“You’re saying we need to talk to someone else about this instead of you?” Xaber asked defensively.
“Not instead of. I’m here, and I will listen and do what I can to help.” Tix scowled and chewed on her lip for a minute before speaking again. “You said the cyborgs at the Nova Club formed a resistance movement. That they came together as a family. Do you think that helped them heal? Being together like that?”
Mace nodded with ponderous slowness, weighing every word she said. “Maybe. But we don’t know them. They can’t help us.”
“It doesn’t have to be them. It just…I don’t know, you need another perspective. Someone who went through the same things. The rest, we can work out together.” Tix uttered a sharp, brittle laugh. “I could probably use some help to work through my own shit.”
“Talking goes both ways, you know. We can listen too,” Mace said. It occurred to him that as much as they’d talked over the last while, they still didn’t know much about Tix’s life before she’d arrived at the station.
Xaber’s expression was somewhere between solemn and stormy, but he gave Tix’s hand a squeeze before withdrawing it. “Thank you. I’m going to need some time to think about everything you just said.”
“Take all the time you need. Remember something, though. If you’d died back then, we wouldn’t be here now. Being with you is one of the best things to ever happen to me.”
Tix swallowed hard, and a wave of emotions crossed her face too fast for him to categorize. “I’m tough. I think I would have done okay on my own. But everything is better now because I don’t have to do that. I’m not alone anymore.”
Mace was on his feet before he knew what he intended to do. Without a word, he came around to her side of the table, wrapped his arms around her, and gave her a hug.
Xaber leaned in and threw an arm around her too, and the three of them stayed that way until the mood in the room returned to something like normal.
When they untangled themselves, Xaber raised his mug to his lips and drained it. Then he declared, “I propose a new rule. No deep emotional conversations until after we’re fully caffeinated.”
“Agreed!” Tix said.
The laughter healed them almost as much as the hug.
After that, they rose, cleared the table, and started on the tasks of the day.
“I’m headed to the engine room to finish those calibrations. If everything looks good, this ship will be ready to fly again soon. Two, maybe three days.”
“You’re that close to finishing up?” Xaber asked.
“I think so.”
He exchanged a look with Xaber. Time had flown by too quickly.
Xaber nodded but kept his smile in place as he turned to Tix. “Then it’s time we check the message boards and start looking for work.”
“We should talk to Flek and let him know we’re back in business,” Mace said.
“Don’t agree to anything too far away until we’ve done a shakedown cruise to make sure everything is working.”
She kissed them both and then headed to the engine room. They watched her go before turning and making for the main hatchway.
If the ship was almost ready to fly, they had some decisions to make.
Having Tix on board while they didn’t need to fly away was one thing, but they hadn’t really talked about what came next.
“Brother. We need to talk,”he sent over their link.
“For the record, that is never a good way to open a conversation. Especially when you have that look on your face,”Xaber sent back.
“I look this way because I’m not happy.”
“No shit. That was a rough conversation over breakfast. How are you feeling about it?”
“Like our little temptress hit me upside the head with a deck plate. But that’s not the problem.”
A brief pause followed, but Xaber didn’t slow down. They would have this conversation while they organized a delivery of food for the galley, arranged for the extra repair parts Tix had suggested, and then had a chat with Flek.
