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A soft “hey” stopped you in your tracks. You shifted the weight of the small bag on your shoulder with a sigh, and turned away from the open door to face him.
“Should’ve known it’d be you,” you muttered, refusing to meet his eyes, afraid your resolve would waver under his gaze. You couldn’t afford to be swayed, not this time.
“What’re you doing, cyar’ika?” he murmured; anything above a whisper might have reverberated through the ship and woken the others.
“What I have to, Hunter. You know as well as I do that if I stay, I’m in danger.”
He stepped closer to you, approaching cautiously until he was near enough to gently turn your gaze to meet his. “But we… we can protect you. You’re our family now, as much as he is, and if-“ he swallowed, “if I’m right, if this is what I think it is, with family is where you need to be.”
Shooting Hunter a sad smile, you shook your head almost imperceptibly. “I know you can. And I want to stay, you have to know that. But what I want doesn’t matter anymore. If he finds you - if he finds us - we don’t know what he’s capable of. We left him. I fucking left him and,” you choked out a sob, unable to maintain your stoic facade any longer. “And I don’t know if the love he had for us, the love we still have for him is enough to save us. I just can’t risk it, not now. You have to see that.”
Exhaling deeply, he wiped your tears with his thumbs and pulled you to his chest.
“What should I tell the others?” he whispered into your hair.
“Anything but the truth. Just… just make sure they know it wasn’t them, please. I couldn’t live knowing any of them thought they were the reason I left.”
You could feel his slight nod, and were thankful he didn’t push you on this. “Will we at least be able to find you?”
“I left a tracer for Tech. You can’t activate it on your end, but when I’m safe I’ll turn it on so you can find me. If you want to find me.”
”We’ll always want to find you,” he whispered, voice thick with emotion. He placed a chaste kiss on your forehead before releasing you into the night. “Be safe, cyar’ika. For us. For him.”
You nodded, and turned your back on the place and people you called home, clinging to the sound of the last loving words you were likely to hear for a while.