“Andrek. I don’t want to leave. I don't want to leave Pip,” she continued, and her voice had changed, something more careful in it now. “I don’t want to leave… I haven’t said anything about leaving. I have never said that.”
“You’ve been…” I tried again. “Something’s changed. You’ve been…” I floundered.
“Careful,” she said. “I’ve been careful. That’s not the same thing as wanting to leave.”
“Careful about what?”
“It doesn't matter.”
“It clearly matters. It’s been affecting,” I stopped myself. “You’ve been different since Pip’s fever. Since before, perhaps. And I made an assumption.”
“You made an assumption,” she said, and her voice had gone from its careful register to something louder, something that had a force behind it, “without asking me a single question, and you went and looked up how to get rid of me!”
“That was not what I wanted.”
“But that’s what you did. You saw a problem and instead of talking to me like a mature adult, you went and prepared for me to leave without…”
“I was trying to be reasonable.”
“Cold,” she said. “You were cold. You came in here and you were perfectly, clear when you told me about provisions and transition timelines and that you wouldn’t make it difficult, as though I’d given you notice, as though I’d…”
She paused.
From down the corridor came a sound.
Pip.
I watched Dani’s face change when she heard it, watched her argument evaporate and something more urgent replaced it.
We both moved toward the door.
We reached the corridor at the same moment and stopped, close enough that I could feel the warmth of her, and Pip came toddling around the corner from the living space at an anxious trot with her eyes very large and her fur flattened in the way it went when she was frightened. She looked at both of us and made her sound again, louder.
Dani crouched immediately. “Hey. Hey, it’s okay.”
Pip went to her and pressed herself into Dani's arms and continued her sound, muffled now against Dani’s shoulder. I crossed the distance and put my hand on Pip’s back and she made a grabbing motion with one small hand toward me, insisting, and I sat down on the floor of the corridor. Pip arranged herself partially in my lap and partially against Dani’s side.
Dani looked at me over the top of Pip’s head.
I looked at her. “We frightened her,” I said.
“Yes.” Dani’s voice had come down from its previous register. She stroked Pip’s back in a motion she’d worked out on her own.
Pip’s sound diminished and her fur settled, but she kept her hand tucked into mine.
After a while, Dani whispered, “I wasn’t pulling away because I wanted to leave.”
I said nothing.
“I was pulling away because I was,” she paused, and I recognized the position of someone about to share a deep secret. “I thought you were still grieving.”
I looked at her. “Grieving?”
“Your mate.” She met my eyes briefly and then looked at Pip. “I asked you, months ago, and you closed off. And your wrists don’t wear bonding marks. I thought,” she stopped. “I didn’t want to be someone you leaned on because I was there and Pip connected us. I didn’t want to be,” she shrugged, “a complicationin your life, especially because I love Pip, and I’m falling in love with you.”
I sat with her confession.
“Dani,” I said.
