Page 190 of Every Almost

Something crossed Reyna's face. "I promise I'm going to hold you to that."

And Charlie believed her, because Reyna kept every promise she made.

Later that same evening,after Tavi had fallen asleep sitting up and Maren had quietly excused herself; after Borran had retreated to his kitchen and Orion had carried his datapad to bed, Charlie and Reyna remained the last two in the library.

They were sitting on the floor, backs against the same shelf. Charlie didn't remember when the distance between them hadclosed. It had happened gradually, through small shifts neither of them seemed to be steering. Seeking comfort or a different position to let feeling back into a leg with pins and needles; adjusted limbs after stretching or getting up and retrieving something more to drink. It was the kind of incremental migration that settles you.

At one point, Charlie was talking. Later, she wouldn't be able to tell you what she'd been saying, probably something about California, or Helen's kitchen, or the way the stars looked different from Earth. But honestly, it didn't matter. What mattered was the silence that followed her story.

In the silence, she heard the music.

Sting's voice, barely there, acoustic guitar so spare it sounded like someone playing in the next room with the door cracked open. "Fragile." It had probably been playing for a while. Charlie hadn't noticed until the talking stopped and the room went quiet. There was nothing left between them but the song and where their hands were.

Charlie couldn't tell you exactly how or when it had happened, but her hand was resting on the floor. And she noticed that Reyna's hand was also resting on the floor. But it was the gap, the gap that was maybe an inch, possibly less.

Neither of them had placed their hands where they were now. They had just ended up where they were. And Charlie suddenly felt as though she may have been gravitating toward Reyna because she had run out of space to pretend this whole thing wasn't happening.

Charlie felt it like a current. Suddenly, this inch of air between her hand and Reyna's hummed with something she could practically hear.

She didn't move a single degree. She stayed exactly where she was, feeling the proximity pulse against her skin. All she couldthink was to just not move because then it could keep being accidental.

It was Reyna who moved when she reached to pick up her mead.

There was nothing special about the move. It was smooth, unhurried, just a casual gesture that would only look like something else if you were watching for it. Reyna's fingers left the floor. The inch of charged air dissolved. The cup came up to her lips.

And in that moment, Charlie realized she had been watching for it.

She didn't know what she'd expected. For the inch to close? For Reyna's hand to find hers? But she'd been watching, and what she saw was Reyna reach for the mead at a very specific moment, with very specific timing, and something about the precision didn't look casual. It looked like an exit.

Charlie understood exits. She'd been building them for herself recently.

The warmth that had been sitting in the space between their hands was gone, and what replaced it was an emptiness that felt specific. A space where something was supposed to be and wasn't.

But then again, it was probably nothing. Maybe Reyna just wanted her mead. And that was the problem with noticing everything about a single person you were paying too much attention to. You'd start building patterns out of ordinary moments, and after a while, it would make it almost impossible to tell the difference between what's real, and what you wish was.

"I should get some sleep," Reyna said, standing. Her gold steady, composure intact. The cup of mead she held was empty, but she brought it to her lips anyway. Though Charlie saw it, she said nothing. Because she needed to stop building patterns.

"Goodnight, Captain," Charlie said.

She used the rank without thinking. Or maybe she used it because she was thinking too much. Somehow, Charlie realized that the rank felt safer than the alternative.

But Reyna didn't.

"Goodnight, Charlie."

Charlie looked up at her name, and Reyna stood there, a gentle smile on her face. She hadn't used 'Wickett.' She'd used 'Charlie.' It was soft and deliberate, and it completely obliterated every bit of distance that Charlie's use of rank in her goodbye had tried to create.

Reyna left through the library door, and it closed behind her. Charlie sat on the floor, staring at the spot where Reyna's hand had been.

And then she measured the distance it had traveled, and the distance it hadn't.

The next morning,Tavi and Charlie were running post-rescue diagnostics on the containment unit when Tavi glanced over at her.

"No music today?"

"Hmm?" Charlie asked, in somewhat of a daze as she worked on her reports. "Oh, right." Charlie brought up her datapad, looking through a few songs, then tapped play on her screen.

Fleetwood Mac'sEverywherecame on in the room.