Page 98 of Honeyfires

"Vera." He didn't turn around, his hands resuming their mechanical restocking. "Whatever. Are we done here?"

No. We weren't done. Not really. The crack in our crew dynamic was still there, wide and profound, maybe too deep to ever fully heal. But it was the best I was going to get, the closest thing to peace we'd find in this situation.

"Yeah," I said, my voice tired. "We're done."

I walked out before I could say something I'd regret, before the anger still simmering in my chest could boil over into something uglier. My heart hammered against my ribs as I made my way to the bay, needing space, needing air, needing to be anywhere but in that gear room with Davids and his wounded pride and his complete inability to grasp why I'd do anything, sacrifice anything, to protect Vera.

I came home that evening tense and coiled tight, my shoulders knotted with stress, jaw aching from clenching it all day. The confrontation with Davids played on repeat in my mind. His words, my words, the way we'd circled each other looking for an opening that would hurt. The apartment was warm when I walked in, golden light from the setting sun streaming through the windows, and I could smell something savory cooking in the kitchen.

Vera was there, humming off-key as usual, her hair pulled up in a messy bun, wearing one of my Station 19 t-shirts and a pair of skin-tight yoga pants that made my heart clench with want and need and the desperate desire to just hold her. The normalcy of it—her cooking dinner, music floating from her record player, the domestic peace we'd built together—should have soothed me.

For once, it didn't.

"Bad day, babe?" she asked, looking up from the pot she was stirring, and the concern in her cornflower eyes nearly undid me. Nearly.

"They're all bad days now,” I said before I could stop myself.

She turned off the stove immediately, giving me her full attention in that way she always had, like I was the only thing in the world that mattered, like whatever she was cooking could wait, like my pain was more important than anything else. "Want to talk about it?"

I told her everything. The cold shoulders that followed me through every shift, the way conversations stopped when I entered rooms like I was a ghost haunting the station. Rodriguez's concerns about crew cohesion, his unspoken warning that fractures in trust could cost lives in the field. The confrontation with Davids that had solved nothing and somehow made everything worse. It all left me feeling hollowed out and raw.

"I hate that you're dealing with this because of me," she said when I finished, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. She reached for my hands, her touch gentle and grounding. "That you're suffering at work, that your crew is treating you like this, all because you defended me."

"It's not because of you." I needed her to understand this, needed her to know with absolute certainty that I didn't blame her, would never blame her. "It's because they're assholes who think they have the right to objectify women. And I'd do it again. I'd do it a thousand times, Vera. I'd burn every bridge in that station before I'd let anyone talk about you like that."

"I know you would." Her voice cracked slightly. "That's what scares me."

I frowned, studying her face, the worry etched into her delicate features, the fear she was trying to hide. "What do you mean?"

She took my hands, her thumbs stroking over my knuckles in that soothing pattern she'd developed, and I could feel her trembling slightly. "You'd burn every bridge for me. You'd sacrifice everything. Your relationships with your crew, your standing at the station, maybe even your career if it came to that. I don't want you to have to make those choices, Petra. I don't want loving me to cost you everything else."

"Vera—" I started, but she cut me off.

"Let me take care of you tonight. Please?" She pulled me gently toward the bathroom, her hand wrapped around mine. "I made one of your favorites for dinner. But first, you need to relax. You're wound so tight you're practically vibrating."

She ran me a bath, and I watched from the doorway as she added Epsom salts that she must have bought specifically for my sore muscles, the crystals dissolving into the steaming water. The bathroom filled with the scent of eucalyptus and mint, and she tested the temperature with her wrist, making sure it was perfect.

"In," she commanded, and I obeyed, too tired to argue, too grateful for her care to resist.

The hot water enveloped me, and I groaned despite myself, feeling my muscles begin to unclench for the first time all day. Vera sat on the edge of the tub, rolling up her sleeves, and reached for my shampoo. Her movements were gentle, practiced, like she'd been doing this for years instead of months.

"You don't have to—" I started, but she pressed a finger to my lips.

"Hush." Her fingers worked through my hair, massaging my scalp with firm but gentle pressure that made my eyes drift closed. "You take care of everyone and everything else. Tonight, I take care of you."

She was taking care of me. Not because I asked, not because she felt obligated, but because she could see I needed it. Because she loved me enough to know when I was breaking and needed someone to hold the pieces together.

"This is nice," I murmured, feeling the tension slowly drain from my shoulders with each pass of her fingers through my hair, each gentle scratch of her nails against my scalp.

"Good." She rinsed my hair carefully, her touch tender, making sure no soap got in my eyes. "You carry so much, Petra. Let me carry some of it for you. Let me be the one who holds you up when you're tired of standing."

"I love you." The words came out loaded with emotion I couldn't quite name. Maybe gratitude and devotion and something deeper, something fated and eternal.

"I love you too." She pressed a kiss to my damp forehead, her lips soft and warm. "Now just relax. Let it all go for a while. The station, Davids, all of it. Just be here with me."

So I did. I let myself sink into the warmth of the water, into the gentleness of her touch, into the peace she created just by being near me. And for the first time all day, I felt like I could breathe.

Later, after she'd dried me off with careful attention, after we'd eaten the chicken piccata she'd made—my favorite, because of course she'd remembered—after we'd cleaned up together in comfortable silence, we lay in bed with the lights off and the town and desert quiet around us. Vera curled against my side, her head on me, her fingers tracing idle patterns over my ribs and chest, occasionally pausing on Lucas and Santi's names.