Zenaida's Den

I sighed and refreshed my comms a couple of times but the spreadsheet wouldn’t appear. Finally, I went over to Greer’s desk and discovered—aha—she hadn’t even hit ‘send.’

I hit it for her, and prepared to give her a hard time for it once she came back—but, then I noticed another open tab she had.

Bloodburn.

It was one of those hyper-accessible medical sites—the kind you go to when you have a runny nose, so you can convince yourself you have a terminal illness.

But…what a weird coincidence.

My mind drifted to all those weekend nights spent with Fannie and Bunnie, rocking Bunnie while she cried—rocking Fannie while she cried…

Just then, Greer came back with the water, and saw me at her desk. “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, setting down the water pitcher and coming behind me.

Frick.

“Uh—sorry,” I said quickly, straightening up. “I just—I was sending myself the spreadsheet because you never actually sent it, and then—I just, uh, noticed what else was on your screen because my daughter actually has that condition—”

I didn’t even realize I had said it, till it was repeated back to me.

“Your daughter?” Greer asked, frowning. “What daughter?”

I froze.

“I didn’t know you had a daughter,” Korrie piped up from her own desk. That Korrie—she was always listening.

“I also didn’t know my son had a daughter,” Mom said, leaning her head out of her private office to complete the punchline.

All three women stared at me. Greer with solemn confusion, Korrie with innocent surprise, and Mom with…well, I wasn’t really sure. Dry amusement, maybe.

I groaned. “I…no. I flubbed my words. I meant, my girlfriend’s daughter. I mean—my ex-girlfriend’s daughter. I mean—my friend’s daughter—I mean, my friend’s sister’s daughter.”

“You just said about five different things,” said Greer, raising a brow.

I sighed again. If only Greer had just sent me the spreadsheet correctly the first time.

“What I mean is: that my friend, who I used to date, but don’t date anymore, has a niece, that she has custody over, and that on the weekends, I help my friend take care of her kid,” I explained—and having to explain it was a little bit like having to chew thumbtacks.

“Oh,” Korrie said. “Sounds complicated.”

“Tell me about it,” said Mom, disappearing into her office again.

“Your friend’s kid has bloodburn?” Greer asked. “Geez. How old is she?”

“Like…six months. She’s a baby.”

Greer looked even more shocked. “I’ve…never heard of that. Usually it develops in starship pilots, after years of flying. Did she spend a lot of time in space?”

“No, she…well, we’re not really sure why it…she only went through space, once. When we moved her from Ryloth to Ossus. But, well, she was born early, and she has a lot of, um…health issues…”

There was more I could say about that, of course. But I chose not to.

“…Sorry,” Greer said quickly. “I didn’t mean to pry. It’s none of my business.”

“No…that’s okay,” I said awkwardly. “Uh…sorry for looking at your computer.”

She shook her head and shrugged, indicating that she was very over that now. “It’s okay.” She pulled out her chair and sat down, forcing me to step aside. “You can make it up to me by refilling the caf machine with water, and then auditing the donor spreadsheet.”

I nodded, and did as she asked.

After begging the Force’s forgiveness for participating in the creation of the galaxy’s worst caf, I sat down and did my work. But…I kept on thinking about how I’d accidentally called Bunnie my daughter.

Had it really been just a mere slip of the tongue?

Or…

Well…I definitely didn’t see myself as her dad. Ew. I couldn’t be a dad. Not at twenty-four. There was just—no way. Sure, Fannie was only twenty-three—but, she had always been mature for her age, and I had always felt a little immature for mine.

But…in a way, Bunnie did kind of feel like my baby…

The thought was horrifying and mystifying all at once.

Imagine! Me and Fannie, raising a kid together, when we had only dated for one month and hadn’t spoken for seven—and to make the whole thing even more amusing, we had never once seen each other naked, never even kissed on the mouth…

For frick’s sake. She and I were never getting out of complicated-relationship jail.

I thought about when she and I had first spoken again. How I had told her that she was right—that we couldn’t be together, because I knew I couldn’t follow her down this path, and yet I knew she couldn’t take any other path, nor should she—because Bunnie was going to need her a hell of a lot more than I ever would.

And yet…every time I visited Ossus, and came back home to them—

…Oh no.

For frick’s sake.

I did not just say “coming home” to them, like I was some kind of deployed husband returning home to his wife and kid. Absolutely not. My home was here, on Hosnian Prime, with my own mom and dad, who still took care of me, and my sister…

But…maybe that was part of it. Maybe I was a little sick of being taken care of—in the house that my parents paid for, at this job that I only had because Mom had engaged in some light nepotism. It was refreshing, I guess, to take care of someone else. To feel more like a grown-up, and less like a kid. On the weekends, I could escape my sentence of eternal teenagerdom and go play house with Fannie and Bunnie and pretend there were people who depended on me for more than just their self-esteem as a mother.

…Well. That was a bit of an over-cynical way to put it. I still loved Fannie, just as much as I ever had—and now more than ever, seeing how much love she had for Bunnie. And Bunnie, I was quickly growing attached to, too.

I wondered, idly, how Mom would react if I announced I was going to marry Fannie and move to Ossus permanently to help her raise her child. (I wondered, then, how Fannie would respond if I asked her to marry me—but, that query was much too terrifying, so I abandoned it.)

On the one hand, Mom had been trying to get me to go to Luke’s school like, all my life. But on the other hand, I think Mom was becoming quite fond of the new life and routine we had built. She liked having me close to her at all times—possibly even more than she liked the idea of me moving away to be near Luke.

Because, practically-speaking, Luke couldn’t keep that close a watch over me. Not when he was running that entire school.

But…Mom could. And she did—even though she held rather a taxing job, too.

…Hell. There she was, looking at me right now, while she sat at her computer. Her private office had ambiglass walls that could either go frosted or clear—but unless she was in a meeting, she always kept the walls transparent.

I smiled and waved at her, and she smiled and waved back.

I quietly wiped my unexpected fantasies of marriage and fatherhood out of my mind. Fannie had her life, and I had mine.

I did really like the parts where the two overlapped.

Like…a lot.

But…

…yeah.

“That’s just how it goes, Ben,” I muttered under my breath. “That’s just how it goes.”

It was strange: he was not at all what her mother had warned her men were like. Her mother had taught her how to feign headaches, how to mimic enjoyment—various deceptions intended either to make escapades more concise, or to avoid them altogether.

It was rather horrific that her mother had taught her these things when she was twelve, she’d realized.

She had never once feigned a headache—but she did, however, suspect he had.

He could not feign enthusiasm, though, as easily as a woman could. It was rather obvious if he lacked it. When he could not seem to ready himself (which, ironically, was often the result of being too anxious about whether he could), he would break down, in the usual pattern.

It was highly unattractive. There were few things she could compare to the uncomfortable mixture of yearning and resentment that coursed through her whenever she sat on the edge of the bed and felt the cool chill of nighttime air against her skin and watched him cry into the carpet.

But, he had gotten better at not getting so upset. They had found creative ways to work around the issue, and still have fun. Sometimes, all it took was a little bit of patience and a lot of reassurance to get things moving again.

And then there were other times when he seemed much more confident in himself from the very beginning (which was indescribably attractive), and things went off without a hitch.

This had been one of those times.

She sighed and smiled and rose at last, and dressed in her nightclothes, and joined him in the refresher room. She came up behind him, and put her arms around him as he was putting his toothbrush away.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” she said back.

“Did you feel good?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Good,” he said. He wiped his hands on a towel and patted her head affectionately as he brushed past.

“Wait,” she said.

He turned.

He looked a little nervous. He often did, when she indicated that she wanted to speak to him. He always seemed to think he was in trouble for something.

She came closer, and wrapped her arms around him again. She rubbed her fingertips against his back, and looked him in the eyes, and made sure he was looking at her, too.

“I love you so much,” she said. “I think you’re wonderful. You make me very happy, and I am very proud of you. I’m proud of who you are. I’m proud of all you’ve overcome. I’m pleased to be yours, and I’m very thankful you are mine. I could not imagine my life without you. You are so delightful to me. I remain as fascinated by you as the day we met, and I love you so much more than I ever knew I would. I am glad we became friends. I’m glad we’ve stayed friends. We will always be friends. You truly are my closest friend. I’m glad I married you. I promise to love you forever. I promise always to be by your side. No matter what happens, no matter what we face—you can count on me.”

He blushed until he seemed almost to glow. She knew this not by the color of his face, as the light was dim (that was another of his peculiarities; he said he felt less pressure when the lights were off), but rather, by his demeanor. It was clear that she had flustered him, in a good way.

“Wow,” he said. “Thanks. I…well…wow.”

She gave him a big squeeze.

“Do you feel good?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, laughing shyly. “Like…super good.”

“Good,” she said.

They held each other close.

He did not like to cuddle after intimate activities. It made him feel claustrophobic, he said.

She knew that.

She also knew that he enjoyed long hugs, provided she had given him some space to breathe first. And she knew that he, ever the poet, loved when she showered him with words of praise.

He had learned to speak her language. It had taken time and effort and no small number of tears, but he had learned, and she did not take that for granted.

She had learned to speak his, too.

They were not naturally a perfect match. There were indeed some ways in which they had worked well together from the start. But, in many, many, many others, they had instead had to learn to work together well.

They were starting to get the hang of it now.