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The intercom buzzes for a second time before Rhys reaches for the button. "What is it? Kinda in the middle of something here."
"The Dionysus attache is here. She said you'd know her, sir," his assistant answers, sounding as confused as Rhys feels for precious moments.
It's suspicion more than hope, an unease that someone in the base is digging where they shouldn't, when he snaps back. "Well, send her in."
Rising from his seat quickly, Rhys rounds the expansive desk in a hurry. Failsafes and exits in order, he does his best to act casual. No, not casual. Assert the prestige and respect this promotion deserved! He didn't survive Pandora and recover a vault key only for the greedy desk jockey from down the hall to--
To wear heels, a pencil skirt, and a deep red, high collared vest and blouse so well.
When the assistant lets her in, Fiona breezes by with a smile and a raised brow that makes Rhys a different sort of uneasy. Nerves and happy and want and warm.
"Fi--"
Her gesture, a finger raised to her lips, cuts him off.
"Uh. I mean, that'll be all. Thanks."
The assistant closes the door, and that's when Fiona begins to give herself the tour. She shows up -- his office, his work -- and then waltzes through like she owns the place. And he'd mind it a little less if she'd pay attention to him, too, and maybe do a little bit of explaining.
Yeah, that wouldn't hurt at all.
"Nice digs," she says after a moment of frowning and humming it over, stopping beside a metallic sculpture and poking it with a careful finger. "And whatever this thing is."
"It's art. You know, culture and civilization and progress?"
"Sure. Let's call it An Ode to Tetanus."
It's so easy. Weeks, months apart, and he still knows the steps and the words, something warm and pleasant around the edge of each. And when she turns, and that smile is still in place, he has to believe that's all part of whatever this is.
"Dionysus attache, huh?"
"You're not even a little bit impressed that it worked?" Her arms fold.
And okay, he is, but not only about that.
"So, this means you traveled all the way from your little dream planet to spend some time with yours truly?" Rhys is grinning that grin that he knows she hates but even more secretly loves. "Aww, I missed you, too, Fi."
"Don't flatter yourself. I got curious."
"This is a lot of trouble for curious."
"We aren't exactly strangers to trouble."
Rhys isn't sure when they gravitate toward each other, when the distance can no longer be measured in vastness but closeness, but it's nice.
There's a thoughtful noise before Fiona speaks again. "How do you get anything done with a view like that?"
"Some things are better." And he manages to look at her, right at her, and not stumble over the words.
And then ruins it with self-celebration. "C'mon, admit it. That was a good one."
Fiona is rubbing at the bridge of her nose, a vague shake of her head, but behind the shadow cast by her hand, Rhys thinks he sees her smiling.
"Hey." His fingers tug at hers, lowering the hand. Pandora framed on the distant horizon, casting them in muted purples and greys, does Fiona every kind of favor.
It's like catching her eyes for the first time, all over again. Speechless and suddenly nervous. And a little bit disappointed when she looks away for--
Oh. Oh no.
"What the hell is that?"
Rhys dashes for it first, but Fiona is snatching it off his desk, dodging away and looking down into the picture frame. Laughing one of her deep, throaty laughs, the one that tells him he'll never hear the end of it.
"It isn't what it looks like--"
"Really? 'Cause it looks like it's a picture of a hat."
"Pfft. What? Who would-- Who would keep--"
"My hat."
"Not everything's about you, y'know. A businessman should never overlook his accessories."
"Uh huh." She waves it in his face; he snatches it back, placing it with more calmness than he feels. "If you wanted a picture, you could have--"
And suddenly, she's the nervous one; Rhys can see it, sometimes, the way she tries to hold herself together at the seams. He doesn't understand the life that made her that way, but Rhys feels for her. Feels a lot about her, actually. And if his smirk has to do with anything, it's that.
"Asked?" he finishes for her.
"I realized half way through you'd have to start making sense first."
Rhys settles for a roll of his eyes. "Look, I just-- kinda didn't want anyone to try to-- match your face to the picture. Because I know how you feel about the whole corporation thing and I--"
"So, a hat."
"Wow, it's all weird when you say it like that."
"'Weird' wasn't what I was thinking. Not exactly, anyway."
Something in her tone makes his heart do a hopeful flop. "N-No? Then what was it?"
This close, he can smell her perfume, see the light dusting of freckles at her cheeks cast in changing color after color, as shifting as the light beyond the observation window. And he just wants to--
"I'm gonna... kiss you, okay?"
"Not if I kiss you first."
So she does.
It isn't like all the ones before, stolen in the shadows of the caravan on Pandora or savored in the darkened rooms at her place on Dionysus. Her lips find his as a flutter of sensation, threatening to dance away at any moment. It's a lot like her, ready to bolt the minute she can't talk her way out of something.
But she doesn't. She never has. And Rhys never asks why, wondering if acknowledging it would mean changing everything.
Fingers weave through his hair, mirroring the way arms curl around her waist, pulling her near.
One heeled shoe thuds against the floor. Then the other. The tips of her toes skim and rest along the tops of his boots, soft pressure.
Something clenches like a vice. Rhys can finally put a name to that thing gnawing at the back of his mind the moment she walked in. More than how she dazzled the security and lied her way around, it was that he'd kind of missed her.
Not even kind of. He had.
He doesn't know when their lips part, when his face buries in the tickling locks of her hair, when he breathes deep and catches shampoo and perfume over office papers and ink; what he does know is he's caught in her orbit again -- it's so hard to shake himself out of it that he's stopped fumbling and denying it -- and it's never felt more like home.