Page 149 of Shellshock

Soon, her snoring gently resumed, a warm dampness collecting on his shirt. She was drooling on him. It was so precious he didn’t dare breathe.

She woke up sometime later with a grating snort, rocking her head back against the pillow and staring at him with a dreamy expression.

Had she… forgotten everything?

All these long moments of rest kept him on edge. He knew she needed sleep—but he didn’t like the gaps.

Her fingers traced over his face, over the lines. “I’ve had time to think it through,” she said.

“Have you?”

She looked at him gravely. “We need therapy,” she said, her eyes finally taking on the clarity of cognizance. “Do you have that in your society? If not, we could go to Earth. Our relationship has serious issues.”

Alarm spread through him. She was calling out the broken thing inside him, and this was the point—

“You don’t want this?” he asked, his chest slicing anew.

Her brows furrowed, her fingers digging into his shirt. “Idowant you. I ripped that whole ship apart trying to get back to you. What part of that wasn’t clear? I love you.”

Slowly, belatedly, his breathing evened out. And he almost—almost started to believe her words.

“But we need therapy, Cal. We can fix this—we just need outside help. We can’t cut ourselves off and let it get like that. You can’t take it that far again. If I tell you to stop—”

“I’ll take the cells out,” he said roughly.

She burst out laughing. “This is what I’m talking about. You keep jumping to all these conclusions. Don’t take the cells out. I loved what we did. You just took it too far. You didn’t get help when you were in pain. I didn’t even realize you were about to molt, Cal. I didn’t know. I could have lost you…”

Her voice broke on that last part, but her determination returned. She met his eyes, holding them intently.

“I love you,” she said. “I’m not letting you go. But that means you have to listen to me.” She was crying. Tears were falling down her cheeks, and she was forcing her words through them.

He nodded.

“And do everything I say.”

He laughed.

“Including couple’s therapy and meeting my family and promising not to eat the board-game pieces—”

Now he laughed harder, but he dropped the news. “Alex Stephenson dropped by.”

“And?”

He took that chance to bring her up to speed on everything.

The peace negotiations.

The fact that Terry Collins had somehow survived the vacuum, only to be arrested and taken down to Erulea as a prisoner.

And the news that Baade was alive, and if Alex was to be believed, this whole stupid mess had been Baade’s idea from the start.

But Lucca wanted to return to Earth.

“She told me you wouldn’t be allowed on Earth,” he said with some reluctance. Alex Stephenson had popped in just to tell him that message. She had a ton of nerve showing her face to him. “She said you’d be arrested after trying to hijack the warship.”

“That bitch!”

Caligher chuckled harder.

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