iNick stared at him for a moment, a small grin tugging at the corner of her mouth. Then it spread across her face, and she laughed and shook her head. “You’re right. I’m not fifteen.”

“Well how old are you? And what else are you lying about?”

She turned in her seat and got up off the bench. “I’m seventeen,” she said over her shoulder, “and I’m really a shape-shifter.”

Moder and Joche exchanged glances again, this time perplexed. There was something strange about that kid…/i

As soon as Nick got out onto the deck, she realized that she had forgotten to check with Silver about the dishes. He’d be mad, but she wasn’t going back in until the crew had gone to bed. It didn’t matter if she was up all night… actually, that would be just fine. She sighed and ran a hand over her face, ducking her head as she crossed the deck through the vicious winds. Halfway across the deck, she realized her shadow had gone missing. “Ishmael?” she cried, hoping to be heard over the gusts. “Ishmael, where are you?”

There was an answering bark from the direction of her room, and she scurried across the deck. The storm was only just warming up, but if she looked out into the distance it was all a mess of swirling purples and blues, with lightning jumping this way and that. It looked rather terrifying to be honest, and a cold fist gripped her stomach as she recalled the last time she’d been surrounded by that storm, and the accompanying panic. With one last glance around the dark sky she hustled up to the rooms, and looked around in the shadows for the dog. “Ishmael? Puppy, where’d you go?” she hissed.

Then she saw him—a dark shape moving low to the ground and barreling toward her. His cold nose dove into her palm and she gave a little sigh of relief, reaching down to scratch behind his ears. “Where did you get off to? You never go anywhere without me, and that’s twice—” she stopped in midsentence as another, much larger shadow moved toward her. Her instincts kicked in and she backed up, craning her neck to see what approached. It was vaguely man-shaped, but much larger than any man she’d ever seen in her life, and blacker than the night sky. She froze, with absolutely no idea what to do. It was unlikely she could outrun it, and there was no chance of fighting it off… but those thoughts fled her mind when it extended an appendage toward her. A convenient flash of lightning revealed that it was a three-fingered hand, held out as though for a handshake.

“Monteblanc,” he rumbled. It took her a moment to realize that that actually was supposed to be a handshake, and that the single proffered word was probably his name.

“Nick,” she squeaked, timidly offering her own hand, which was barely the size of the man’s palm. “Nice to meet you…?” His heavy, solid hand closed around hers and she had a flash of panic at the sensation. It was rather like her hand had been buried under a ton of rock. With that panicked imagination that takes over one’s mind as soon as the fear kicks in, she wondered briefly if he would crush her hand, or her whole body, and whether a hug would feel like being buried alive…

He grunted something she prayed was agreement, and released her hand. She yanked it back and gave him a little wave, stepping backwards. But, as was her luck, in the darkness neither she nor Ishmael were able to gauge their positions, and as she stepped back he crossed behind her. The backs of her knees hit his shoulder and he slithered out of the way as she tumbled to the ground. She couldn’t see it as she scrambled up in the darkness, but a crack of a smile appeared in the craggy face—like a fault line in a boulder. Without another glance at the massive ‘man’ she darted into her room, followed closely by the dog.

The door slammed behind her and she sat heavily in her hammock, Ishmael ducking under the sling to curl up shyly. It seemed to Nick that he knew he’d brought about the bruise forming on her tailbone, and was trying to stay out of trouble… but she might have been giving him too much credit.

Suddenly the door opened right back up and Jim stomped in, trailing the storm in more ways than one. The air was suddenly thick with warm rain as he peeled off his coat and threw it to the floor, clearly aggravated. She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, forcefully reminding herself that he wasn’t actually angry with her. “Are you okay?” she asked quietly.

“Stupid curse!” he nearly shouted, not turning toward her. “The Montressor curse!”

“What?” she asked incredulously.

“I’m cursed!” he explained, reaching down to untuck his shirt. “Everywhere I go, it pours rain! I can’t catch a break! It’s one storm after another, more rain at each port… the storms even find me in space!”

Her eyes were wide, and one eyebrow was quirked in disbelief. “Really?”

“Think about it! On Niamath, it poured. On Rittinor, it poured. Out here, huge solar storm. I can’t get a sunny day to save my life!” Then he sneezed violently as though to prove his point.

“Or your sanity,” she quipped. “But at least you got the job done. I think I met that messenger…”

“Messenger?” he snorted. “Less of a messenger than a mountain with a message. Wasn’t sure we’d get back in time—I needed a bigger boat.” He reached behind his head and tugged his shirt off, the wet fabric clinging to the skin of his back and shoulders as he pulled it off. He stood in a soaked white undershirt, the thin fabric stuck to his skin… and Nick suddenly felt her face flood with heat. It had been one thing last night, when he was shirtless so that she could stitch him up. It was for medical purposes. There was good reason. But somehow now it seemed wrong… especially because she kept thinking about that stress-induced encounter last night. The one where she’d been a breath away from that same chest…

Jim groaned and sat down on the bed, jamming the heels of his hands into his forehead and shaking his head slightly. “You’ve given yourself a headache,” she informed him, trying to divert her own attention.

“No.”

“Really?”

“I already had one and I’ve made it worse.”

“Same difference.”

He shook his head again and sighed. “I guess so…” Then he rose again and peeled off the undershirt, sneezing once more for good measure (with the reflexive pained groan as it rocked his aching head) before reaching for his belt…

Nick was out of the hammock and across the floor before Jim could register that she had moved. The door slammed shut behind her just as turned his head to see what was going on. He frowned, looking down at the dog curled under the hammock. “What’s gotten into her?” he asked quietly. Then he continued his task… and froze in the act of pulling his belt through. His face flushed pink and he realized what he’d done. In his grouchy, tired, headachey state he’d totally forgotten that she was accustomed to him changing down in the hold, in the shower room. He never changed his pants in the room, at least not while she was in it and not since he’d found out about her. Before that she’d always ducked out while he got ready for work or for bed. He groaned for what felt like the millionth time and flopped face-first onto the bed. First that little… thing last night, and now this… he was on a roll. A series of uncomfortable events. Smooth, Jim. Really. Well done. Try taking off your pants in front of a girl like it’s no big deal, and then be shocked when she runs off, totally freaked out. Wonderful. His head ached and he wanted to turn out all the lights and curl up in a ball, and to just have this whole day be over.

Nick stood in the hall, with her back against the wall beside the door. Her heart was thundering and she felt the warm flush of adrenaline tingling in her fingertips and belly. What was that?!? Why’d he have to go and do that? Was he really so out of his mind with fever that he’d forgotten she was a girl? It seemed unlikely—she was certain it would never escape her that he was a man, no matter how feverish and sick she got…

…so what did that mean? Should she just forget? Was it safer for her to pretend there was absolutely nothing wrong with the situation? She could almost convince herself that it was okay… it had been a while since seeing him change his shirt had sent a blush to her cheeks. They’d grown relatively comfortable with each other. Months of exposure did that to people. And she’d freely acknowledged that he was attractive—she’d known that from day one. It was hard not to know that. What she hadn’t acknowledged was that she was attracted to him…

She immediately shut down that part of her mind. For now, for her sanity, she needed to pretend nothing had happened, that she had come out into the hall for a reason. So she headed down the hall and out onto the windswept deck, shielding her face with her arm as she fought her way to the galley. She ran as fast as she could to cover the distance, but if she was honest with herself… that had nothing to do with the storm.

In the shadows outside the princess’s cabin door a hulking black shape shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He did this every hour, on the hour, all night and all day. His official role on this ship as liaison had already become secondary to his unofficial job as watchman—his favor to the prince. When he wasn’t in meetings with Captain Trelawney and that young man trying to arrange the new rendezvous, he would be here keeping watch. It wasn’t as though that was much of a task. The whole ship seemed to him to be oddly peaceful—even the rowdiest of the crew members were relatively sedate. The presence of the pirate crew was slightly concerning, and the talk of the double massacre that Archer now had on his head was certainly disturbing, but even that threat remained at enough of a distance that he wasn’t immediately on guard. It seemed that he was going to spend these weeks on the Galaxy in a state akin to painful boredom.

It wasn’t until the cabin boy came bolting out of his room, out of breath and clearly flustered, and flattened himself against the wall as though a pack of hellhounds had just emerged from his closet that Monteblanc began to wonder what else was going on under the radar that he needed to worry about…

Nick tumbled blindly into the galley at full speed, having nearly lost her footing on the deck. When the storm hit, it really hit hard. She cracked her hip on a table edge and bent double, gripping the wood as the sudden flash of pain slowly started to fade. I’m just a mess today…

Silver looked up from the sink at the sound of the impact and Morph’s startled chirrup, and turned around to see Nick sprawled across the table. “Lad?” he asked hurriedly. “What’re yeh doin’?”

“Breaking my hipbone. Because today hasn’t been exciting enough already,” she replied breathlessly.

The cyborg raised an eyebrow, then frowned. “I dun t’ink yeh’ll be gettin’ more excitement anytime soon.”

“No, there’s plenty to be found,” she said as she straightened up, rubbing her hip. “You just have to know where to look.” Then she paused, glancing around. Where are the dishes?”

“I got some o’ t’ boys t’ help out… tol’ ‘em it was ‘cause o’ yer arm.”

“Oh…” she said, trying not to sound disappointed. That was very kind of him, but now what was her excuse for barreling down here? “Um… is there… is there any soup left?”

“ Didn’ yeh eat?” he asked in surprise.

“Yes! I ate, I did, I ate at dinner… but Jim didn’t.”

“Why didn’ ‘e come down ‘ere ‘imself?”

“He’s sick,” she said a little more quietly, hoping he wouldn’t press. She didn’t know if he had a fever—she didn’t know what was wrong with him other than a headache, sneezing, and a sudden lack of propriety… But the herbs and the soup and the whole endeavor was a time-killer. It would be good for him, even if he wasn’t that ill, and it got her out of the room.

“Oh… well in dat case, dere’s some soup still in t’pot on t’stove, but it might be cool by now…”

She went over and turned up the heat under it, then marched past him and went to the cabinet. Morph flew up beside her head and peered into the cabinet as well, as though to offer consultation. “Where d’you keep the spices and stuff?”

He frowned. “In deh nex’ one over. Why? Wha’ d’you need?”

“Lemon, sage, catmint, and yarrow,” was the succinct reply.

Silver was quiet for a long moment. “Tha’s quite a lis’. Where’d yeh learn dat?”

“Y’learn a lot of ways to fix ills when no one’s allowed to take a day off.”

That silenced him for another little while as she bustled around, finding most of the things she was looking for—Silver apparently didn’t stock yarrow for regular use, and she pointed that out to him.

“Well what am I goin’ use it for? Not like there’s any use for it ‘sides fever, an’ yeh can get it from t’ doctor!”

“I’m not going to the doctor,” she said under her breath.

“Why no’?” he asked, making her jump. She hadn’t thought he’d heard…

“Because I know what I’m doing, and I don’t want to have to explain myself. I don’t think your average cabin boy has experience with old-fashioned medicines.”

“Good point, lad.” He shook his head and went about his work, watching out of the corner of his eye as she hurried to add the herbs.

Nick sighed in frustration, digging out a knife and chopping the herbs a second time. If Jim noticed the unusual flavors, she could explain it away as an experiment by Silver. But if there were large bits and pieces floating around, clearly added after the soup was done being cooked, then she’d have to answer some more difficult questions. Between her stress and her tiredness she nearly cut her finger off, but eventually all the herbs were added to a steaming bowl of soup, which she let set for a moment so that they would infuse properly. A few choice pieces were fished out and offered to Morph, who nibbled contentedly on her shoulder.

“Yeh’re good at dat,” he offered. “Whyn’t you take a turn wit’ dinner some night?”

She shook her head and rolled her eyes at his smirk. “No thanks. Practice makes perfect, but I’d rather not get too much practice.” Then she covered the bowl with a cloth and grabbed a spoon, putting the whole lot onto the same tray she’d used to take Alanna’s dinner to her hours earlier. With a brief goodnight to Silver (and to Morph as he traded shoulders) she set out across the deck again, her head bowed against the onslaught and her knuckles white as she gripped the tray.

Jim lay on his side on the bed (having changed into dry pants) facing Nick’s empty hammock and feeling wretched. He honestly wondered for a brief, feverish moment if she would sleep somewhere else tonight. But even as he was thinking it the door blew open and she came back in, announced by a gust of wind that flipped her hammock half-upside-down and rattled the closet door. She hurried across the room and set down a tray, racing back to shove the door closed and to lock it for good measure. Then she came back around to look at him and shook her head. “Sit up,” she commanded. He was surprised, and did as she asked without questioning. She shoved his bangs aside with her fingers as her palm slid against his forehead. When he opened his mouth to protest, she held a finger to her lips and closed her eyes to focus. “You have a fever,” she announced, and he shivered to confirm it. Then she bent down and picked up the tray, setting it in his lap and whisking the cloth off. “Eat.”

He looked up at her in surprise. It didn’t occur to him directly, but he recognized somehow that the tables had turned—that he answered to her now. She repeated the command, pointing to the bowl and taking a few steps back to sit down in her hammock. He obeyed reluctantly, taking a few cautious bites and pulling a face at her. “What’s in this?”

“Lots of stuff. All of it good for you. Just eat it.”

“But it tastes weird. Silver doesn’t make anything that tastes like this.”

“He made it specially for you,” she answered, getting frustrated. “If you don’t eat it, I’ll be glad to force feed it to you.”

He frowned at her and took a few more bites. By the time he finished, he was sweating. His cheeks were flushed pink and he felt chilled and hot all over. Nick watched with satisfaction as his body began to sweat out the fever, and saw his eyelids grow heavy in response to the herb-laced soup. He responded well to catmint—she’d have to remember that. She stood and walked over to take the tray, setting it on his dresser and returning to the bed. He still sat up, though it was even more of a slouch than it had been before, and watched as she went back to her hammock and sat down, looking back at him.

“Any more orders, cap’n?” he asked in a pitiful attempt at sarcasm.

She shook her head. “Nope. I’m not your mom. It’s up to you now. I did the dinner thing—that’s as close as I’ll get to being a maidservant on this ship.”

Jim was silent for a long moment, then slumped back on the pillows and stared at the ceiling. There was nothing to say to that. She was right, and he didn’t have the energy to fight a battle he recognized as lost. But it wasn’t long after that occurred to him that exhaustion swept over him in a feverish wave, pulling him into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Nick sat up for a while in the hammock, thinking and wondering and scolding and resisting… it was fully half an hour later that she succumbed to the urge and rose from her hammock to tug his blanket up over him. She didn’t tuck him in—in fact, she made every effort to avoid coming in contact with him at all. But she still felt stupid for doing it. Then she sat back down, one leg in the hammock and half-tucked under her and the other dangling out of the sling with the toes brushing the ground. Her hands were clasped tightly in her lap and she stared out the porthole at the swirling blackness. A long while passed before she relaxed enough to lay back and close her eyes… it was even longer before she managed to drift off…

She was back where she had been last night. That moment seemed frozen in her memory forever. But this time, she was able to notice things that had escaped her at the time… his breath brushed over her skin, and she could feel the heat from his skin as it radiated into the air… she saw him look between her eyes and her mouth, and she felt her face flush… involuntarily, as though there were some intangible force tugging at her, she fell forward… imperceptibly at first, then more surely… her lips touched his so lightly, so faintly, she almost didn’t believe it was happening…

Then she realized it was happening, in the dream at least, and she sat bolt upright in her hammock, breathing as though she’d just run a race and with her heart thundering in her chest, rivaling the storm outside. Her eyes frantically searched the room, locating the door—still shut—the porthole, and the bunk, where the last person she wanted to see at that moment was sleeping peacefully, completely unaware. Her cheeks flooded red and she blinked furiously, trying to clear her mind and her vision—when she opened her eyes, reality was too close to her dream for comfort, but when she closed them the dream itself was right there, waiting for her.

She climbed out of the hammock, pacing the floor in circles because her nerves were too tightly wound to let her sit still. The exhaustion lingered, making her legs protest as she walked, but she was entirely unwilling to surrender to that again considering where it had gotten her the last time. For a few long minutes she walked and walked, trying to calm and shake the stupid dream from her head. Where the hell had that come from? What was she thinking? They hadn’t even been close to kissing—did this mean she wants to kiss him? She shook her head violently. No, that was too far-fetched to even be considered. She sat down again, so heavily that she almost tipped herself out of the sling. This was so stupid. It was just a dream! It didn’t mean anything! She hadn’t slept well since the ghost ship, and she had twice now been stressed out by her roommate’s lack of… in her mind she hastily replaced the word clothing with decorum. It was just an exposure thing, it had to be. She counted back in her head—she had two weeks until her next cycle. Prime raging-hormone territory. It wasn’t that she was attracted to him, per se, it was just that he was male and nearby and her defenses were weak from exhaustion and stress. She wasn’t attracted to him.. despite how attract—NO! She wasn’t going to think that way. He was her first mate, her friend, and as much of a confidante as she’d ever allowed herself. But he was never, ever going to be more. She couldn’t set herself up for that.

A sudden ache rose up from her very bones, the adrenaline draining from her and the urge to lie back and sleep becoming nearly overwhelming. She hated that. Didn’t she have any say in when she wanted or didn’t want to sleep? So instead of giving in, she got up. She stood again, but didn’t pace—she walked right up to the side of the bunk, and only after a moment of silence did she realize she was staring… her cheeks burned again, but she didn’t move.

He was slightly damp with sweat and paler than he had been earlier. She reached out a hand to check his temperature, but yanked it back suddenly. What was she thinking? She couldn’t just do that… especially not after that stupid dream… but she needed to check his fever. If it hadn’t broken, she needed to get more fluids into him, more catmint and sage. She told herself that for medical purposes, this was perfectly acceptable. However, when she reached out a second time he stirred and rolled toward her, startling her nearly out of her skin. When he settled again she took a deep breath, steadying herself. It was an unfamiliar role to her—she’d taken an indirect role in nursing the sick girls at the inn, fetching soup and covering shifts, but she’d never played nursemaid. She didn’t like any of them that much. She couldn’t afford to. Nursing Morgan had been so difficult, so emotionally draining… and all of it for naught. Nick hadn’t been old enough to help take care of her mother, and she’d tried to make up for it with Morgan. But they all died. It was a fact of life. Whether you loved them or not, everybody died.

Nick’s fingertips tingled as she reached out and brushed his hair from his forehead—necessary, she told herself, to get a better feel for his temperature. But any observer would have said otherwise. Nick was not a gentle person in practice—being sweet and kind was less effective than informing a person that you were someone to be cooperated with. This did not, however, mean that she was incapable of being gentle. She lightly traced one finger just above his eyebrow, pushing the hair away before laying her palm across his skin. He was still warm, but less so than earlier. His fever had broken, and was dropping quickly. Another day or so of soup laced with herbs and he’d be back to his normal self. He must have been getting ill before the trip to Rittinor—why hadn’t he said anything? As she pulled her arm back from his head the bruise that now covered the entire inside of her upper arm, from armpit to elbow, twinged in protest. She really had no right to ask why he hadn’t admitted illness, did she? She hadn’t mentioned her own injury, and didn’t plan to. It wasn’t something he needed to be concerned about.

She stood lost in thought for a little while longer before she felt her legs begin to protest in earnest, and she sat back down in her hammock, staring out the porthole. When she fell asleep again hours later, she saw the bloody, shredded bodies of the crew of the Helios plastered across the inside of her eyelids, and she woke feeling claustrophobic, nauseated, and utterly, completely, painfully exhausted.

In the afternoon, or at least what his watch said was afternoon, Jim woke to a dark, empty room. His head pounded and his throat ached, but he felt slightly less like death than he had the day before. As his eyes adjusted to being open he glanced around the room, spotting the empty hammock and feeling his stomach sink as he remembered Nick—and last night. He had come back grumpy and soaked, he remembered that… and he had almost changed in front of her… then she had come back with his dinner, seasoned with what he was sure were herbs Silver would never include in a soup. They tasted like medicine—either Silver or Nick had drugged him with something. Judging by the tray beside his bed, laden with another bowl of soup and a glass of juice, they were trying it again. Gingerly he sat up and scrubbed at his face with a palm, feeling the cool air hit his skin through the damp shirt and making him feel absolutely gross… he reached behind his head and peeled off the offending fabric, tossing it at the foot of the bed. At least his fever had broken, he had to be grateful for that. Goosebumps raced across his skin as he adjusted to the room temperature, and he picked up the bowl of soup from the tray. It was still warm—she had been here recently. Suddenly a memory of what he thought had been a dream flashed in his mind. A cool hand on his forehead, brushing his hair back to check his temperature…

He shook his head. It had to have been a dream. He took a few bites of the soup and looked around disinterestedly, still reluctant to get up out of bed. There was nothing to do out there and nothing to do here but sleep, and none of that nothing appealed. So he stayed put, leaning back on the wall behind him and finishing his soup, and grabbing up Nick’s discarded piece of rope from the floor to try to amuse himself for a while. If that didn’t last, he was going next door to hunt down a book.

Nick was weary from a day of trying to follow conversations that were either intended to go over her head or just too fast for her to follow. Her chores hadn’t been too hefty, and Moder and Joche had been willing—well, eager, really—to help. When she staggered back to her room at the end of the day she was windswept and tired and slightly dizzy, with a strange sense that she’d be right back there tomorrow… they hadn’t lied when they’d teased that Joche would adopt her, they just hadn’t mentioned that Moder would soon follow suit, and then a few of the others. She hadn’t done anything the entire time she’d sat there, but they’d included her from time to time, and nudged her arm to let her know she was supposed to laugh at whatever joke she’d missed, and slammed open palms onto the tabletop to startle her out of her tired little trances.

It occurred to her at one point during the day that she had never done a thing to deserve the effort they were putting forth. The only things they could have known about her before yesterday were that she swore, was cranky, unfriendly, spiteful and tended to make things difficult for everyone around her. What had made them reach out to her like this? She wasn’t even sure she’d have wanted to be her friend…but that thought led her down a convoluted rabbit-trail of ‘what if’s and ‘if-then’s that made her head pound, so she gave it up.

When she reached the door to their room, she glanced to Alanna’s doorway and saw the hulking black mountain of a man standing guard. He looked back at her and gave a curt nod. Stunned, and with no idea how else to respond, she returned it. Then, as she always did, she ducked into her room to avoid further contact.

She froze in the act of closing the door. The logical side of her mind wondered immediately if he was even awake, but the length of rope in his hand and the fact that he had tied a rather complicated knot in it and was now struggling to untie it spoke to his consciousness. So why was he slouched against the wall, with his shirt tossed on the floor by the bed? She held the door open a minute longer for Ishmael and Morph to slip through after her then she closed it with a soft click.

Jim straightened at the sound of Ishmael’s nails on the wooden floor, and looked up just in time to see Morph flying toward his face. He put up his hands in a futile effort to block the attack, but the little pink blob slipped through and greeted him with licks and squeals. Jim smiled despite himself and gave him an affectionate pat. Ishmael went over and sat more sedately by the bedside, but the fact that he didn’t immediately curl up under Nick’s hammock was unusual… Jim reached out and scratched behind his ears. “Hey there…”

There was an awkward pause as he looked up and their eyes met across the room. She was watching him for signs of illness, signs of fever, signs that there was something, anything she should be concerned about… He watched her right back, seeing the circles under her eyes and the way her face was pale under her tan. Finally Jim cleared his throat and looked away, feeling awkward. Nick stayed where she was, watching him look away. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Fine.”

“Good.” She nodded a little to herself, patting Ishmael’s head as she walked over to her hammock and sat down, wrapping her arms around the backs of her knees and leaning forward so that her shoulders were practically on her kneecaps. Her head fell forward and her hair hung in a shaggy brown curtain to her shins. Her left arm throbbed and she wished she had thought to take something for it.

Jim shifted forward in his seat, watching her surreptitiously. “Are you okay?”

“Fine.”

“Oh.” He was taken aback by the sharp, though muffled reply. It occurred to him, in one of those all-too-brief flashes of insight, that she had been the one taking care of him. He flushed very faintly, and looked away again. She had brought him soup and checked his fever and taken care of him when he was sick… all weak and most likely pathetic…

… Jim felt a sudden wash of awkward awareness that was nearly painful. He looked over at Ishmael, who whuffed softly and looked back at him impassively. Then Morph settled down on Jim’s pillow with a yawn and a sigh, leaving the two humans to their awkward mess.

Nick startled Jim by unfolding suddenly and stretching as though trying to wake herself. “Didja get bored enough today? Ready to get back to being bored with the rest of us?” she asked, making a feeble attempt at conversation.

“I wasn’t awake long enough for much boring,” he admitted. “But I think I’ll be up and about tomorrow.”

“There won’t be much ‘about’. Today everyone mostly sat around in the galley, shootin’ the breeze. Except when they did chores.” My chores, she added mentally. Stupid boys trying to help—they weren’t helping, they were leaving her idle. She couldn’t be idle now, she needed to be moving. Sleep was becoming the enemy, and the longer she put it off the more intimidating it became.

“That’s okay,” he said, undecided as to whether to keep the conversation alive or to let it die mercifully. After a few seconds, after they both reached the conclusion that he had chosen the latter, he broke the silence again. “Thanks. And I’m sorry.”

She looked at him, startled. “What?”

“Thank you,” he looked down and sighed, regretting opening his mouth, “for the soup, and… stuff,” he mumbled. “And I’m sorry… about… y’know… last night… I didn’t mea—”

Nick made a sharp sound to cut him off. “It’s okay! It’s just—it’s fine.” There was a pause. “And you’re welcome.”

He nodded and swallowed hard, almost as embarrassed as he was relieved. The silence fell back in place, and stayed there for the rest of the night, until Jim fell into a slightly less dreamless sleep than the night before.

Nick napped for no more than five minutes at a time until well into the early hours of the morning. When she fell asleep for real, she dreamed that she was wandering all over an empty Galaxy, chasing a haunting ticking noise, and she woke in a panic when the ticking stopped and the world exploded in a wave of white-hot heat and a deafening boom.

The next day was a blur. Nick had few real, clear moments; most of the day was spent in a haze, lost in thought and unable to follow conversations, every other word punctuated with a yawn. She did the chores that Moder let her do—but many of them he did himself, or he handed off to Joche, or Jim had already done by the time she got to them.

She recalled sitting at the table in the galley, watching Jim talk to Moder, Joche, Piers, and the other men she had met a few nights before, and in a rare moment of lucidity realizing that he was different than he usually was—he was one of the men, instead of their officer. He was smiling broadly, teasing them, laughing with them, telling stories and offering opinions… things she had never thought to imagine him doing. But he was comfortable with them out of uniform, as their friend instead of their commanding officer. He seemed more open, more… Jim. Like it had been there under his skin alongside the First Mate all along, but he hadn’t been able to be Jim when he was First Mate. As she pondered the possibility of there being more to people than met the eye, she slid into a drowsy trance and lost her train of thought.

Everything else that stuck out in her mind was less interesting—she passed on lunch and was scolded by no fewer than four crewmen, who informed her that growing lads needed more food than that. The unspoken implication being that if ‘he’ kept eating so little, he’d never grow into a proper man. She rolled her eyes and ate without tasting any of it, looking forward to when the nosy men were back at work and would leave her alone.

Then Moder caught her off guard in the middle of the afternoon, grabbing her upper arm to get her attention as she phased out once again. She yelped and pulled away, grimacing as his fingers dug painful trails through her bruised arm. He made a startled sound and backed off, holding his hands up in a gesture of peace. “I’m sorry!” he said quickly. “I forgot!”

She took deep breaths and hugged her arm to her chest, shaking her head and trying to convey to him that it was all right, it just hurt. The message must have been lost in translation because he peered at her closely and put his hand on her shoulder. “Are you… crying? I’m sorry, kid, I didn’t mean to—”

Nick lifted her head and glared up at him. “Why the hell would I be crying over a damned bruise?” She shrugged his hand off and started to stalk off.

Moder stepped back and held his hands up again. “I dunno, I was just asking. Sorry, geeze.” He backed up and turned, leaving her alone for a moment. She rubbed her arm from shoulder to elbow, as though trying to talk it out of hurting any longer. Then she sighed and shook it out, returning to her work.

Jim watched the whole thing from his seat nearby, and frowned darkly when she yelped. What was wrong with her arm? Why hadn’t she mentioned it? And why was Moder touching her? When she walked past him he stopped her with a hand carefully on her elbow. “What’s wrong with your arm?”

She blinked at him in surprise, for what felt like the millionth time in the last few days. Then she sighed and stifled another yawn. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it,” she said dully. Then she went on about her business, heading to the back room to get a crate of… well she couldn’t remember exactly what Silver had asked for, but she was sure it would come to her when she got back there.

Jim rose and followed, convinced that he needed an answer, and he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to get it. “Nick, why did you scream when Moder grabbed your arm? Did he hurt you?”

Nick frowned at him. “One—I didn’t scream. And two—he didn’t hurt me. Leave it alone, Jim.” She saw the crate of blackfruits sitting in the back corner and remembered what Silver had requested… and that it was going to be heavy and painful to carry. But she set her jaw and did her best, bracing the crate against her stomach and turning around just in time to see Jim kick the door shut behind him.

Joche nudged Moder’s elbow. “What’d you do that for? Making the kid yell. Didja forget about his arm?”

“I didn’t mean to!” He made a frustrated sound. “If it’s such a big deal, go check on your pet! He nearly bit my fingers off when I tried to help!”

“He’s not my pet, he’s the cabin boy. So it’s our job to look out for him, ‘specially with Hawkins outta commiss—” Joche trailed off as the cook loomed up behind Moder, somehow even taller than the gangly grease monkey and at least four times broader. It wasn’t that his expression was particularly menacing, or that he gave off any sign of anger… it was merely his powerful presence and unmistakable interest in the conversation that made Joche defer.

“Yeh’d be better off no’ lookin’ after tha’ pup,” he warned gently. “’E’s got a knack fer draggin’ folk down wit’ ‘im. It’d be fer deh best if’n yeh’d let Hawkins ‘andle it. If yeh catch mah meanin’.”

The two crewmen nodded obediently, then attempted to make a subtle escape. The subtlety part failed, especially when they both shot fearful glances over their shoulders and Moder’s arm collided with the wall because of it, but they made it out of the galley. Silver shook his head and sighed. That lass was making a lot of trouble for herself…

“Open the door!” she demanded, not quite panicking but certainly feeling unpleasantly trapped.

“Why? I’ll open it when we leave. For now, we’re talking.”

“Are not,” she retorted. Then she winced in pain and set the crate back down, fighting the urge to rub her arm or soothe the ache.

“Fine,” he said, shrugging as though the entire matter was inconsequential. “Don’t forget the jar of beans. Silver asked for those too.” He pointed to the large jar on the top shelf to her left.

Nick frowned. She couldn’t remember that… but she didn’t want to have to make the trip again, and if Jim was lying he could bring them back. She wasn’t going to put up with his stupid tricks.

He watched as she rose onto her tiptoes and stretched to reach the jar. Both of her arms went up, fully extended, and her large, baggy sleeves fell just above her elbows. He had counted on her being too sleepy and distracted to realize they would do so… The huge purple-black-blue-red-green mess on her inner arm was visible as he watched, and it made his stomach turn. He reached out and snatched her wrist before she got to the jar, slowly stretching her arm out level and wrapping his other hand around her forearm (she tried not to notice that his fingers overlapped) to push her sleeve up to her shoulder.

“What. The hell. Is this?” he growled, his voice low and urgent.

She was caught off-guard by the sudden contact and his glare. “A bruise. What the hell does it matter?” she snapped.

“What happened? Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“Why would I have?” she asked, her tone dropping back from anger to tired pleading. “What does it matter?” She tugged her arm away, the sleeve falling back down to cover the bruise.

“Because…” he began, falling back a little in surprise. “I… I would want to know. Or help. Or something.”

“Thanks but no. I’m fine, really. Just… leave me alone, please?” the pleading tone came back just enough, just so that she was asking but not begging. She really just wanted to be ignored right now. She almost missed it…

He shook his head slightly, with some frustration, and tried to find her wrist again but she pulled away. “Well fine then,” he said quickly, trying not to get angry. “I’ll leave you alone if you promise to try to get some sleep tonight. You have two black eyes right now, and for once you weren’t in a fight.”

She grinned weakly and looked down as she brushed past with a noncommittal reply, wishing she could shake the feeling that he was looking straight through her. Even worse, she almost wanted him to. He knew better than to force her to explain, but she wanted him to know, same as she’d found she wanted to tell him her middle name and ask him about his friends… but that was a huge mistake. Every time she let him know something, he wanted to know more, and she wanted to tell him more, and handing her life over like that was even harder than handing over her secret. And the more he saw her, the more his men saw her, and she just didn’t want to deal with being visible right now. She’d had enough attention in the last few days to last her a lifetime—who would have thought that rough-and-tumble Navy sailors turned into mother hens when cooped up for too long? She hadn’t ever wanted that many people watching and assessing and critiquing her life. She would be more than happy to see them all get back to work when the storm ended.

Jim turned to watch her go and sighed heavily. He’d been all prepared to yell and shout and get his way, but it seemed that nothing ever worked out the way he expected. Especially not with Nick. She brushed past and went out the door, laid the jar of beans on the counter without pausing and continued up the steps to the deck. He had a pretty good idea of where she was headed, and let her have her head start. He would check on her after dinner.

Nick was pacing, because sitting down had ceased to be an option. The longer she kept in motion, the longer she could avoid the torture her subconscious persisted in inflicting on her. So it was back and forth, back and forth, up and down the length of their admittedly tiny room, humming lightly to herself as she went. Eventually she was lost in thought, drowned in vivid memories and fears, and she slowed to a stop as her body admitted weariness without her mind’s approval. She stared out the porthole at the lightning-filled clouds, only somewhat aware of the view and not at all aware of her surroundings. When the door creaked open and a black furry missile bolted to his spot under the hammock, she was violently startled and only barely managed to keep from toppling into her hammock to avoid being steamrollered. She heard another sound from the doorway and looked up to see Jim following in more sedately.

“Aren’t you going to sleep yet?” he asked, as though unsure of the reaction this would elicit.

She shook her head. “I was getting there. Not quite, uh… not quite yet.”

He shook his head again, and went about his business preparing for bed. She sat down on the hammock, trying to seem like she was calming and cooperating. When he fell asleep, she would get up again. And then she would crawl back in bed before he woke and he would be none the wiser.

Jim, however, was not quite as stupid as Nick would have hoped. He was certain he could outlast her, and planned to see her asleep before he let himself shut an eye. He sat down on his bed facing her, and with his knees on his elbows met her tired gaze. There was a long moment of stalemate, and then she sighed grouchily and lay back down, facing the wall. If he wanted to be that way, fine. She’d play along. It wasn’t like she couldn’t stay awake lying down. He was just being juvenile, making her pretend to sleep.

She didn’t realize it when her eyes fell shut. Nor was she able to fight off the heavy, deep sleep that washed over her a little later. But when Jim stood after a few minutes and checked her, she was passed out cold. He smiled a little smugly, convinced he had won the battle, the war, and the right to remind her of it for as long as he liked.

She looked around the ship frantically, the darkness pressing in at the edges of her vision, threatening to swallow her if she dared to blink. Her eyes ached and her head swam as she craned her neck, and she tried to call out for him. The sound of her voice was drowned in the wind, as though she made no noise at all. She felt the cry on her lips and felt her throat tense and relax as the shouts rose and then died, and she could hear her words ringing in her head, but still no sound above the roar of the storm. He wouldn’t hear her. She had to find him, they had to get out of there, there was no way they were going to survive, though she had no idea what was coming or why they had to flee. She screamed one last time, not bothering with words, but still no sound could be heard.

With a familiarity that she couldn’t explain, she began to search the ship. Doors opened, and dark corridors loomed, but no matter where she went she couldn’t find him. Every hall seemed to end in a wall, and there were endless turns and twists… it occurred to her that this ship was impossibly convoluted, and it seemed she would never be able to escape, much less find him. She turned and cautiously made her way through the maze and back out onto the deck, feeling the wind whip around her as though suddenly angered by her presence. And then she knew—she had to look in the galley. It was clear as day. He would be in the galley with the crew, huddled together to wait out the storm, just as they had done before. She shook her head at her own foolishness, and hurried down to the galley.

When she reached the kitchen, she found it impossibly dark. She was forced to creep through the blackness toward the center of the room, where there would be a lamp waiting, or at the very least the stove could be lit. One foot, then the other, inching forward in the suffocating darkness… careful… steady now… almost there… and then she found it. The table sat in the center of the room, with the lamp on it. She lit the lamp… with dream-magic, apparently, because she held neither match nor flint. She held the light aloft, turning to look around the dim galley. When she saw what surrounded her, she screamed in shock and horror.

The dead man’s eyes looked back up at her blankly, his face bloodied on the one side and his mouth open in surprise… or a silent scream. She tried to escape, to push away, to run, but as she moved away she found that she was surrounded. Dead men on every side, their skin stark white against the crimson bloodstains, some with large portions of their skulls or faces gaping open and all very clearly, very brutally dead. Her eyes flashed from face to face, recognizing each man. Adamson, Keillor, Ruffilo, Piers, Moder, and Joche… Suddenly she became aware of hot tears streaming down her cheeks, and she sucked in a ragged breath to sob, or scream, or call out for help. But there was no one to call to. They were all dead. They were dead, and he was still nowhere to be found… she wondered if he was dead too, somewhere else. Her tears continued in horrified silence, until she became aware of a ticking noise… almost in the back of her head…. but not quite right. It wasn’t the ticking noise she knew… not the bombs they had seen. It was different. As she listened, it rose in pitch and volume, and grew closer…

Everywhere. They were everywhere. The floor seemed to come alive and rose up around the bodies strewn on the floor, swarming to cover everything, the dead men disappearing almost immediately under the undulating mass. Every inch of her skin was covered in them. She felt their little legs scratching at her, felt their slight weight pressing into her skin… they were everywhere and they were writhing… she tried to move, tried to brush them off but they swarmed her… they were under her clothes and in her hair… they crawled on her face and she grimaced and tried not to scream—if she opened her mouth they’d crawl in… They kept swarming, kept crawling, kept scratching, kept pressing on her until she couldn’t move at all and could barely breathe. She heard screaming, but her mouth was still shut and the beetles crawled across her tightly pressed lips so it couldn’t have been her… until suddenly the screaming stopped and she couldn’t breathe at all…

Jim fell to his knees beside her, and clapped his hand over her mouth. He had woken to a thud and the most bloodcurdling scream he had ever heard in his life—there were goose bumps on his arms and his heart was pounding. It was a testimony to his Academy-honed reflexes that he was fully awake and alert, with no trace of the drowsiness he usually waded through in the morning. “Nick!” he hissed. “Nick!!” She did not respond other than to twist and try to free herself from his grip. He shook her gently. “NICK!” She continued to fight him, scratching at his wrist and fingers to try to pull his hand from her mouth. Her cheeks were wet under his fingertips and her face was screwed up as though she was in pain. “NICOLE!” he whispered loudly. Her eyes flew open and she froze, staring at him. Her fingers dug under his palm, trying to pull it from her mouth, and her eyes were wide and terrified above his hand. His stomach clenched and he realized she was most definitely not all right. “Nick—Nicole, I need you to be quiet. Can you stop screaming for a second?” She started to shake her head, but then her eyes squeezed shut and another tear rolled down her cheek and she nodded. He lifted his hand slightly, and she lay with her eyes closed, panting for breath and shaking. He tried to pull his hand away, but he only got it a few inches from her face when he realized she wasn’t going to let go of it. “N-Nicole, I need my hand. Can I have it back?” No response. “Nick?” She hiccupped and sucked in a ragged breath.

“No.”

“No what?”

“No more,” she begged.

“No more what?”

“No more. Don’t go, they’ll come back… no more, no more.”

“All right, Nick. No more. I promise.”

She looked up at him, surprised. “Promise?”

“I promise. No more.”

“No more…” she repeated, without the pleading. She held his hand tightly in both of hers, looking up into his face with eyes that still held fear and panic. He sat back on his heels and stared openly at her face. For a brief, tense moment their eyes met, but she gave no indication that she even saw him. Physically, she seemed awake—she looked around a little, her eyes wandering but always finding their way back to his face. Her breathing was rapid and shallow and he would have bet money that her pulse was absurdly high, judging by the way her hands shook. He was at a total loss as to what to do with her at this point. He knew she wasn’t completely awake—she hadn’t recognized him at first, and she hadn’t responded to Nick… she thought she was still Nicole.

“Nicole? We need to get you back in bed… you can’t sleep on the floor…” She didn’t respond, so he shifted himself to a crouch and tugged her hands to indicate that he wanted her to rise. She slowly sat up, and he took her unbruised upper arm in his free hand and helped haul her to her feet. She swayed a little, and leaned gently on him to steady herself. He flinched slightly at the contact, involuntarily shrinking backward. Nick would never have done that, leaning on him that way… except for on the Helios, when she was terrified by the sight of the dead crew. He was suddenly back in that moment, and he braced her the same way he had then—protectively, but trying not to overstep his bounds. It took a moment, but he eventually remembered what he had been trying to do, and he nudged her forward toward the hammock.

When it hit her leg she yelped and tried to jump away, knocking into him and nearly sending them to the floor again. Jim wrenched his hand from her grip and threw it out to the wall to stay upright, while the other hand shoved her face against his chest to muffle her scream. For a precarious moment he thought she was going to send them crashing to the floor, but they steadied, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Which was shortly followed by a pause when it registered in his mind that, in the absence of his hand, she had grabbed two fistfuls of his shirtfront and was holding on for dear life. He stood there for second, paralyzed, with one hand on the back of her head and the other braced on the wall. If she were awake… well if she were awake she wouldn’t be clinging to his shirtfront, now would she?

“Nicole! What’s wrong?!?” he whispered urgently.

“They’re in there…” she hissed into his shirt. “They’re still in there… they’re dead. They’re all over me… they’re everywhere…don’t go…”

Jim’s skin crawled. “What are?”

“Beetles… everywhere…” The pure fear in her voice rattled him, and he wanted to comfort her… did he dare? Wide-awake-Nick would have resisted, insisted she was fine, and pushed him away, but this wasn’t her. Would she even remember any of this in the morning? He made a split second analysis, and decided to take the chance. He put his arm loosely around her shoulders, trying not to cross any lines of propriety—and then wondering vaguely why that had even entered his mind.

“It’s okay, Nicole. They’re gone now… they’re gone. They won’t bother you anymore…”

“Everywhere,” she insisted. “Don’t go…” He instinctively stroked her head gently to try to soothe her.

“No. It’s safe here. You’re safe…” he glanced around. Where was he going to put her? The floor was absurd, the hammock was out of the question… suddenly his gaze lit on the bunk. He shifted her—though it may be more appropriate to say he half-carried her—a few inches away from the hammock. “Is the bunk safe, Nick? You can sleep in my bed.” And then of course he blushed because that was probably the lamest proposition in the history of men trying to get women into beds. But he wasn’t exactly after the same purpose... “Nick,” he repeated when she didn’t respond, “you can sleep in the bed. No bugs there. I promise,” he added, recalling how she’d latched on to that word before. He moved around a little more, aiming to drop her onto the bed. But when he released her, she stayed put, clinging hard to his shirt.

“Nick? You have to let go…” he pulled gently at her wrists to try to disengage her. She held fast. “Nicole?” he started tugging at her upper arms, finally losing a little of his calm. “Nick, let go!” he pulled her off of him, and for a frozen moment he held her away from him by her shoulders, her fists still out in front of her as though to fight him off. She looked into his face with wide eyes, startled and frightened. His resolve vanished, and his grip loosened on her arms—he had never seen her so scared, not of anything they had faced in the last six months. And yet when he pulled her away from him, the loss of contact brought panic to her face. She stared at him for a moment, comprehension dawning in her expression. She seemed to wake a little more, though still not quite all the way.

“I was looking for you… I couldn’t find you… they’re all dead, all of them. You were dead. Everyone was dead…” she swallowed hard and tears filled her eyes again. “You were dead, and I couldn’t find you,” she repeated.

“I’m not… I’m not dead,” he said quietly, stating the obvious in lieu of anything more comforting coming to mind. “It’s okay, Nick, I’m not dead. You’re okay now. We’re okay. Nobody’s dead. We’re okay…” He bit his lip as her face slowly relaxed, his words registering with her. She looked up at him for another moment, her hands slowly falling from their defensive position and resting at her sides. Then she began to fade again, dropping her chin and leaning in against his chest as the tears poured forth. He couldn’t tell if she was crying from the panic or relief, or simply an adrenaline drop, but she was suddenly heavy against him and the fact of the matter was that she was crying, for whatever reason, and Nick didn’t cry. He couldn’t help it—she seemed so upset, and he had to do something—he wrapped his arms around her back, trying to comfort her. “It’s okay,” he repeated. “We’re alright.” She sniffed and turned her face so that her cheek pressed into his shirt, bringing her arms around his waist hesitantly. He instinctively rested his jaw against her hair, curling around her slightly and tightening his hold around her. She settled in his arms, the tears slowing and her grip around his middle tightening as the sense of security returned. Jim relaxed too, letting his guard down for just a moment. This was a much nicer Nick than he’d dealt with earlier… maybe she just needed some sleep, and she’d be back to her old self. His hand brushed over her back soothingly and he took a deep breath in. The smell of her filled his nose, and he shifted his head…

Suddenly, a flood of panic swept through Jim and he stiffened, pulling away from her slightly. He should not be doing this. They should not be doing this. She had a nightmare, yes, but this... this was all kinds of bad. His heart was pounding and he couldn’t think quite straight… he just knew that he needed her to let go of him, and he needed to let go of her. This should not be happening… he dropped his arms from around her and reached behind him, finding her wrists and unlocking her grip. He brought their hands up between them to create a safe distance, and met her eyes when she looked up at him. “You need to go to bed now,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “You need sleep…” He stepped forward, momentarily closing the entire space between them, and pushing her backwards. She stepped back and hit the bunk, sitting heavily and looking up at him with a slightly confused frown. “Go to sleep,” he repeated, reaching down and lifting her legs onto the bed, turning her so she sat correctly. Then he let go of her a little more quickly than was kind, but the haste was necessary as far as he was concerned.

She sat there for a few confused seconds. “S’not my bed,” she mumbled.

“I know,” he soothed, trying to keep his voice low and steady. “It’s safe though.”

“S’your bed,” she pointed out, starting to get up.

He pushed her back down with a firm hand to her shoulder. She looked at the hand for a moment before finding his face. “Stop it, Nick. Go to sleep. Take the bed for tonight. No bugs in there.”

She seemed to give that some thought for a moment before cooperatively laying back, rolling onto her side and curling up. He pulled a blanket hastily over her before taking several large steps backward. “Goodnight,” she whispered.

“Goodnight,” he whispered back, watching her face as she fell asleep. It was quick, and he found himself watching her sleep for a few moments without realizing it. He stumbled back and sat in the hammock, his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands.

Granted, it had been only a momentary thought. And it had been her hair, nothing more. And he’d stopped himself. But the fact remained, and it was haunting him.

He’d almost kissed her.