Page 226 of Every Almost

"Well, okay. Um, let's try the walk," Charlie continued. "Left foot forward, stiff, while the right foot drags."

Reyna tried, and it was horribly wrong. To Charlie, it looked like Reyna's body was doing something graceful and precise when the entire theme of this dance was to move like a reanimated corpse with no motor control.

"Less grace, Captain," Charlie instructed. "You're dead. You're a dead dancing person."

Reyna gave her a look. "You know, on Aurevia, the dead do not dance."

"Yeah, well, on Earth they do, and they do it badly," Charlie insisted. "That's the whole point, actually. Try it again."

Reyna did try again but it was still too fluid, too controlled. Kaelari refinement was fighting this Earthly choreography and winning, straightening every lurch back into something closer to a processional than a shuffle. By the fourth pass, Reyna's jaw had set and her shoulders had climbed toward her ears.

"Your shoulders are rolling," Charlie said softly, stepping in. "They need to be locked." Charlie saw a flash of frustration cross Reyna's face. It was endearing to see the Captain upset with herself over a zombie dance. "Here," Charlie said, walking over and putting both hands on Reyna's shoulders, pressing them into position. "Like this. Stiff. No movement."

Charlie then moved one hand to the back of Reyna's neck. "Now the head," Charlie said, focused on the position. She tilted Reyna's head softly to the correct angle, her fingers landing where the gold markings ran up into her hairline. "Snap it right on beat three. Sharp. Like something startled you."

Reyna snapped her head. But again, it was too controlled, too deliberate. Everything Charlie handed her came back too clean.

"I can't get you to turn it off, can I?" Charlie said, a small laugh under her breath. "Okay, let's just try for the hips. Then you've got the whole thing, and you can run it perfected into oblivion," she said. Charlie took a deep breath. "Here."

Charlie stepped in directly behind Reyna and set one hand on her hip with the other on her shoulder to walk the captain through the whole dance. Arms stiff. Step. Drag. Snap.

On the third pass, her hand settled properly against Reyna's waist, her palm wrapping around the curve of her hip. In a single moment, Charlie realized just how close she'd gotten to Reyna.

It was close enough that she could feel Reyna's breath hitch against her, her back expanding flush against Charlie's chest. Reyna went very still. She turned her head, her breath reaching Charlie now, warm against her jaw. Charlie looked up and found Reyna already looking at her.

Charlie should have kept moving. Every part of her that ran on procedure was telling her to finish the step and let go.

But she didn't, because she wasn't even able to.

Reyna was looking at her, and it flattened every thought Charlie had. She was so close she could feel the warmth of her under her palm, the gold markings at her throat near enough to catch the light, the heat of her coming through two layers of fabric. All she could do was stand there, captured by the amber eyes and the stillness, her own pulse erratic in her ears.

And under it, quiet and certain and worse than any of the rest of it, came the thought Charlie had been outrunning for weeks.

I don't think this is something I can stop. And I have no idea what happens if I don't.

Charlie forgot the count. In fact, she forgot the entire room practicing around them. Somewhere behind her she could hear voices. Voices like Tavi's and Maren's, even Selowen in the background. But they were lost to her. She would never know what they said.

Charlie pulled her hands off Reyna on their own, and she stepped back. And slowly, everything came back around her. The room, the music, the voices.

"Yeah," Charlie said, clearing her throat. "That's... that's it. All in the hips." She turned to Tavi. "From the top, please, Tav."

He restarted the song, and Charlie watched as the group ran the dance again. Including Reyna.

She had it. All of it. She had the drag and the locked shoulders and the head snapping over on beat three. It was all stiff and wrong in every joint, just as it was supposed to be, the poise the Kaelari had built into their spines finally quitting the argument. When Reyna came out of the last snap, she looked down at her own feet like they'd done it without asking her.

"There," Charlie said quietly, and Reyna looked up at her. "You've got it."

For a second, neither of them said anything. Then Reyna stepped out of Charlie's space entirely, and the ordinary set of her face came back.

"Yeah, well, I had a good teacher," she said.

It was an easy thing to say, and it landed that way, like a door swinging shut on the last thirty seconds, turning all of it into a dance lesson and nothing else. But Charlie took it. Whatever had just happened, she wasn't ready to hold it up to the light either, and the easy thing let her set it down.

"Yeah," Charlie's voice came out almost normal. "You're a fast study."

Reyna held her eyes half a beat longer, looking back and forth between Charlie's. Then she smiled and nodded before moving off toward the edge of the room. Charlie followed her as she went, not taking her eyes off her. Reyna settled into her spot by the door and looked out at the room, at Tavi and Maren, at the mess of the dance still going. At everything except Charlie.

Minutes later, Reyna approached Charlie on her way out. "I have early rounds with Torvax," she said. "So, I'll see you in the morning."