#precious pets

It was quiet. Far quieter than it ever would have gotten on the Rust Bucket. Far quieter than it ever would have gotten on Odessen.

A nice night, a quiet morning, light filtering in through the window to wake the Commander. When she opened her eyes, Torian wasn’t there but she could hear him rummaging about in the bathroom as he prepared for the day.

Leaving others in charge she’d trust with the task, she’d decided to take a short vacation. Just a few days, at her secluded little beach side place on Rishi she so rarely visited. A few days with her husband, that’s all she’d asked for before leaving Lana and Theron to deal out commands. They’d dealt with the problem at the Meridian Complex and, sure, they needed to figure out where the hell Malgus had disappeared to, but now was time to take a breath and relax for a bit.

Rolling out of bed, Terrin’s bare feet padded softly to the bathroom; her Akk dog lifted his head from his place on the floor to the movement to watch her groggily, then promptly went back to sleep. When she peeked around the open door, Torian offered a smile as he cleaned his freshly-shaven face in the sink.

“How long have you been up?”

“A while.” He grabbed for scissors and clipped at too-long hairs in his goatee, then brushed at it with his fingers.

Terrin put her hands on her hips and pretended to be offended. “And you didn’t get me up?”

That brought his grin to widen as he shook his head. “You were snoring. Didn’t want to wake you.”

She snorted at that and reached for the brush he’d grabbed to pluck it from his hands. When he reached for it, she stuck her tongue out at him and ran it through her bedhead she was scared to look at in her reflection—she always got it bad.

“Did ya still want to go to the Rishii’s island today?”

He hummed while ruffling his fingers through his bangs in an attempt to get them to cooperate. He needed a trim, she thought with a chuckle. “Almost want to stay here. Been too long since we could relax, just us.”

“Wouldn’t say no to that.” She stood on her toes to kiss him on the cheek (both of them chuckling when he had to lean down for her to actually reach) and danced around him to wash her face in the other sink. She hadn’t bothered to wash her makeup off last night, and when she finally glanced up at her reflection she could see how the wings had smeared—her hair was also still a frizzy, tangled mess that nothing short of a shower and thorough brushing would fix.

While she tried to scrub at her makeup, she caught him watching from the corner of her eye. Oh, she’d never tire of that look. They way his eyes alone could hold so much love…

When she set the brush to the side, he swiped it back to run it through his hair a few times before she’d undoubtedly grab it again. She watched him as she pulled her hair into a messy ponytail, smirked when he leaned in close to his reflection to check for any missed patches on his jaw that he’d need to clean up.

“Pretty sure you got it,” she laughed.

“Can never be too sure when there’s a distraction in the room.”

The humored look he gave her had Terrin sticking her tongue out and scrunching her nose with a grin. “Distraction? Me?”

He wrapped one arm loosely around her waist and kissed the top of her head with a chuckle. They stood like that for a while, simply enjoying one another’s presence and how naturally they fit in each other’s arms. When he eventually placed his free hand on her belly, Terrin rested her head on his chest with a contented sigh.

“Are you nervous?” she asked. Her voice was softer, now. Lacking the humor and now filled with curiosity and care as she looked up at him.

He took a few moments to answer, eyes flitting off to a corner of the room before a gentle smile found his face. “Be lying if I said no.”

She stretched to bump her head against his chin. “Don’t be. You’ll be a good father.”

“We still need a name.”

Terrin laughed and buried her face against his chest. “We’ve still got a while to think about it.”

Snuffling at the door brought the attention of both toward it. “Think Baby knows,” Torian commented. They both sank down to the floor, and the Akk dog happily lumbered over for pets.

“He totally knows,” she agreed with a grin. It had been two weeks since she found out, and Baby was glued to her side even more than usual—he was the whole reason she’d wanted to find out if something was wrong with her in the first place. Baby had known before anyone! “Who’s a good pup? Who protects Mama?”

A growling bark rumbled in his throat and he laid his head in Terrin’s lap.

Something told her that he and their kid would be inseparable. That thought, and knowing they’d be good parents—as good as they could be—and that their old crew would absolutely adore the baby, was enough to quash some of her own anxiety over it.