Chapter Text
And that would’ve been that, probably, except for the Organas. Dameron got a medal, Shara got a different medal, and as he’d predicted, he dropped off her radar and she couldn’t find him again. He sent her a postcard about her medal, but there was no return address and it was a picture postcard of a helicopter from the PX. All it said was congrats on the new decoration! Signed, your still #1 fan , and his name, sans rank. And time passed, and the sting eased a little. Shara worked toward achieving her ambitions, kept her nose clean, and resigned herself to probably being lonely her whole life.
But Bail Organa. He was a politician, and his daughter was a young officer around Shara’s age, and he had dinner parties once in a while, and as the first Latina helicopter pilot, and the first female helicopter pilot of any stripe to win a combat decoration, Shara wound up on the guest list.
And there, sure enough, was Sergeant Dameron, in impeccable dress blues-- with a lieutenant’s bar adorning them.
Dameron was clearly working the event, acting as doorman, getting people out of their cars and directing them as though he were household staff. He was kitted out to the nines, white gloves and dress cap and dress overcoat in the chilly evening. And he didn’t see Shara, since she’d taken a cab and it dropped her off at the gate.
But she saw him, standing at the door in the middle of a discussion with an extremely well-dressed older woman that Shara realized with a shock was none other than Breha Organa herself. And her eyes went straight to that lieutenant’s insignia.
Breha Organa spotted Shara as she came up the steps, and looked interested. Shara had her invitation in her hand, because she was used to not quite being taken seriously most places, and she’d expected there’d be confusion over her here as well-- even though Bail’s events tended to be heavily Latino-attended, there was always the danger of being mistaken for the help even in uniform.
“This must be Shara Bey,” Breha Organa said, and Shara had a moment of unreality, hearing her name coming out of that famous mouth. Breha Organa was no mere politician’s wife; she was a public figure in her own right, having practiced law on her own for years, and now a ceaseless campaigner for a number of public works and charitable causes. Her health had been failing, but even still she managed to host charity telethons and similar. She was a legend.
Dameron’s head whipped around, and he stared at her for a long moment. Shara realized she was doing the same. He looked good, he looked so good, he’d put back on the weight he’d lost when he was injured, of course he had, it had been months, a year, maybe more?
“Of course, you two know each other,” Breha Organa said. “Kes, won’t you introduce me to the young lady. Leia has done nothing but talk about her.” Breha was approaching Shara. That wasn’t right. Shara should-- she had an overwhelming urge to curtsy, or kneel, or genuflect, or something. But instead she took the next couple of steps up.
“Uh,” Dameron said belatedly. “Lieutenant Shara Bey-- isn’t it Captain, by now?” No, and he could see that by her insignia. She was eligible for promotion but hadn’t been, yet. There was time.
“Still First Lieutenant,” she said, smiling sweetly.
“This is Breha Organa,” Dameron said, as if she didn’t know.
“It’s such an honor to meet you,” Shara said, as collectedly as she could manage. Breha shook her hand, taking it in both of hers.
“My daughter admires you so much,” Breha said, “and really, so do I. Such courage, you’ve shown, and such exemplary behavior. You do us proud, child.” She turned and looked at Kes briefly, still holding Shara’s hand. “Now, the two of you, surely, must have some catching up to do. Kes, when you go in, could you send dear Winter out to me? I think you’ve spent enough time out here.”
“Ma’am,” Kes said, “it’s too cold for you to be out here.” He put his hand familiarly against Breha’s upper arm, solicitous. Like he knew her personally. “I can certainly catch up with Lt. Bey later, she’s easy to find in a crowd.”
“Is she,” Breha said, tilting her head slightly.
“Oh yes,” Kes said, “there’ll be a circle of worshippers in no time.” He beamed cheerfully. “And if not, I’ll start one. I’m her number one fan, I’ll have you know.”
“I suppose Bail will pitch a fit if I take a chill out here,” Breha conceded. “You’re such a good boy. I’ll send Winter out myself.” And she kissed Kes on the cheek, then took Shara’s arm. “If you’ll escort me, then?”
“Gladly,” Shara said, and she took one last look at Kes’s rank insignia. It wasn’t just on his coat, it was on his hat, too, so it wasn’t like he’d carelessly borrowed someone’s garment. He caught her looking, and winked. Breha didn’t miss it.
As they went inside, Breha said, “Dameron’s mother is an old acquaintance of Bail’s. We’ve always tried to look out for Kes, but he’s very proud, he won’t take much help. We helped him find scholarships for college-- he wouldn’t let us pay his way, even though we’d have loved to-- but he just couldn’t finish all the coursework. He has so much potential, you know? He’s very smart, but he has dyslexia, so school was very hard for him. I think being in the service for a little while has opened his eyes to what he could accomplish with a little more training, though; something motivated him, or maybe he just believed enough in himself to take the challenge. At any rate, he finished his degree and took a spot at OCS, and he’s got a commission now. Bail’s so proud of him, but it was nothing we did, he did that all on his own.”
It wasn’t unheard-of for non-commissioned officers to try to get commissions, it was just a completely different career track, and it wasn’t common. Shara supposed it would be vain to think he’d done it for her. Actually, if he had done it for her, surely he’d have written to her as soon as it happened. No, he clearly had other reasons. And if he’d had enough of a college degree that he could just-- go back and finish it up, then he’d been most of the way there already.
“Have you had a chance to get to know him, at all, or was it really just the daring rescue?” Breha asked, and Shara realized she was being too quiet.
She laughed nervously. “Oh,” she said, “only a little-- we did spend some time in the same hospital recuperating from injuries, and he wrote me the funniest thank-you note for rescuing him. I’ve, he’s very charming, he managed to apologize for the embarrassment of his injury, it was quite funny.”
“He’s a great wit,” Breha said. “Leia had such a crush on him when they were little. I think she’s moved on by now, he was quite good with her.”
That was a good reason to get a commission, Shara thought, heart sinking a little: if the Organas’ daughter had taken a shine to you, that was likely to be a canny choice.
“Leia,” Breha said, “Winter, hello girls! Leia, look who it is!”
Leia Organa was nineteen and petite, and in an impeccably-tailored ROTC cadet uniform. She saw Shara and her eyes went gratifyingly wide. She saluted Shara correctly enough, and Shara returned the salute, but then held out her hand. “Hey,” she said, “it’s great to meet you.”
“I have so many questions for you,” Leia said, and wrapped herself around Shara’s arm like an octopus.
Shara went with Leia, because it seemed the thing to do. Leia was a firebrand, rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed and absolutely stunningly brilliant. She was going to cause a lot of ruckus, Shara thought, but if she could manage to not quit in a fury, she would be phenomenally successful in the Army. She’d just have to learn to take orders, which didn’t seem like something she was keen on.
It didn’t take Shara long to resign herself to the fact that Leia was both more beautiful and more intimidating than she herself was, and a far better match for dear no-longer-sergeant Dameron. But fortunately, the champagne was free and freely offered, at least when Leia Organa was the one retrieving it, so Shara drowned her sorrows a little, just enough to pinken her own cheeks and brighten her own eyes.
“Oh no,” a familiar voice said. “Now we’re in for it.”
“Kes,” Leia said, “do you know Shara? She’s great .”
“I know she is,” Dameron said, and he was smiling when Shara turned to see him.
“Since when are you a lieutenant ,” Shara said. So much for being cool. Without really noticing her own motion she’d leaned forward and punched him in the chest. She’d just meant to flick his insignia but apparently she felt strongly about this.
“Since not that long ago,” Dameron said. “I was going to write to you but then I thought that might be weird. I figured I’d give it some time and then send you another note.”
“He wrote me,” Shara said to Leia, “a thank-you note for rescuing him, and specifically mentioned his gratitude to me for retrieving his organs .”
“Whoa,” Leia said.
“She left me a note,” Dameron said. “I was unconscious in the hospital and she wrote her address on a scrap of paper and stuck it in my hand.”
“That’s very romantic,” Leia said, eyebrows going up.
“Here’s the thing, though,” Dameron said. “On the note, she commanded me to let her know if I lived, and then she drew a picture of my spleen on it, to let me know just what kind of debt I owed her.”
“It was a heart,” Shara said, blushing. “I just signed it with a little heart.”
“It was absolutely my spleen,” Dameron said. “It was like, a life study of an organ. Power move! Power move.”
“That’s amazing,” Leia said. “I mean-- were your organs-- actually--”
“Oh, yeah,” Dameron said. “It was horrifying. You wanna know the grossest thing?”
“Maybe,” Leia said.
“So what happened, a mortar shell exploded near our position, and my spotter was sitting in front of me, and a hunk of shrapnel just blew straight through his head, and then hit me in the gut and ripped me open,” Dameron said.
“Oh my God,” Leia said, fascinated.
“But the grossest thing of all is that when they put me back together they found one of the other guy’s teeth in me,” Dameron said. Leia made a high-pitched little noise, clearly suppressing a squeal of disgust.
“Oh,” Shara said, and covered her mouth, assaulted by a sudden vivid memory of pulling the dead man’s tunic off him, the absolute state of ruin of everything above his jaw.
“Right?” Dameron said. He was clearly saying it to gross Leia out, in an old well-established dynamic of the two of them. “So like-- somehow the shrapnel carried one of his teeth along with it, or something.”
“No,” Shara said quietly, “I did that. I used his tunic to hold you together, and when I pulled it off him there were-- it was-- yeah. I shook it out but I was in a hurry.” She couldn’t look at him as she said it. “There was a lot of-- brain matter in it too. I thought at the time that it-- but, well, I figured the more important thing was to get as much of you out of there as possible. I couldn’t save him, but I could save you.”
“Oh,” he said.
“I still sometimes have nightmares where there’s just-- handfuls of teeth,” Shara said, and then cut herself off. “Lt. Organa, was there more champagne?”
“There sure was,” Leia said. “No, no, stay here, I’ll be right back.” She turned and left.
Dameron put his hand out and tentatively touched Shara’s arm. “Hey,” he said. “Sorry, I wasn’t-- I’ve known Leia since we were kids and that was a-- we always talked to each other like that. I’m sorry, that was--”
Shara turned and looked up at him. “No,” she said, “that whole thing was surely far more horrifying for you. I can’t imagine lying there as long as you did, like that.”
“It sucked,” Dameron said, “but they gave me a medal.”
Shara put out her hand and before she could think better of it, pressed her palm against the part of his torso where he’d been injured, just above his belt. He was wearing a lot of layers, but she could feel the warmth of his body under all of it. “I can’t imagine, though,” she said. “You must have been so frightened.” They’d never talked about it. Nobody ever talked about stuff like that. She’d never told anyone about the handful of teeth.
Dameron put his hand over hers. “I mean,” he said. “Yeah.”
“How long were you like that?” she asked. “I mean-- was it the whole time you were talking to me?”
“Yes,” he said. “It happened kind of a while before you were in range. I actually passed out for part of it.”
“I can’t imagine,” she said. She’d never stood so close to him. Most of their conversations had been held with her safely immobilized by her cast. “You really didn’t expect anyone to come for you.”
“I have nightmares about it still,” he said. “I wake up and I have that picture we took together and I--” He paused. “Not to be creepy. But. You did save me. I didn’t die there, or worse. I made jokes about it because it’s hard to talk about otherwise.”
“I’m glad I did,” Shara said. “I didn’t think about it for very long. It struck me that you weren’t with the others, and I asked the transport pilots who was getting you, and none of them answered, and when I pressed it, one of them pointed out that there wasn’t enough clearance for their rotors back there. What had the plan for you been?”
“I was supposed to rejoin the group once I’d guided you in,” Dameron said. “But I couldn’t walk, so I couldn’t get there.” He shrugged. She still had her hand on his belly. “It wasn’t like there was time for anyone to come get me.” He moved his fingers, interlacing them with hers and gently pulling her hand away from his torso to hold it between his instead. “Didn’t you lose a gunner coming to get me?”
Shara shook her head. “He’d already been hit,” she said. “He was dead before I got to you. So it’s not like I could have saved him. It wasn’t like I chose between him and you.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be that hot,” Dameron said, meaning there wasn’t supposed to be so much action on that mission. His hands were warm, and big, and kind of callused.
“No,” Shara said, “it wasn’t.”
“That’s kind of,” he said, and hesitated. “Kind of why I decided to go for officer training. I thought, I mean, I know it’s still all a system, but with a commission maybe I could get high up enough to have some chance of knowing what I was getting into, instead of always being given the shortest possible mission brief and it’s never right. You know?”
“You have the temperament for it,” Shara said. She’d almost said smarts , but she knew damn well that wasn’t what it was.
“Training wasn’t even that hard,” he said. “The hard part was finishing my stupid degree.”
“OCS isn’t that hard,” Shara agreed. They made you do Basic first, though. Clearly, Dameron had completed Basic some time before. Shara herself had rolled right into so many training courses they all blurred together, but that was with her aviation specialty. “Not if you know what’s up.”
“No,” Dameron agreed. He glanced up, then laughed, and said, “I should give you your hand back.”
It felt like a rebuff. She shouldn’t have touched him. He hadn’t done this for her, it wasn’t about her at all. She composed her face into a politely neutral expression and pulled her hand away, but he didn’t let it go. Oh, he’d seen her facial expression. Whatever her face had been doing. He held onto her hand a moment longer, gently, and looked into her face. “I didn’t mean we should stop our conversation,” he said quietly, smiling a little. “But,” and he let go of her hand. “People are watching. And you’re here to mingle and make some connections.”
“I don’t know how good I am at that,” Shara said, wiping her hand against the front of her jacket nervously.
Dameron’s smile widened a little, and he raised a conspiratorial eyebrow. “My dear,” he said, “ you’re a connection. Everyone here will be delighted to have met you, and will brag afterward about having done so. You’re significant . Doesn’t that feel nice?”
Shara had never really considered that. “I haven’t done anything yet,” she said.
“The resumé on your chest disagrees,” Dameron said. He offered her his elbow. “Come on, let’s go meet a sitting Senator.”
Shara took his arm, and glanced down at her chest. She did have some medals. Not that many, but they weren’t nothing. She squared her shoulders and tipped her chin up, and glanced over to see that Dameron was beaming fondly at her.
“That’s it,” he said. “Now let’s go charm some politicians.”
It was possibly the best time Shara had ever had at a party. Dameron showed her around, knew everyone’s names, knew who he had to introduce Shara to with context and who he could just say her name to. He knew the young people there, the other Organa daughter and their various friends. Leia joined them, and she and Kes played off one another expertly, like they’d been to innumerable parties like this before.
There was even dancing. Shara didn’t dare dance, with so many fancy people around, but Leia dragged her out to the floor eventually, and danced quite entertainingly with her. After the song ended Shara noticed Dameron leaning against the wall watching them with a kind of intent interest that prickled up the back of her neck, but she shook it off: he was probably watching Leia, who was adorably tipsy by now.
Leia pushed Shara at Dameron, and said, “I have to go make sure my mother’s all right, can you keep her warm for me?”
“Hey,” Shara said, and Dameron caught her by the shoulders and steadied her.
“Leia,” he protested, but the girl was gone with a cheeky wink. He laughed, and looked down at Shara. “Well, I’m not a great dancer, but if you don’t mind, I’ll try to keep up.”
It would be ungraceful to beg off now, so Shara put her hand on his shoulder. Of course the next song was a slow one. Oh well.
“Tonight’s been fun,” Kes said, and when had she started thinking of him by his first name? It had crept in, hadn’t it.
“It has,” she said. Pure fun, with occasional stabs in the heart. He was awfully pretty, and he was actually just fine at dancing, and he’d taken his uniform jacket off and was in his shirt sleeves with his tie loosened, and she still couldn’t tell if he was only being polite.
“It’s a lot, though,” he said, “isn’t it? Being on all the time, smiling at people you don’t know, being friendly and upbeat and everything.”
She nodded, managing a wry and tired smile.
“You’re not tired, though,” he said. “You do this kind of thing all the time. God, you’re so-- good .”
She gave him a skeptical look. “At what?” she asked. “No, I’ve just been following your lead all night.”
He laughed. “No, you haven’t, you’ve been brilliant,” he said. “Oops, hey, let’s do a spin.” He pulled her in tighter, his hand on her back, and deftly spun her to get them out of the corner they’d wound up in. She managed to keep up, pressed against his chest, and was suddenly acutely aware of just how big his hand was, how much of her waist it spanned. He laughed, and let go of her a little bit, but she stayed close against him.
“I think I need some air,” she said, when the song ended. He went with her, guiding her to an exterior door that opened out onto a balcony. He snagged his discarded jacket from a chair back as they went, and came out with it over his arm.
Nobody was out on this balcony, though people were walking in the garden below. It was dim here, and the wind had died so it didn’t seem so cold. Shara stood at the railing and looked out, and Kes leaned next to her, jacket over his arm.
“I can’t tell if you’re having a good time,” he said.
“Oh,” she said, “I’m having a great time.”
He shook his head a little, admiringly. “You’re so self-possessed,” he said. “I’ve basically studied for my whole life trying to learn how to do that, and you’re just-- it’s like you were born to it.”
“I’ve practiced a lot,” Shara said, stung into honesty. “But sometimes you practice too much, and you don’t know how to turn it off anymore.”
“Oh,” he said, dismayed, “I’m not trying to downplay how hard you’ve worked. I know you’ve worked hard. And I know it’s not something you can choose. Believe me, I know. If you show any emotion you’re a hot-headed Latino, and if you don’t, you’re an unfeeling animal too stupid for the finer emotions. All of it’s a tightrope.”
“If you’re nice to any man, you want to fuck them,” Shara said, “because Latinas are sex fiends, but if you’re mean to anyone you’re a bitch, because Latinas are harpies. If you smile you’re a whore, if you frown you’re a witch, if you maintain a pleasantly neutral expression you’re not a person.”
“If you’re upset at your treatment, it’s your temper,” Kes said, “but if you stay pleasant even when mistreated, then clearly you don’t mind it and it’s fine.”
“Being good at what you do isn’t a defense,” she said, “because all it takes is for someone to decide not to let you do what you’re good at.”
“I got in another fight over you,” Kes said, “in officer candidate school.”
“Oh no,” she said, “they don’t like officers to fight.”
“I know,” he said. “I got that. They were sort of… I was the only prior service guy in the whole section, and there was only one other Latino. So. Some white guy said something about how they were even letting, and he used a rude word, fly helicopters now, and I was like, hey, they’re called pilots, you know? Trying to be funny. Anyway. Then he called me a rude word, and used the two rude words together to refer to you, so I told him that we had to go outside now, and like a total dumbass he went, so. I beat the shit out of him, and got in trouble for it, but it gave me a chance to tell the story of how you rescued me and then drew me a portrait of my own innards as a souvenir, and after that nobody made fun of you. And I didn’t get in bad trouble, really. So.” He shrugged. “I’ve gotten so much mileage out of that story, I can’t even tell you.”
“I’ve fought for my own honor,” Shara said, “but nobody takes it seriously. It’s low-class for a girl to throw her own punches.”
Kes reached over and put his hand on her arm. “You call me, girl,” he said. “I’m your number one fan. Let me get in fights for you.”
“Don’t get in trouble for my sake,” she said.
“Oh,” he said, leaning back, “I know you can handle it. But that’s not how this works. I know you can handle it. But I don’t care. I’ll punch a guy. I’ll punch a cop. I’ll punch a general. I’ll punch anybody who says shit.” He grinned. “People get in fights over sports teams, I can get in fights over you.”
“It seems like a counterproductive hobby,” she said, leaning her hand on her fist, her elbow on the railing, to look at him.
He laughed. His body was a long, lean, languid line, leaning against the railing beside her, ankles crossed. “I’m gonna get a t-shirt and one of those little pennant flag things,” he said. “And a big button with your picture on it. And every time you get a medal or a promotion I’m there in the back row waving the pennant.”
“One of those big foam fingers,” Shara said, and giggled.
“Oh yeah,” Kes said. “Absolutely.”
“Show up with your shirt off and my name painted on your chest,” she said.
“Oh, even better,” he said, “my shirt off and just a big scribbled drawing of a heart or possibly other organ.”
“It was a heart,” Shara said. “God, Kes, it was a heart. I was kind of flirting. I drew it before I could think better of it.”
“Flirting,” he said, eyebrows going up. “Flirting! You thought I was cute when I was dying, eh?”
“Cute, no,” she said, “but,” and she reached over and smacked his arm, “I could see that you had guts, right?” She smacked his arm again. “Guts!”
“Nooo,” he groaned, laughing, and collapsed, sliding down the railing until he was crouched on the ground. “No! Oh no. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“I knew you had it in you ,” she said. “I know exactly what’s in you.”
He laughed, wheezed, and dragged himself back upright. Abruptly he sobered somewhat. “Some other guy’s teeth, apparently,” he said.
“Ew,” Shara said, “oh come on . Uncalled-for.”
“Sorry,” he said, half-sincerely, and took her hands.
She stepped in closer to him, looking up into his face, but she couldn’t think of what to say, so she just looked at him for a moment. No, she couldn’t say any more. She’d already made her plans, set her ambitions, and there was no room for anybody else. Not even someone charming. So she pulled her hands away from his, turned, and walked back into the shadows at the edge of the balcony, away from the light and the cheerful noise from the garden below.
She’d named her dearest ambition out loud tonight, in front of an interested small group of people including Breha Organa. She hadn’t meant to, it had just slipped out, but in response to someone’s question, she’d admitted, “I’d love to be an astronaut,” and when someone had asked a follow-up question she’d admitted that she’d researched it and knew what she’d have to do in order to even try out. “It’d be hard,” she’d said, “but if everything lined up, it could be possible.” And everyone had looked delighted by that, and Kes had looked kind of starry-eyed--
But you could lose your commission for an affair, and if you got married, even to someone acceptable, they might not promote you because a married woman was going to have children and leave the service anyway, and if she was seen in that light she’d never get the coveted training slots, she’d never get a fair chance.
But maybe she was being stupid, because even if she did everything right she probably wouldn’t get to really do it. They’d let women sign up to be astronauts before, and then had just, never let them fly. And then she’d be alone and loveless and isolated because she’d cut everyone out of her life to make room for her ambition, and that would be that.
It was all stupid, though, because Kes had told her he was infatuated with her back when he was hurt and drugged and impressionable, and maybe he thought she was fun now but he wasn’t really going to be willing to put up with her anyway. The glamor would wear off and he’d just be left with her ambition, and nobody actually liked an ambitious woman.
Predictably, he followed her over to the shadows. “What?” he said, amused. “Do I smell bad?”
“No,” she said. “You smell really good, actually.” Because there was no point in lying.
Points to Dameron, he was observant. Serious now, he said, “Is there a problem?”
“Yes,” she said, and it came off a little cranky. “You’re really cute, is the problem.”
He put a hand against his chest. “Why is that a problem?” he asked. “I was doing it on purpose, I can stop.”
She looked at him, the tall broad-shouldered shape of him, the indirect light catching glimmers in his eyes and carving a soft line down the finely-drawn bridge of his nose, along the curve of his lower lip. “I don’t think you can,” she said.
“I’ll do whatever you need,” he said, and the way he said it, low and soft and kind of resigned, went right through her.
“I can’t-- have you,” she said. “It’s not your fault. But it doesn’t matter what you do. I don’t get-- to even think about that, Kes.”
He let his breath out quietly, but she could see it as his shoulders came slowly down. “I’ve no doubt you’ve thought more about this than I have, in real terms,” he said, “so don’t take this as me questioning your judgement, but-- why not?”
She crossed her arms over her chest so that she didn’t reach out to touch him again. He was like-- a magnet. She’d never really internalized the definition of “attractive” until now, but God, he was ; she felt like her entire being was being irresistibly pulled toward him.
How could she explain it? She gestured a little with one hand. “Where do you see this going?” she asked. “Either we have a disappointing long-distance affair that fizzles out and maybe is awful for my reputation, when you get mad about how it went down and complain. Or, what?”
“I, um,” he said, quietly, “I was hoping to get pretty serious.” Ungh , it was like the magnet turned up. She wrapped her hands around the balcony railing to keep from swaying toward him.
“So we have a romantic courtship,” Shara said, “which, don’t get me wrong, I would probably enjoy a whole lot, and we get married, and then they slow-track my promotions because married women leave to have babies anyway, and then I leave to have babies and I either get rank-stagnated into retirement or sit at a desk until I retire myself.”
“We don’t need babies,” he said.
“Men like to say things like that,” Shara said. “And then once they’ve trapped you with that ring, they take away your birth control pills. I know a lot of women that’s happened to. And maybe you can escape that, maybe you can get a divorce, maybe, but you can also kiss your commission goodbye. And your church, and your family.”
“You’re not wrong,” Kes said. “But I wouldn’t do that to you.”
Shara let the silence hang for a long moment. “I’m not doubting you,” she said. “I don’t want to offend you or any of that, you’ve never given me any reason to doubt you. But a lot of people think they know how they’ll feel about something, and they-- don’t.”
She heard Kes take a deep breath, and there was a moment, and then he said, “I don’t want you like a trophy, Shara, or a thing to have-- a decoration, or an accessory, or-- not even as a thing to complete myself. I don’t want to show you off or control you or put you on a shelf. I just want-- you. I want to be near you, I want to watch and see what you can do. I want to support you.”
“Kes,” she said. He probably even believed it, too.
“All this time,” he said, “when I’ve said I was your number one fan-- I meant that, Shara, I wasn’t just kidding.”
“Everyone loves the idea of an accomplished woman,” Shara said. “Well, not everybody. But people do, they think, wouldn’t that be great, I’d love to see that, it’d be so great. But then it comes straight down to it, and they get up close and they see the shit you have to do to accomplish those things-- they see the compromises and sacrifices you have to make-- and they decide that, on a woman, ambition is ugly, it’s selfish, it’s not actually what they want. The hardest part of my job, Kes, is not doing the job, it’s convincing the people with the power to let me succeed that I want it badly enough-- but not too much.”
“I want to be on your team,” he said. “I see what you’re up against and I want to be on your side.”
It hurt, a lot, because she wanted him to mean it too. God, what a difference it would make-- to have someone to come home to, and all the sweet things that went along with that. But-- “I know you believe that,” she said. “I know you well enough to get that you really do think that way. But in three years when your friends’ wives all have dinner on the table for them every night and are giving them sweet rosy-cheeked little babies, and I’m working late again, and I’m putting in for a posting somewhere awful and far away, and your friends are making fun of you for doing my ironing--”
She stopped, and he waited a moment. It was-- he wasn’t interrupting her. She’d expected him to interrupt. “You don’t really know me all that well, though,” he said, mildly. “Again, I know you’ve given this a lot of thought. I wouldn’t already be such a fan of you if I didn’t think you were the type to think things through. But you don’t really know my background, or why I wouldn’t do these things you’re describing that I absolutely recognize as very real fears.”
“Well?” she asked. “Why not?”
“I could rattle off all kinds of statistics or whatever,” Kes said. “Try to impress you with whatever credentials I think you might find relevant. But listen, I don’t want to convince you to do anything you don’t want to do. That’s not- well, it would be stupid and counterproductive. Just as much a trap as the stuff we were talking about before, where you’re a savage if you fight and complacent if you don’t and either way you can’t win.”
“So what do we do, then?” Shara asked.
“You said, before, that you’d probably enjoy the romantic courtship thing,” Kes said. “And I get why you don’t think it would work. But if we could try that-- you don’t have to do it uncritically, you know? You could really use that as what a courtship’s supposed to be for. You get to know me and who I actually am, and where I come from, and what I’d really do in adversity. And I get to really test myself and see if maybe you’re right, and my adoration of you doesn’t hold up when it’s up close and at my expense.”
She turned to look at him squarely. “So I can open myself up and spread all my guts out, and it’s your turn to poke through them, and then when it doesn’t work out I get a big scar of my own, only it’s on my heart.”
“All of life is like that, though,” he said. “It all is. You never know how any of it’s gonna work out.” He leaned back slightly, turning his head away. His profile was striking, and the light caught the line of his beautiful jaw. “I mean. It’s already too late for me, Shara. I’m not joking about the number one fan thing, I’ve never been joking about that. And I don’t mind-- I mean, unrequited love sucks, but it happens, and you can kind of-- you make your peace with it. I’ve had my heart broken before. But--” He shook his head.
“But what?” she asked.
“It’d be one thing if I knew you didn’t want me,” he said. “Then it’d just be my own problem to deal with. I’m a big boy, I can handle it. But--” He tilted his head back to look at her directly. “But you do,” he said. “You feel the same.”
“Maybe,” she said, defensive. It was too late, but she reflexively had to deny it.
“Maybe,” he conceded. “Nobody can really know what’s in another person’s heart. And I know, it’s always dangerous to rely on somebody else. But that’s how humans work. We need each other. You’re gonna need somebody, someday, Shara Bey. If your heart inclines to me, and mine to you, can’t we try?”
“You,” she said, but she was out of glib defenses.
He held out his hand. “I know you’re brave,” he said. “Braver than me. You’ve denied yourself all kinds of stuff to get where you are. You’ve come too far to throw it away, I know that. And to risk it on something as dumb as-- some man , who isn’t worth it, isn’t worth you -- I know why you see it that way, and you’re not wrong.”
“But,” she said, looking at his hand. “You’re gonna say, but, and then tell me how it’s worth it.”
“I am,” he said. “There’s another way to see it. And that’s what I’m asking you to do. Let me be on your team. You weren’t meant to have to do this on your own.”
It felt like she was actually struggling physically against something, inside her chest, her breath tight and her ribs heavy. But she put out her hand, before she could think better of it, and grabbed his hand, breathing hard with the effort of it. “I don’t know,” she said, and her voice shook.
He took her hand in both of his, coming a little closer, eyes gleaming wide in the dark. His expression was hard to read but it came across as nothing so much as reverent .
“I can’t promise that it’ll work,” he said. “But I can promise that I’ll try.”
“I,” she said. “I don’t know if I can give you a fair shake, Kes.”
He grinned, suddenly. “I’ll take what I can get,” he said. And he actually bent down and brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed it, soft and chaste, eyelids sinking shut and fluttering open again after a pause. He looked up at her, under his lashes, mouth slightly open, and she swallowed hard against the sudden surge of emotion in her chest.
“God damn it,” she said, and pulled him in, taking his face between her hands. He stared down at her a moment, mouth open in surprise, and she tugged him down a little so she could reach.
She’d only ever kissed awkwardly before, but this wasn’t; her mouth fitted smoothly to his, like it was meant to be there, and his breath puffed out warm across her face before his lips connected smoothly to hers, and he breathed in sharply through his nose, pulling the air cold across her face-- it was a lot of sensation, all at once, and his shoulders were warm and solid through his shirt while she hung onto him.
Her heart was beating wildly, and it felt like a long time had passed when she finally pulled back, steadying herself with a hand against his chest. She could feel his heart going like mad, too, like a bird under her fingertips. “You make me want to promise you things I-- I can’t promise,” she said, shaky. “But God, if I don’t want to, now.”
“I won’t ask you to,” he said. He was breathing hard, staring at her mouth like he was dazed. “But I’ll promise you everything anyway.”