Page 211 of Every Almost

So, tonight, the walk felt different.

By the time she reached the last corridor, she’d half-convinced herself that Reyna wouldn’t be there. That last night had been a one-time allowance, a response to a traumatic event where the Captain helped one of her crew members. A time the daylight had already quietly revoked.

But when Charlie walked through the door, she saw her. Reyna was there, on the same bench as always.

But it was what happened when Reyna looked up and saw Charlie in the doorway. Charlie watched the Captain’s face ease in a way she would never have expected. It was relief, relief at the same thought that had crossed Charlie’s mind on the way here. It was clear that some part of Reyna hadn’t been sure Charlie would come back to their room after letting herself be seen like that. But it was clear she was glad Charlie had, almost trying not to show Charlie just how glad.

Charlie felt her chest tighten.

“Hi,” Charlie said.

“Hi,” Reyna said.

Charlie walked over to the bench and sat down in the space she had occupied many nights now. But the distance felt different tonight, closer than it had been. Neither of themmentioned it, neither of them moved, and as naturally as could be, their shoulders leaned against each other gently. Contact, no pressure.

Their conversation was easy. It flowed naturally, gently. They didn’t talk about the age-slowing, or about Katie or Elena or anyone they’d lost. Instead, they talked about the small things.

Reyna asked whether the Canoplyn habitat was holding temperature. Charlie asked about the next mission and whether any crew members had ever tried to keep any of their rescues as pets. She was surprised to hear just how many crew members had tried over the years.

They even argued amiably about Tavi’s latest upgrade to the music system and whether Torvax had ever, in recorded history, actually laughed.

“I’ve never seen it,” Reyna said. “I have seen Expression Seven and what he himself insists is a chuckle. But actual laughter? Nothing yet. For thirteen years and counting.”

“I’m going to make it happen,” Charlie said with determination. “I am going to find a way to make him laugh. Heartily even. And it will happen, it’ll happen before?—"

Charlie stopped cold.

Before her six months were up.That was what she was going to say. It was how every sentence had ended for the past few months. It was held against the little clock she’d hung her whole world against. Six months of travel back to Earth, and when the Emberkind reached her home planet, she’d be gone, back home, back to her life.

Except, now the Emberkind wasn’t taking her home. Not after the discovery of her aging problem. And, suddenly, she was flooded with thoughts of how a ship wouldn’t spend six months of rerouted missions, as well as a year of course corrections, to deliver a human that could no longer be delivered.

Charlie realized that it wasn’t just the clock that stopped, but the whole purpose of where the Emberkind even was in Coalition space had been completely erased.

“Never mind,” she said quietly. “Turns out, I don’t have a deadline anymore,” Charlie said with a forced laugh. She had meant for it to sound light. But it wasn’t convincing. Instead, it came out flat. She even felt Reyna go still beside her.

The quiet stretched between them. Charlie’s mind started to work in overtime, turning the thought over in her head, looking for it to make sense. But she couldn’t find an answer. She couldn’t make it make sense.

“What happens to me now?” she said softly, her voice quiet and serene. There was no drama to her question. But she didn’t know what this made for her. So, she approached it like anything else. An engineer asking about a system in an undefined state.

“I know I can’t go home,” Charlie looked up at Reyna, and the look in her eyes almost made Charlie stop the conversation completely. But she needed to know. “Even the ship that was taking me there doesn’t need to take me anymore. Which makes me a variable,” Charlie stopped, taking a deep breath. “A variable with no assignment.” Charlie shook her head, feelings she carried last night resurfacing. She dropped her gaze from Reyna, staring at the floor.

“You’re not a variable, Charlie,” Reyna said softly but with a determination in her voice that Charlie found difficult to argue against.

“Well, then I don’t actually know what that makes me, especially on a ship like this.”

She looked up at the window, looking at the stars outside. Charlie was in space, deep space, places humans could only dream about, her included. Yet, she didn’t know where to belong. Unless...

“Is there a version of this where I just... stay?” She asked softly. She wouldn’t look at Reyna. She didn’t want her to see the plea of being accepted show more than her accepting she couldn’t go home. “Not as the human who fell into Borran’s batter.” She turned to Reyna now. “As someone who’s supposed to be here.”

Reyna was quiet long enough that Charlie began to feel the itch of making a wrong decision at the nape of her neck, making her almost take it back, burying it under a joke and letting the stars swallow her truth.

“I don’t know,” Reyna said. Then, because something must have moved in Charlie’s face, she went on, faster than Charlie thought she’d meant to. “I mean I don’t knowyet.” Charlie watched as Reyna’s face changed slowly, turning from trepidation to consideration. “There are tons of bullshit Coalition protocols for displaced persons including placement, status, even standing within Coalition hierarchy.” Reyna’s gaze bore into Charlie’s. “But this is unprecedented in so many way. For one, I have never had to apply the protocols to someone who isn’t able to be repatriated. And that’s only one piece. So, the full answer is, I don’t know yet which one fits your situation, your placement. Your future, Charlie.”

Reyna turned the pen once between her fingers, a small tell Charlie was starting to learn.

“But what I can promise you is that I will not have you filed as a variable with no assignment, Charlie Wickett.” Reyna’s eyes held Charlie’s hostage, and Charlie put up no fight. “These protocols do exist, but if not a single one of them fit our situation, I will find something that does.”

Charlie looked at her. She didn’t have words for what that felt like coming from Reyna. Instead, she felt the pain that had been present in her chest, free-falling since the Med Bay, catch on hope and hold.