A stifled smirk. Every glance held just a little longer than necessary.
He went for a sweep – she jumped it. Came down inside his guard. They locked for half a second, forearms pressed tight, her breath ghosting against his collarbone.
Neither of them moved. Not right away. Leila's eyes flicked up. Jace didn't look away.
Then – like they both remembered where they were – she shoved back and reset her stance. "Getting slow, Wilcox."
"Getting cocky, Dawes."
But he was already grinning. And so was she.
And neither of them said what they were really thinking.
Leila dropped onto the bench by the far wall, dragging the back of her glove across her forehead. Her pulse still hammered beneath her skin, but the sweat felt earned. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, breathing deep. Across the mat, Jace peeled off his gloves and let them drop beside him. He stayed standing, one shoulder pressed to the wall, eyes on the floor.
It was quiet for a minute. Not the strained kind. Just... quiet.
Leila glanced up first. "You always this intense on a Tuesday?"
Jace huffed out a breath that might've been a laugh. "Wasn't trying to kill you."
"Could've fooled me." She leaned back, stretching her arms behind her. "You fight like you've been doing it your whole life."
Jace shrugged. "Kind of have."
There was something in the way she looked at him – curious, but not prying. Just interested. Just open. Leila let the moment hang a little longer, then said, "Let me guess. Military family?"
Jace snorted. "Not even close."
He didn't plan to say more. But her tone had softened. No edge, no agenda. Just… listening.
So he kept going. "I grew up in Oklahoma. Middle of nowhere. Dust, cattle, broken fences. That kind of place." He rolled his shoulder absently, like the memory lived there. "My mom died when I was ten. Skycar accident."
Her expression didn't shift. She didn't offer condolences. Just let him speak.
"My old man didn't take it well. Drank too much. Mean drunk. Hit hard. Hit often." He paused. "I stuck around until I turned eighteen, then joined the Alliance. Wasn't about duty or honor or any of that crap. I just needed to get out. Away from Earth, away from him. Away from the ghosts."
Leila watched him from across the mat, quiet. No pity in her expression. Just… understanding. "I know a thing or two about having to get away from shit parents," she said finally.
Jace looked at her then. Really looked.
She met his gaze, unflinching. "Mine weren't violent. Just... absent. There were always more important things. Drugs. Credit debt. The wrong kind of people. Everything but us."
He didn't speak. She gave a small shrug, like it didn't matter. Like it hadn't shaped everything.
"Can't imagine it was easy to get out, growing up here," Jace said.
"You're telling me." She let out a short breath, somewhere between a scoff and a sigh. "C-Sec was my out."
His brow furrowed. Just slightly. "And before that?"
Leila's eyes flicked away. The quiet that followed wasn't hesitant – it was deliberate. She knew exactly where the question led.
"I wasn't out," she said. Simple. Flat.
Jace didn't press. Didn't ask what that meant. Didn't dig into what she wasn't saying. He just nodded once, slow. Let the silence settle again.
And that silence – his choice to leave the door open without walking through – meant more than a dozen well-meaning questions ever could.
Leila leaned back against the wall, eyes closing for a moment. And for the first time that night, she didn't feel like she was fighting.
They went back to the mats without a word. Slower this time. More deliberate. The energy between them had shifted – not gone, just… changed. Like something had cracked open and neither of them knew what to do with it.
Jace rolled his shoulders, reset his stance. Leila mirrored him, looser now, but no less sharp. They circled again, steps light, hands up.
No more jokes. No more masks.
Every move felt like a conversation.
Jace threw a feint – Leila read it, countered, brushed past his shoulder with a touch that lingered half a second longer than it needed to. He blocked her next strike, held it, let her feel the strength behind it. Didn't follow through. Didn't need to.
She moved around him, fast and fluid, coming in low. He caught her forearm, twisted – she rolled with it, came back up behind him, and before he could reset –
She had him pinned.
Flat on his back. Her knee pressed just above his ribs. One hand gripping his wrist. The other braced against the floor beside his head. They were breathing hard. Fast. Her face was close. Too close. The heat of her skin, the flicker of her pulse, the strand of hair clinging to her jawline.
Jace didn't move.
Neither did she.
Their eyes locked, and the world got quiet in the way it only does when something dangerous is about to happen.
He didn't speak.
She didn't let go.
And then –
"Am I interrupting something?"
Leila flinched.
Cassian stood in the doorway, one brow raised, two steaming cups of coffee in his hands. His expression walked the line between amused and deeply, deeply pleased with himself.
Leila scrambled off Jace like she'd been burned, laughing too quickly as she pushed damp hair off her face. "Just training."
Cassian looked between them, not even pretending to buy it. "Sure."
Jace sat up, peeled off his gloves. Said nothing. His expression was unreadable, the way it always was when he didn't want anyone seeing too much.
The turian wandered in, set the coffees on the bench, and picked up a set of training gloves from the shelf. "Don't let me stop you."
But the moment was already gone.
Leila adjusted the strap on her glove. Jace stood, rolled his shoulder. No eye contact. Neither of them said it, but they both felt it.
Some line had been crossed. Something had shifted.
And neither one wanted to be the first to admit it.
The Blue Line was quieter than usual.
Mid-week slump. No sports games on the holos, no music louder than low synth playing from a speaker tucked behind the bar. The usual crowd had thinned to a couple of regulars nursing drinks and a batarian passed out in a booth near the back.
Selyna and Nyxara had claimed their own corner – dim lighting, deep booth, enough distance from the rest of the bar to talk without being overheard. Nyxara stirred her drink for the third time without sipping it. Selyna watched, unimpressed.
"You gonna admit it," Selyna said, "or do I have to pull it out of you?"
Nyxara blinked. "Admit what?"
Selyna snorted. "Please."
Nyxara offered the weakest defense in the galaxy. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Solvaris." The former merc leaned in, elbows on the table, one brow raised. "You sigh every time he walks into a room. You flinch every time he flirts with someone else. And I've seen you smile at his dumb jokes. Not the polite smile. The actual one."
Nyxara looked down at her drink.
"I – " She started. Then stopped. Then took the world's most unnecessary sip of water and said, quietly, "Yeah."
Selyna didn't gloat. Just nodded like the world had finally aligned with what she already knew.
"I've liked him for a while," Nyxara admitted. "Since the academy, really. He was so annoying. Always trying to beat my test scores. But... he was kind, too. The kind of kind that didn't ask for anything back."
Selyna hummed into her glass. "That tracks."
"It's just..." The turian's fingers tightened around her drink. "It's getting harder to ignore it. Harder to watch him get close to people who don't see him the way I do."
"Like Dawes," Selyna said.
Nyxara didn't answer. She didn't have to.
"I don't want to screw it up," she said. "Not just with him. With the squad. With everything we've built. He's finally starting to feel like he belongs here, and if I do something stupid and it gets weird – "
The asari held up a hand. "Okay. Stop."
Nyxara blinked. "What?"
Selyna took a sip of her drink, leveled her with a flat look. "If you want to fuck him, fuck him."
Nyxara choked. "What?"
"I said what I said." Selyna didn't flinch. "He's hot. You're hot. Chemistry exists. Deal with it like an adult."
Nyxara stared.
"But," Selyna went on, swirling her glass slowly, "if you want more than that? If you want him – his awkward, soft, noble little heart? Then you'd better think real hard before you go digging into it."
The turian lowered her eyes again.
Selyna leaned back. "You've seen the Dawes-Wilcox disaster with a side of Jasso thrown in. The pining. The angst. The awkward silences on patrol. You really want that? Workplace romance doesn't end in hearts and flowers. It ends in disciplinary hearings and someone getting reassigned."
Nyxara didn't argue. She just looked tired.
"I don't want to ruin him," she said softly. "He's... good. Still believes in people. Still believes in the badge."
"That's not a bad thing," Selyna said. Her tone, for once, wasn't sarcastic.
"It is when you've got blood on your hands," Nyxara muttered.
Selyna's brow flicked slightly, but she didn't press.
After a beat, Nyxara asked, "What about you?"
Selyna raised a brow. "What about me?"
"You ever get close to anyone?"
The look Selyna gave her wasn't defensive. Wasn't angry. Just... distant.
"Not for long."
Nyxara waited, but didn't speak.
The asari stared into her drink. "Feelings get you killed. Or they get you tethered. I'm not into either."
She said it like a punchline. But there was no smugness in it. No pride.
Just armor.
Nyxara didn't push. She just sat with her in the quiet, letting the moment settle, the kind of silence that said: I'm not leaving. Even if you never explain.
And Selyna didn't say it, but some part of her appreciated that.