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Pawter opens her eyes, and winces against the flood of light as her senses fill with pain. She reaches out for something to hold onto to guide her out of bed, and then a calm, pleasant voice interrupts. "You are injured. Please wait for assistance."
"Lucy," Pawter murmurs. So she's onboard Lucy, she now knows. But that doesn't explain the gnawing, crushing ache in her chest or why she can hardly breathe. "I'm okay," she insists anyway, trying to push herself off the narrow bed. "Where's Johnny?"
"Please wait for assistance," Lucy repeats, and Pawter knows better than to imagine the spaceship sounds a little panicked.
"I'm…" she begins, but her vision is fading, tinged grey around the edges. She's never hurt this much, she thinks hazily. Not after the first hit of Jakk, and not after the last. Pawter tries to move, or use the words that are slipping out of reach, and then the world goes dark again.
*
When Pawter wakes for a second time the pain is better, but her memories aren't any clearer. The last thing she remembers is the wall, and Old Town, and holding Johnny and feeling like she might float away. She remembers Jelco, and Delle Kendry, but her scattered recollections won't coalesce into a clear picture.
There's a rustling noise, and a figure sitting in a chair by the door. "D'avin."
"Yeah." He moves closer, but doesn't reach towards her. "I wasn't sure if you were waking up for real this time. You've been in and out."
"What are you doing here?" Pawter demands, and hears her own words come out unforgivably sharp.
"You scared the crap out of Lucy yesterday." There's a matter-of-fact shrug in his voice. In the walls of the ship, Lucy is silent. "Dutch would have waited with you, but let's be real, Dutch sucks at waiting. I, on the other hand, am excellent at it. You can thank the army." Said with a crooked, effacing smile.
Pawter shakes her head. "No. I mean, thank you." With a steadying breath she starts to dredge up manners learned from years of Qreshi dinners, and patience. "Thank you, D'avin. But where's Johnny?"
D'avin's face falls a little. "John's gone," he begins, and then stops, but not before the room tilts as all the air rushes out of Pawter's chest. "I mean, shit. Shit. He's not gone, gone. He's just not here right now."
*
"John left. A few days after you were hurt." Dutch, when she arrives, is far more blunt, and right now Pawter kind of appreciates it.
"You mean I got stabbed," Pawter says. She's already traced the red scars on her chest and figured out that much.
"I mean you died." Dutch's hair falls over her shoulder as she looks at Pawter, eyes creasing in a scowl. "Down on Westerley. Shocked the hells out of Lucy when your vitals came back online ten days later."
"Sorry, Lucy," Pawter mumbles, but she's trying to focus on something else. She wriggles her toes thoughtfully, and doesn't feel any crazier. But perhaps she wouldn't know. "Does that mean that I'm a Six now?"
"No. Not as far as we can tell."
"Hundred percent grade A human," D'avin adds. He's been hovering on the other side of the bed. Pawter's not sure if he's protecting her from Dutch, or Dutch from her. Or both of them, from something that only he can see. "We double-checked. Triple. Quadruple, actually. "
"But then how am I…"
D'avin shrugs. "Not a clue. Your signal kept cutting in and out, and, well. We weren't sure it wasn't a malfunction. But there you were, unconscious but breathing, down in the tunnels. The family that was taking care of you couldn't say how they'd found you, or what they'd done to help you."
"Couldn't, or wouldn't," Dutch points out. It has the ring of something she's said to him before.
"Wouldn't, then," D'av agrees, sidestepping the argument with practised ease and an amiable nod. "They just kept saying that thing, you know, the same thing the Scarbacks say."
"Praise the trees," Pawter murmurs.
*
Maybe she fades out for five minutes, or the rest of the night. She takes stock of her body as the room comes back into focus, frowning at the patch on her arm. Operated by Lucy, probably, with tiny ports where capsules of medication could be swapped in and out. There's only one docked there at the moment, a clear, pale blue.
Pawter is free of pain right now, but her skin is warm and feels far too tight. "What am I on?"
"Lucy?" Dutch asks.
"Lactuzine," Lucy answers. "It is a painkiller, commonly used in…"
"I know what it is." Pawter cuts her off. "I don't want any more."
Dutch takes a breath, and Pawter doesn't know if it's a sigh, or a silent prayer for patience. She doesn't know if Dutch prays at all. "Look," Dutch says finally. "I don't know if you remember me telling you this before. But you don't need to prove to anybody here how brave you are, okay? We know."
Pawter shakes her head. Dutch wasn't there when she finally came off the Jakk. Lucky try number fourteen, and the only person there with her had been Johnny. She knows she's being stubborn. She knows the statistics, that the drug Lucy named is addictive only in a tiny minority of cases.
She doesn't want to take the chance. Pawter pulls the vial out of her arm, and throws it across the room. Then closes her eyes, trying not to feel like a petulant child. Dutch doesn't say a word.
Pawter doesn't speak a lot for a couple of days after that. It hurts too much to breathe, or move. Pawter gets out of bed anyway, and limps on weak legs around the small room. She's seen enough recoveries to know that staying in bed will only make everything harder later. But it's still a challenge to brace herself against the pain when she pushes herself out of bed for the first time. Dutch's hand loops around her arm to steady her. Warm, and strong as steel. Her face is set in an unhappy, watchful line as she watches Pawter try to steady herself, bare toes curling against the cold floor.
She takes her first step, and then another. Dutch doesn't let go of her arm. "I'm not going to fall," Pawter protests.
Dutch shrugs, loosening her grip slightly. "I didn't say you were."
Right foot, left foot. The pain slows her down, her breathing constricted until the room spins. She stops once, then again, and Dutch matches her stilted pace. "I'm fine."
"I didn't say you weren't." Dutch's free hand hovers at her back, and Pawter doesn't doubt that if she does stumble, Dutch is strong enough to catch her.
Other times it's D'avin who gets the task of watching her weave erratic loops around the bed. He doesn't touch her, mostly, but follows two steps behind. She laughs at the unhappy expression that he's making as he watches her, and then winces.
"You okay?"
"Fine." It's just a small white lie. "I'm fine. Both of you can stop making those faces."
D'avin's mouth pulls to the sides in what's not quite a scowl. "There's nothing wrong with my face. And you're not fine. But you want to torture yourself, it's none of my business."
Pawter paces one more circuit, and then holds D'avin's hand to steady herself as she lowers herself onto the bed.
She still doesn't remember much of the days leading up to the day she was hurt. But snatches of memories have been coming back in brief, unwelcome bursts. She remembers waking up on board, feeling like she was coming down off the best high of her life. She remembers the faces in front of her on the vid screen as the wall in Old Town came down. As people died.
She makes herself get out of bed twice a day, and if the pain is always squeezing her chest, clawing sharply at her abdomen until she sees stars, Pawter knows it's no more than she deserves.
*
They switch off on almost everything, Dutch and D'avin, according to some military schedule Pawter doesn't try to track. They bring her nutri-capsules that slot into her medication ports. Then food, as she starts being able to keep it down. It's a relief when she can manage to stumble to the toilet, but she's still too weak to stand in the tiny water-saving shower cubicle that seems to come standard on every ship.
A lifetime of servants with unseeing expressions should have prepared her for this. Still, she can't help blushing when Dutch pulls aside the clothing she's wearing, an old and faded shirt that Johnny had left behind. Dutch tosses it into Lucy's laundry chute before reaching for the small basin, water sloshing quietly while neither of them speak.
"I could get D'avin in here," Dutch suggests casually. Today her touch is light, the sponge cool on Pawter's skin. Pawter's abdomen is a map of slowly healing lines.
"Ugh. No." D'avin's a gentleman, and he wouldn't be any worse, but he's not any better. Pawter shivers. She hates being helpless.
"I hate to break it to you," Dutch adds, "but I've seen you naked before. Not while you were out. I mean, on Westerley."
Pawter groans, and thinks of the dark, raucous room and taste of bitter liquor that had been home for so long. "How drunk was I?"
Dutch's eyelashes brush her cheeks as she tries to contain a smile. "Pretty drunk. Couple of miners bet you that you wouldn't streak the bar."
"They bet me because they knew I'd do it," Pawter grumbles, and Dutch shrugs.
"Well. You kind of had a reputation."
Pawter thinks of Dutch in the bar, wearing her guns and a halo of danger that kept anybody that knew who she was from coming too close. "So did you."
Dutch winks at her.
*
"What the hells. I thought that girl must be trying to play a trick on me."
Lucy projects the hologram straight to the foot of Pawter's bed, with only a few seconds warning. Pawter struggles to pull herself up, bracing herself against the pillows, and offers a small wave in greeting.
Pree looks older than the last time she saw him. It's been many more weeks for him than for her, she supposes, but the tight skin around his brow and at the edges of his bright eyes betrays worries she can only guess at.
"Hello, Pree."
"Princess. I think now I've actually seen it all." He eyes her critically, up and down. "Looks like you're on a great new diet."
"Yeah, the getting stabbed and put in a coma diet. You should try it."
"No thank you, baby girl." Pree wrinkles his nose. "But then I know better to throw down with Delle Seyah Kendry. Unlike some brave idiots I could name."
"Wait, Delle Seyah? It wasn't Jelco?" She's not sure why she thought that. She has a memory of Jelco's wide, menacing grin, and a flash of metal. Wanting to run, but not being able to make herself move.
Pree hesitates, frowning at her. "Dutch said you were doing okay."
Mentally, he meant. Pawter shook her head. "I am okay. I just, I don't remember everything."
"Well, it wasn't Jelco, honey. No one even knows where that little rat is. He's gone to ground with all the other rats. And Seyah Kendry?" Pree stops talking, abruptly. "Never mind."
"What?"
"No one's seen her either. And good riddance." Pree's mellifluous voice drops to a whisper, barely caught across the transmission. "But they say she got shot, right in the middle of Old Town."
"Pree, what do you know?" She leans intently towards the hologram, but Pree shrugs.
"I don't know anything, thank you very much. And I plan to keep it that way. Don't ask me anything." He sighs. "Wish I could come up there and give you a hug. And a slap upside the head."
"Why can't you?" She grins. "For the hug, I mean."
Pree raises an eyebrow. "Do you have any idea where you are?"
She gestures to the grey wall that's a backdrop behind her. "Not really?"
"Well, you're not anywhere near the Quad. This is the first time in weeks Dutch has even been close enough to complete a holo-call." He sniffs. "So she says. If you find out what those two are up to, please don't tell me about it."
"No word from Johnny?" She knows the answer, but she has to ask.
Pree shakes his head. "Look on the bright side, doll. You're in the first place he'll go. When he's ready."
*
"I should thank them."
It's been almost three weeks. She's breathing more easily now, and moving around the ship on her own. D'avin plays a card game she's never heard of, and teaches her the rules when she asks. They're complicated, and her head swims with the ever-changing properties of numbers and suits. She's pretty sure that D'avin is letting her win.
She's pretty sure that Dutch is letting both of them win. Dutch straddles her chair, long limbs stretched out in a relaxed pose. Pawter looks at her, then looks away. Trying not to stare.
Pawter plays a card, frowning uncertainly at it. "The family that took care of me. Underneath Old Town, you said. I should thank them."
D'avin looks uncomfortable. Dutch looks aggravated.
Pawter sighs. "Okay. What?"
"It wasn't entirely charity," D'avin explains. He focuses on the cards in his hand, and doesn't look at her. "They knew who you were, and they wanted joy. A lot of joy."
"For my comatose body?" Suddenly her skin is crawling.
"Yup."
"I'm sure my sister will pay you back?" Pawter says, but her voice goes up uncertainly on the end. She doesn't know where her sister is, or what resources she might have. There's no way to figure out what's going on on Qresh at this distance, and no way that she's ready to wade back into the fray.
"Not necessary." The expression in Dutch's green eyes is cool and deadly. "We took care of it."
"Um. Are you saying you stole my comatose body?"
D'avin shrugs, and removes a card from the set in the centre of the table. "Can't steal something that wasn't theirs, right?" His tone is light. He sounds a lot like Johnny right now.
"We are Reclamation Agents, after all." Dutch smiles at her own joke, and Pawter can't help smiling back.
*
She learns not to ask Dutch about Johnny. Sometimes D'avin is willing to talk. Pawter listens, fascinated by the glimpses he gives her of Telen. Pawter can barely imagine such a place, a planet with almost no farming or mining, still covered in trees from pole to pole. He tells her about the time D'avin and some friends tried to steal some cakes from the town bakery, and Johnny took the blame for all of them. He admits that he lived ten years without seeing his brother, and he doesn't know how long it's going to be now.
"Oh." D'avin makes a face, looking away from her. He crosses his arms, studying the gun parts that he has laid out on the table like jigsaw pieces. "Sorry."
D'avin misses John as much as any of them. He doesn't have to comfort her, but she appreciates the effort.
"John loves me," Pawter says, because she's sure about that. She'll never not be sure.
"Johnny loves you a lot," D'avin agrees easily, "but he's not good at losing people."
*
Pawter goes to the cockpit in the middle of ship's night, when she can't sleep. Lucy adjusts the ship's conditions throughout the day, mimicking planetside light, and now it's nearly pitch black in every corner. Pawter sits in the pilot's chair, Johnny's chair, and tries not to think about him. Pawter pulls her feet underneath her and stares at the black canvas ahead of her, studded with the decaying light of faraway stars.
"Lucy?"
"Yes, Pawter."
"Where are we?"
The ship recites a series of coordinates that don't mean anything to her, and Pawter frowns.
"I don't know what that means, Lucy. What's the nearest inhabited planet? How far are we from Qresh?"
"What are you doing?"
Pawter almost jumps out of her skin. She steadies herself by gripping the armrests of the pilot's chair, turning to see Dutch looming in the doorway. "Shit. Please don't sneak up on me."
Dutch raises her eyebrows. "If I'm trying to sneak up on you, you'll have other things to worry about. What are you doing?"
"Taking in the view, I guess?" Pawter gestures to the view beyond Lucy's bow, and shrugs. "You don't have an observation deck."
"We're not a cruise ship." Dutch moves to sit beside her, lowering herself gracefully into the navigator's chair. She's wearing loose pants and a tank top. Looking as if she'd just been roused out of sleep, but Pawter hears her rattling through the hall at night and knows that Dutch sleeps as little as she does. "Just looking at the view? Not planning your getaway?"
Pawter laughs, and then bites her tongue when the sound comes out bitter. "To go where? There's nowhere left to go." No one ever wanted her at home, and now she's probably not welcome on Westerley either. She feels old, and far too tired to start over.
"I don't know about that. J's a big place." Dutch pauses, as if readying herself for something she's not sure how to say. "Might be safer here, though. With us."
She can't always read Dutch's face. Pawter stretches across the small gap between the chairs, and takes hold of Dutch's hand. Dutch flinches, but doesn't withdraw, and her pulse beats steadily beneath Pawter's fingers.
Pawter doesn't say, I can take care of myself. She doesn't ask how Dutch could promise safety when she's hellsbent on stopping an invading army by herself. She doesn't admit that she's not sure she still believes in promises at all.
*
Pawter could hardly ever see the sky from Old Town, let alone the stars, or the dull glow of Leith or Arkyn as they orbit Qresh.
She doesn't recognise the constellations outside the cockpit. Doesn't recognise her own body, either. Scarred and healing but steadily getting better, a miracle that no one can explain the roots of. Her mother would have scoffed at the idea. But Pawter's mother never left Qresh. Pawter did, and now she's further away from home than she could ever have imagined. She knows that once you break orbit, not everything follows the rules that you expect.
"We met this guy once. A warrant. He'd been alive for over two hundred years." D'avin frowns, thinking it over. "Didn't seem very happy about it, though."
Pawter raises her eyebrows at him. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"No, I guess not. Sorry."
D'avin offers a lot of apologies. She'd never noticed before. He'd been a patient, and a lover, but she supposes she never really knew him that well. Supposes that she had liked it better that way.
His eyes follow her, worried and guilty. She sighs, and doesn't tell him to stop it, that no one is lurking here in the galley, waiting with a knife. She rifles restlessly through the rows of cabinets, reading the labels on foil packets and discarding them one by one. She's bored of space rations. All the dehydrated, processed packages, sealed to last for years, seem to taste the same.
She finds hot cocoa packets shoved in the back of a drawer. Dutch probably doesn't drink anything so childishly self-indulgent, she thinks. Maybe something sweet will improve your mood. Pawter's dad used to say that when she was little, on the heels of tantrums that left her red-faced and crying. She'd gotten older, and gotten better at controlling her emotions, but not by much.
Pawter grabs a mug from the cupboard and holds it under Lucy's hot water spout until it's full. Steam rises up and warms her fingertips.
D'avin tries again. She can't tell if he's really eating, or just pushing his dinner around on the plate, trying to make conversation. "I mean it's a long time. Two hundred years. But a lot of people wish they could get a second chance, you know?"
"Third chance." She corrects him absently, and D'avin does a double-take.
"What?"
"Third chance," Pawter repeats. She remembers arriving outside Old Town on a Qreshi transport, jittery and too young to know what she was getting into. That had been her second chance. She doesn't really know what to do with another one.
Two hundred years. She shouldn't even be seeing thirty, but now her birthday is next month. She puts the mug down with sudden force, and the cocoa spills over the mouth of the cup onto the table. It burns where it runs over her knuckles.
"Shit." She pulls back her hand, swearing, and nearly runs out of the room. D'avin watches her go.
Maybe D'avin still thinks she's a little bit crazy. Pawter can't really blame him.
*
"Seyah. Wake up."
She's jolted out of a disjointed sleep by Dutch's voice, and a warm hand in the centre of her back.
"You smell like explosives," Pawter mumbles as she rolls over, and her brain catches up with the words a moment later. She rubs sleepy eyes, trying to focus. "Why do you smell like explosives? And you're sparkly."
Dutch looks down at herself with a frown. She'd left the ship hours ago in black mission gear, but now she's wearing an elegant, close-fitting dress Pawter's never seen before. Her hair is swept up in series of neat twists, exposing a graceful throat and shoulders.
Pawter yawns, and tries to look away from the faint tracks of glitter leading into Dutch's cleavage. "You blew something up and then you went to a party?"
"Sorry, we didn't have time to get you an invitation." Dutch shrugs, with the coy non-committal expression that means she's making a joke. "It was a shit party, really. We need your help."
Pawter sits up in a hurry, ignoring the pinch of pain underneath her ribs. In Old Town she was roused out of bed for a lot of things, and none of them were ever good. She reaches out for Dutch. The dress is Aeveri silk by the feel when she touches it, and her palm vibrates with the tremors of Dutch's breathing. "Where are you injured?"
Dutch waves the question off, but doesn't push Pawter's hands away. "It's not me. Or D'avin. We've got a warrant down in the hold."
"Warrant?" Pawter repeats questioningly. "By warrant, you mean… a person?"
"Yes. He's injured, and if this asshole dies on us then we don't exactly get paid. Terms of the warrant." Dutch scowls impatiently. "You getting out of bed, or am I going to have to offer further incentives?"
"I thought you wanted me to get out of bed," Pawter answers, then catches herself and bites her lip. "I mean, yes. I'll help."
Dutch stares at her a moment. Then she stands, springs sighing as the bed releases her weight. "Good. Let's get you dressed."
*
All of the clothing she wears on board Lucy are other people's cast-offs. In Old Town she had drawers full of practical clothing, fraying at the seams after a hundred surgeries and a hundred washes. On Qresh everything was perfectly tailored and faintly infected with the ghost of her mother, reciting endless rules about which hems and colours were appropriate.
Dutch's clothing is neither very comfortable nor particularly appropriate, but it'll have to do for now. Pawter wriggles into a pair of dark pants, as Dutch hands her an oversized sweatshirt that belongs to D'avin and still smells faintly of ale. She ties her hair back, washes her hands in the sink, and takes a deep breath.
*
The man in the hold speaks Standard, though she doesn't recognise his accent or the curse words that pepper every sentence. Dutch tells her his name is Vaas, but he doesn't respond to it, or cease the stream of invective. Dark eyes shoot daggers at her as she kneels on the concourse.
"What the hells." Pawter traces the outline of a bruise forming on the man's jaw, with an unmistakable dirt tread imprint along the bone. "D'avin? Did you kick him?"
D'avin scowls. He's still got his gun slung over his shoulder, his arms crossed defensively. "He kicked me first."
"Shit, Jaqobis. He could have a fracture." She presses down, carefully, along the bone above an angrily throbbing carotid. "Does this hurt?"
Vaas spits more curses at her as he tries to wriggle out of her grasp. Pawter's fingers continue to explore but she can't find any swelling or tender points beneath the hairline, or any other signs of brain injury.
She moves her examination further south, and turns her attention to his leg, and the blood that's staining the cargo deck. "Knife," she demands, and uses the tool that D'avin hands her to cut the man's clothing away from his wound. The leg is bleeding from an ugly laceration, deep enough to expose white bone. She looks again, and sees it: two ends of jagged bone, jarred apart where the break happened.
D'avin winces. "Ouch."
"Ouch?" Pawter demands incredulously. "Didn't you do this to him?"
"Technically, D…" D'avin began, then cut himself off. "Whatever."
She's stopped listening, busy triaging the damage and planning her first steps. Despite the rush of adrenaline she knows is hurrying her movements, she doesn't feel anything but calm. It's almost a relief as time slows and narrows to this, the one thing she knows how to do.
She picks through the hastily assembled bag of medical supplies. There's a basic splinting kit, and she sets it aside for later. She picks out a debriding kit, an antiseptic spray, and a numbing injection. "This is going to sting a little," she says, apologetically.
The man starts at the sight of the needle. He lunges forward, aiming a blow towards her with his good leg. Pawter flinches, alarm propelling her whole body backwards without a thought. There's a crashing sound. Pawter realises that the supplies have fallen out of her hands and tumbled across the metal grating.
"Hey!" Pawter jumps at the shout that seems to come from right behind her. Then Dutch is in her line of sight, leaning over Vaas and twisting the cuff that binds his hands. The prisoner grunts as the metal digs into his wrists, but Dutch doesn't let go. "Behave. We're trying to help you."
"Dutch," Pawter begins. Her mouth is dry.
Dutch glances up. She doesn't let go of her captive, but her face relaxes slightly, in the softening of the minute lines around her eyes. Pawter wonders when she started paying so much attention to Dutch's face. Wonders if she's about to have a panic attack, right here in the cargo bay with everyone watching. Pawter can feel her scars throbbing below a heart that's beating too fast against her ribs. She takes a deep breath.
"It's okay," Dutch's voice is steely. "He's going to be a good boy now. Isn't he?"
She twists the restraints again, jerking the man's body backwards. Pawter notices D'avin standing alert, his rifle pointed directly at Vaas' heart. She tries not to stare at the barrel of the gun.
"Don't hurt my patient." Pawter's voice is shaking. She looks down at her hands, and thinks they're steady enough to keep working.
Dutch blinks, uncomprehendingly, and shakes her head. "He tried to hurt you."
"It was a misunderstanding," Pawter answers firmly. She looks at Vaas. The anger has receded from his face, but he's pale, nearly white with pain. She's treated scores of drunk, angry miners. None of them wanted to be treated by a young, scared junkie. But Old Town had been the only place for her to go, and she'd been the only choice that any of them had. She speaks slowly and carefully. "He's going to stay still from now on, because he doesn't want to lose that leg. Isn't that right?"
Dutch lets go. Pawter looks at Vaas as he slumps forward, mumbling a string of inaudible curses under his breath. His head swivels back and forth to watch both women with wary eyes, but otherwise he remains immobile, obedient, with only a slight tremor when she touches the injured leg.
Pawter retrieves her supplies from the deck, and gets to work.
*
"Thank you," Dutch says afterwards. She stops Pawter in her tracks, outside the door to her room, and hands her a metal cup.
Pawter takes it cautiously from Dutch's outstretched hands, and sniffs the contents. Hokk, good quality and ice cold. She takes a sip, savouring the burn as it goes down. She opens her mouth to say thank you, and you're welcome, but what comes out is something else. "Now what?"
Dutch shrugs. "Now we deliver him to the client."
"I see." Pawter takes a gulp of liquor, but the rush of warmth in the pit of her stomach doesn't douse her frustration. "I stitch him up and you deliver him to a planet where they'll promptly execute him as painfully as possible?"
"We don't know that." Dutch pauses, eyeing her cynically. "You didn't have a problem with this job when it was Johnny's."
"Maybe you didn't know me very well."
Dutch doesn't respond to that. It's cool here in the hallway. Pawter can hear the atmospheric regulators cranking beneath the bulkhead, freezing cold to the touch where she brushes against it.
Dutch is quiet, sipping her own cup of Hokk, then she says, "Look. In the last twenty-four hours I've been groped by strange men, kicked by strange men, and nearly been blown up. I am not in the mood to be lectured by my partner's girlfriend."
"I'm not Johnny's girlfriend." Pawter hears her own voice rising without permission. She takes another gulp of Hokk.
Dutch cocks her head, and something like annoyance, or amusement, curls her lips. "Wife, then."
"I'm not," Pawter begins, then halts. "It doesn't matter what I was. Johnny's not here. And he's not coming back." She tries not to feel satisfaction when Dutch visibly flinches at her words.
"John just needs time," Dutch says.
Pawter shakes her head. She's thought about this a lot, and always comes to the same conclusion. "Maybe. And maybe there's not enough time in the J. Johnny told me how you met, you know? Said you were a runaway. So was he."
"So were you."
Pawter nods. By the faint light illuminating Dutch's face she guesses it's maybe four a.m., ship's time. She drains her drink and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, before handing back the empty cup. "Yeah. Goodnight, Dutch."
*
"Ugh." Pawter watches hot water sputter slowly into her mug as she crushes the foil packet of dehydrated coffee beneath her fingers. "Is this what it's like being a Killjoy? You never get to get enough sleep?"
"Not always," D'avin assures her. He's slouched at the table, scowling into his own cup. "Sometimes you also get shot at."
"Great." The cup finally fills, and she empties the coffee packet into it, turning the water murky brown, before searching for a spoon. "Why did Lucy wake me up so early?"
D'avin shrugs. "It's already mid-morning topside. Market closes in two hours."
Pawter groans. "Market? And what does this planet have against afternoons?"
"It'll be a hundred and thirty-five degrees by midday." Dutch strides into the room, breaking into their conversation. She looks bright-eyed and beautiful despite the early start, and Pawter runs her fingers through her own tangled hair. "You won't want to go anywhere then, either. Look sharp, gang. Shopping trip starts now."
D'avin sighs, and pushes his mug away as he stands. Pawter still feels half-asleep, blinking as if it might clear away her confusion. "Shopping? We're going shopping?"
*
They step off Lucy onto the bustling dock, and find the day is already too warm for comfort. Pawter concentrates on fussing with the hood that keeps the sun off her face. At the entrance to the market D'avin gives them both a parting salute, and then disappears into the crowd.
"Where's he off to?"
Dutch shrugs. "You know. Boys and their toys."
"You mean he's going to buy weapons," Pawter guesses.
"Yep." Dutch glances at the street signs, written in Standard. Pawter has to hurry to keep up as Dutch charges into the intersection, dodging vehicles and pedestrians.
"So, uh. This a supply run?"
She doesn't get an answer. Dutch leads her past blocks of nearly identical stores, each distinguished by the sample wares swinging from the rafters above each entrance. Dutch makes a sharp right turn and ducks a heavy layered skirt on her way through the entrance to the first shop ahead.
Pawter pushes away her head covering and looks around. She takes in the rows of intensely dyed fabrics, arranged by hue and hung wall to wall in the tiny space. "This isn't a supply run?"
Dutch shrugs. She pulls out a dress with a long, draped skirt, made of an airy, bright blue weave, and thrusts it towards Pawter, who steps backwards in surprise. "What do you think?"
"What do I…" Pawter hesitates. She thinks this may be the most unexpected conversation she's been in, since she woke up. "I think it may be impractical for the kind of work that you usually do?"
"Good. It's not for me, it's for you. You must be very tired of wearing other people's clothes."
"Oh. Thank you." Pawter glances at the shopkeeper, and lowers her voice. "But I'm not a princess anymore, so I can't exactly afford any of this."
"Don't be ridiculous." Dutch pulls out another dress, a deep forest green, and eyes it critically. "We delivered our warrant and got paid last night. You helped, so even split. Third each. You can afford to buy something to wear."
Pawter has no idea how much a third of a Killjoys paycheck amounts to, or whether it's enough to buy a new dress. But she begins to take the garment from Dutch's outstretched hand, and then squints at it in surprise. "Is this actually Aeveri silk?"
"Probably not." Dutch shrugs. "But who's going know the difference? And maybe it'll improve your mood."
"There's nothing wrong with my mood," Pawter mumbles, but Dutch doesn't seem to be listening.
Lately she's been getting dressed on her own, most of the time. Dutch's fingers are light as she fastens the row of buttons that run down the back of each garment. A thick curtain separates the dressing area from the rest of the room. The patch of floor is barely enough space for the both of them to stand up in, and Pawter seems to brush against Dutch's body every time she shifts.
"Don't apologise," Dutch answers, sounding faintly annoyed. "Turn around. We'll try the next one."
Pawter obeys, and the soft dress slides to the floor. She steps out of it, and raises her arms far enough for Dutch to lean forward and pull the next dress over her head.
"Dutch. Come in."
Pawter jumps in surprise at the sound, but there's nowhere to go, just Dutch at her back, resting a soothing hand on her hip. Pawter isn't wearing a comm of her own, but Dutch is standing close enough that she can hear everything, even the muted cacophony of the background noise at D'avin's location. D'avin's voice comes through as clear as a bell.
"Dutch? You there?"
Pawter thinks it must be her imagination that Dutch takes a forced, shallow breath before she says, "I'm here, D'avin. Go ahead."
"Bought the ammunition you wanted. I also found a women down here selling, like, medical stuff? Does the doc need anything?"
Dutch looks enquiringly at Pawter.
"Could you see what they have in the way of anaesthesia? Hopefully I won't have to perform any surgery but…"
"Couldn't hurt." If D'avin is surprised to be talking to her directly, he doesn't show it. "On it."
"Thanks," Pawter answers, then sighs at the image of herself in the mirror. The dress hangs just right on her reflection, beneath scrolling advertisements suggesting similar garments for sale. "I don't think this is practical for my line of work either. Can't we buy some pants?"
"On this planet?" Dutch looks amused. "Only if you want to get arrested."
Pawter shrugs, and Dutch laughs.
"We're on a schedule today. Maybe we'll start a revolution some other time."
*
Dutch leads them out of the store and down a path that's different from the one they took before. They duck through a narrow alley, piled high with discarded husks of fruit, and come out the other side into a square courtyard. The building in front of them is as wide as the council meeting house at home, and built from stone made almost white by the light of the sun shining off it. The writing etched above the door is a sharp-angled script that bears no resemblance to Standard.
"This isn't the space dock," Pawter says, frowning
"No," Dutch says. "It's the courthouse. And the prison. They've got a good legal system here. Older than the one on Qresh."
"The legal system on Qresh goes back over a thousand years," Pawter begins to explain, then stops at the look of amusement that sparkles in Dutch's eyes. "You're teasing me."
"Wouldn't dream of it, Seyah."
"That's not my title anymore."
"If you say so." Dutch shrugs. "We transferred Vaas into custody here last night. He'll get a trial. Don't know how much good it'll do."
"That's good," Pawter responds, slowly. She's not sure what else she's supposed to say.
"Yes, well." Dutch gestures at the building with a loose shrug, then turns to leave the square, back towards the way they came. "Thought it might help to know he wasn't being burned to death in the town square or anything."
Pawter stares at her retreating back, then hurries after her. She has to grab hold of Dutch's hand to keep up with the ruthless pace she sets through the town streets. Dutch's hand grips back with pressure so strong that Pawter can't let go, but she doesn't slow down.
"I thought Killjoys didn't take sides."
Pawter raises her voice to be heard in the crowd. The question comes out in a near-shout, and Dutch stops abruptly, causing Pawter to crash into her with a yelp. "We don't," she answers, and the blunt pressure of her nails against Pawter's palm seem like a secret message that Pawter can't quite decode. "Seems like you're a bad influence, doesn't it?"
"I don't mean to be?" It comes out as a question, high and almost breathless.
"I know. But you can't take responsibility for everything that happens to everyone." She doesn't say, that's what got you killed last time, and so Pawter doesn't say that she hadn't been trying to die that time either. They let go of each other's fingers as Dutch's gaze shifts into the distance, blinking against the glare of the sun. Pawter turns to look behind her, and spots D'avin weaving towards them with his purchases slung over his back. Pawter fixes a smile on her face in response to his greeting, and pretends not to feel the aching ghost of a metal knife sliding between her ribs.
*
The thing is that Pawter knows what this is. She knows that she's needy, and always has been. If she picks up crushes as easily as breathing, it's her own bad habit and no one else's problem. It's her own problem, too, if she reads into things more than she should. If sometimes Dutch brushes carelessly against bare skin and Pawter's breath catches in her throat, then at least her speeding pulse is proof that her stupid, reckless heart is still beating.
*
They rise from the dock and orbit the planet for one more day. The pale pink orb beneath them looms large and still. Then they're off, and the deck thrums with speed underneath Pawter's feet. She still sits in the cockpit at night sometimes when she can't sleep. Sometimes she just lies awake in her bed, her body turned towards the open doorway, and watches for glimpses of Dutch as she drifts past, restlessly wandering the hallways like a ghost. Pawter shifts against the mattress, and tries to quiet her fugitive thoughts.
Maybe she doesn't know a lot about things outside of the Quad, but Pawter isn't stupid. She knows that Dutch is still chasing Aneela. That when Dutch gets quiet and moody it's because her mind is tangled into a map of connections, following the tracks of spies and armies, and rumours of trees that give eternal life.
Pree calls to talk to her once a week. His hologram stares at her disapprovingly, and offers familiar advice. "Be careful, sweetie."
Even light-years away across a transmission riddled with static, Pawter can't shake the sense that he knows more than he should. But there's no such thing as a perfectly safe life anywhere in the J. Even if there was, Pawter's sure that none of them would be living it.
The next time that she asks to talk to Pree, Lucy tells her that they're too far away to make the connection. "I will inform you when we are in range," Lucy assures her.
She should be dead. Was dead, and so maybe she should be thankful. Instead she's traveling through space, restless and feeling the kind of lonely she'd thought she'd never be again.
*
"Would you like to listen to the first season of Fallen Heir? I downloaded it last night. It stars Roman Maystn. I believe he is your favourite."
The first clue she has that something is wrong is the realisation that Lucy is trying to distract her. She's been listening to audioplays for hours, the racy ones that she and Louella were never allowed to listen to when they were young. It's a pleasant enough way to fill the silence, but it's late in the day and Pawter has had her fill. "No thank you, Lucy. Not right now."
"I have also downloaded the first spring performance of the Qreshi Orchestra," Lucy suggests. "Their performance of Inalli's Seventh Symphony received rave…"
"I said no, thanks." Pawter scowls at the ship walls, even though she knows that Lucy is trying to help. She knows her growing restlessness is a good sign. It means she's getting better, but knowing that does nothing to dissipate the unsettled feeling that's growing under her skin. "When are Dutch and D'avin going to be back?"
"Unknown," Lucy states flatly.
Pawter sits up in her bed, and swings her feet to the floor. "What do you mean, unknown? They've been gone for almost a day."
"Dutch and D'avin are on an assignment."
"You mean a warrant. Is it dangerous?"
"All warrants are dangerous," the AI responds. There's a definite note of disapproval in her words, but whether it's aimed at herself or the missing Killjoys, Pawter couldn't say. She sighs in frustration.
"I know, Lucy. But would you say it's more dangerous than most? Relatively speaking."
"All warrants are dangerous," Lucy repeats.
"You mean it's statistically unlikely that our fragile human bodies ever return to the ship," Pawter answers, and if she's making stupid jokes then she's definitely starting to panic. She swallows, faintly tasting bile, and strides out of the room.
She doesn't hear Lucy's response. Pawter has already made her way to the cargo bay, when the words Lucy has been repeating finally penetrate the swirl of fog that's descended over her.
"Pawter. I must recommend you stay inside the ship at this time."
"Hells, Lucy." The noise Pawter makes comes out something like a sob. When she glances up, the cargo bay doors remain resolutely closed. "Don't worry, I'm not going to charge in and save the day. I wouldn't even know what to do."
She hesitates a long while in the cargo bay, her hands balled into tense fists. She can't seem to push the worry away.
"Lucy? Can you let me into Dutch's room?"
"Yes. Dutch's instructions are that you may enter at any time."
Pawter frowns in surprise. "Any time?"
"That is correct," Lucy confirms.
When Pawter makes her way through the ship, Dutch's bedroom door slides open as promised. The space is military neat, her bed made with tight, precise corners. Pawter inspects the closet and the drawers, and then sinks to all fours. She gropes blindly beneath the bed, before pulling out her discovery.
It's an unopened bottle of Hokk. Shiro, by the colour, and she hasn't had Shiro in years. Pawter stares at it for a moment, then tightens her fingers around the cork.
She shouldn't be doing this, she knows. She should stay sober, and prepare a workspace in case Dutch or D'avin need a medic when they return. Opening this bottle of Hokk would be impulsive and irresponsible.
It's just as well, Pawter thinks, that bad choices are something she's very good at. The first sip of wine is a relief. The placebo effect, she knows, but it doesn't matter. Lucy has been silent a long time. Pawter stares at the walls, and takes a second sip. "Lucy?"
"You've done this way more times than me, right? Waited for them to come back from a mission?"
"Two hundred and eleven times. Yes."
Pawter can't even imagine waiting that long, rattling around this empty spaceship by herself and wondering if she'd be alone in it forever. She frowns, squinting down at the bottle in her hand. "Lucy. What distracts you? When they don't need your assistance, I mean."
"You're human. You would not understand."
"Cause my fragile brain is too slow?" Pawter smiles a little. "Try me."
"Very well. I examine the information security protocols of the nearest local agencies for organisation and oversight, and test them for deficiencies."
It takes Pawter a moment to parse the string of words, and then she laughs. "You try to hack government files? Really?"
"It keeps most of of my processing units occupied."
"Yeah, okay. I can see how that would help."
"Would you like to hear the symphony recording now?" Lucy asks her.
The Hokk is tangy, with a hint of late-summer sweetness that lingers in the back of her throat. She swallows it down, and takes another sip. "Yes. Please."
*
She's not sure how much time passes. The pillows on the bed smell like Dutch, and she rests her head against them. Her consciousness drifts, buoyed by wine and melody. When she comes back to herself the room is spinning, her name being whispered sharply in her ear.
"Pawter."
"Dutch!" Pawter sits up abruptly, and then throws her arms out to steady herself as her head swims. "You're here."
She reaches out to grasp Dutch's hand, but Dutch pushes her away irritably away. She's discarded her weapons, but she's still wearing boots and black battle dress as she looms over Pawter. "That makes one of us. Did you drink all my Hokk?"
Pawter glances over at the bottle. It's lying on its side, only dregs remaining. "I guess so? It was okay for me to come in here. Lucy said that you said."
"That's not the point." Dutch sighs. "You're part of the team now. What if we'd needed your help?"
"You have counteragents on board. I checked first." Pawter scowls sulkily. "And I don't see how I can be part of the team, if you don't even tell me what's going on."
"You know what you need to know."
"Which is nothing!" Pawter yells. She gestures with her hands in frustration and the empty bottle of Hokk rolls off the bed, rattling slowly along the floor into a far corner of the room. Pawter can feel her face flush, her eyes filling with unexpected tears. "You treat me like I'm delicate."
Dutch's eyebrows knit together in a gesture of genuine confusion. "I don't."
Pawter kneels, bringing her to the same height as Dutch where she stands at the edge of the bed. Puts her arms around Dutch's waist, and this time Dutch doesn't push her away. Doesn't move, but just stands motionless like a statue. "You do. You treat me like I'm still dead, and I'm not. Want me to prove it?"
Dutch stares at her, green eyes unblinking. Pawter ducks her head under the scrutiny, fighting the urge to hide her face against the patch of warm skin above Dutch's collar. "That won't be necessary."
"But you'd like me to." It's a guess, or a drunken, wishful stab in the dark, but she can feel Dutch's whole body tense under her hands.
"I don't sleep with my friends," she says, and if that's not strictly true, Pawter doesn't call her on it.
"Good thing we're not really friends, then, isn't it?"
Dutch bites her lip, and still doesn't extricate herself from their light half-embrace. "I don't sleep with my friend's wives, either."
Pawter inhales sharply, tastes Dutch's clean skin scent, and the tears are coming in earnest now. "I don't… Johnny's not coming back."
Dutch reaches up then, brushing Pawter's hair off her face. When she speaks, her voice is unexpectedly gentle. "He is. And when he does, I wouldn't want you to regret anything."
"I'm not good at this," Pawter admits, quietly.
"That's not what I hear."
Pawter chuckles under her breath at Dutch's half-hearted joke. "No, not that. I'm excellent at that. But I'm not very good at being alone." She pulls away to look Dutch in the eye. Dutch's hands stay tangled in Pawter's hair, resting lightly at her back. "Whereas you might actually be too good at it. Anyone ever tell you that?"
"Anyone ever tell you that you're more trouble than you're worth?" Dutch whispers.
"Might be." Pawter giggles. She's still drunk, feeling weighed down with sadness and light as a feather. She tugs, tumbling back into the bed, and Dutch falls easily with her. Dutch's body on top of her is solid, and strong, and Pawter could lie here forever with that weight like an anchor. She sighs, and presses a quick kiss to the corner of Dutch's mouth. "Worth it, I mean."
Dutch sighs, wiping tears away from Pawter's cheek with the back of her hand. Pawter hadn't even realised that she was still crying, and she blinks to clear her wet vision. Dutch turn onto her side, and Pawter goes easily into her arms. Curls into a knot, with Dutch's breasts and belly nestled against her back. "You're not alone."
Pawter mumbles a noise of disagreement against the pillow. "Kind of am."
"You're not," Dutch repeats, more slowly, her fingers gently squeezing Pawter's hips to punctuate her point. "Not here. But now is not exactly a good time."
"Because we might all die a fiery death in the coming alien invasion?"
Dutch's body vibrates with laughter that Pawter can feel down to her own toes. "That seems like a point in the pro column, actually."
"It does, doesn't it?" Pawter yawns abruptly, and covers her mouth in surprise. "And you said now, does that mean I should wait? I can wait."
"Can you?" Dutch asks, with the hint of a smile in her voice.
"Well." Pawter considers this. Her body feels warm against Dutch's. Her thoughts are still drugged with wine and longing. She squeezes Dutch's hand where it lies along her thigh. "I can try."
*
She's impatient, and restless, and she's never actually worked with a team before. Never even been good at making friends, but maybe that's actually changing. Out here among the constellations, far from the Quad, the universe is an ever-expanding spiral, an infinite ocean that still overwhelms her sometimes. She's not the same girl who left Qresh, or the woman who returned to it trying to save a whole moon. She's not even the same person every morning. But Pawter wakes every day, her lungs filled with hope, and knows that's something.
the end