Page 213 of Every Almost

Charlie had gotten going, warming up and easy because tonight, the subject was music. Charlie was explaining what it was and why a whole planet had built so much of its heart from it.

As Charlie spoke, Reyna realized she knew this. She remembered the private version from months ago, less by the words than by Charlie's face. Charlie's face had lit up then, and it was the same now. But those few months ago, Reyna had been the only one in the room to see it in that corridor at the end of Charlie's first week. She remembered how Charlie had stood with one palm flat against the wall and a small machine at her ear, eyes half shut, listening to the Emberkind the way no one on Reyna's ship had ever bothered to do before. Reyna's own boot as she approached had startled Charlie out of it. But what had begun as the captain deciding what to do had turned into Charlie holding out a plastic square covered in her sister's drawings, calling it the most cherished belonging she owned.

'A song could do what words couldn't,' Charlie had said, explaining it was what her father had taught her. And Reyna, listening, had thought that music seemed to be a language Charlie spoke more easily than her own.

Reyna had been the one Charlie showed this to first, alone in a corridor months ago. But watching her hold it out to the whole room now was even better. This was Charlie letting herself be seen by the people Reyna trusted with her ship and her life. It was everything for Reyna to watch Charlie doing it openly, without being asked.

Watching this, Reyna felt the request Charlie had made of her come to life again, to find a way for Charlie to stay on the Emberkind. Here was Charlie doing her own part of that work, making herself known to the crew who would want her here. Charlie stood in the light with every guard down, handing overone of truest parts of her, and, slowly, Reyna realized she could watch Charlie do this all night.

"Every big feeling I've ever felt seems to have been represented in a song," Charlie said, her voice breaking through Reyna's thoughts. "What's funny is I never picked them. They seemed to always find me, picking the moment I needed them most." Reyna watched Charlie's smile spread across her face. "You hear the right song at the right time, and it just welds itself on."

Charlie's eyes found Reyna, holding her gaze while Reyna felt her chest tighten. "After that, the song becomes the moment," Charlie continued, her voice softer. "And every time you hear it, for the rest of time, it provides insight into the memories of your life, fully immortalized by music."

Charlie's gaze held Reyna's a moment longer before going back to the room, and Reyna wished, briefly and uselessly, that it hadn't drifted away.

It was Tavi who broke it. He'd gone still and quiet at some point during Charlie's speech. It was in a way Reyna almost never saw in him, and when he spoke, there was none of the usual spark in it, only a kind of awe and wonder that was completely genuine.

"You store a lifetime in three-minute increments," he said softly. "I've never encountered a more efficient architecture."

It was the truest compliment he could have said and Charlie absorbed it exactly as it was meant to be delivered. She laughed at his words, causing others to laugh with her, most especially Tavi himself.

The room came back around her, loud again. She heard the sound of someone needling Borran about a song he'd picked, causing Tavi to bark out a laugh. But Reyna let it come back without her. Instead, she stayed where she was, her face set in what could pass for a captain listening. But suddenly, as sheleaned against that shelf, it became very clear what she'd spent weeks managing to avoid to see.

Charlie was getting in. That was the simplest way to put it. She wasn't even trying or asking Reyna for a single thing. Charlie was pushing past her heavily guarded armor by just being exactly who she was, and she was doing it on Reyna's ship, in Reyna's Engineering Bay, in her Observation Room, and now, she was doing it while Reyna leaned against one of the shelves of her library. Charlie was simply kind, smart, and entirely herself. Yet somewhere inside all that ordinary, Charlie had found the one door Reyna had been keeping shut and had, without the faintest idea she was even doing it, began to work it open.

This was the door Reyna had closed a long time ago, deliberately, with both hands. She had loved two people with a ferocity of a family you choose for yourself. And from that love, she had experienced such loss when she lost them both within a matter of months. That grief had come close to ending her. Too close. Close enough that she felt her job suffer, and that wasn't allowed when you had so many individuals depending on you for your leadership.

It was then and there that she decided she was finished. Not with people entirely, but with this, the feeling of ever again letting someone close enough that their absence could destroy her. For thirteen years that decision had held. But in all that time, she had never met anyone who made her want to reconsider it.

But now, there was a woman, a human woman of all things, standing in her library, talking about music as though it were a divine experience, and that decision was not holding.

Air rushed from Reyna's lungs as the severity of that realization hit. It was a quiet fear, but it was a fully complete one. It had structure and foundation and was nearly built entirely.The old foundation she had stood on for thirteen years had moved under her.

The evening broke up the way Earth Nights always did. In twos and threes, people slowly carried plates toward the door. Tavi grabbed Maren's in a rare form of good gesture while Borran collected what was left of the spread and carried it to the kitchen. Selowen surrendered the good chair, bidding good night to Charlie and Orion on her way out. Orion then said something to Charlie that made her duck her head and laugh. Then he left, saying good night to both Charlie and his captain.

Reyna probably should have left when Selowen did. But she didn't. And now, that left just Charlie and Reyna in the library.

Charlie was finishing her cleanup, crouched over the low table, winding the cord of her small machine around her hand. Reyna watched her gather up the plastic boxes, the mixtapes as Charlie called them, and fit them back into the bag she had landed with a few months ago. All evening she had been telling those in the room to ask her about this music, this phenomenon that spoke to her so clearly that she had carried across half a galaxy in a bag and had never once put it down. This music was in the Emberkind now, because of this, because of Charlie.

Reyna made the decision to cross the library to figure it out, doing exactly what Charlie said to do.

"I wanted to ask you something."

Charlie looked up, her hands stilling with the cord still around her hand as she stood straight. "Okay."

"You said the song picks the moment," Reyna stated, her desire to understand bleeding through her words. "I want to know what you mean."

Charlie's face shifted as she sighed gently. Reyna watched as a grin graced her lips, as though she wanted nothing more than to explain the way this worked but didn't have a damn idea how to do it.

Charlie tucked the small machine under her arm as she sat down on the floor, her back against the shelves, facing the viewport window so she was looking out at the stars. She then looked up expectantly at Reyna, who immediately understood that she was being invited.

She sat down.

Then they talked as the overnight lights came up. Charlie talked about the difference between music for working and music for thinking, how one pushed you through a problem and the other let the problem come to you. Reyna asked a follow-up question, and then another. Charlie answered all the questions she'd asked, including the ones underneath that weren't verbally spoken. And somewhere in there Reyna stopped tracking the time, something she realized was happening more and more each night, yet something she had never done in thirteen years aboard the ship. At least before Charlie had arrived.

"Okay, I have a big question."

"A big question?" Charlie asked. "Were the other ones small?"