This is what I want, she thought. This warmth. This family. This life.
Now she just had to figure out how to build it.
The afternoon foundMelissa curled up in the small cabin she shared with Becsul and Robbie, datapad in hand, while Robbie napped in his makeshift crib—a cargo container lined with thermal blankets that Koss had enthusiastically modified.
She’d been reading for hours, absorbing everything she could about galactic reproductive medicine. The field was vast, far more complex than anything she’d encountered on Earth, but the underlying principles were familiar. Biology was biology, even when the biology in question involved egg sacs or genetic exchange or whatever that cellular merging thing was called.
I could do this, she thought, scrolling through an article about a fertility clinic on some planet she couldn’t pronounce. I could learn the new science, get the new credentials, build something real.
The door slid open and Becsul entered, moving quietly to avoid waking Robbie. He’d been helping Trevan with some maintenance task in the engine room, and his skin showed smudges of what might have been lubricant or might have been some kind of alien engine fluid.
“You’re filthy,” she observed.
“The captain assures me this is a sign of honest work.” He looked down at himself with something like bemusement. “I have never been… filthy before.”
“Never?”
“Warriors maintain their equipment and their bodies with precision. Disorder is not tolerated.”
“Well, now you’re tolerating disorder.” She grinned at him. “How does it feel?”
“Strange.” He considered for a moment. “Not unpleasant.”
He moved to the small cleaning station in the corner of the cabin, using a cloth to wipe down his skin while Melissa watched. There was something hypnotic about the way he moved—all that controlled power, the economy of motion that spoke to decades of training.
“Becsul?”
“Yes?”
“I’ve been thinking about the future.”
He paused in his cleaning, turning to face her fully. “I have as well.”
“We should probably talk about it.” She set down the datapad, pulling her legs up onto the narrow bunk. “I mean, at some point we’ll have to figure out what we’re actually going to do. Where we’re going to live. How we’re going to support ourselves.”
“Yes.” He resumed cleaning, but his attention remained fixed on her. “What have you been thinking?”
“I want to work. In my field, I mean. Reproductive medicine.” The words came out in a rush, as if she’d been holding them back. “I know I’d need new credentials, new training, and I have no idea how to even start that process. But it’s what I’m good at, Becsul. It’s what I love. And out here, with so many species struggling with fertility?—”
“Including my own.”
“Including yours.” She met his eyes. “I want to help. I want to make something good come out of all this horror. Is that… is that stupid?”
“It is not stupid.” He crossed to her, settling onto the bunk beside her with a care that still surprised her—this massive warrior, so gentle with everything he touched. “It is one of the things I most admire about you. Your desire to help. To heal. To create life where there was none.”
“It’s not going to be easy.”
“Nothing worth doing is easy.”
“And I don’t know how long it would take. Getting credentials, building a reputation, finding clients—if that’s even how it works out here.” She laughed, a little shakily. “I’m basically starting from nothing. Worse than nothing. I’m starting from ‘I have no legal status, no money, and I can’t even read most of the languages I’d need to know.’“
“You will learn.” His certainty was absolute. “You are the most intelligent, determined woman I have ever encountered. If anyone can build a new career in an unfamiliar galaxy, it is you.”
“I love your faith in me, but?—”
“It is not faith. It is observation.” His tail curled around her waist, a warm anchor. “I have watched you negotiate for the welfare of strangers. I have watched you maintain your composure under impossible circumstances. I have watched you mother your son with grace and love even when you were exhausted and terrified.”
“That’s just… that’s just what you do.”
