Author: Erin Klitzke

She tugged the hood of her cape up to hide her face as she stepped through the hatch and onto the hangar’s deck.  Davion was already making a slow circuit of the ship, his brow furrowed as he inspected the outer hull for the first time since their escape from Centrallia.  He wasn’t quite frowning, but she could tell that he wasn’t entirely happy with what he was seeing, either.

“Everything okay?” she asked, pulling the hatch closed behind her.

“Looks like it,” he said, pausing to inspect a scorch mark on the hull.  His nose wrinkled a moment before he frowned.  “They got too close,” he muttered, low enough that no one else would hear.  “Either their gunners are getting better or I’ve gotten slower.”

“We’re both still alive,” she said quietly, threading her arm through his and stepping close.  He tensed for a moment, then relaxed as she continued, “I’m pretty sure that’s what matters the most in this scenario.  We’re not going to explode when we take off, right?”

“No,” he said, exhaling a long breath.  “No, we’re not.  I just don’t like how close it all was, that’s all.  Kicks my paranoia into a higher gear that it needs to be at.”

“Or maybe right where it needs to be at,” she said.  “You said we needed to be careful.  I’m going to take you at your word when it comes to that.”

“Thanks,” he murmured.  “I hope I live up to expectations.”

“You have so far,” she said.  “I foresee that continuing.”

He nodded, brow furrowing for a moment before he sighed.  “Right.  Well, they should have a crew over to refuel us shortly.  Let’s go see what we can find on the rings.”

“I’m guessing the rings are consumer central?”

One corner of his mouth curved into a smile and he nodded, turning and heading toward a wide hatchway at the far end of the hangar.  People flowed through it from various ships, heading deeper into the station.  “Yeah.  Namis III has a set of five levels set up in a ring around a central hub that’re the mercantile districts.  Food, shopping, entertainment, machine and supply shops, all that kind of thing.  Anything someone passing through might need.  Hell, some folks come here on vacation for a taste of something different.”

“Sounds eclectic,” she said, then grinned at him.  He smiled back, glancing down for a moment.

“Just stay close,” he said.  “As long as we stay together, we’ll be fine.”

“Safety in numbers?”

“Something like that.”

They fell into the uneven flow of people out of the hangar.  “How long has it been since you were last here?” She asked softly, keeping her voice low enough that she hoped no one would overhear.

He frowned for a moment, thinking.  “Four-ish years, I think,” he said.  “Time can be hard.”

“I can only imagine,” she murmured.  “Just barely, at that.”

He squeezed her arm.  “It’ll be okay,” he said gently.  “Just hang in there.  You’re stronger than you think, all things considered.”

“What makes you say that?”

“You wouldn’t have made it this far if you weren’t,” he said.  When she looked up to meet his gaze, he was smiling faintly at her.  “Trust me.”

“I do,” she murmured.  “I do trust you.”

He drew her arm a little tighter against his side and she stepped closer.  Standing that close, she realized he was at least as tense as she felt, though no one would know by looking at him.  She exhaled a quiet breath, closing her eyes for a moment.  It was long enough for them to clear the corridor from the hanger and reach a series of trams that would take them elsewhere on the station.

Davion drew her toward one of the tram cars, his pace picking up slightly.  She hurried along at his side, hanging on a little tighter than she necessarily had meant to.  The car he picked was relatively empty, occupied only by an older couple with a small child other than them.  The relative privacy—she and Davion took a spot at one end of the car, leaving the couple and the child to the other end—was a comfort for reasons she couldn’t quite put her finger on beyond it perhaps being simply paranoia.

“What first?” She murmured to him, watching station lights flash by as the tram car started to move.

“Probably clothes,” he said.  “Then supplies.  Neither should take very long.”

She nodded slowly, chewing on the inside of her lower lip.  “And then what?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted.  “None of this was quite what I’d planned.”

“Neither of us planned any of this,” she said.  “We’ll figure it out.”

He squeezed her arm.  “One way or another.”

———

It took a few hours to pick up new clothing—several changes for each of them and additional necessary odds and ends.  It struck her that he didn’t seem to worry too much about how much they spent, but after thinking about it for a while, it made sense that he wouldn’t.  He probably had a stash of back pay and other cash squirreled away just in case and living in the Protected Zone, most of it was probably just laying in an account somewhere.  He seemed distracted, though, as they finished at one of the shops, his gaze drawn to something going on not far away.

Someone had rigged up a projector and a screen and was playing a broadcast she could only assume was from elsewhere—some kind of speech.  The man speaking was broad-shouldered and red-haired, fair-complexioned with a few freckles.  He was taller than average and had a presence that even broadcast from light years away that was electric.

Her stomach twisted.  He seemed familiar, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on why.

Davion’s fingers threaded through hers.  “Are you hungry?” He asked, his voice quiet.

“Hm?” She started, glancing toward him, tearing her gaze from the screen and the man on it.  “I mean, I could eat.  Are you?”

He shrugged.  “I could stand to wait until we’re done picking up supplies.”

She nodded, her gaze drifting back to the screen.  The shot had shifted, clearly some kind of news broadcast, because now there was a pretty woman on screen talking, accompanied by a still image of another woman that hovered to one side of her.

Her breath caught.

That picture.  That picture is me.

She let go of Davion’s hand, moving toward the screen.  He startled, moving after her quickly.

“What’s—”

She held up a hand, straining to hear.

“—O’Shaughnessy continues to demand the release of his daughter, allegedly taken into custody by the Veritan League on Koltaris five months ago before a scheduled appearance at the University of Nicolaiev. O’Shaughnessy was president of the Pentarch up until two years ago when he was ousted by a military junta allegedly backed by Veritan separatists.  Today’s speech from Altaiir is the third in recent days O’Shaughnessy has given asking that his daughter be released unharmed and the first to directly name the Veritan League as the culpable party.  There has been no response from the Veritan League at this time, though sources close to the situation indicated that an official statement will be released in the coming days.”

She felt light-headed.  Bile crept higher in her throat.

Davion touched her shoulder and she whirled on him.

“You knew,” she hissed.  “You knew and didn’t tell me.”

His eyes widened even as his expression went slack.  “Kelcie—”

“You fucking knew who I was and what happened and you didn’t tell me.  Why didn’t you tell me?”

He swallowed, his hand falling away from her shoulder.  “What would you have done if I had?  What would it have changed?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she hissed, mindful enough to keep her voice low even though all she really wanted to do was scream at him.  “At least I would have known.”

She spun away from him, heading blindly down the curve of the ring, thoughts a maelstrom.

Her father was looking for her.

Her father was making speeches and demands that she be freed.  Did he know?  Did he have any idea that she was actually safe, already free?

Davion had known and hadn’t told her—he hadn’t told her everything.  He’d given her a name and nothing else.

Why?  Why would he do that?  She wanted to throw up.  It hadn’t been a lie of anything but omission, but it hurt more than she wanted to think about.

She squeezed her eyes shut, exhaling, hands squeezing into fists.

Then she began to run, not caring where she ended up, as long as it was somewhere she could be alone.

Standing in the open doorway to his cabin, Kelcie’s brow furrowed as she watched Davion sleep.  His breath came deep and even as he lay in his bunk, stretched out on his back, head turned to one side to face the wall.  The tension she’d sensed was absent as he slept, as she watched him.

At least he doesn’t seem tense.  That says nothing about what I’m like right now.

Her fingers tightened around the mug of tea she clutched as much for warmth as to drink.  She’d hoped that it would help settle her jangling nerves and the deeply rooted guilt she was feeling over what had just happened.

He’s abandoning his whole life—temporarily, permanently, who knows—to get me to safety.  He didn’t have to do any of this.  He didn’t have to save me, didn’t have to get me off-world, none of it.  It was a selfless thing he did and I don’t know how I can thank him.  I don’t know if I even can.

She chewed her lip.  There had to be more reasons than what he’d mentioned for why he’d stayed in the Protected Zone—it couldn’t have just been as simple as he made it out to be.  There was more there, much more, but at the same time she could understand why he might be reticent to tell her.

I’m basically a stranger, right?  Regardless of anything else, he doesn’t know me—he knows who I am, my identity, but he doesn’t know me.

Then again, I don’t even know me.

She rubbed at her temple, closing her eyes for a moment, then sighed.  He said it’d come back.  I have to believe him.  I just—I wish it would just happen.  How long does it take for shit to clear, anyway?

She didn’t have an answer and she wasn’t sure that he did, either.

She straightened from her lean, sighing again as she turned and headed back to the galley.  He’d been asleep for two hours now; she’d set a timer in the galley to check on him every half hour to make sure he was okay.  It was probably overkill—she was starting to think that if anything was going to happen, it already would have—but it made her feel better.  At some point, though, she’d need to rest herself.  The adrenaline hadn’t worn off yet, though, so she hadn’t started to feel the effects of her broken sleep—at least not yet.

That’ll come sooner than I think it will.  She dropped into a chair at the tiny galley table and closed her eyes, rubbing her temples.  He hadn’t told her where they were going, but she figured that was fine.  Her frame of reference was narrow enough that just about anywhere would have been a surprise at that point.  As long as he said it was safe enough, she was willing to take his word for it.

She got up again, refilled her cup, and set the timer.  Then, she sank back down at the table, sipping her tea and half-heartedly reorganizing the medical kit, trying to forget the sight of him unconscious in the deck, of the blood on his face.

She wasn’t exactly sure what it left her so unsettled, but it did on a level deeper than she was willing to admit.  It was bone-deep, down buried at her core.  It shouldn’t have happened.  It happened because of her—even if it hadn’t actually happened because of her.

At some point, halfway through her cup of tea and before the timer went off, she fell asleep.  It wasn’t until Davion was there, shaking her shoulder, that she startled awake, bleary with an aching back and crick in her neck.

“Who—wha—”  She stopped, blinking, trying to get her bearings.  She’d been dreaming, but now the dream was evaporating like water in the desert.  Rubbing sand from her eyes, she slowly pushed herself upright, staring at him.

He looks as tired as I feel.  “What time is it?”

“Does it matter?” he asked, the smiled wryly.  “Was the bunk that uncomfortable?”

“I never made it that far,” she said, reaching for her mug and gulping down some of the tea.  It was long cold, suggesting that it had been at least a couple of hours.  “I guess the tired caught up with me faster than I thought it was going to.”

“I think that’s a mutual feeling.”  He turned to the stove and started a pot of water, then leaned against the counter.  “Headache’s better.”

“But not gone?”

He shook his head slightly and sighed.  “It’ll sort itself out.  Might not be from the  knock.”

“What else would it be from?” She turned in the chair to face him, leaning back against the edge of the table and drawing one knee up to her chest.

“It’s been a minute since I reached quite that far and twice in fairly rapid succession isn’t going to help that.  I’ll be fine.  It can just get a little taxing.”

“Reaching…you mean finding the safe course?”

He nodded.  “Yeah.  I think a lot of folks believe it’s a lot simpler than it really is.  You’re born with the gift and someone tells you how to use it and it’s just like that—easy, nothing to worry about, you just do it.  And it is kind of like that but it’s also a hell of a lot more complex.”

“I’m guessing it’s also a lot more strenuous than most people think it is.”

“That would be one way of putting it.  There’s definitely a decent amount of energy that it takes to do it and it’s easy to overextend—usually before you realize you’re doing it.  It happens a lot to newer pilots but typically not that often.  The first time you do it, you remember what it feels like, and if that first time was really bad, a lot of folks do just about anything to avoid it happening again if they can help it.”

“From the way you said it, I’m guessing that there are scenarios where you can’t help it.”

He smiled wryly and tapped his nose.  “Perceptive.  Definitely more than a few.  This wasn’t that, though—this was more like overtaxing a muscle you haven’t used in a while because you didn’t have enough time to warm up and stretch.”

She frowned, resting her chin on her knee as she wrapped her arms around her leg.  “So that might have caused the headache?”

“Yeah.  Or it’s a combination of that, the stress, the knock to the head, all of it.  Either way, it’ll clear up before we get to where we’re going.”  He took down a coffee press and a small canister of grounds.  “You want some of this?”

“Considering how good it smells?  Please.  Has that been up there all this time?”

“I tried to keep things stocked just in case.”  He poured some water into the press, leaning against the counter as he started to brew the coffee.  “Sometimes I wondered why I kept the ship but I always knew the answer.  It was a precaution—my just in case.  Not just for me, but for my friends back there, too.”

“Are they going to be okay?”

A trace of pain flickered through his expression before he glanced down at his bare feet.  “I don’t know.  Probably.  They’re smart and they’ll keep their heads down until everything blows over.  Val—he’s the one who came to warn me—he said they’d be fine.  He’ll keep an eye on the house.”

That startled her.  Didn’t he hide it?  “He can see it?  I saw you put the illusion over it that hid it.  He can see through that?”

“He knows where it is,” Davion said.  “That’ll let him see beyond the illusion—kind of like how I always could see where the ship was even though I had an illusion cast over it to hide it.”

“Is that something they teach you in pilot school?”

He choked on a laugh.  “No,” he said, starting to pour the coffee.  “No, not at all.  It’s something I learned a little on my own, a little after I came to the Zone.  A lot of by touch and feel and reading and practice.  I could do a lot before I went to ground, but I learned a little more from a few other folks in the Zone before I ended up settled on Centrallia.”

She nodded.  Gut check here says that I knew none of this at any point before now.  “Do you think a lot of people realize that being able to—to be a pilot means that you’re also able to do the magic that you’ve done?”

One corner of his mouth kicked upward as he brought her one of the mugs of coffee.  “I don’t know.  Honestly, I only had the barest inkling because maybe I’ve read too many legends and started to wonder.  If a lot of people haven’t figured it out, it’s probably not a bad thing.  Can you imagine what we might be asked to do?  Never mind what pilots are already asked to do and what happens to us more often than any of us want to talk about, but can you imagine what kind of awful shit we might get asked to do if people realized what we might be able to do?”

She winced.  “I didn’t think about it that way.”

“I know you didn’t,” he said quietly.  “I’m glad you didn’t.”

She choked on a laugh.  “You know what?  Me too.  Me too.”

He sat down in the other chair, leaning back against the table as she was, and took a long, slow sip of coffee.  “I wish I couldn’t, but it’s one of those things that you don’t have much of a choice about in some ways, not when you’re like me.  You have to think about how people might try to use what you can do in ways that would turn your stomach.  You have to figure out what your uncrossable lines are.”

She stared into the depths of her mug.  “You strike me as someone who has some pretty significant ones.”

“Sometimes you have to,” he murmured.  “And you’re right—I do have some pretty significant lines that I’ve drawn for myself.  Everyone’s got some kind of code of ethics that guide their behavior and mine might be a little overtuned.”

“I’m going to guess that yours being overtuned is probably what made you rescue me, so I’m going to sit here and be grateful for it.”  She smiled faintly at him.  One corner of his mouth curved up and he nodded.

“Probably right.  I just can’t sit back and let bad things happen to folks who don’t deserve it if I can do something about it.”  He lifted his mug to take a sip, pausing before he did.  “Probably gets me into more trouble than I’ve needed to be.  That’s not something I want to dwell on for too long.”

“Well, I appreciate what you did,” she said.  “What you’re doing.  You saved my life at least twice now.  I just hope that it all turns out to be worth it.”

“It will,” he said with a confidence that she didn’t feel herself.  “I have zero doubt of that.”

“I’m glad someone does.”

They lapsed into silence, sipping coffee, each staring off into nothing.  She could see him in her peripheral vision, his gaze so distant that for a moment, she wondered if he was just lost in his thoughts or if his mind really waselsewhere.  She was slowly coming to realize how possible that exact scenario might be.

“Can I ask you something?” She finally asked, her voice soft.  “You might not know the answer.”

“Won’t know until you ask,” he said, his eyes coming back into focus.  He’d answered too quickly, she decided, for him to have been doing anything other than simply thinking.  “Fire away.”

“Do you know if whatever they were giving me would spark nightmares?”

His brows knit.  “Why?  Are you having them?”

“The dream you woke me from was definitely not fun, though I’ll be damned if I could tell you what it was because I can’t remember now.”

“Probably a small mercy,” he said, squeezing her arm.  “I’d have to dig, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was some kind of side effect.  Hopefully it won’t get any worse.”

“That’d be nice,” she murmured, staring into her mug.  He reached over and gently took it from her hand.  She glanced over at him, blinking.  He just smiled.

“You should go to bed,” he murmured.  “You look like you’re still as tired as I feel.”

“Are you?” She asked softly.

He nodded.  “After I check a few things in the cockpit, yeah.  Probably no more than another hour.”

She closed her eyes for a second and sighed.  They still felt gritty, and he was right about how tired she still was.  “Probably a good idea.”

“Hopefully no more nightmares,” he said as he got up, then offered her his hand.  She grasped it, pulling herself to her feet.

“Hopefully,” she echoed, then smiled.  “Thanks.”

“Sweet dreams.”

She squeezed his arm and then shuffled toward the door, the corridor, and her cabin beyond.

There was a ringing, pounding sound located somewhere behind his eyes and his head thumped with every heartbeat.  The air smelled like burned wiring and he tried to mutter a curse, flailing a hand toward where he thought the console should be.  There shouldn’t be that smell, not if the air filters were working.

Not unless the burned wires were just that close.

Someone caught his hand, held it in place.  He thought he heard a voice but it was lost under the ringing.  He cracked an eye open.  The world spun around him.

Why am I on the deck?  He could see the bottom of the console and his chair.  He opened the other eye, groaning quietly, trying to reach for his head.

“Hold still.”  This time, just barely, he could hear her.  “Head wounds bleed like a bitch and you’ve got a cut on your forehead the size of my little finger.”

“Did we make jump?” he croaked, wincing again.  He let both hands drop, trying to focus on Kelcie’s face.

“We’re in jumpspace,” she confirmed.  “Not sure what happened right before we jumped, but we made it.  Please tell me that we had a heading before we jumped.”

“I had the course laid in already,” he said, closing his eyes in an effort to tamp down rising nausea.  “Habit.  Always make sure that I get that done as soon as I can just in case.”

“Just in case,” she echoed.  “Do I want to know why you developed that habit?”

He managed to grin.  “Would you believe that it was something a family friend impressed upon me?”

Would you believe it’s something your father told me was the best advice he could ever give me?

There was silence for a few seconds.  “Maybe.”

He took a breath and then winced.  “Smells like burned wiring.”

“Probably the bulkhead above you.  Hope it wasn’t anything important because something’s toast.”

Damn.  I’ll have to check later.  “Won’t know until I look.  Is anything flashing red on the console?”

She took one of his hands and pressed it over a piece of cloth on his forehead—probably where he was bleeding.  “Hold that there as hard as you can while I look.”

It wasn’t as if she was giving him much choice but to obey.  “Okay.”  He felt as much as heard her stand up, could almost sense her furrowed brow, her frown.

“No,” she said after a few seconds.  “No, everything looks okay.  Nothing’s flashing red.”

“Then we’re probably okay as long as the console doesn’t look like it’s damaged.”

“It’s not,” she said, kneeling back down.  “Just you and the bulkhead.  Maybe.”

“Maybe,” he agreed.  “Help me up?”

“I’m not sure if I should.”

He choked on a laugh.  “Are you going to make me spend the flight on the cockpit floor, then?”

“Okay.  Okay, maybe not.  Let me just—”

“It probably needs stitches and we’re not going to do that in here,” he said.  “The kit’s stowed in the galley.  We can either stitch it or glue it—whichever you’re more comfortable with.  Not sure if you’re going to trust me to sew myself back up.”

“Not when it’s your face,” she said, a trace of wry humor lacing through her voice.  That was good, in his estimation.  She was steadying.

That was enough to steady him, too.

The world stopped spinning a few seconds after he was sitting up.  He paused for a moment, then started to climb to his feet,  leaving her scrambling to help.

“I thought you just—”

“Yeah, well,” he muttered.  “I know what you thought.”  Still holding the piece of cloth against the gash in his forehead, he looked over the boards himself slowly, reassuring himself that there was nothing to worry about.

Nothing except that ship showing up in orbit.  Whoever was on the ground must have come rom there.  I’ve gotten myself involved in something a little more serious than I thought—not that what I knew before I saw the Obsidian wasn’t bad enough.  For a second, he leaned against the console, closing his eyes.  Kelcie’s hand closed on his shoulder and squeezed.

“Davion?”

“Once we get this gash handled, I’ll have to change course.  Just in case.”

She flinched.  “They can track us?”

“Usually no,” he said slowly.  “But I’d rather be safe than sorry.  Guessing you would, too.”

She exhaled, nodding.  “Yeah.  Yeah, you’re right.  Think we can wait that long?”

“Further out we get before we drop out of jump and correct, the more options open up,” he admitted.  “Options aren’t a bad thing.”

“No, I guess not.”  She took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly.  He reached up to squeeze her hand before he started for the hatch and the corridor beyond.  “I’m guessing that we’re not staying in the Protected Zone?”

“No,” he said.  “No, we’re not.  We’re heading back to what a lot of folks would call—wrongly, in my opinion—the civilized galaxy.”

Kelcie choked on a laugh, falling in behind him as he headed slowly for the galley.  “I’ll admit that I didn’t get much of a chance to form any kind of informed opinion on the matter.  I think I almost regret it.”

He flashed her a smile over his shoulder and shrugged slightly.  “Maybe someday.”

“Maybe,” she agreed.

He snapped on the galley lights as he stepped through the open hatch, heading for the small table at the center and one of the chairs tucked tight up underneath it.  “Kit’s in the first cabinet there by the door, bottom shelf.”

She pointed to a row of gunmetal gray cabinets set beneath the countertop.  “The lower ones?”

“Yeah,” he said.  The chair scraped quietly across the deck, the sound sending a new lance of pain stabbing through his head from ear to ear.  That’s probably not good.  I want to sleep it off, but not sure if it’s going to be safe to do it. “There’s a suture kit and there’s glue.  Either’s fine.”

“You sure?” She pulled the large white box off the bottom shelf and lugged it over to the table.  “Hate to do one when the preference is for the other.”

He snorted softly.  “I’m just glad I’m not doing it to myself—though it wouldn’t be the first time if I had to.”

“There’s a story there,” she observed, cracking the kit and starting to pull out gauze and disinfectant.

“Several, in fact, though I’ll admit that they don’t hold up well in the retelling and my head’s thumping too much to put on a good show.”

Kelcie grimaced.  “That’s less than great.”

“Yeah,” he said.  “Tell me about it.”

Gently, she nudged his hand aside so she could clean the cut.  The bleeding had slowed, but he could tell that it hadn’t stopped completely.  The flow started anew—accompanied with a nasty sting—as she started cleaning it.  His nose wrinkled slightly and his jaw set, but he kept any sound of discomfort trapped behind his teeth.

“I’ll just have to keep an eye on you,”she murmured.  “There’re pain meds somewhere in that kit, aren’t there?”

“Yeah.  I’ll take something once the course is handled.”  He probably could have taken something now, while she had the kit half torn apart, but it wouldn’t kick in until after the course was laid anyway.  A little bit longer wouldn’t kill him.  “Probably right before I lay down.”

They lapsed into silence as she finished cleaning the cut.  He imagined that he knew now from the sensation—the sting, the pain—alone exactly how long it was, and how deep.  It was much deeper than he would have liked, all things considered.  He’d begun to think she was just going to do it all in silence when she finally spoke again.

“We’re going to have to be careful, aren’t we?”  She reached for a tube of wound glue.  “Once we get to wherever we’re going and leave the ship.”

He shrugged with one shoulder.  “Part of it depends on where we go.  Being careful’s probably not a bad idea.  Anything come back to you?”

“Nothing that makes sense,” she said, then sighed, looking down as she fiddled with the tube.  “I don’t know if that scares me or not.”

“Well, clearly every plan around all of that has changed.  Originally you were going to have a quiet place to work through everything.  What comes next probably isn’t that quiet.”

“It definitely feels like we’re on the run,” she said quietly, then leaned forward to start working on the cut again.  “Because we are, aren’t we?”

A sigh escaped him.  “Guess so.”  I was trying not to think about it that way, but she’s right.  We’re definitely on the run at this point—they’ve chased us from where I thought we were safe and now we’re going to be ping-ponging around, trying to find a good place to go to ground or lay low until she remembers.  The possibility that they could stay aboard the ship hadn’t escaped him and was at least part of his plan, but they’d need more supplies sooner rather than later.  She’d also need more clothes that didn’t make it look like she was some kind of refugee from period film—or the Protected Zone.

One problem at a time, Eamon.  One problem at a time.

A rueful smile curved his lips despite his discomfort.  She arched a brow at him.

“What?  What’s so funny?”

“Just getting ahead of myself,” he said, careful not to move his head.  “That’s all.”

“Oh.”  She shook her head, smiling a little.  “Worse problems, right?”

“There certainly could be.”

She nodded, setting down the wound glue and getting a bit of gauze to clean up the blood still on his face.  He held still, letting her work, only moving when she sat back.  “There we go.  Best I can do.”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” he said, starting to get up.  “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.  Try not to scare me like that again, huh?”

He grinned.  “I’ll certainly try.”

He squeezed her shoulder and she reached up, fingers wrapping around his for a moment before she let go, her attention turning to cleaning up.  He took a slow, deep breath and started back for the cockpit.  He was already throwing his thoughts, his magic, toward plotting a new course for a new destination.

There was still work to do.