The flex came fast, the burst of light, darkness and sweat that blasted over and through both bodies, skin slick against skin as they moved, blurred together. Tessa gasped, fingers clenching skin, spasming against Ben’s back as she rose into the sensation, let it fill her, wash through her. Ben’s breath came in a sweet blasted sigh, face sliding across wet chest as he collapsed against her. Lips slid, came to rest in the jasmine-sweet skin of her sweaty neck, and then, for a moment, there was only the warm, blinding sensation, the steady heave and fall of breathing as they relaxed into each other, bodies melting into one. Ben kissed Tessa’s neck, nuzzled there as she smiled, closed her eyes, relaxed into deep, sated pleasure.

When she awoke again, it was in his arms, smiling in the warm darkness rich with his smell, the soft and strong sanctuary of his chest, the frame of his elbows, muscles. She nuzzled deeper, grinned, let her hand explore along his back, trace the hard, sculpted line of a shoulder blade. Lips sunk into her hair, softly kissed her.

“Hey” he whispered, hand sliding along her hair, across the curve of her neck, down her back. “You should see this. The fleet is gathering.”

“Mmmmh.” She managed, snuggling in deeper, burying herself in his darkness, pressing her face against his chest. “They’ll see me soon enough. I’d rather be here.” She laughed, felt Dimitrov chuckle as she continued. “Where there are no admirals, no Cygnans. . .”

“No sky, no stars.” He teased back.

“Who needs stars when I’ve got you?” She bit him gently, grinned as he flinched, chuckled again. “You are my sky.”

“I’m a little too small to fly a Seindrive around in,” he laughed, “but I appreciate the sentiment.”

“Of course.” She grinned, stretched, looked up to meet his eyes. “You’re big where it counts.” Chuckling, they leaned in, foreheads touching, hands meeting, interlacing.

Dimitrov smiled, traced a loving line across her cheek. “How long do we have?”

“Never long enough.” She managed, gently cupping his hand as she bent up to kiss him, to feel his lips, the soft sharing of mingled breath. Inhales came shaky, and then she grinned, pulled away. “Well, maybe long enough.” She traced a line down his chest. “Let me check.”

“You’re a beast.” He breathed, grinning.

Reaching over the edge of the bed, Tessa pulled at the heap of her discarded uniform, caught the sheet of silicon nestled there and paged quickly through the itinerary. “I don’t report in for another hour or so, so–”

And then she looked up, saw it, saw the sleek bulk of the Wu Ang Hok slide into view, felt the sudden spike of memories that rose to lash into her mind. Shocked into silence, she was left staring, suddenly shattered.

“So. . .” Dimitrov began, let it hang in the pause. “Tessa?” He reached out, gently pressed his hand against her back. “Everything alright?”

“Y. . . yeah.” She managed, swallowed, shivered as he ran a hand down her back. Looking up, she met his eyes again, and he could see the pain there, the flash of pale in her skin. He swallowed reflexively, closed his eyes.

“It’s Izzy, isn’t it?”

She looked away, gaze slipping vaguely away from the window as she withdrew into herself, let her mind go elsewhere. She breathed, gestured loosely.

“That’s the Hok, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Came Ben’s soft response, words carried on a sigh. “Yeah, I think so.”

“Your old ship.” She said blankly. In the pause, she breathed her own weak sigh, glanced back at his, eyes downcast. “I’m sorry, Ben.”

“I know.” He managed, and the word came thick with meaning. She turned away again, watched the shapes of cruisers, rigs and smaller ships drifting through the silence, a soundless orchestra of steel nine ships in size– all that was left of the once massive mid-front fleet, the frontier patrol, originally twenty seven starships strong. She closed her eyes, pulled in a shaky breath.

“I love you, Tessa, but I feel like. . .” Ben tried, reaching out to touch her again, wishing that there was something he could say that would smooth it all over again, knowing that there was only one thing to say, one thing that Tessa truly needed to hear more than anything else if their relationship was going to have a future, if it was going to go any further than the time it would take either one of them to get fed up and request a quarters transfer. “I feel like I’m always sharing you with someone else, someone you love more than you could ever love me, and every time you think about her, you clam up and apologize and become this broken, cold shadow of yourself.” His hand hung there, hesitated, came back to his side. “It hurts for me to see it, Tessa, to see you go from this strong, sensitive, generous woman I fell in love with to this. . .” He gestured at her, dropped back onto his back, rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Sometimes I wonder if it might be better to just cut my losses now and give you your space for however much longer you need to pull yourself back together.”

All at once, she glanced back at him, fixed him with a stare that was part shock, part fear, pain, confusion. As his hands drifted away from his own eyes, he stared back at her, studied her face, waiting for something, anything, a response that would determine whether the suddenly fragile thread at the core of their relationship would snap or not. A thousand broken responses bubbled up in Tessa’s mind, tried to orient or foreground themselves only to fall away again just as quickly. There were so many things she hadn’t told him, things she couldn’t tell him, all the truths that would hurt him, would tear new, sharp and bleeding wounds into his already scarred heart. The connection I had with Izzy, the way we supported each other, the way we held each other, knew each other, the depth of our bond. . . She opened her mouth to say something, but when the words didn’t come, she looked away again, found her strength among the patterns in the floor.

“I’m sorry, Ben. I. . . I just can’t stop thinking about it,” She squeezed the edge of the mattress with whitening hands. “I keep running it over in my head, looking, thinking ‘if I’d only done this’ or ‘if I’d only known that’” She bit her lip to let the shaking pass, breathed, voice on the edge of breaking, almost desperate. “Izzy was. . . so much to me than you realize.”

“Yeah, I know.” He said softly, the sound of finality hanging heavy in the echo of every other time he’d taken her pain in stride, every other time he’d been her pillar of strength. He sighed, slipped past her and off the bed. “Maybe I just need a break. I’m going to get some coffee.”

Blankly, she watched him as he pulled a clean uniform out of the cleanser drawer, disengaged the static clamp that kept it folded and pressed, then tugged it on. She blinked, wondering, then managed: “there’s coffee here, in the kitchen module.”

“No.” He said simply. “I need to get it somewhere else.”

“Ben. . .”

“Tessa.” He made a finite gesture, let the silence lapse back in his wake. She looked away, let her eyes drift slowly across steel, across the body of the Hok, and in the tear-moist haze, another memory came back to her, a memory of darkness, of a painful running and straining, the exchange–

Ask me about the campaign for Seventh Yorkshire sometime. We may be airmen, but we’re still soldiers. We’ve all been through hell, we all have our skeletons, our issues.

She swallowed, breathed.

Now or never.

“Ben.” She hesitated. “You. . . never did tell me about Seventh Yorkshire.”