Page 28 of Nebula Hearts
“No major injuries,” she says after a minute. “Some bruising. Minor stress fractures in your hands that’ll heal.”
She pauses, looking at the readout. Her expression shifts. Something she sees there troubles her.
“Your control,” she says quietly. “It broke. The stress, the fear for me. It was too much.”
I know that already. Felt it shatter. But hearing her say it makes it real in a way it wasn’t before.
“There’s static in my head that won’t clear.”
It’s the best description I have. Not pain exactly. Just noise. Interference. Like my thoughts are fragmenting before I can complete them.
She closes the scanner but her hand stays on my shoulder. Light pressure. Steady.
“We need to understand this,” she says. “Let me check the component I retrieved.”
I nod. Don’t trust my voice.
She moves to the workstation, pulling up the diagnostic interface. Her hand doesn’t leave my shoulder. Like she’s forgotten it’s there.
Or maybe she hasn’t forgotten. Maybe she knows what I already know. That her touch helps. That the static quiets when she’s close.
The component analysis runs. Takes maybe twenty minutes. She scrolls through data, muttering to herself about molecular bonding and stress tolerances and integration specs.
I don’t follow most of it. Can’t focus on technical details right now. Just sit there with her hand on my shoulder and try not to think about what happens when she pulls away.
“Compatible,” she says finally. Relief in her voice. “One problem solved.”
She turns back to me and that’s when she seems to realize her hand is still on my shoulder. She doesn’t move it immediately. Just looks at me, something unreadable in her expression.
“You came for me,” she says. Quiet. “Even though you knew what it would do to you.”
“Of course I did.”
Like there was ever a question.
She blinks. “Why?”
The question hangs between us. Simple on the surface. Complicated underneath.
I could deflect. Should deflect. Tell her it was tactical necessity or mission parameters or any of a dozen professional reasons.
But the walls that let me do that are gone. There’s just truth now. Raw and unfiltered and terrifying.
I look at her. Really look. See the exhaustion she’s hiding, the worry she won’t voice. The way her hair’s falling out of its tie. The dust smudge on her jaw she hasn’t noticed.
“Because you’re not just the geologist.”
The words come out wrong. Not what I meant to say or maybe exactly what I meant to say and that’s worse.
I try again.
“You’re Aris. And I couldn’t leave you there.”
Her breath catches. Just slightly. Enough that I hear it in the quiet of the medical bay.
The space between us feels smaller suddenly. Charged. Like I’ve said too much and can’t take it back.
The cargo bay. Waking up with her head on my shoulder. The way my body calmed just from her proximity. All the small moments over the past days that I’ve been categorizing as professional necessity.
