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Parvati Holcomb was never used to compliments before she joined the crew of the unreliable. Before she met Rio.
It was the first day they met, that she first became exposed to true appreciation for her talents, for herself.
They’d been moseying around the wall of Edgewater, Rio picking her way through old crates in search of free ammo.
“I don’t really have any money, I kind of, uh. I’m not from around here.”
Parvati had just rolled with it with a smile, and had even offered to buy her some cartridges. The resourceful captain had denied her generosity- “No, no- we can find some. Don’t waste your uh- b-bits? It’s bits, right?”
Before she could even start to question this “Alexandria Hawthorne’s” competency or honesty, they’d stumbled upon a defective automech- walking itself into a wall over and over- beeping and murmuring- “navigation malfunction. Error.”
Rio had stopped Parvati from approaching, worried the thing may attack, but when it was obvious the mech had no hostility, they’d moved closer.
“Aw, jeez. I could fix him up alright,” she began, head turning to the captain, “if you- I mean if you, if you think I should.”
She’d cocked a brow and shrugged, a little smile cutting across her face, gesturing to the mech.
“Go ahead.”
It’d only taken a few minutes of tinkering with the
Mech’s navigation unit, replacing some loose wires, and resealing the panel, and there he was, good as new. She’d even given him a nickname, as she always did with the machines she fixed.
“Damn, nice work!” The captain rounded on the mech, smiling, as it began to walk off towards its destination. Scuttling into the sunset.
Tearing her gaze from its retreating form, Rio had looked Parvati in the face and said, “That was impressive, and quick!”
Parvati had been seven kinds of bashful, pink in the ears and hot in the cheeks, she’d brushed it off with a, “oh it weren’t nothing,” but the praise buried itself in her heart. Solidifying her thoughts about this strange, strange woman.
Regardless of what she was about, she was kind, and mostly honest, about what mattered, anyways.
It happened again, in the geothermal factory. Parvati had been worried something fierce about the choice the woman was gonna make. The deserters didn’t deserve to be cut off, or have to come back if they didn’t want, but Edgewater needed that power. All those poor people, in their homes, without jobs.
She’d stopped the captain at the terminal, her hand shaking, throat tight.
“I hope- I hope you know what you’re about to do,”
Rio had turned and looked at her, eyes searching her face, and gave her a long look that made her skin feel icy hot. Before she could rescind or apologize- Rio asked her-
“I’d like to know your opinion on this, you know this place better than me.”
Again, the trust, the brazen belief in the soundness and trustworthiness of Parvati’s judgement and opinion- it made her heart clench. Somebody cared about what she had to say.
It only kept happening.
Compliments about her work on the ship, asking for advice, for opinions, bringing her into the Groundbreaker and postponing getting her own damn ship un-impounded to bring her to meet Junlei.
And all without ulterior motive.
She asked as much, one night, the rest of the crew- Felix and Ellie, Max, SAM, they were all upstairs in their quarters, or maybe conversing over dinner or coffee- Parvati didn’t know as much because she was busy messaging Junlei, focused on her terminal in the engine room. She liked it down here anyways. Cozy, quiet.
Rio had waltzed in, looking for her, and then presented her with a bag of sweetheart cakes. She and Max had wandered into Cascadia from Fallbrook- something about a man and a book. And she’d made sure to get them for her.
“Oh, Captain!” She’d gasped, stepping away from her half written reply to take the gift in her hands. They were just peachy, perfect.
It dawned on her for the hundredth time, how generous and caring the captain was, how much she cared about her crew, especially Parvati. And that worry, that worry she’s always had that maybe it ain’t her, maybe it’s her talent or maybe she’s a free human shield or- or maybe they just tolerate her and-
“It wasn’t any trouble,” she’s smiling so fondly that it breaks Parvati’s heart that she could even begin to accuse her captain of underhandedness, “I want your date to be perfect. You deserve that.”
Those three words, said to her, right to her face-
You’re one of us, you’re part of the family.
She smiles and tries to hide the tears in her eyes in the engine light- shaking her head and laughing wetly- she can’t help but rope and arm around Rio’s shoulders and the woman gladly responds with a tight hug- they’ve been at this since the beginning- Rio’s first friend since crashlanding. And Parvati’s saviour from the dredges of Edgewater- she picked her up, gave her a place, and made her more confident than she’d ever imagined she could be. Parvati takes that in mind and hugs tighter,
“Thank you, Captain,”
For everything.
—————————————
He’s touchy. In more ways than one.
It doesn’t really matter the sort of touch; a clap on the shoulder, a hand on the knee, a mean right hook into the jaw. He shows how he feels through movement, action, touch.
The captain discovered that easily enough. The day they’d met, disembarking from her ship on Groundbreaker, he’d been in a proper workplace spat over hitting his overseer in the head with a tossball stick.
When he’d asked to come aboard, starry-eyed and cocky over the prospect of getting the hell off of Groundbreaker and making something of himself, she’d reached out to take his hand in a proper welcome-aboard shake-
His grip firm, fingers curled over hers just so, she knew he would be a perfect addition to the crew, the risk of a tossball stick to the face aside.
The more time he spent aboard, the more at home he felt. He hadn’t been sure, at first, full of apprehension. Harlow had left him without a word, he never knew his own parents, it seemed like this was too good to be true. One day they’d dock and he’d get off ship- and they’d leave without him. Or The captain would come to his quarters and order him off, tell him to pack up.
But now- he’s sitting at the table in the kitchen, his little radio on the surface in front of him, playing reruns of last nights tossball match- he’s got his legs up, across the lap of the captain, who’s sitting adjacent to him.
He’s leaned back in his chair, cap pulled down over his eyes (Parvati had given it to him as a gift) and Rio is chattering with Ellie about something- something about supplies to pick up when they stop at good ol’ GB. With his legs across her lap, he’s nearly nodding off he’s so comfortable.
It’s not unusual, he slings an arm around her shoulders when they walk the streets of Stellar Bay, he punches Nyoka in the shoulder playfully when she makes a quip at him, he rests his weight against Max’s side when they sit, reloading and repairing their armor after a tough fight.
He likes to touch- it reminds him that this is real. These are his friends- his family. They’re here, and they’re not leaving.
Rio places a hand on his knee and he leaves his thoughts- opens his eyes to look at her, she’s still looking at Ellie, talking, but her hand is reassuring and she pets at his knee like it’s a lapcat.
He’s got a home here, now, these people who love him-
“You coming off with us? We’re stopping by Mfuru’s to get more supplies.”
Rio’s looking at him expectantly, smiling, and he nods, returning the grin.
When ADA announces they’ve fully docked at Groundbreaker, he doesn’t even feel nervous.
Felix is nervous, though, when they go to meet Harlow at his substation on Scylla. Rio hadn’t bat an eyelash at the request when he brought up his old friend, when he asked her how she would feel about the situation.
She’d laughed it off with a quip about all of her family and friends being frozen in deep space, and he’d tried his best not to make it awkward and offer consolation. They were both between a rock and a hard place when it came to these types of situations.
He’d been angry and relieved all at once- to see his old bud still sticking it to the man out there- but why had he just abandoned him? Only to call him back when he needed a job done.
He’d wanted to call Trask a liar, to throttle him for even insinuating that Harlow would do something so vile, so backward- he’d wanted to punch and choke and-
He’s glad that Rio is always so questioning- she never takes anyone at face value, she always looks past the mask, into the details. The evidence, damning or not, was enough to sever any ties that Felix ever wanted with Harlow.
He’d tried to ask him to leave the Unreliable, to come to his station on Scylla and work with him against the board- and he’d refused then, because he was unsure- because Rio’s face had tightened in distress when Harlow had offered, and she thought he hadn’t seen.
Max had said, “Felix is one of us. He’s family.”
And if he’d ever had any doubts about leaving, they were gone.
When Harlow, enraged by Rio’s incredible display of “gotcha”, had moved to seize Felix by the shoulders, Rio had inserted herself between them, despite being much shorter and smaller than both men- and she’d thrown an arm back to guard Felix from him.
Afterwards, with Harlow’s blood on his jacket, he’d sat on the bridge in the ship and stared into space blankly. He didn’t know what to make of this, what to do or say. So many conflicting emotions- anger, remorse, sadness-
And Rio had come and sat next to him, lit him a cigarette and handed him her half finished beer- and slung an arm around his shoulders and rested her head against his. He’d dropped the cigarette onto cool metal and wrapped his arms around her tight, hiding tears on the sleeve of her shirt, and she’d held him like a vice.
Her touch more comforting than anything he’s ever know, his family.
—————————————————-
Ms. Ramarim-Wentworth III doesn’t do handouts.
Nyoka hasn’t made a habit of accepting gifts or offerings- she doesn’t like to take things without reason. She likes the pay at the end of a contract to guide someone somewhere on the void-damned planet, and she likes the feel of the bit cartridges in her bag when she trades skins and pelts and severed heads after a successful hunt.
She’s never celebrated a birthday or participated in gift giving festivities. It just isn’t her style.
She likes to earn what comes into her pockets, she likes the thrill of the hunt, and the warm embrace of a bottle into the wee hours of the night as afterwards.
She doesn’t like feeling like a charity.
The Captain, on the other hand, gives without blinking twice.
She’s not gullible or overly-generous, that’s for certain, but she doesn’t seem to expect anything in return when she comes back onboard in Fallbrook with a couple of Zero-Gee’s she’d scooped up for Nyoka.
“Here, for you,” she’d hummed, settling the bottles on the desk in front of her, smiling.
She’d thought it was a ruse, at first, that she was gonna ask for something, ask her to do something or give her something- maybe lecture her about drinking. But she hadn’t, she’d just left Nyoka in her quarters with a grin as she headed to the bridge.
The woman may never have been good at accepting gifts, but she realizes, popping the cap off the beer and lifting it to her mouth, sitting at her desk and stewing over their next mission, that she does like to give them. Just a Little.
She’d never been big about giving things, and certainly not gifting them, but she’d always offered the last of the rations to her crew, her family, especially when they’d be hiding out in the mountains. She always stocked up their supplies herself, and she always made sure Clara had something special when her birthday rolled around. The kid was… a kid. She deserved to feel like one every now and then!
In a way, it was her “I care about you”. To leave the last pack of knock-out bars for the others when they were running low.
They’re docked in Stellar Bay to refuel and recharge before they head to Groundbreaker from Scylla. Rio has some business here anyways, something about meeting up with Zora and Sanjar to help dispute more balance between the Iconoclasts and the MSI.
That damned captain, always so ready to help.
Nyoka admires it sometimes, even if it has them running all over the colony.
She’s in the Yacht club while she waits for a signal that everyone is done with their furlough off ship and business is concluded so they can reembark. Nursing a spectrum and creating a hangover, she doesn’t bother to make small talk with the other patrons or tell a story, she’s not drunk enough yet.
She finds herself troubled, because the more she drinks, tonight, the more she thinks about her crew, her new crew. She thinks that just maybe, they’re family to her now, as CHARON had been.
After defeating the Mantiqueen, Rio had been unsure about mounting and keeping the vile creatures head, but Nyoka had insisted- and that’s what it’d been. A gift. It was well earned, of course- it took herself, Rio and Felix to take the thing down- but she doesn’t think about the epic battle when she remembers their endeavor.
She thinks about Rio trekking across Monarch with her to help her collect the medallions of her teammates- of taking on tons of primals to collect their pheromones, and of going out of her way to Edgewater to search for Rebekah and Anders.
Everything she did was, in a way, a gift in its own right.
The Mantiqueen head couldn’t say, “thank you so much, for taking me on, for helping me, for comforting me,” but she hoped it conveyed it anyways. She hoped the gift made Rio see how she felt.
She knows she belongs here, because she isn’t criticized- she’s cared for. She isn’t bought- she’s welcome. They smile when they see her coming, they ask her along, they respect her. Really respect her.
One day she follows the captain into her quarters to see something that Rio needs to show her and Max on her terminal- but out of the corner of her eye- she sees the Mantiqueen head displayed proudly- and when Rio sees her looking- she grins.
“That bitch Never stood a chance against us, huh?”
Nyoka bursts into laughter, leans her weight on Rio’s desk and grins at her and Max.
“Nah, never.”
—————————————————
He’ll always remember the day they met with pain-staking clarity.
She’d waltzed into the OSI missionary in Edgewater with a lost look in her eyes and confusion on her face. She’d seemed a little worse for wear- the strangest, blue and gray jumpsuit he’d ever seen, with holes where it looked like tubes would go- and holes where it looked like canids or marauders had gotten ahold of her.
If the wardrobe choice wasn’t enough to tell him she wasn’t from around here, then the way she approached him was.
She’d turned in a little circle in the middle of the church, blinked, and then finally settled her curious gaze on him, at his desk- and she’d walked toward him with a clipped pace, her face puzzled, brows drawn in.
After an introduction, pointing out the obvious fact that she was very much not a Vale native- she’d taken the task of fetching his missing book without blinking. Not arrogant or cocky, just as though he’d asked her to run to the general store and grab him a jar of salve. Totally unfazed.
He supposes, in retrospect, she’d been so confused and culture-shocked that she’d really had no more room to be surprised.
She’d returned him the journal, with Parvati Holcomb in tow, now, and she’d seemed a little more sure of herself when she sat it on his desk in front of him.
The two girls made a nice little team, he’d thought, one confident but otherworldly, one insecure, but knowledgeable about their world. Still, they were both young- and, he’d thought, then, lacking in the department of higher education that’d come to him in his schooling and with his age.
Time aboard, after he’d agreed to come along, had changed his mind. Parvati was just as, if not more intelligent than any other woman her age- smart as a whip, really. Simply shy. And Rio. Well.
It seemed like she knew a little about everything.
“I can’t fucking read French!”
He’d snarled, that afternoon when she returned with the journal.
She’d blinked at him dumbly.
“Oh!” She grinned, broke into laughter that made him want to shove her into the floor for mocking him, or maybe grab her by the face- Parvati slapped a hand over her own mouth at the foul language of the Vicar,
“I can!” She’d taken the journal from his hand and turned it toward herself, glancing over it, still fighting off giggles at his absurd reaction.
“Y-you-, what?!”
She’d looked up from the book and nodded, “I’m from- oh. Uh. I’ve studied it.”
She’d grown silent and flushed in just a moment, and he chose, then, to ignore her blatant cover up because she could read French?!
Who else in the entire colony-?
He’d had to know more, then. That, coupled with his desire to leave Edgewater, find Chaney and rip him to shreds for lying- well, it’s no wonder he’d joined their crew.
For someone from Earth, within their first month of life in Halcyon, she was talented betonen belief, a real spectacle.
Max never knew he had a way to express affection, let alone that he’d want to.
She spent a lot of time on the ship, her only home on account of not being from this galaxy- and so did he, on account of her being on the ship most of the time.
He liked spending time with her, he really liked it.
She called for him often when she went off ship, usually bringing him along for whatever quest or errand it was she was up to. He enjoyed being a part of it and rarely- somehow, unbelievably- was annoyed with her.
It was hard to be.
She’s sitting next to him at his table in his cabin, her legs tucked under her on her chair, pointing to the papers strewn around them, to the journal.
“So- this- this is a Little difficult to explain but-“
He listens intently when she teaches him what words mean, where the grammar goes, what the layout means. She translates for him, but she makes him earn it.
He’s laying in his bunk after she’s retired when he realizes he could easily tell her to just void-damned rewrite it in English or just tell him- and she could do the same- but they didn’t. Neither made the move to cut short their study sessions.
Because neither wanted to.
He realized, a little more every day he spent aside her, on ship, walking the Groundbreaker, when she stops off at Scylla and takes him to meet the hermit, after she stopped him from giving in and beating the shit out of Chaney- that he likes spending time with her.
Sitting in silence in her quarters, both buried in a book, or engaged in conversation, laughter- walking the ruins of Monarch- he realizes he’d spend time with her anywhere.
He realizes he always is with her- even when he’s not.
She takes a part of him with her when she goes- she’s family, everyone in the ship is. Yes, even Dr. Fenhill.
After his, erm- awakening- the feeling only grows. They’re practically attached at the hip. She brings him to meet Phineas Welles- the man she’s killed for- the man she claims she’d die to protect because he saved her. Because he’ll save her family too. It reminds him of when she’d told him the truth- “I’m not Alex Hawthorne. I’m from Earth. And I’m 96 years old… technically.”
He’s special enough to share with Welles.
It makes him smile.
It’s when he realizes he’s still in one piece and not a heap of ashes after they skip the Hope to Terra 2 that he takes her hand in his and brings it to his forehead for a moment, not caring if the rest of the crew can see straight through him- that doesn’t matter anymore.
After it’s all said and done, and they're covered in ash and blood and viscera and tired, exhausted to the bone, she flicks her radio on and pulls him close, hugging herself to him, and he reciprocates, holding her and swaying to whatever inane sounds pour out of the speakers- because time with her, is time well spent.
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