Daion Echoes Through Transglass

3-2

"I never went to Academy, I'm not in any class, and shipside is its own caste." Trevor's voice was small. Leo scoffed a laugh and sat in the hard seat next to hers.

        "The analogy doesn't change about you being amazing, and shipside castes are firmly middle as far as Coalition society is concerned." He lifted her fingers and she didn't pull her hands away from being cradled between his. "I knew the only reason you and I have been running a relationship this long is because you wanted to stay in it. You've got every option, every opportunity to get out of it whenever you want. Call me selfish or a bolt, but knowing this about you now, I feel like you're maybe a little more willingly stuck with me than I thought. And I guess it's safe for me to assume this is why you've been getting more distant from me the closer we get to planet seventy-four?" he asked, getting the hoped for nod of agreement from her in reply. "Well, I might be a selfish bolt currently saying stuff that sounds awful, but now I feel less like you're wasting time with someone who's easy entertainment while you're on Dockland and more like you actually picked being with me. Maybe even that... you want to be with me for longer than just this year on Dockland?"

        Tears leaked out of her eyes in spite of the fact she was smiling at him. "Your brain is a half-full bucket of space rotted bolts if you think anything other than that I picked being with you."

        He smiled, relief flooding over every other sense of emotion. "Probably only a quarter-full on my best day," he said, the quick joke making her chuckle.

        "I'm going to find Lindsay when we're back to Dock in a few months and punch her. Right in the face. Break her nose and give her a bloody lip. She messed up your confidence fiercely."

        "Yeah, well... it, um..." He paused and took a deep breath. "It's not, uh, easy to stay confident while you've been so emotionally unavailable these past weeks. I guess I can stop worrying now?"

        She nodded, pulling both her lips in to pinch between her teeth as she laced her fingers into his, and then she smiled nervously at him. "I didn't know what your opinion was for this Daion Central World scan. I was scared to ask, especially since we'd gotten so committed that we'd decided to stop using repression a few months ago. I mean, the thought that you might be thinking like everyone else? I couldn't..." She sniffled and blinked back tears. Leo squeezed her fingers gently. "Everyone on board seems so excited to ransack this planet," she continued. "It's like... stars align it is so much like they want to rip apart this whole world and steal everything. Like some ancient pirates discovering a tomb with a few memorial shokes. They only see the gold the shokes are made of, not that the shokes are there to honor and remember the dead. But instead of shokes, its whole cities, whole worlds..." Her voice trailed off.

        "Not everyone on board," he said, squeezing her fingers in his again.

        She squeezed back and nodded, breaking into a smile. "You have no idea how relieved I am right now," Trevor said, sniffling hard and trying to stifle a sob. Leo shook off her hands with a chuckle and leaned forward to pull her into a hug.

        "Probably half as relieved as I am. I was really starting to think we were over," he said into her ear.

        "You are not getting rid of me that easy," she laughed the words, the sentence interrupted by a couple quiet sobs. "Especially now."

        "I know, I know," he said, rubbing her back. "Two months until we're done this exploration. Charlotte won't even be able to beat me senseless in Dock because you'll have already done it if I break your heart."

        "No," she said, wiping her face on her sleeve as she sat back from him. "Well yes, but not that. I was trying to wait until after my quarterly physical so I had confirmation."

        "What's wrong?" he asked, grabbing her hand.

        "Nothing, now, I guess," she said, smiling at him. "I was actually something that happened sometime in the past seven or eight weeks, but I really only realized completely about two weeks ago. But it sounds like it's not going to be a problem now. Or, at least, not the problem I was worried about." She chuckled nervously.

        "A problem from seven or eight weeks ago, but really only two weeks ago, and you have to wait for your quarterly...?" He stared at her in silence for a moment. "Wait, are you...?" A slow smile pulled up the corners of his mouth. "Are you... pregnant?" he asked.

        "I think so."

        "You think so or you hope so or you know so?" he asked in a rush.

        "I'm pretty sure. My quarterly is next week. So I guess that's when we find out for sure," she replied.

        "That's really exciting news. How excited am I allowed to be? Wait, you need to sign the relationship registration. We need to get that filed, like, yesterday," he said, every sentence coming out so fast they were nearly on top of each other. She laughed that he was so excited he forgot to use shipside terminology.

        "You want to know how excited you can be? Well, I need you to be this excited," she said. He laughed loud enough someone down the hall looked their way. The crew mate smiled and continued on their way when the couple only kissed. The below decks control room was one of the few places on board with enough semi-privacy to allow for a kiss to be uninterrupted by other people passing by.

        The console beeped beside their elbows and Leo and Trevor broke the kiss to look at the screen. The results of the sweep showed much more than what they'd been hoping to see.

        "Oh... oh no. That's bad," Trevor whispered as the live feed played on the transglass screen.

        "That's really bad," Leo added after watching a few seconds more.

        Trevor's fingers ticked along on the pressure pad and the screen, converting the data on the screen into a file. She saved the file through the upgrade hardware block bolted to the satellite panel to make the file compatible with her smart. Rather than waste time taking the file up to the bridge, Leo revised their summary and saved it directly to the share folder on Captain's personal. A moment later, Trevor added the satellite results to the same folder. They shut down the console, the novelty of how much time it took a lot less endearing now, and then raced off at a run to get back to the bridge.