This Is Who She Is.

The patient was holographic and the wounds were computer generated to test her abilities, but Nerila's focus didn't waver.

This is what I do.

"How are you feeling?" Pilot asked.

Nerila blinked sweat out of her eyes, staring into the surgical field, and considered a dozen answers to that question.  Busy came to mind, as did none of your fucking business. 

She concentrated and pressed down with the holographically-generated retractor, sliding the illusory forceps past it and into the computer-generator incision and deciding on, "Fine. I'm fine."

A light flashed at the edge of her vision, the computer's warning that she's using too much pressure with her left hand.  Correcting made her fingers shake and she had to pause. 

This is what I care about.

Footsteps behind her told Nerila that Pilot had come into the room. "Maybe you should take a break."

"A real surgery would go for a lot longer than this."  The tremor in her left hand stopped and she moved the holographic liver aside and looked for the bleed beneath.

This is who I am.

"But you're still recovering."

There. Nerila clamped the leaking vein. "That's the point," she explained to Pilot. "The chip is still learning what it needs to compensate for. I have to push it to its limits."

It took her a little longer than it should have to tie off the bleeder but the scrolling counter told  her that she was still well within her margins. As Pilot pulled a stool over to the other side of the table and sat down, Nerila started to put her holographic patient back together, guts, muscles, skin.

"I need to talk to you, Nerila," Pilot said.

Nerila kept her eyes on the hologram. "So talk."

"About your son."

The light flashed, a low tone sounded. "Fortune fuck."  Her left hand shaking too badly to keep its grip, Nerila only just managed to get her right thumb on the forceps before they disappeared inside the 'patient'. Pilot reached out to help and Nerila snapped "Not sterile!" as if it mattered, as if it was real.

"Sorry," Pilot murmured.

Nerila  shook her hand out, made a fist, shook it again, and took a deep breath. "It's fine." When she took hold of the forceps again her grip was light and steady. "Go on."

"It's time for him to leave medical."

"Okay."

"He needs ... " Pilot hesitated. "He needs to be with someone. I mean, he needs ... care. Maybe if you ... well.  There's a family, I found. The mother is crew, here. They're both Gallente, like you, like Mitch.  They have two little girls already and they'd love to take care of ... your son."

Nerila closed the last of the incision. "Okay."

"But not just temporarily," Pilot said. "Manina - that's her name - she said it would be too hard. To love him and know she might have to give him back to you." She pauses again. "Nerila. They want to adopt him."

"Okay," Nerila said. The holographic patient shimmered and faded and she looked at the readout. Still a little slow there, but not so bad, all things considered.


"There's papers to sign."

"Got them there?"

Pilot blinked, looking taken aback. "Um. Yes."

Nerila held out her steady right hand, and after a moment's hesitation Pilot took out her datapad, tapped on it for a moment and handed it over.

"If you want to take some time to think - "

Nerila pressed her thumb to the screen and then signed her name. The datapad registered her thumbprint and recorded her signature, beeped once. She handed it back to Pilot. "There. Anything else?"

Pilot shook her head, eyes sad. "No. That's all."

"Then I need to get back to work."

Pilot took it as the dismissal it was meant to be. Her footsteps were still fading down the corridor when Nerila called up the next program on her list. Twenty-two year old made with penetrating wound upper thoracic ...


Cut. Clean. Mend.


This is what I do. This is what I care about.


This is who I am. 


Without thinking about it she got up from her stool and turned away from the patient bleeding out his computer-generated blood on her table.  Her feet carried Nerila down the hall and to the left, third door, through the decontamination lock.

This is not what I want to do.

Her legs moved without any instruction from her, under someone else's control, someone who could imagine there being anything more important than a bleeding patient on the table.


That someone could not possibly be her. It's the chip, Nerila thought, as the blast of antiseptic air died down and the doors to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit opened for her. Dr Sanik and Captain Night lied. It is a mind-control chip.


The chip walked her across the room to the incubator, lifted her hands to open the plexiglass lid, reached in to the baby inside.  So much bigger already than the one other time she'd seen him, most of the tubes gone, only a few wires left connecting him to the monitors by the incubator, and his eyes following her movements now, no longer blank and blind.

This is not what I care about.

He fussed as the chip used her hands to pick him up, and Nerila heard her voice crooning soft soothing nonsense as her good right hand held him securely against her shoulder, her less-reliable left detaching the wires that led to the monitors.

Not only should she not be doing this, not when there's a patient, even an illusory one, open on her table, she doesn't have the right to. She signed the papers. He's somebody else's son.

Someone else is his mother.

Not Nerila.

This is not who I want to be.


The baby's head was soft and downy against Nerila's neck as the chip made her pick up a blanket from the chair by the incubator and tuck it around him, then turn to the door.  Her feet carried her across the room, through the door, down the hall.  Someone called out to her but the chip wouldn't let her stop, kept her moving out past the entrance to medical and into the main hangar.

She turned towards the exit and saw security heading her way, turned the other way and saw three medtechs hurrying after her. The chip sent her forward, diagonally across the hangar, to the huge secure container that housed Pilot's hab unit.

Nerila reached it seconds before security and the medtechs reached her. They were talking to her but the chip wouldn't let her hear, wouldn't let her hear anything but the pounding of her own heart and the little grumbling sounds of the baby breathing.

"Pilot," she said to the marine on duty at the door. "Pilot."

That was all the chip would let her say.

One of the medtechs reached out for the baby and the baby started squalling.  Nerila's arms tightened around him, her body curled forward to shelter him, her head bowed over his.  Her voice whispered "Don't cry, sweetling, don't cry, don't cry."  Hands touched her and she crouched away. "Don't cry. Hush, don't cry." They were all around her now and the chip had no more instructions except Hold on and keep safe and don't let go.


Then space around her and another voice. "Nerila."

"Don't cry," she whispered to the baby, who was grumpy now with bemusement at the hot salty rain falling on his face. "Don't cry, please don't cry, don't cry."

"Nerila," Pilot said again, her hand gentle on Nerila's arm.  Nerila raised her head to see Pilot swimming in a blurry haze, crouching beside her on the deck.

"Something's gone wrong," she told Pilot.

"I know," Pilot said quietly.

"This isn't me," Nerila explained. "It's the chip. It isn't me!"

"It's okay, Nerila," Pilot said. "It's okay."

Nerila shook her head. "No. It's not okay. It's not okay! I - "

This is not who I want to be.


This is not what I want to do.


This is not what I want to care about.


"Nerila?" Pilot prompted softly.

"I can't - " she blurted. "I can't - " I can't let go. "This isn't who I am!"

Pilot's arms were around her and her son, holding them both, holding them together, and her voice was very gentle. "Yes it is, Nerila. This is who you are."

Nerila looked down at the baby in her arms and he looked back at her with his father's brown eyes.

She took a deep breath and held it until her lungs burned for air.

Exhaled.

Numb

It's an arm.

It's her arm, in fact.

It doesn't feel like it, lying on the covers of the bed, numb and immobile. Nerila reaches over with her right hand and takes hold of it, the lump of insensate flesh that she knows, intellectually, belongs to her.

She lifts it up and lets it drop.

Nothing.

Not that she expects anything.  Just about everybody on the medical staff remembers when she was CMO Janianial and it didn't take too many orders in her new, slurring, voice before someone put her patient records in her hands.

Hand.

In the hand that works, still.

Her mind works. That's in the file, but Nerila doesn't need the file to tell her that. She was running through cognitive tests before they took her off the ventilator, checking the areas she came up short again and again as the fog of post-anesthesia diminished until she could say to herself Okay, honey, you're all still here.

Her mind works.

Her brain, not so much. That's in the file, but it's something else she doesn't need to read to know. Her left hand, her left leg, useless; the right side of her face numb and slack.  You don't need to be a doctor to know what that means, and Nerila's a doctor.

The file has all the details. How long she was technically, clinically, dead for and just what parts of her brain are actually dead, now.

She knows what that means, even as her former staff are talking about therapy and rehabilitation.

Nerila's a doctor and she knows there's only so much functionality you can get back.

I was a doctor.  She makes herself say it, silently, over and over. It'll sink in, soon. It won't hurt so much. Or maybe she'll just go numb the way her left hand is numb, and she won't feel the bruising impact of those words. I was a doctor.

Nerila's looking at the ceiling saying those words to herself when they come in, the three of them. Not medical staff, she can tell from the way they stop just inside the door. Not family, because hers is disowned or dead. Not friends, because she's a  fucking junkie and junkies don't have friends. 

She wants to tell them to Fuck off, whoever they are, but pushing words out of her slackly lopsided mouth takes more effort than it's usually worth, these days.

"Nerila?" It's Pilot's voice, the soft Gallente slur of it and the hesitancy equally familiar.  Footsteps come to the left side of the bed, and Nerila turns her head in time to see Pilot gently take her left hand. Saying Don't bother, I can't feel it would take about five minutes, so Nerila lifts her right hand instead, waggles the fingers at Pilot in a silent It's this one that works gesture.

Pilot takes that hand as well. "Nerila, Dr Sanik is here to talk to you."

Sanik. Nerila knows Sanik, not in a have a drink together way but in the way that really matters, as far as the doctor Sanik is and Nerila used to be is concerned: she's read  Sanik's meticulous case notes and she's seen the tiny, immaculate incisions left on Pilot's scalp by Sanik's surgery.

Nerila has always believed that you can tell a lot about someone by the way they cut.

Sanik comes to the bed, the other side to Pilot. The third visitor joins Pilot and Nerila recognizes him as well, Invelen's boss, former Sansha or current Sansha depending on who you listened to, Mr Happy Chip himself, Captain Silver Night.

Naqam Heavy BioIndustries.

It's not numb, the place she's been battering with I used to be a doctor.  There's a flicker of hope there as  Captain Night comes to stand behind Pilot and Dr Sanik starts to talk.  Nerila can't crush that hope, although she tries, as Dr Sanik uses words like neural bridging and repair and functionality, as Pilot's face goes pale and paler. Trans-Cranial Micro-Controller, Dr Sanik says finally, the word that's been in the air since she started talking.

Pilot's Sansha friends want to put chips in my head.

The thought holds not even a tinge of apprehension when it's set beside And I could be able to use both my hands again.

"Do you understand, Nerila?" Pilot asks quietly. "It's not, it isn't, what, not like, it ..."

The hands holding hers are cold and sweaty and shaking. Captain Night says something Nerila can't hear, not more than a word, maybe two, and Pilot nods and swallows and falls silent.

"Dr Janianial," Captain Night says, "As Ms Roth was saying, there will be no behavioral control component to this T.C.M.C. No perceptual distortion, or personality modification. It will be purely a therapeutic device designed to replicate neurological functions that are currently impaired, and it will be locked against any tampering. You have my word on that."

There's something Nerila needs to ask, not about Captain Night's promises because right at that moment being a True Slave would be a fair trade for being able to get up off this bed and pick up a scalpel and do the one thing, the only single thing ever, that she's always been absolutely, unquestionably good at.  The question she needs to ask is a different one, but heaving it up off her tongue is heavy lifting, the words sliding around her mouth.

Pilot tries to help, Fortune fuck her, she always tries to help. "Your son, Nerila, Dr Sanik can help him too. It's more complicated, but he could - "

Nerila shakes her head. I don't care about the brat.  Do what you want to it. 

"It's your choice, of course, Nerila, as his mother. If you don't want, well. But Dr Sanik says - "

"Shut. Up." The words are slurred but clear enough to make Pilot blink, her wide blue eyes showing hurt, and Nerila knows she's being unfair.

Fuck fair. Fair isn't that bastard Mitch sweet-talking me into bed and knocking me up, fair isn't Pilot's bitch friend deciding she knows what's best for me, fair isn't seven months of vomiting and backaches that ends with the brat trying to kill me.  


Fair can go fuck itself.


The words come out eventually. "How much. Fuction?"

"With therapy and rehabilitation, you could be looking at close to one hundred percent," Dr Sanik says.

"And your son, too," Pilot said.

Close to one hundred percent. 

There's a lot that can fall into that gap that close describes.  The fine motor control that can slip an ace out of a deck of cards, for one thing. Or keep a scalpel steady.

But close is better than this. Close is a chance.  

"Yes," Nerila says. It sounds more like esh, even to her, but Dr Sanik nods.

"There is a team on standby," Sanik says. "We can start as soon as you're prepped for the surgery."

"And your son, Nerila?" Pilot asks.

"Don't care," Nerila says.

"You don't mean that. He's - "

"I. Don't. Care." Her right hand answers her will, pulls free of Pilot's grip. Her left lies limp, and Nerila closes her eyes against the sight.

Pilot, though, Pilot doesn't quit things when she thinks she's right.  "Well, medically, though, Nerila. What would you say, as a doctor? Do you want to see his ... chart, is that what it's called?"

"No." She's seen the brat's chart. Seen the brat, too, wheeled down the hall to the N.I.C.U. they have set up for it, by med-techs who couldn't imagine she wouldn't want to and who couldn't understand her attempts to protest.  Hooked up to wires and monitors and feeding tubes and oxy-mix.

No, Nerila doesn't want to see the chart. No, she doesn't want to hold the baby. No, she doesn't want to make the decision.

"Nerila?"


Pilot's not going to leave this alone, Nerila can tell.  She's going to sit there holding the hand that doesn't feel like mine asking me to make a choice about the baby that doesn't either until she hears what she needs to.


Fine.

"Yes," Nerila says. Esh.

The answer makes Pilot smile, happy, and let go of Nerila's hand so the techs can start prepping her for surgery.

That makes it the right answer, as far as Nerila's concerned.

As far as the brat's concerned ... ?

She can't find it in her to care.

Conversations On The Fortune's Firefly: Eighteen

"Should you be doing that?"

Nerila finished fitting the new filter into the scrubber-drone and flicked the power switch before she looked up. Pilot stood watching her, arms tightly folded across her stomach and an upright line of worry between her blue eyes.

"I'm not sick," Nerila pointed out, setting the drone down and getting to her feet. "And it's not exactly heavy lifting, is it?"

"I guess not," Pilot said, her voice softer than usual.

The scrubber ran industriously into the nearest wall and stuck there, whining.   Nerila sighed, and nudged it in the right direction with her foot. "Can we maybe take this conversation as read, Pilot? I have to herd these little fuckers all the way around to Section C before shift change."

Pilot watched the drone as it found a smudge of grease on the floor and started polishing it away, the low note of its engine changing tone to a happier-sounding hum. "As read?"

"Yeah, you know. You're going to ask me if I've changed my mind, I'm going to tell you I haven't, you're going to ask me to wait another day and since you're the one the marines at the security checkpoint answer to, I'm going to let you pretend you're not keeping me locked up here and say, okay, Pilot, one more day. Right?"

"Oh."  The blue eyes showed hurt now, as well as worry, and Nerila looked away and then forced herself to look back. It's not like I care if her feelings are hurt, is it?  

"So let's not, and say we did, all right?"  Another scrubber got itself struck on lip of the section seal, and Nerila dislodged it with her toe and then started down the corridor after it, at the ambling pace she'd found kept her just about in sync with the drones.

Pilot turned and fell into step beside her. Shit.  Nerila glanced down at her, about to say Fuck off already, and swallowed it back as the shift in light showed her for the first time how dark the shadows beneath Pilot's eyes had gotten.

She opened her mouth to ask, How are you feeling? or You not sleeping well? or Let's make an appointment for you, Pilot.  Swallowed all those back as well.


It's not like I care, is it?


"It's not what I was going to say, anyway," Pilot said quietly.  "It's, you know. Dr Iorthan said, with the dates and everything."

"I thought that was your plan," Nerila said.  "One more day, Nerila, one more -  for another six months, maybe?"

"No," Pilot said, softly but firmly.

"No? You're so fucking sure you know what I ought to be doing, isn't it?" Nerila kicked one of the drones forward harder than necessary and Pilot winced as it bounced off a wall with an indignant bleep. "Changed your mind?"

"No," Pilot said again, the same quiet certainty in her voice. "But if you're not going to change yours, not much I can do, really, is there?"  She looked up at Nerila. "You don't really think I'd keep you locked up for the rest of the time, do you, like some sort of ... breeding stock?"

Well, no, Nerila had to admit, if only to herself. I didn't really think she would.

"It's not what I'd do," Pilot went on. "'And not what I think you'd do, if things were ... different. But whatever you chose, you know I'll do what I can to make it easy on you. Right?"

"So I can make the appointment?" Nerila asked. "Security will let me out of the hangar?"

"Oh, you don't need to go anywhere," Pilot said. "I checked with Dr Iorthan and there's no reason you can't have the termination in medical here."

"Right," Nerila said.

"We could go now, if you want," Pilot went on.  She stooped to coax one of the little scrubber drones forward to keep up with the others.

"I can't go now," Nerila said immediately. "I have to get this done."

"Later, then. After shift change," Pilot suggested, straightening again.

Nerila shook her head. "Medical runs main-and-alterday shifts like everybody else. Night shift's no time for elective procedures."

"Mmmhmm," Pilot said. "Then I should get security to escort you around to station medical after all. Straight after shift-change suit you?"

"Sure," Nerila said. "But, you know, there's no need to put security to the trouble. I can go up to medical tomorrow, maybe."

"Tomorrow?"


Nerila shrugged. "A day's not going to make any real difference, is it?"

Pilot nudged one of the drones with her foot. "It isn't?"

"Nah."  Nerila took another clean filter from her belt pack and knelt down as a scrubber dashed over to her, beeping piteously.  "Just a day, after all."

"Sure," Pilot said. She knelt down beside Nerila and picked up the drone, holding it for Nerila to change the filter. "Just a day."

"That's right." The filter snapped in neatly and Pilot let the scrubber go. Nerila watched it race off to join the others as they polished their way along the corridor, leaving the floor pale and clean behind them.


She turned to meet Pilot's level gaze. "Just a day, Pilot. That's all."

"Sure," Pilot said again.  She got to her feet and held out her hand. "Not like it makes any real difference."

Nerila hesitated, and then put her hand in Pilot's, her own long, square-tipped fingers a dark contrast to Pilot's pale, clone-soft skin.  Soft or not, Nerila thought, as Pilot pulled her to her feet, stronger than you'd expect.


"Thanks," she muttered, taking her hand back.

Pilot smiled a little. "You're welcome, Nerila," she said softly.  "You're welcome."

Either Way

It's not a baby.

Nerila's a doctor, for Fortune's forsaken sake, not some sentimental fool getting teary-eyed at the idea of teeny-tiny toes and fingers. The bundle of rapidly-dividing cells inside her bears as much resemblance to an infant as a circuitry diagram does to the finished machine. It's a plan, a blueprint, a diagram for what will be built out of the iron stripped from her blood and the calcium sucked from her bones.

No more.

No less.

Not even that, soon, when Pilot finally stops asking for one more day, Nerila, just one more.

When she finally gives up and realizes she's wasting her time.

Not a baby, not a chance, either, no matter what Pilot or that interfering bitch of a friend she has say.

Not something that belongs in her life.

Either way.

The Worst of It

You can hold onto to pain, like it's a physical thing, like a lover's body in your arms, if you want to.

Hold it close, so close you can't see anything else, can't hear or feel or taste or smell anything but dark red inside your eyelids, the stuttering beat of your own heart, the ache and the sting and the sour tang of your own stale mouth.

It's not easy, though. The mind wants to slip away, trick itself into believing there's something else but the pain. The body gets tired of shaking and shivering and purging itself. The pain itself tries to escape you, to slip away into the dark so it can creep back and ambush you when your guard is down.

Nerila wrestled with the pain, clutched on to it, pinned it down and clung to it.    Fuck you, you're not getting away from me. 


You're mine.


There were voices, sometimes. The door opened occasionally. They brought her food, which she couldn't have stomached even if she'd been able to spare the attention. They cleaned her, not ungently.

They went away, and locked the door.

Each time the door opened Nerila felt her heart sink. The visits measured out the passage of time.

Time was her enemy. Time weakened the pain, or weakened her grip on it, Nerila wasn't sure which.

Time heals all wounds. 


Lies.

She fought harder, pulling the shreds of the pain closer to her as they dissolved in her grip, fell into them like fog, seeing nothing but the red haze of them, hearing nothing, feeling nothing but the ache in her bones and the roiling of her gut.

You can hold onto pain, like it's a lover in your arms, if you want to.

For a while.

"They tell me you're through the worst of it."


A familiar voice. A friend, or at least an ally, once, in the brief while Nerila'd been able to fool herself into thinking she was the sort of person who had friends or allies. 

The worst of it.

Matter of opinion.

"Nerila," Invelen said. "I know you can hear me."

Nerila rolled over and opened her eyes.  The ceiling of the brig was clear and sharp above her, as the lumps in the cot she lay on. She reached for the pain, stretched for it, tried to grasp it ...

Gone.

Her arms were empty.


"Yeah," she said. "Yeah. I can hear you."

Four Bells

Luisa shuffles the cards.

She can't send them shooting from hand to hand in a flashy waterfall like Nerila, can't cut them one-handed or flip them over her fingers. Can't palm an ace the way Nerila did.

Wouldn't if I could.

She shuffles, unfancy, precise, no Spirits-lost Gallente foolishness.  

Deals in a circuit, two cards, one, two more.


Five cards face down in front of her.


Five face down at each of the three empty places around the table.

You're a stupid, sentimental old woman, Lulu Kamajeck.


Fisk Hurun wasn't about to pick up the cards at the place to her left, his big hands dwarfing them, handling the squares of pasteboard with the exaggerated care of a man whose augmented strength could rip a door from its hinges in a moment of inattention.

No, he's off somewhere in that fancy battleship he flies these days, or living the highlife with that little Vherry girl he's taken up with. 


Nerila Janianial wasn't reaching for the cards to Luisa's right, either, long dark fingers deftly rearranging them and maybe slipping in a high card as she did it. Gone, without a word. I told Pilot not to hire a fucking junkie, but no. 'Everyone deserves a second chance, Luisa.'


Well, shit. Only people asking for second chances are those already proved themselves untrustworthy.


As turned out to be true. 


And Michael Mitcheson wasn't sitting across from her, playing footsie with his wife as if none of us noticed and watching the bottle go around the table with just a little bit too much interest.

And one thing you can say for that over-sexed, over-charming Gallente son-of-a-bitch, he's the only one of 'em hasn't left the ship.


No. Downstairs, is where Mitch is.  Cold and stiff in one of his wife's morgue drawers, waiting for someone to track down his junkie bride so the decencies could be done.

Luisa sweeps up her own hand and tosses it face up. Two acorns, four leaves, six and seven of hearts, ten bells.


Handful of trash, is what I got. 


Handful of trash.


There's still an inch left in the bottle of Invelen's fine Pator vodka. Luisa hooks it out of the cupboard and pours herself a careful quarter of that last inch, caps it and puts it back.

Better than I'll ever afford, that's certain.


And when it's gone, that'll be that.


Gone.


She toasts the empty chairs around the table and tosses the vodka back. The burn makes her eyes water and she blinks hard as she sweeps up the cards and begins to deal them out again, seven stacks in front of her this time, one, one two, one two three.


Five of acorns on the six of bells. Nine hearts on ten leaves.  Turn over eight acorns and move it over.

You can fool yourself into thinking poker's your game, Lulu. But in the end ... 


In the end, it's always solitaire. 

The Lighthouse

In the months they were together she mapped his body with a surgeon's knowledge and a lover's touch.


The serratus anterior originates on the surface of the upper eight ribs at the side of the chest and inserts along the entire anterior length of the medial border of the scapula.

Bones, muscles, ligaments ...  the machinery of the human body, her expertise, her specialty, the one thing she can always rely on. She knew every joint and every hollow of his body, from textbooks, from a thousand operations, before the first time she lay down beside him.

Discovered them anew, in the miracle of Michael Mitcheson stretched out beside her.

The levator scapulae arises from the transverse processes of the first four cervical vertebrae and inserts into the vertebral border of the scapula.

"You have a beautiful sternocleido mastoid."

"A what-which-now?" Mitch asked, grinning.

"Here." Nerila ran her fingers along the muscle. "From the medial portion of your clavicle to the mastoid process of your temporal bone."

"That's a fancy way of saying neck, then?"  He wrapped his arms around her and rolled them over, bent his head to kiss her throat. "You have a beautiful stern-cled-mast-thingie too, sweetheart."

She giggled. "That's my hyoid bone."

"And a very pretty hyoid bone it is."

"Like you care what it's called!"  She tangled her fingers in his hair, her other hand flat against the smooth plane of his left latissimus dorsi. 

"Like you care if I care..." 

The pectoralis minor arises from the third, fourth, and fifth ribs, near their cartilage and inserts into the medial border and upper surface of the coracoid process of the scapula.

"From the pectoralis minor to the biceps brachii ... " Her fingers found the small nub of bone on the hollow of his shoulder. "That's your coracoid process.  We call it the Surgeon's Lighthouse."

"Why?" He turned his head to grin at her. "It flashes on and off in the dark?"

She smiled back. "A lot of nerves and blood vessels in there. This little bone tells us where they are, if there isn't time for a scan. Shows us where to cut, to be safe."

"Keeps you off the rocks?"

"Exactly." Nerila traced the fragile wing of his clavicle with one finger.  For whole moments of time she could forget that body beside her, warm and strong and by a process no science could explain containing a mind and soul unlike any other, was as fragile and as vulnerable to steel and blast-caps as any other bleeding on her table. "Exactly."

On the lateral angle of the scapula is a shallow pyriform, articular surface, the glenoid cavity, which is directed lateral and forward and articulates with the head of the humerus.

She is up to her elbows in blood, which makes it an ordinary day for her, now.

No scans, no fancy equipment. Those who can, go to station medical. Even here, in the heart of the Syndicate, there's quality medical care - for those who can afford it.

Who can afford to answer the questions that come with it.

Who want doctors who can afford to answer questions themselves.

Nerila has no scans, no machines. She has scalpels and sutures and bandages. She has a table scrubbed with disinfectant in a dingy back-room that's as clean as she can make it.

She has two steady hands and a knowledge of the human body that no scanner could match.

There is blood everywhere, sharp red arterial blood pumping from the jagged hole in the shoulder of the man sprawled on her table. His friends are standing by the door, big men with hard faces, and Nerila is under no illusion that her life depends on how well she does here.

There's too much blood to see the bleeder, and she has no med-tech to suction out the wound.  She feels for it with fingers slippery with blood, knowing where it has to be, the dorsal scapular artery just where it emerges from the superior angle of the scapula ... there.


She pinches with two fingers, follows along them with a clamp.

The bleeding stops.

Now her time is measured in seconds, before she has to choose between saving this man's life and saving his arm.  The round is still in the wound, she can tell.  No way to get a grip on it with forceps - she'll have to cut.

There's a lot that can go wrong for her patient, if she cuts into the mess of nerves and blood vessels in his shoulder, without a scan to guide the knife.

There's a lot that can go wrong for her personally, right now, if she doesn't do what the men by the door want and fix him up, fast.

Nerila puts her thumb in the hollow of his shoulder, by the wound, finds the hook of bone that she knows will be there, measures by eye from the Surgeon's Lighthouse.

Cuts.

The flesh parts beneath her blade.

Her hands are steady, and fast, but her eyes don't see a bloody wound, ragged flesh, clean incisions.

She has relearned her anatomy, and every body on her table is the same body, now.

Nerila cuts, stitches, bandages.  Takes the money and the threats designed to keep her mouth shut. Scrubs blood from the table and from beneath her nails.

Afterimages linger on the inside of her eyelids, even though she knows the table is as empty as her bed.

The coracoid process, a small hook-like structure on the lateral edge of the superior anterior portion of the scapula ... serves to stabilize the shoulder joint ... palpable in the deltopectoral groove between the deltoid and pectoralis major muscles.

In her dreams, she traces the spot, leans over to press her lips to it.

The lighthouse that used to keep her from the rocks.

Conversations on the Fortune's Fist: Fifteen

Nerila didn't hear him the first time.

The thoughts that raced and crowded and tumbled through her head, pushing each other aside before she could bring them in focus, Pilot's tests - Crew - pod maintenance - need to make that bed - hire new medtech - stove needs cleaning - check Alpassi's scans - inventory assessment, drowned out Mitch's voice until he took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him.

"Talk to me. Sweetheart. Please."

Her heart did a little double thump at what she saw in his face, and her thoughts went straight to the glass vial tucked down at the bottom of her pocket. Hidden. Hidden well enough? Safe? "Nothing, nothing's wrong, I'm just distracted. Too much to do, you know?"

"Sweetheart," Mitch said softly. "Don't take me for a fool."

The lie was ready on her lips, rehearsed. Hells, rehearsed. Because she'd been ready for this moment, not knowing who it would be, but knowing it would come. Like it always does. Like it had last time, time and time over. She knew how to handle it, had handled it a dozen times before. 

First denial. No, of course not. Perhaps with a touch of outraged anger. How could you think that of me? If that didn't work, carefully calibrated admissions. I did try it. I know it was silly. Or I do occasionally, yes. Not more than once a month.

All of it, tried and true strategies.

She looked into his eyes and realized there was nothing in her that could lie to this man, not this man, not Michael Mitcheson, not her husband.

"I'm sorry," she said, instead. "I'm sorry."

"How much?" he asked. "For how long?"

How much? Enough. Isn't that the only answer? "Too much," she said at last, looking away from him. "Too long."

"Sweetheart." He tightened his grip a little on her shoulders. "You have to deal with it. Get clean. Time off, whatever."

"I know, I know.  When I get this last lot of tests through for Pilot, I'll - "

Mitch shook his head. "No. It won't ever be the right time, sweetheart. There'll always be something else. Another reason."

Nerila bit her lip. "I can't, not yet, not right now..."

"You can. You have to."  He folded her in his arms, whispered to the top of her head. "I'm here, sweetheart. We'll get through this. We will."

Then she could lie to him, look up and meet his gaze and smile and say "I know. I know."

Because there was no we. In everything else, maybe.

Not in this.

After that, it was easy, so easy it felt inevitable.  I'll put in for leave. Today. This is it. 

It'll be hard. I'll need you.

She watched him leave for his duty shift.

She packed a bag.

Not with much. A couple of changes of clothes.

She left her wedding ring on the dresser.

The transport hub was crowded. Old men walking with sticks, children clinging to parents' hands and gazing around wide-eyed, sullen teenagers with too much makeup.

Everybody trying to get to somewhere that isn't where they are.

She picked a destination. Pochelympe .  Nowhere she'd ever heard of. She liked the name, liked saying it over to herself as she waited in line to buy a ticket. Pochelympe. Pochelympe. Pochelympe.

Pochelympe.

A simple transaction, which she found a little disappointing. Moments like this should have some sort of complicated rigmarole attached. Maybe a ritual.

No ritual. Just pushing her bank chip across the counter and the clerk pushing it back with a ticket, not even looking up from the holonovel he's watching beneath the desk.

And then she's taking the short walk to the Interbus, pushing her way through the mass of people, all trying to be somewhere or someone they aren't.

The crowds close around her.

And she's gone.

Chemistry

It's only chemistry.

............................................

... neurotransmitters are endogenous chemicals which relay, amplify, and modulate signals between a neuron and another cell ...

............................................

It isn't Nerila's best subject, but that's just compared to anatomy.

She's still the top of her class.

And it's only chemistry.

............................................

... such as dopamine, a chemical messenger heavily active in the mesolimbic and mesocortical reward pathways ...

............................................

There are three spots in the program and fifty students who want them. Nerila's a scholarship student and unlike her classmates waits tables four nights a week to make up the difference between her stipend and her rent.

She can't afford to skip study sessions for an extra few hours sleep.

She can't afford to be too tired to concentrate on rounds, either.

And after all, it's only chemistry.

............................................

...the anatomical components of these pathways—including the striatum, the nucleus accumbens, and the ventral striatum - have been found to be primary sites of action ...
............................................

Nerila has good surgeon's hands, not too big, not too small, long-fingered and deft.

They've held thousands of scalpels, knotted tens of thousands of sutures, cupped at least two dozen beating hearts.

Four months shy of being finally, totally, qualified and licenced, she's had a lot of practice.

At cutting, at stitching, at finding a nicked artery by touch and instinct.

And she's had a lot of practice at something else, too.

The top of the vial pops off with the pressure of her fingernail, a flick of the wrist tips out exactly the right number of grains. It's gone again before anyone could possibly see it, even if they were looking right at her.

She splashes water on her face, hopes the chill will take some of the red from her eyes.

Looks in the mirror and tells herself this is the last time.

It's only chemistry.

............................................

... the interaction with serotonin is only apparent in particular regions of the brain, such as the mesocorticolimbic projection ...

............................................

Nerila curls into a ball on the narrow jail cot, shivering so hard the frame rattles against the wall like her own personal percussion section. Her cellmate mutters something about 'fucking junkies' and pulls the pillow over her head.

Nerila tells herself that she won't die from this. The jail medics know that, it's why she's been tossed in here rather than taken up to the infirmary.

They're not trying to kill her, or even torture her.

They just don't give a shit.

Not about one more fucking junkie.

Her stomach cramps agonisingly and she clamps a hand over her mouth to stifle a groan, swallows bile. If she throws up now there'll be no way to clean it up before morning, and she's determined not to spend the third night in a row lying shivering in her own vomit.

Each reaction of her body is predictable. She even got an exam question on it, once.

She knows exactly what's happening, and why.

She's not dying. A few more days and it will be over.

It's only chemistry.

............................................

... triggering the release of dopamine, norepinephrine and phenylethylamine, increasing pulse rate, reducing appetite and causing insomnia ...

............................................

He's late.

Nerila fidgets with her hair even though it's been a long time since it occurred to her to wonder if she looked all right. Her heart is beating so fast she's surprised the people at the next table can't hear it. She picks up an olive from the dish the waiter brought with her drink, puts it down again.

She fiddles with her hair again, doesn't look at the door.

Looks.

Feels a wave of relief so intense she's dizzy at the sight of him.

It's crazy, and she knows it. There's no way not to get caught.

She's absolutely, unquestionably old enough to know better.

And catches his eye anyway.

It's just once more. She can stop anytime she wants.

After all, it's only chemistry.

............................................

... is believed to depend on specific phosphorylating kinases. Upon phosphorylation, there is an observable conformational change that results in the transportation of dopamine from the extracellular to the intracellular environment ...

............................................

Nerila locks the door and checks it once, twice, three times.

A fourth.

The vial, the cap, the grains: none of it takes conscious thought. Her long fingers find the tiny glass shape in her pocket without her even willing them to.

She doesn't think about the vial, the cap, the grains, as she pops the cap off and shakes out just exactly enough.

She doesn't think about the fact that she doesn't have to think for her hands to know what to do.

She thinks about how many research papers she has to read through tonight, tomorrow, the day after. About the deadline that nature's set her, about how apt that particular word is.

She thinks about the monitor in the corner of the room and the alarm she's always waiting for.

And then, for three blessed seconds, she doesn't think about anything at all.

When the room comes back, it's all manageable: the papers, the DNA analysis, the monitor. It's under control.

Whatever fatal flaw is coiling through Pilot's DNA, there's an answer to it.

It's only chemistry.

Conversations on the Fortune's Smile: Ten

Nerila shuffled the cards. "Ladies high, deuces wild, bent and skip straights." She grinned. "Everybody got that?"

"Shall we just give you our money now?" Luisa asked dryly, pouring herself a little more vodka.  

"If you like," Nerila said, beginning to deal. "Certainly save time."

"N-n-n ..." Fisk said. He flushed as the other three looked at him, waiting, and found a word that didn't lock between mind and mouth. " Earn it."

Mitch picked up his cards. "Think you can make Nerila  work for a winning hand?" he said. "You really are brain-damaged, Fisk."

Fisk caught Nerila's quick shift in her chair and Mitch winced.  

"M-m-m ... could be," Fisk said, studying his cards.  Three, five, seven acorns. "Still t-t-take your m-m-m ... cash."

"Oh, you want a side bet?" Mitch said. "How much?"

"Mitch," Luisa said, a warning note in her voice.

"Pilot pays well, Luisa, but not so well I can afford to pass up the chance to take candy from a baby," Mitch said. "Fisk wasn't so good at cards before he put his hand up for the experimental brain-dice-'n'-slice." He studied Fisk. "Two bits a point?"

Fisk nodded.  

"Your funeral," Nerila said, flipped a card over in front of Luisa and then fumbled the next. "I mean - "

Fisk took a breath, and made himself smile. " Had that," he said. "D-d-didn't we?"

There was a pause, and then Nerila spluttered with laughter. " Hells, Fisk," she said, dealing him the nine of acorns, and turning the jack of bells over in front of Mitch. She flipped up the ace of leaves in front of herself and tapped the cards together in her hand. "Ladies and gentlemen and Michael Mitcheson, place your bets."

"Fold," Luisa said.  

Fisk pushed a marker into the centre of the table, followed it with another.  

"The CTO raises," Nerila said.  

"See that," Mitch said, matching the action to the words.  

"And me," Nerila said. She turned the ace of acorns over in front of Fisk, the Jack of acorns in front of Mitch, and dealt herself the queen of leaves. "Possible flush for the CTO, pair or more in the engineer's greasy hands and the doc might just have a royal-high flush."

Fisk pushed another two markers into the centre of the table.  

"Idiot," Mitch said, matching him.  

"Man's got a right to lose money," Nerila said, adding her own bet.  

"On a low-high flush?" Mitch said as Fisk bet again. "Man, don't know know enough to quit while you're behind?"

"N-n-n.." Fisk said, watching Mitch and Nerila add their bets. "N-n-n ... st-st- strongest suit."

Luisa sipped her vodka. "Obviously."  

Mitch matched Fisk's raise. "Anything further from Ami?"  

"I'd have said," Luisa said.

"You don't always." Nerila tossed her own chips into the pile.  

"Some things are operational," Luisa said, watching as Fisk raised again. " Someone's got to pay attention to procedures on this boat."

Mitch kept his gaze on his markers as he matched Fisk's raise. "You got nothing in that hand, soldier boy, to beat a pair of jacks."

Fisk shrugged. "G-g-g ... s'pose m-m-m ... luck's r-r-un out."

Mitch snorted. "Only  now you realise that?"

"Slow.  Learner." 

Nerila studied her hole cards and then bet again. "Let's see your cards, Fisk."

Stronger than he used to be, Fisk's fingers closed a little too hard on the cards and he opened his hand reflexively before the pasteboard crumbled, scattering the ace, three, five, seven and nine of acorns across the table.

Mitch shook his head, turned up three fours and reached for the pot. "Full house beats a flush."

Fisk reached, faster than he'd meant to, faster than he'd been  able to, a week ago, and covered Mitch's hand with his own. "C-c-can't count." he said. "N-n-n ... g-g-g ... bad f-f-for engineer."

Nerila grinned. "He's right, Mitch. Man's holding a skip straight flush. The money's his."

Mitch paused, then swore.  

"P-p-p ..  and side-b-b-bet," Fisk pointed out. "P-p-p .. hand it over."

Mitch swore again, and then smiled. "Guess I was wrong about how scrambled your brain was, eh, soldier boy?"

"G-g-g ...  suppose so," Fisk said, raking the chips toward him.

Nerila reached across the table to gather up the cards. "Guess you were wrong about running out of luck, too," she said.  

She glanced at Luisa, and Fisk caught her give the XO a tiny nod, looked at Luisa and saw a faint smile twitch the corners of her mouth.  

"C-c-could have  asked." he said. 

Luisa leaned forward. "Could have asked what?"  

"D-d-don't n-n-n ... have to  rig g-g-g ... cards." Fisk watched Nerila's long fingers turn and ruffle the cards, able to see now the flick and turn she used to disguise breaking out an ace, the deft, almost imperceptible movement as she palmed a queen. "T-t-test. C-c-c-could have j-j-just asked." He pointed at Nerila's hands. "Th-think you m-m-m ... lost one."

Nerila went still. "You saw that?"

Fisk nodded.

"Well," Nerila said, dropping the hidden cards back into the pack and starting to shuffle again. "Guess those optional extras Captain Vikarion gave you really do work as advertised."

Fisk tapped his chest, smiling. "N-n-n .. a'  improved."

"Matter of opinion," Mitch said. "No offense, solider boy."

"N-n-n ...  wasn't m-m-m .. of a talker," Fisk said. "Even b-b-before."

Mitch snorted. "Well,  that's true," he said. 

"Thought about how you're going to give orders to your marines when you can't get a sentence out?" Luisa asked.  

Fisk raised his hand, extended two fingers, tapped them on his forearm and jerked his thumb to the door.  

" Mime?" Mitch said incredulously. "You're going to give orders in mime?"

"C-c-c-combat.  Code." Fisk said. 

"And over coms?" Luisa asked.  

Fisk concentrated, and Luisa's com buzzed. She raised an eyebrow, and flicked the switch.  

"Squad two, left," Fisk's voice said from the device. "Squad one, with me. Watch your fire and - "

Luisa flicked it off. "So, straight from your brain to their ears?"

Fisk nodded, tapped his head. "Inside. C-c-com."

Luisa looked at Nerila, who nodded. "All right," the XO said. "You're cleared for return to duty.  Provided you pass the physical."

"Th-th-thank," Fisk said.  

"Don't make me sorry," Luisa warned, her gaze level.  

"N-n-n ..." Fisk shook his head. "Won't. Will d-d-o  better. N-n-n .. future." He tapped his chest again. "N-n-n ... a' improved."

"Yeah," Mitch said. "New and improved."  

Conversations on the Fortune’s Smile: Nine

Nerila checked the controls on the last biostorage stasis unit. Like the others, it was at optimal. Like the others, it would keep the corpse inside exactly as it had been at almost the moment of death, give or take the time for transport and the autopsy. 

Except unit 3, Nerila thought. Helmi Alpassi. Not quite as she was at death. 

About six inches shorter, for one thing.

She turned to leave, saw an unexpected figure in the doorway and felt her heart-rate kick into overdrive in the second it took her to identify her visitor.  Fisk.

"Gonna make you wear a  bell around your neck," she said, aware her voice was shaking. 

"Sorry," Fisk said. "You looked busy."

Nerila shrugged. "Administration, mostly." She around at the stasis units and back at Fisk. "Probably not the greatest idea for you to be down here, Fisk."

He followed her gaze. "I wanted to talk to you. Your tech said you were down here."

"What about?" she asked. "No, wait. Come on."  

When she took his arm to draw him with her out of the room and towards her office it was a couple of seconds before the bicep beneath her fingers relaxed and he acceded to her urging. Nerila got him into her office with the door closed before she said anything else.  

"How are you feeling, Fisk?" she asked, pointing him at the visitor's chair.  

"Fine." He shrugged as he sat, ran one hand over the fuzz beginning to show on his scalp. "Like nothing worse happened than a bad haircut."

"Mmm hmm?" Nerila fished a scanner from her drawer and pointed it at him. "Headaches? Dizzy spells? Sleeping okay?"

"No. No. Yes."

The scanner gave her readings in the normal range.  Pulse a little fast. Nothing that she wouldn't expect to see in a fit and healthy young man under a fair bit of stress. "So what did you want to talk to me about, Fisk?"

He hesitated, looked down at his hands, and then met her gaze. "Cloning."

"What about cloning?" Nerila asked gently and evenly.  

"That body ...  my body. Is it possible ... can you clone that brain? That pattern?"

"No, Fisk. Cloning only works on a living brain. Otherwise we would have. Back-ups are the sec-" She stopped.

"Second best option?" Fisk finished for her.  

"Medically." Nerila stressed. "Because it's not guaranteed. That's all."

"Sure," Fisk said. "Sure." He hesitated again. "So, you can't put that pattern - those memories on a new clone?"

Nerila shook her head firmly. "No. Not possible."

"If you can't put it on a blank clone, could you put it on an active one?"

"An active - " Nerila sat back in her chair. "No-one writes a neural pattern over an active clone. A  living person."

"But could you? Write it ... " Fisk tapped his temple with one finger. "On here?"

"Not only do I doubt I  could, I wouldn't." Nerila leaned forward, folding her hands on the desk. "Fisk, the injuries ... the pattern would be badly damaged."

He shrugged, and said with a tight smile. "I'm backed up. Living proof right in front of you. And damaged or not, there are things in that brain that aren't in this one. What happened."

"Fisk ...  no. It's a bad idea."

"A worse one than sitting around doing nothing when there might be a way to find Pilot?"  

Nerila sighed. "Look. I know it's frustrating. But - "

"You  don't know." Fisk's voice rose for the first time. "I've watched that feed. The XO thinks I can pick something up that Ami didn't understand, but there's nothing. Whatever I heard, whatever they said, it's not on the recording." He clenched his fists. "It's in the brain of that body down the hall. So help me get it out."

"It's not medically possible." She smiled to soften it. "I'm good, Fisk, but I can't raise the dead."

"Can somebody else? Station medical? Pilot's Sansha friends? Some experimental procedure?" Fisk smiled tightly. "I'll volunteer to be the first guinea pig."

"I really doubt it," Nerila said. "I really,  really doubt it."

"Will you ask? Will you find out?"

Nerila hesitated.  

"Pilot's been gone a week, Nerila," he said. "A  week. You know what can happen to someone in a week?"

"You're asking a  doctor that?" she snapped.

"Then  ask. Find out. Ask Ami's CMO. Ask on station. Ask the big research corps."

Nerila shook her head. "It's a bad idea. It's worse than bad."

"Just ask, Nerila." Fisk put his hands flat on her desk and leaned forward. "We all owe Pilot. Just ask."

Reluctantly, Nerila nodded. "I'll ask. No promises past that. But I'll ask."  

She saw him relax, then.  I promised to ask, Fisk. That's all.

The words died on her lips.  

Doesn't matter how loud I say them, she thought. He'll hear what he wants to.

What he  needs to.

Whatever I say.

Conversations on the Fortune’s Smile: Eight

(This story is also part of the Into the Dark series, co-authored by Silver Night, the first story of which can be found here)

It ought to fit. Mitch turned the gasket a millimeter to the left, turned it back. It ought to fit.

It didn't.

He held it under the worklamp bolted to the side of his bunk and considered whether or not to file another fraction off the rim. Too much more and we'll be dealing with lateral movement when she spins up.

Maybe one more pass with the file ...

The door chime interrupted his thoughts. "Yeah," he said. "S'open."

Nerila.

She stepped inside, breaking  rule one , tapped the keypad by the door to close it behind her in violation of rule two, tapped it again to engage the privacy lock in flagrant and direct contravention of rule three.

Never be in each other's quarters. Never be alone together in any place either one of us might be known to expected to be. Never do anything that might make Luisa suspicious.

"Sweetheart ... " Mitch said. His quarters were so small he would only have needed to stretch a little to touch her. He resisted the temptation. "This is asking for trouble from the XO."

Nerila folded her arms and hunched her shoulders, shot one quick glance at him from red-rimmed eyes, and stared at the floor. "I don't care," she said to the deckplates. "I don't care."

Mitch put it together then: her hair still damp from the shower, the false-floral scent of soap that eddied around her every time she moved, her long surgeon's hands reddened by scrubbing, the note of sour alcohol on her breath.  

"Autopsies?" he asked gently.  

Nerila nodded.

It turned out he didn't need to stretch at all, or perhaps she was already moving towards him as he opened his arms to her. She pressed her face against his shoulder, clutching at him as if she were drowning.  

As if we both were.

" Six!" she blurted, heaved a shuddering sigh, and was silent for a long time. 

When she finally let go of him and lifted her head, Mitch asked: "Were they all .. in Significance?"

Nerila nodded. "Yeah. So tomorrow, or the next day, or next week ... " She shrugged. "It'll be like it never happened. For them, anyway."

He brushed his fingers over her cheek, erasing traces of tears. "That's good."

"It  happened, Mitch." She sighed, slipping her arms around his neck, more loosely this time, and leaning against him. "But yeah. It's good. Mitch?"

"Mmm?" he murmured against her hair.  

"When did you have your last scan?" she asked.  

"Dunno, exactly." He thought about it. "Couple of weeks after the first one? Maybe ... three months?" He shrugged. "Got busy, you know?"

"Me too," Nerila said. "If I got shot in the head tomorrow, I'd wake up ... none of this would have happened."

He ran his hand down her back. "It would have happened."

"Not to  me," Nerila said. "Mitch, let's go tomorrow, let's get the scans done. I don't want ... I don't want this not to have happened. I don't want to forget. Tomorrow, Mitch, I don't care how busy it is. Please?"

He tightened his arms around her. "Yeah," he said. "First thing."

Nerila sighed in relief. "Okay," she said.  

Mitch hesitated, and then asked: "Do you ever think about it?"  

 "About what?"

"About ... about what it'll be like. In the long run. Once, twice, three times ... losing a week here, a month there. Who we'll be, ten years in the future. What we'll keep."

Nerila shook her head. "Ten years? I don't think about ten days, Mitch. Day at a time." She laughed without humour. "Had a future, once. Traded it for a glass vial. No. Ten years? No-one can plan that far ahead."

"You never think about it?" he said, smoothing his hand over her hair, gently so the callouses on his palm wouldn't snag the strands. "What you want?"

She sighed. "You know, if Pilot doesn't ... if Ami can't find her, if she's too late ... you know where she left her money to?"

"Camille, right?" he said. "And her family. If anyone can find them."

"Mostly. Enough, for the kid to live out her whole life in luxury, that's for sure. But not all. The rest ... to the crew. To  us." She drew back a little, looking up at him. "That's how life is, Mitch. Someone can just stop, a pilot even, a pilot inside her own security. And people like you and me can wake up richer than we ever dreamed. What kind of plans can anyone make in a universe like that?"

Mitch shrugged.  

Nerila narrowed her eyes. "What, you have plans?"

"Some," he admitted.  

"Like what?" When he hesitated, she poked him in the chest with one long finger. "Like  what? And so help me, if you say anything that involves marriage and babies and a fishing lodge on some backwater planet ..."

He smiled down at her. "Marriage and babies such a bad idea?"

"With me it is," she said seriously.  

"Not what you want?"

"What I want ..." She shrugged. "This ship. This job. My licence.  This. Today, and tomorrow."

"And the day after?"

"Worry about it then," Nerila said. She studied him. "That a problem?"

"No," Mitch said. "No. It's not a problem."

"Good," Nerila said. She yawned suddenly. "Can I stay? Tonight?"

"Bunk's pretty small," he said.  

She grinned. "I'll fit."

"Sweetheart ... " Mitch said. "Asking for trouble."

"Not if Ami can't find Pilot," Nerila said sadly.  

"She'll find her," Mitch said.  

"Let's blow that bridge when we're on it," Nerila said. "Mitch. I can't be - let me stay."

He couldn't say no to her.  I couldn't ever say no to her, not from the first time she sauntered into the engineroom with that smile.

And I knew we were asking for trouble, even then.  

The bunk  was small, and neither of them were built on the petite scale. Nerila fell asleep almost immediately, her drop into oblivion one Mitch remembered from the days when he was still drinking his way down the ranks, one he envied her now. 

No, it's not a problem.

Not yet, it isn't.  

He shifted her a little, not needing to worry she'd wake, trying to stretch the cramp out of his arm.  Marriage and babies ... He wouldn't have put it that way, exactly, but he couldn't deny that some idea of a life where he and Nerila could eat together without worrying about rumours, could talk about the day ... Could wake beside each other, every morning. Could lie like this, every night ...

Maybe in a bigger bed,  he thought, trying to stretch his arm again. 

Blow that bridge when we're on it, he thought. Won't be today, or tomorrow.

Or the day after, even.

He lay and thought about the uncertain future, about  bridges and trouble and somewhere there might be a bigger bed and shared breakfast, listening to Nerila breathe, staring sightlessly into the dark.