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The resistance outpost, then. “There’s no public transportation going there.”
She shrugged. “I’ll get close, and then someone else can pick me up.”
“How long will that take?” I said.
“Look, it’s all up in the air, Holston. That’s how it is with my—”
“Come back with me,” I said, on impulse. “Someone can pick you up from Ohkk just as easily as anywhere else.”
She gave me a look. “Now you’re ordering me around.”
“You been eating replicator shit all this time? You’re pregnant. You need real protein, okay? Not that bland stuff that’s in a replicator. And vitamins. I have fruit trees in my back yard, and—”
“Holston, seriously?”
“Sorry,” I muttered. I made a fist and studied my knuckles. “Okay, I’ll stay here then, just until someone picks you up.”
“I don’t need you to do that.”
I lifted my gaze to hers. “Right.” I squared my shoulders. “Right, you don’t need me. I mean, you don’t need me for any of this, do you?” I turned away. “Maybe it would have been better if you just never told me.” Then I regretted that. I winced hard.
“You don’t have to be part of it at all if you—”
“That was fucked up to say.” I turned back to her. “I should never have said that shit. That was really fucked up.” I hung my head.
She groaned. “Of course, you’retryingto be part of it, and I’m not letting you, am I?”
“You have every right to set boundaries and keep me at arms’ length, shei. You run the show. I won’t complain. I won’t order you around. I’ll… fuck.” I took a deep breath. “You know what? I’m going to go. And if you decide that you need anything that I can help with, you know how to get in touch with me.”
“Holston…”
I winced yet again. “You want to hug goodbye or just, uh, shake hands, or…?” I really had no intention of leaving the planet. I wasn’t going to stalk her or whatever. I was going to maybe, uh, track her. Watch her. Watchoverher.
“If I come back to stay at your house, it’s just a, um, platonic thing? Like, we’re friends who are having a child together, right? You’re not going to try to convince me to stay there longterm with you or something?”
“What?” I shook my head. “No, no way. No, this is… we tried this. It didn’t work.”
“Okay,” she said. “Okay, actually, that sounds very nice. I am way too pregnant to be sitting around waiting for someone to come and get me, actually.”
“Okay, good,” I said, grinning at her.
We boarded a transport together and I might have paid extra to get us into the bigger seats in the front of the ship, and she must have noticed, but she didn’t say anything.
The trip was quick enough. We were on the side of the Ohker system that didn’t have to go around the asteroid belt to land, so we were on solid ground within hihors.
We got off the ship and I took her to my speeder.
“Oh, you got it back.”
“Yeah, it was just sitting out there,” I said.
“Obviously, you fixed the tire.”
“All new tires,” I said. “Can you climb this? I really didn’t think about how, uh, difficult this would be for you, I have to say.”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” she said, but midway up, she looked down sheepishly at me. “Um… I’m kind of… top heavy and off balance, and—”
“I got you,” I said, and I scampered up the ladder behind her and got her up into the speeder. When we got to my place, I brought over a hydraulic platform I had and lowered her to the ground that way.
