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"I'm going to have to give out so many of these fucking things in the coming weeks," Chrisjen says. "I wanted you to be the first."
Bobbie looks at her, at the shining silver medal in Chrisjen's hands. So small a thing, against the months they'd had on the Rocinante together. But it's only hours now until Mars ferries her away, pardoned and reinstated with full honors. Sue her for wanting to get her commendations in first, before those shortsighted fuckers in the MMC.
She's stolen Bobbie away into a forgotten little room in the government sector on Luna, before the chaos of the departure of the Martian delegation gets underway. It had been a necessity; since being sworn in as Secretary-General nearly the moment she'd set foot on the Lunar docks, free time has become a precious commodity. She'd scarcely even had the time to reunite with Arjun, when he'd made his way up the well to see her. She'd made the time, of course; Bobbie, meanwhile, had made herself scarce, claiming to not want to take away from Chrisjen's time with her husband. A transparent excuse from someone whose eyes had gone comically wide when Chrisjen asked if she'd like to meet him, but an understandable one.
It was just as well. Better for Chrisjen to speak to him privately about this thing that had developed between her and Bobbie while they'd been on the run, than allow Bobbie to endure Arjun's endless affectionate teasing that had ensued and chase her away.
Arjun had gone back down to New York the next day, leaving Chrisjen to her peace talks with Mars and Bobbie in limbo. She could have insisted on taking the talks down the well, rather than staying on Luna, but between the need to play nice with the Martians and the fact that Bobbie sure as shit wouldn't have been comfortable staying at the house Chrisjen shared with Arjun, remaining on Luna while the details got hammered out was the safer option.
So, Chrisjen had given her inaugural speech on Luna, two days after the fact and with little pomp or circumstance. Had promised a very public reckoning for Errinwright and Mao, bit her tongue while thanking Sorento-Gillis for his public service, and announced a normalization of relations with Mars. Whatever that thing was that had climbed out of Venus' atmosphere demanded nothing less.
And now, those peace talks had wrapped up. Or at least the part that required her direct involvement. The finer points could be left to the lawyers and diplomats; the broad strokes were all that were needed for Chrisjen and the Martian PM to come to a handshake agreement, then they could all get off this rock. There had only been one particular piece of language she'd personally insisted on inserting into the final deal, and she'd secured it just yesterday.
All members of the Armed Forces of the Martian Congressional Republic who, having knowledge of the involvement of their superior officers in the protomolecule conspiracy and, acting in good conscience, sought asylum on Earth, must (1) have any related punishment rescinded, and (2) be reinstated to the rank held on the date of that defection.
There was, of course, exactly one person the language applied to. Which made it ridiculous for her to insist on it, but, fortunately, even more ridiculous for Mars to protest. Which meant Bobbie would soon be leaving with the rest of the Martian delegation on the way back home, and neither of them knew when they would next see each other in person.
The time for wondering what it meant for the two of them—and for the watery-eyed reassurances that they wouldn't let their connection fall by the wayside—had been last night. Today, Bobbie's back in uniform. Both Mars and Earth have agreed on what actions by either side are acceptable for commendation, and which are to be swept under the rug so they could both save face for their people. And Chrisjen has secured a medal from the first batch which her government had cooked up for the upcoming ceremonies, as yet uninscribed and thus perfect for her needs.
And the fact that it is effectively stolen UN property would, Chrisjen thinks, charm the fucking pants right off her. If they had time for that sort of thing right now.
"I don't think the brass would approve of me wearing a medal from the UN, even if we are sort of at peace now," Bobbie eventually says, even as she speaks with that private little smile which hasn't gotten any less dashing.
"It's not from the government, it's from me." Nevermind that they're one and the same, anymore.
Bobbie hesitates, plainly thinking of the last time she had been given one of these. Of the silence and cooperation it had been meant to buy. "Ma'am…"
"Don't think of it as a medal, if that helps," Chrisjen interrupts, before something as ridiculous as self-doubt could settle into Bobbie's being. "Consider it a token. From one person to another."
She leaves no more room for protest. Bobbie makes none while Chrisjen fixes it in place, then smoothes her hands down her chest as she takes her in. Her strong, brave, sweet Martian, off to claim her rightful place in the stars. "Take it off as soon as you leave this room, if you need to. I just want you to have it."
It's no Purple Heart.
But, as is made clear when Bobbie sees her lip tremble and swiftly bends down to kiss her—
—Bobbie has a piece of hers just the same.
"The domestic side of things never really held that much appeal for me either," Bobbie tells Alex, and it's not a lie. It can't be. Not if she'd used the past tense, no matter how confused she might be about things in the present.
Maybe she's trying to convince herself that it's still true. That she hadn't had doubts about returning to Mars, after everything that had happened. That her uniform doesn't itch around her collar, just that much more than it used to, just enough to be noticeable and impossible to ignore. That she hasn't, somehow, come to trust an Earther above her own superior officers and government.
That being parted from Chrisjen after sharing quarters with her on the Rocinante, after sharing the same living space and sometimes the same bed, after sharing heated looks and gentle touches and affectionate bickering about each other's life choices while dancing around each other in the galley—that after having had a taste of what life could be like with her, being parted from Chrisjen isn't gnawing at something inside her she'd never known was there. That there isn't some yearning chasm inside her which only grows the further the Xuesen gets from the Sun.
She shares quarters with three other marines, now. Once, that had been a comfort. Maybe it will be again. Maybe there's a balance to be found, between her love for Mars and her… whatever it is that she has with Chrisjen. But for now, she makes sure her bunkmates are occupied elsewhere before watching Chrisjen's messages, each one at once achingly tender and endearingly sarcastic. And she rehearses her replies, the better to not needlessly worry her, or get asked the question she doesn't know how to answer.
And she tries, still, to convince herself that she does. That she is okay, and has no regrets. That she's exactly where she belongs, and nothing could pull her away from her duty to Mars. That nothing could even come close.
Those cherished messages from Chrisjen—each one viewed countless times away from the judging eyes of her shipmates and each precious moment committed to memory—could all attest to the folly of it.
But still, she tries.
"I am immediately recalling all civilian presence from the UN mission," Chrisjen announces, because of fucking course things have gone to shit again. The protomolecule and James Holden are both involved, it would've been impossible for things not to go to shit.
She hadn't expected things to go to shit in quite this fashion, though. Holden isn't the type to blow up the Seung Un to make some kind of point about the Ring, even if it were on behalf of the Belt. Someone's doing a shit job at framing him, but fuck if Chrisjen can work out the motive behind it. So instead she recalls as many UN citizens as she can, before they get turned into another living experiment in vivisection and hybridization like Eros and the children on Ganymede.
She can't recall the UN military, as much as she may want to for the same reason. People fear what they don't understand, and if they don't fear it then they try to control it. The goddamn Ring has both in spades already; she can't leave the AO under the auspices of the Martians and the Belters, not if she wants to exert whatever modicum of control over the situation as she can, from so far away.
Nor can she order one Martian ship in particular to retreat. It would be useless anyway; physics doesn't fucking work right inside that Ring, and no communications can get in or out. So naturally Bobbie's ship had been the first to follow the Rocinante through it.
She hadn't even been able to send Bobbie a message beforehand; the light delay meant that by the time she'd learned of the Seung Un's fate, both ships had already been inside the Ring for hours.
Be careful, Chrisjen says in the message she ultimately sends anyway. As though Bobbie knows the meaning of the words. Perhaps she could learn them, one day, for Chrisjen's sake.
I trust you, she says. She's worried, to be sure. But she's also a little relieved, and more than a little proud. At least there's someone in that fucking place with a goddamn bit of sense. If there were a hard call to be made, a situation which needed someone to act not on orders but on instinct, and still manage to salvage the situation and save humanity from itself—Bobbie would be there. Bobbie would do it.
Come home safe.
If pressed, Chrisjen would say she had meant Mars.
"I know I did what needed to be done, but calling it the right thing is a fucking stretch," Bobbie says. "Two marines are dead because of me. My marines. Under my command."
Nestled in Bobbie's arms, Chrisjen's grip on her wrist tightens a little in sympathy. Her quarters on Luna are exactly as Bobbie had remembered, down to the smell of the sheets on the bed. They'd thrown on a few clothes and moved to the couch, though, for this conversation. Bobbie's restless agitation had required it. Chrisjen's annoyance had, in turn, resulted in their current position, legs tangled as Bobbie reclines against an arm rest with Chrisjen's back a comforting weight against her chest.
"I know it was the right thing, even if neither you nor Mars want to accept it." Chrisjen's fingers glide over the mostly-bare skin of her thigh, even as her other hand maintains its grip on Bobbie's wrist. She takes in a breath, and in the slight hesitation before she speaks again, Bobbie knows what's coming. "But I can still smooth this over with Mars for you."
"I've already told you my answer." They'd argued about it, over a disjointed series of light-delayed messages as the Rocinante ferried her back sunward, along with the woman who'd blown up the Seung Un, and a pastor who Bobbie had done her best to avoid once she'd left the medbay. She'd accepted Chrisjen's interference which had allowed her to be here with her on Luna for a few days before the MCRN took her into custody; but, as Bobbie had told her repeatedly in her messages, this small measure of comfort was all she could allow herself.
Chrisjen takes no heed. "There's no honor in throwing yourself on the pyre for people who won't even care that you're burning."
"Jesus, I know you politicians are used to worming your way out of any hint of consequences for your actions, but in the Marines, we actually take responsibility for our shit."
It comes out harsher than she'd anticipated; the words themselves are harsher than she'd anticipated. In the heavy silence that follows, Bobbie remembers who, exactly, had been left to deal with the consequences of the shit unleashed by a bunch of men playing with things they didn't understand.
She sighs, deflated. "I'm sorry. That wasn't fair."
Chrisjen is silent for a moment longer. "It was a little bit fair. There are things I've done throughout my career that I've never told my family, because I've wanted to avoid the consequences. But you already know all of those things, and you're still here." Another pause. "If I'm being too pushy about this, it's because I want to keep it that way."
Bobbie is thankful, suddenly, that their position prevents Chrisjen from looking into her eyes as she speaks. The feeling only gets stronger when Chrisjen continues, "I don't like to lose. And I'll be damned if I lose you to something that's in my power to prevent."
The muscle in her jaw is starting to ache from the pressure of keeping it clenched against the sentiment roiling within her. It's not as though Bobbie wants to be forcibly parted from her either. And they both know that if Mars were determined enough to make an example of her by giving her the harshest punishment possible, Chrisjen would stage a prison break regardless of Bobbie's prior wishes. That, Bobbie can accept. Just as she had accepted Chrisjen's influence in getting her reinstated in the first place.
So why can't she just accept Chrisjen's offer, and put this whole mess behind her?
That part, at least, is uncomfortably easy to answer. She hadn't gotten any Martians killed when she'd sought asylum on Earth. Mars had unequivocally been the guilty party there, despite how long it had taken to convince herself that she wasn't to blame for not being able to save her squad from that fucking blue monster. But with this, who the fuck knows? Her LT had thrown the grenade which had made the Ring station protect itself via the slowdown, which ended up killing a third of the people on the Xuesen—should he be found guilty for that, if he were still alive? Should Ashford be found guilty for being willing to kill everyone left inside, to save those outside of it? Holden, for being willing to risk the whole of humanity on a hunch? Bobbie, for trusting him? For trusting herself over her orders?
Chrisjen trusts her, she knows. Over anyone else who had been in the Ring, on any side. She'd said as much, in one of the many messages that had finally come through once they'd transited back to the Sol system. The words, when Bobbie had heard them in the medbay, healing from the bullet from her dead squaddie's rifle, had stung. Having earned the trust of a woman like Chrisjen Avasarala—it should have filled her with pride. But instead, all she could feel was hollow, that this was what she had done with it.
She's left with two inescapable facts.
One: before she had met Chrisjen, she never would have found herself on the wrong end of a court martial.
Two: before she had met Chrisjen, she would have let them all die inside that Ring.
How much of that is Chrisjen's influence, and how much of it is just her own growth which would have happened regardless, is impossible to say. Chrisjen is inextricably wrapped up in the circumstances which had caused—had enabled—that growth. Could she even call it growth? Was it growth to go from turning against Mars because they had killed her squadmates, to Mars turning against her because she had gotten her squadmates killed?
Fuck. She's still a marine. She still has a duty to Mars. To show up, to take responsibility for her actions. She'll worry about what that means for this thing with Chrisjen—what this thing with Chrisjen means for her duty to Mars—after the verdict, and her inevitable sentence, gets handed down.
For now, she shifts Chrisjen in her arms, and distracts her with a kiss. It tastes like salt, like desperation and fear. Like the ache of a separation they've only just gotten a reprieve from, and which will extend an unknown distance into their future. The touch of Chrisjen's hand on her cheek soothes it all away, if only for a few minutes.
Bobbie tries to imagine a punishment Mars could mete out which would be worse than the prospect of losing this woman's affection.
Nothing comes to mind.
Yet still, when the MMC comes for her, to take her from the warmth of Chrisjen's embrace and straight into the brig of a transport to Mars—
—Bobbie goes.
"Repeated acts of insubordination," is what Mars says, in the end.
We don't care that you helped save the lives of everyone in that Ring, Gunny, they don't say. We don't care that two marines are dead who shouldn't be. You disobeyed orders that would've gotten everyone killed, and that's what's unforgivable.
They give her the boot, strip her of her rank and pension, and that's that. Gunnery Sergeant Roberta Draper is no more. She's a civilian now, for the first time in her entire goddamn life. Her childhood had never counted—not with her father, and the direction she knew she would take under his influence.
"Dishonorable discharge," Chrisjen scoffs in a message she must have sent as soon as the news had hit the feeds. Most of the rest of her message is full of invective against the entire command structure of the MMC—then, abruptly, she cuts herself off. Stops pacing in her office. Looks Bobbie in the eye and says, "I'm sorry, Bobbie." A minute shake of her head. "Anything you need."
It's not an offer, or a question. Just a simple statement of fact. Anything Bobbie wants, anything Chrisjen can do to change this or make it better, Chrisjen could do it. Would do it, no hesitation.
When the message ends, Bobbie stares through the transparent plastic of her handheld to the dull gray floor of her brother's apartment. Chrisjen's voice—her sincerity and affection and outrage on her behalf—still rings in her ears. She doesn't know how to address any of that. Not yet. Maybe tomorrow, when it's not so raw. When she doesn't feel so fucking empty. When she doesn't have a shitty little voice in her head impersonating Chrisjen, asking What else did you expect from them?
She never does address it, in the end. Instead, she tells Chrisjen a week later that she has a regular job now. Focuses on how weird it is to clock in, put in her time, and go home. Laughs about how that was something neither of them had any experience with. Smiles when she asks if Chrisjen has had anybody killed or disappeared lately.
She thinks it reaches her eyes.
Chrisjen's reply, when it comes the next day, tells her that it hadn't. Her concern is scarcely hidden, and before long she has offered, again, to pull strings for her. "What is the point of being the grand fucking puppet master if I can't make life better for the people I care about?"
The casual offer of political corruption might once have amused her, or humbled her that it was offered up for her benefit. The reminder that this powerful, singular woman cared for her might once have filled her with warmth and pride. Instead, something goes cold within her at the thought of having to relitigate her decision to return to Mars and face the consequences of her actions, now that she's on the other side of it. Now that she had her verdict, and after months of the upcoming trial weighing heavy on her mind, the only prison sentence handed down to her was that of having to live amongst her fellow Martians and their inescapable scorn.
It should have been a relief, to have her freedom, and the continued possibility of this thing with Chrisjen. But it's hard not to think about how at least in prison, she would have had a definite end date to her punishment to look forward to. She wouldn't have to hear the targeted advertisements in the subways shift from gyms and dating services to alcohol and antidepressants. Wouldn't have to put on a brave face and lie through her teeth to Chrisjen when she can finally bring herself to reply, ten days later, about the satisfaction she derives from stripping down the ships she'd once served on for parts—oh, no, it doesn't feel like bringing Mars' future down around her ears right alongside her own, not at all.
She's always been shit at lying. Particularly to Chrisjen. In her next message, Chrisjen has given up on offering to help—she may be stubborn, but she's not stupid, and she knows by now how Bobbie would react. But Bobbie gets the distinct feeling that she's being handled. That Chrisjen is being careful with her words, in a way beyond that of a skilled politician. That even as she laments the fact that she can't be there to appreciate Bobbie using a welder, she's hiding from Bobbie something even worse than that Martian scorn:
Pity.
Bobbie doesn't reply.
It becomes a habit all too easily.
A week goes by. Chrisjen tells her about how she made no less than half of the UNN admirals in her latest meeting soil themselves, and probably a third of the UNMC brass too.
Twelve days. Chrisjen mourns the time she worked in the shadows instead of having a schedule full of public appearances and endless, useless meetings.
Two and a half weeks. Chrisjen tells her of trouble on Earth, of people in her cabinet agitating to open up the Ring blockade and allow for colonization. Bobbie scoffs along with her as she watches, and for a moment it's just the two of them again, on the same side—the right side—against a bunch of morons and scumbags. She taps a button and opens a reply. Then her handheld dings with another rejected apartment application.
She goes to the gym instead.
Sometimes, on a good day, she does manage to send a message. When she takes David to see the progress on the terraformed desert, or when she wins an impromptu boxing match at the gym. Chrisjen always replies within a day on these occasions, which just makes it clear that it's not her busy work calendar that's led to the sporadic nature of her messages. And the light in her eyes when she speaks of this new piece of Bobbie's life that she's been invited into—it just conjures an image of Chrisjen sitting at home, struggling to make an effort to get them through this while Bobbie can't—won't?—do the same.
The forlorn look on Chrisjen's face when she checks for the messages that never come—that's only in Bobbie's mind, she's sure. Chrisjen is too important and too proud to become despondent by Bobbie pulling away like she were some heartsick teenage girl and not the leader of an entire fucking planet. But she's clearly affected nonetheless, and seeing it only serves to make Bobbie feel like shit again.
So, she goes back to counting days by decommissioned warships, and nights by empty beer cans. She pulls a muscle at the gym, and gets banned for the resulting fist-shaped dent in the wall.
Two more weeks—another message from Chrisjen. It comes in while she's on Benji's couch, just drunk and maudlin enough to consciously acknowledge for the first time the importance of not letting Chrisjen see her like this. As less than she was. As less than Chrisjen deserves.
Three weeks. Another message. She doesn't open it; surely Chrisjen would tire of this and tell her to fuck off eventually, and she couldn't bear to see Chrisjen look at her the way Mars does.
Only ten days go by before the next one shows up. It's not enough time to cure her of the self-recrimination over the realization that she craves the respect of an Earther over that of her fellow Martians. She ignores that one too.
The last message she receives is an RSVP.
"Good night, ma'am," Bobbie says, but they both know what she really means.
Goodbye.
Fuck you.
We're done.
Bobbie had said more words to her in that one conversation than she had in months, even if half of them had been pointless small talk up until the moment she'd blown up. Which, in turn, was more emotion than she'd demonstrated since Chrisjen had brought her to Luna after the Ring. Since even before then, really. That fucking Ring had thrown a wrench into every single one of Chrisjen's plans. She would order a full scale nuclear strike against the damn thing if she thought it'd have any effect.
Arjun, at least, is there to listen to her ranting after the dinner wraps up. Steady, stalwart Arjun, always with a soothing hand and an even more soothing voice. And a freshly poured drink at the ready.
"Stubborn fucking Martian," Chrisjen says when she gets back to their room at the embassy, just before she downs the entirety of the scotch he'd poured for her. He'd been able to escape, as Bobbie had tried to do, after the formal dinner had concluded. Chrisjen, meanwhile, had still needed to get in another hour of schmoozing which had done nothing to improve her mood.
"It didn't go well with Bobbie, I take it?" Arjun asks as he gamely pours her another. Mild and nonjudgmental, as though he weren't inquiring about the status of her relationship with the marine who had—in his words—gotten her pining like a youth again. And of course he could tell exactly which Martian she's upset about, after an evening full of them.
"Do you believe she said she had no place at that table? She's the only one of the fuckers who had any right to be there." The drink in her hand sloshes a little as she sweeps an arm out to encompass the room, and Mars as a whole. "It's like the idiot didn't even consider what kind of message I was sending to everyone in that room, by sitting her next to you. Did she think that was the fucking kids table?"
Arjun takes the glass from her once she drains it again, and doesn't give her another. Fine. She stalks off toward the bedroom, working at the fastenings of her overcoat along the way.
"I think it's safe to assume that Bobbie isn't as familiar with the intricacies of seating arrangements at state dinners as we are," Arjun says from a close but not crowding distance behind her. "I remember those days," he adds, a little wistfully.
"Well if she wants to yell at me for being a politician," Chrisjen spits as she drops the voluminous fabric of the coat to the bedroom floor in the same careless and annoyed way a part of her had hoped Bobbie would do tonight, "then there's no point in trying to make this work, is there?"
What had Bobbie expected? That Chrisjen would see an opportunity which would serve both her political and her personal ends, and not take it? That's what she does. Bobbie had known about her ruthlessness when it came to the end result of her political calculations from the start. Had, in fact, claimed to enjoy that about her, which had been such a welcome difference from her default mode of hiding certain aspects of her career from Arjun. If a few months of living under the pressure of a Martian populace who hated her for her actions in the Ring were enough to get Bobbie to yell at Chrisjen for it instead, then they sure as shit wouldn't survive in a world where Mars knew just how often Bobbie had gotten on her knees for her.
Her jaw clenches. "She should have just let me put a stop to this whole fucking thing from the start," she says, and curses when her hands fumble at the clasp of her necklace.
Steady hands cover her own, then soothe along her bare shoulders. She drops down into the seat at the vanity and Arjun removes the necklace for her. "You're stubborn, but you're not an idiot, my love," he says. "Perhaps you're both too similar for your own good. Can you tell me you would cope well if Earth had turned its back on you, and a Martian wanted to fix it for you? Your pride wouldn't get in the way?"
"I'm not an Earther, I'm her—I'm her fucking—" She struggles to find a word that isn't beyond anything she and Bobbie had yet used with each other. Difficult, since they'd never used any words to define what they had together. In the mirror, Chrisjen can see a glint in Arjun's eye. The same one he'd always gotten at the start of this, when he was fondly observing her tentative steps toward falling for someone new. "No," she says, jabbing at his reflection in the air, "don't you fucking start with that shit, we are not cute, I'm upset with her and I have a good goddamn right to be."
Arjun tips his head to concede the point. "You know, she told me a little about what life has been like since her trial." The gentle way his fingers work at the pins in her hair does nothing to lessen the vague sting of betrayal, that Bobbie had spoken about such things with Arjun and not herself. "From what I understand, it's a miracle she even showed up tonight. And when it became clear that she was there to help you make a point… You couldn't see the way she reacted during your speech, but I could almost see the knife digging deeper into her back with every word."
He does his best to soften the blow by way of his hands returning to her shoulders, massaging loose the tension built up there. It doesn't work.
"She wasn't there just to make a point," she insists, the same way she had told Bobbie that she'd wanted to see her. It's not lost on either of them that the honest inclusion of the word 'just' in that sentence is the problem here.
"Perhaps not, but surely you can understand how she'd see it that way." It both pleases her and annoys her, to have Arjun defending Bobbie even from Chrisjen herself. It's nice that he'd taken to her so easily, but it's goddamn annoying to have the same arguments coming at her from both sides. She purses her lips at the same time Arjun's hands go still at her shoulders as though he's realized something. "Tell me you didn't offer to pull strings again when you caught up with her."
"I didn't. You know I'm too damn stubborn to help someone who's too damn stubborn to want help." All the same, if Bobbie needed something and could ask for it, then Chrisjen would help, and vice versa. She had to believe that, otherwise what the fuck had they even been doing since Io?
"Okay, good."
"I offered her a job."
"…Kiki."
Chrisjen hears Arjun's exasperation and matches it with her own as she explodes up off the chair. "She's too good to wallow in Mars' shit. Bobbie Draper doesn't wallow, she fucking acts."
"Everyone needs a good wallow at some point in their lives."
"Not when there's a goddamn alien ring out there waiting to devour us all, and I had to send James fucking Holden out there with just his crew of idiots to keep a lid on it without her help. They'll all be dead by the end of their first week on Ilus, with their fucking luck."
To be fair: idiots, plus Naomi Nagata. And with their luck, everyone but them would be dead by the end of their first week on Ilus. Which may have been just another reason why she'd wanted Bobbie to go.
"Is that the job you offered her?"
"I tried, weeks ago. It's too late now."
"That may be for the best," Arjun says. He senses the way her voice was caught between frustration and a pout, and coaxes her back to the seat at the vanity. "The summit isn't over yet. You shouldn't waste the opportunity to have an in-person conversation before we leave."
"Because the last one went so well."
"An apology can do wonders."
Chrisjen scoffs and tosses her earrings onto the vanity. "She started this mess. She can apologize."
His hands rub her upper arms in a way that utterly fails to be soothing. She's too annoyed and disappointed to want to be soothed. "Holding out for the other person to apologize is a fantastic way to ruin something good."
He's right, of course. And he speaks from experience, as she well knows. It's not easy, being married to her.
But he was also right that both she and Bobbie are, perhaps, too similar. Both too stubborn for their own good. Chrisjen, though, is stubborn, and has a planet to run. If Bobbie someday wants to apologize for shutting her out over the past six months, she'll listen. But she's not about to put her people aside for the sake of one obstinate idiot who couldn't get over herself long enough to send an occasional goddamn message.
And then—Nancy Gao announces her run for Chrisjen's job, with the sole and explicit platform of opening up the Ring for exploration.
Bobbie still hasn't said a word to her.
Chrisjen throws herself into the election instead. Bobbie had sacrificed her career and the only life she'd ever known to keep them all safe from whatever protomolecule bullshit was lying dormant inside that thing, and Chrisjen had lost her because of the fallout. She's not going to let Nancy fucking Gao make that all end up having been for nothing.
"This won't be the hardest thing I've ever done," she tells Esai.
The cockiness fits better than anything else she's tried on in the months since the court martial. The shitty maintenance vac suit, not so much. But the hiss of the airlock welcomes her back like an old friend, and she's soon stepping out into the thin Martian atmosphere for the first time since before Ganymede.
Fuck, she'd missed this. She can't touch the soil from here, but the view is fucking incredible. She's never been this close to the little hints of vegetation that live at the base of the terraforming tower, where the hyperlocal conditions are just right to sustain it. Not without a thick window separating them. Mars' future is staring up at her, and for a moment, just for a moment, Bobbie feels the knot that's been in her chest since the Ring loosen its grip on her and let her breathe easy and free once more.
Then her suit beeps at her that it only has a few minutes of air left. Bobbie reluctantly turns instead to the ladder on the side of the tower and starts her climb.
The last time she had done something like this, she'd been in space, in her power armor, monkeying up the side of the Guanshiyin to bypass a different locked door. She'd nearly gotten burned alive in the ship's drive cone, but she'd made it. Had gotten to the airlock, and the Razorback inside, and had saved Chrisjen's life.
Nearly three years have passed since then, and she can't help where it really matters, anymore. Can't help save Mars, or Chrisjen, or her fellow marines. But here, at least, she can help this shitty group of criminals. Can take her life into her own hands and do the hard thing nobody else could even try, and get a taste, however brief, of who she used to be.
Which is fucking thrilling. Right up until the moment a guard catches her and locks her out. She sucks down the last dregs of oxygen in her tank as he calls for backup, and as her vision fades Bobbie thinks that this isn't the blaze of glory she'd always figured she would go down in. These aren't the people she thought she'd go down to save.
She regains consciousness, a few minutes later, on the grated floor of the corridor outside the airlock. The guard is tied up. Esai is staring down at her in concern. He calls her hero—a little mocking, a little fond. She wonders what Chrisjen would have thought, if he had left her here to die and the newsfeeds had gotten hold of the story.
But she's alive, and her relief is mostly for the fact that she would never have to find that out.
The very large number that appears in her bank account a few days later is… almost enough to soothe over the thoughts about what Chrisjen would say, if she knew what her life has become.
Almost.
"Come to Europa with me," Thomas says, and Bobbie is struck with the realization that he'd thought this was something other than what it was.
Come to Europa with me—as though fucking ice mining was what either of them were built for.
Come to Europa with me—as though it would make the slightest difference for Mars' future.
Come to Europa with me—as though he's the first person who'd thought they could fucking save her.
She doesn't get saved. She does the saving.
But what saving is there to do when Mars is dying, and the death blow hadn't come from an enemy she's been trained to fight?
Come to Europa with me, he says, as though she hadn't already won the affection of the most magnificent woman in the galaxy, and thrown it all away because of her pride.
Come to Europa with me. As though anyone else could ever measure up.
Come to Europa with me. As though Bobbie would even want anyone to try.
They fight.
He leaves.
She throws a bottle against the wall, like it would make herself feel better about fucking everything up so thoroughly.
It doesn't.
Neither do the tears that—months too late—she finally allows herself to shed.
"I think we need each other," Bobbie says.
Finally reaches out, when there are no strings left for Chrisjen to pull.
It's been six months since they'd last spoken. In that time, Chrisjen had run the first election campaign of her life, had fought tooth and nail to protect humanity from the short-sighted fools who would put them all at risk for the sake of what riches might lie beyond the Ring. Had fought with Arjun at her side, until she'd gone too far for him to accept. Had lost, not only the election, but also the man she'd loved and relied on for the past forty years.
"I think we need each other," Bobbie says, before she even knows that Chrisjen is adrift. She couldn't have known about Arjun. She may have known about the election—but as she replays the message and something about the sounds in the background raise her suspicions, Chrisjen activates one of the newsfeeds from Mars and knows word of her defeat at the hands of Nancy Gao wouldn't have made a blip on that planet right now.
There's been an explosion in one of the domes. A bomb. Terrorism, they speculate. She plays Bobbie's message again, takes in her disheveled appearance as she speaks, hiding in a dark corner somewhere.
She'd been there, Chrisjen is certain of that. Whatever rot she'd been talking about had led to that explosion, and Bobbie had gotten herself wrapped up in it. Had probably done some heroics, tried to stop it, but Mars—and Chrisjen—had left her out on her own. And there's only so much that even Bobbie Draper could do by herself.
I think we need each other, said Bobbie's message, as a result. That was something she'd taken to heart, the last time she'd uncovered something rotten on Mars, and crossed the DMZ to answer Chrisjen's request for help.
Together, they'd stopped a war.
Six months of barely speaking to each other, another six split up and trying to move on, and now here they are, at the lowest fucking points of either of their lives.
Correlation doesn't equal causation, fine. But whatever Bobbie had uncovered clearly has system-wide implications. In the wake of losing the election, in the wake of losing Arjun, in the wake of Bobbie's dishonorable discharge and Mars crumbling down around her—if they were going to be at the lowest points of their lives, then they may as well have each other to commiserate with about it. And, if they were lucky, help each other exert some influence over whatever perilous game humanity was playing without them.
I think we need each other, Bobbie had said in her message. It was practical. Necessary. But Chrisjen finds she has just enough hope left to wonder if what Bobbie really meant was, I'm ready to talk.
She doesn't append an apology to the imagined meaning. It would be too self-serving, too self-indulgent, and she knows she owes Bobbie one just the same.
But she arranges transport for Bobbie to come to Luna in a week, and sends the details pending acceptance as a reply to her message. The confirmation comes a short fifteen minutes later, only a little longer than the light delay between them.
She smiles.
It's a start.
"What the fuck is his problem?" Bobbie asks, on her third go-round of cursing Arjun, and offering to go down the well to yell at him for Chrisjen's sake.
It's been a recurring theme, Bobbie's anger.
At Chrisjen, of course, in between their awkward public reunion on the Lunar docks, and the moment—back in Chrisjen's living room—when they'd decided to stop arguing in circles and instead reconnect in the best way they knew how. There's no denying the efficacy of a few orgasms in getting them both to admit their respective failings and offer overdue apologies.
In bed together afterward—bruised, sticky, sweaty, and tangled together the way they always should have been—Bobbie had started talking, and didn't stop. All the things she hadn't been able to bring herself to say, before the state dinner on Mars, and all the things that had happened since. A year of her life that Chrisjen had largely missed, and Bobbie was so angry with herself, for all of it. For pushing Chrisjen away, for losing herself after her court martial. For falling in with a group of criminals, for how easily she'd come to enjoy the work. Angry, too, at Esai—the man who had blackmailed her into it in the first place—for trusting in a job that was too good not to be a trap, and getting himself killed because of it.
A job which had led Bobbie to the destruction of the dome. It was heartening that Bobbie could at least laugh at Chrisjen's smug, if worried, vindication for having been right about the details of her involvement. Though Bobbie's amusement had quickly been replaced by anger again—not at Chrisjen, or herself, but at Mars. For betraying her and everyone like her who had sacrificed years of their lives for the dream of Mars, only for half of them to get shipped off to the unemployment office while the highest echelons cashed in on the black market, selling Mars' past right alongside its future.
The picture Bobbie had painted hadn't yet become clear in Chrisjen's mind, but she sure as shit didn't like the shape of it. The one benefit to the whole mess, from what she could see, was that Bobbie had no longer been left wondering if she wasn't good enough for Mars. What she had uncovered had shaken her faith in her planet—but it had left her with a renewed sense of purpose, and had told her, whether consciously acknowledged or not, that it was Mars which wasn't good enough for her anymore.
She wouldn't be content to let it die its slow death though. Just as Chrisjen wasn't one to sit back and keep her nose out of the government's business now that she'd lost the election, neither would Bobbie accept that there was nothing she could do to get Mars back on track, and fight for that dream. Which were two goals that meshed together quite nicely in a way that Arjun would have waxed poetic about, if he would just fucking talk to her.
So, they had made a plan for how to proceed. Chrisjen would be the bank, and work her best to make sense of the pieces Bobbie filled in with the contacts she would seek out. Chrisjen would try not to feel guilty about sending Bobbie into danger, Bobbie would try not to get herself killed. They would both keep in regular contact, regardless of whether they had anything to report. They would be fucking honest with each other—and if anything the other did bred resentment, they would meet on Luna to talk it out in person if at all possible, or on a fucking transport ship, if necessary.
They would start again. And this time, it would be with the explicit acknowledgment that this was a serious goddamn romantic relationship, no dancing around it, and they had fucking better treat it like one.
Bobbie had been concerned that Chrisjen would think she was second choice to Mars, if this reconciliation only had only come after she'd had enough of Mars' shit. Which had been a ridiculous thing to be concerned about; Chrisjen knew she was. They'd known each other for all of three years, while Bobbie had been a good Martian all her life. Of course she'd needed to come to terms with her new relationship to Mars before she could do the same with her relationship to Chrisjen. It didn't excuse the way she'd gone about it, but considering the fact that they both knew Earth would always have to come first to Chrisjen, she saw no need to belabor the point any more than they already had.
"But I suppose I understand your concern," Chrisjen had said after explaining as much. "I hope you don't think that I'm only willing to try this again because Arjun left and I'm feeling lonely and fucking sorry for myself."
Which had naturally led to Bobbie asking what the fuck she was talking about, which led to Chrisjen finally explaining how, exactly, she had come to lose the election and why she'd fought so hard.
Which, in turn, has now led to—
"Of fucking course you did everything you could to win," Bobbie continues berating Arjun in absentia. "You were right to do everything you could. We don't have any business fucking around with those gates after what we've seen. This shit almost got you killed, and he's upset you played a little dirty? You're a fucking politician, what did he expect?"
Her anger at Arjun for abandoning Chrisjen for being the ruthless politician she's always been—it's attractive, if not a little transparently misplaced. Chrisjen holds her peace about the hypocrisy of Bobbie's indignance, considering what had gotten her so upset about her speech at the dinner on Mars. They'd already talked and argued and apologized and fucked through it, but it's still too fresh and raw and delicate to bring up again so soon.
Instead, she reaches a hand out toward her from the bed. "Bobbie," Chrisjen says, at once an invitation and a supplication, a particular tone that she had long ago learned was guaranteed to get her attention. It has the desired effect; Bobbie stops in her tracks, and her eyes go soft at the sight of Chrisjen still naked and ruffled, just the way she'd left her. Her strength and ferocity were what had drawn Chrisjen to her, but this—the tender look she gets when she remembers that she has Chrisjen's favor, that she's lucky enough to get to see her like this, see her and touch her and hold her like this—this is what had always left her breathless.
Her own expression is much the same right now, she knows.
"I appreciate your continued dedication to the cause of my happiness," Chrisjen says with a wry smile. Bobbie steps closer and takes her hand in both of hers, though she doesn't join her on the bed just yet. "But I only have you for another two days, and we've already wasted enough time, don't you think? Hush," she interrupts when Bobbie frowns and opens her mouth like she's going to get upset with herself again. She pulls back on the hand still solidly held in Bobbie's grasp, which in the diminished gravity has enough force to make Bobbie all but fall into her lap. "We were both stubborn assholes. Now I get to be a stubborn asshole about forgiving you. So: you're forgiven. Suck it up and deal with it."
She looks up at Bobbie, daring her to contradict her. On her knees before her, Bobbie stares back, the corners of her eyes crinkled and her mouth starting to curl. "Yes, ma'am," she says at length. "But only if you do the same."
"Please," Chrisjen sniffs. "I'm great at forgiving myself."
"I thought you were better at lying than that."
"I thought I told you to hush."
"You're the one starting us off with a big fat lie," Bobbie says, that little shit. "I thought we were supposed to be honest with each other from now on."
"Motherfucker."
Bobbie looks down between them, at their bare skin and the marks they'd both left behind. "Obviously. But not the point."
Chrisjen rolls her eyes. "Jesus Christ, fine, we'll both just have to suck it up and deal with the fact that we've forgiven each other."
"Even when we can't forgive ourselves," Bobbie adds, a little darkly. Then she blinks it away and gets that mischievous smile that Chrisjen knows is going to lead to something she should kick her out of bed for. "Here's my question though. Would you have forgiven me if I'd made a joke about what I really want to suck right about now?"
Chrisjen purses her lips. "Not a fucking chance."
But the humor and delight in Bobbie's eyes is too precious not to reward, after so long without so much as a glimpse of it. Chrisjen leans up to kiss her, Bobbie meets her halfway, and before long they tumble to the side in each other's arms.
It's less tentative than that first kiss over Io had been. Their positions are reversed, their hands wander freely, and there is laughter, even if it is mostly the release of a year's worth of angst. But despite the differences, it feels like a beginning just the same.
She and Arjun have lived a lifetime together, and have gotten through worse than a lost election. They would have time to work things out, once Bobbie returned to Mars and Chrisjen settled into whatever bullshit posting Nancy Gao has planned for her. Forty years together engendered a lot of leeway, a lot of faith that whatever bumps they came across, they were nothing in the grand scheme of things.
She and Bobbie—it's only been three years. But they know and trust each other in a way nobody else in their lives could, or would, by simple grace of the mess they'd gone through when they met. Thanks to Project Caliban, together they had grown into new versions of themselves, with shared priorities and a shared understanding of the new reality humanity had found itself in. Thanks to the Ring, they had both fallen in the eyes of their people, and had both been soundly rejected by those they had dedicated their lives to serving.
And now, thanks to the mystery Bobbie had uncovered, they would both move forward into whatever their lives would become. Together.
"You are snapping at nothing," Alex says. Which is exactly what someone who hasn't been living on Mars since the opening of the Ring would say.
So she shows him. Shows him her storage bunker, shows him the arsenal that she's bought on the black market, and the web of dirty officers who've supplied it all. He can't believe it. Hasn't been back on Mars long enough to see the writing on the wall himself. It must be nice, to still have that kind of optimism about Mars' future, that kind of faith in Mars' integrity.
She wishes she did. She wants nothing more than to have her faith in Mars restored, and there had been a time, a few months ago, when she had felt a kind of optimism. In the wake of the destruction of the dome, reunited with Chrisjen on Luna, making their plan to expose the rot in the Martian military. If they could just gather enough evidence, find the few members of the brass who were letting it all slide, then maybe she could help save Mars from itself, and from the slow death brought on by the Ring too.
But since then, the more she'd uncovered, the worse it looked. The corruption just kept getting more widespread, and reached higher and higher levels of the military that had once been inconceivable. The weaponry filling her bunker was nothing compared to what she knew was being moved, which, considering how much she'd spent for it all, was at once terrifying and demoralizing. And with each question asked of a supplier, no matter how carefully worded and cautiously delivered, she'd lost source after source.
She'd been eating up Chrisjen's money for little return, and all she had was a bunker full of weapons and countless burned leads. The only good thing she had going for her was her renewed relationship with Chrisjen, but even those messages had been tinged with desperation and failure lately. Chrisjen wasn't faring much better, she knew; Arjun still wasn't speaking with her, and Nancy fucking Gao had put her to work helping colony ships through the Ring. They made an effort for each other, though, and seeing Chrisjen's smile when she said her name was sure as shit better than not having Chrisjen in her life. Even if it was just in a recorded message; there was only so often she could go to Luna to meet with her while poking around in so many corners of the black market, and not risk bringing the wrong kind of attention on herself. Or on Chrisjen.
So yeah, she's been in a shitty mood lately.
Which just makes it all the more satisfying when her white whale sends goons after Alex for asking around at the war college, and Bobbie gets to beat them up.
Then it turns out Alex has a big, tantalizing new lead called the Barkeith. Even better. She gets to pack up the Goliath she'd bought with Chrisjen's money and ship out with Alex on the racing pinnace Chrisjen had put in her name after Io, and chase down whatever information she can get for Chrisjen to piece together.
When they watch three MCRN ships head for a convenient hiding spot in the Belt, neither of them can understand what they're seeing. Bobbie recognizes Alex's denial about it all, the familiar anger brewing in his voice. She tells him as much, tells him—maybe not in so many words—how hollow she'd been left to feel, watching Mars die around her. At least out here, bearing witness in the Razorback, they're doing something about it. What they're seeing means something. Even if they don't know what it is, Chrisjen will.
Then—rocks hit Earth. Martian parliament gets bombed. Marco Inaros introduces himself to the system. The Barkeith makes a rendezvous with some Belter ships, and two Martian frigates leave with them.
And Bobbie realizes that what she'd uncovered isn't just black marketeers profiting off Mars' death throes.
It's a fucking war.
"I love and adore you."
There's more that Chrisjen says, in her private message to Bobbie after the one thanking her and Alex for the ship profiles they'd gathered. Not that there is any privacy to be had; Naomi is on one of those ships out there, and there's no leaving the cockpit when they've got to keep following them all. And it wasn't as though he didn't know about her thing with Chrisjen—nobody who'd been on the Rocinante on the way to Io could have missed it. So when the message had come in, Alex had agreed to pretend he couldn't hear, and Bobbie had only felt a little self-conscious when she'd pressed play.
But this? Fuck, she hadn't been prepared for this. In the midst of a fucking cataclysm, chasing down the people responsible in a defenseless ship in the hopes that Chrisjen could make use of the data they gathered even while she was scrambling on Luna doing whatever she could to help her people survive—hearing those words, Bobbie can't remember anything else Chrisjen might have said. There's a heaviness in her chest and a blur in her vision and it takes her too long to realize that it's not because of the Razorback's hard burn.
She's fucking weeping, and Alex, bless him, is tactfully tapping away at his display like nothing overly emotional and world-shattering is happening behind him at all. Like Bobbie isn't experiencing a kind of catharsis she hadn't known existed, for people like her. Like the sheer fucking relief she feels, hearing those few words, isn't entirely out of proportion and out of place considering the situation they're all in and who the fuck is she kidding, she needs to hear Chrisjen's voice again—
"Bobbie," Chrisjen says, when she starts the message over. Her face is a blur; Bobbie wipes at her eyes and tries to blink it away, even as she aches to take in every detail of her face as she speaks. She looks… tired. Run down. Not for the first time, Bobbie wonders where Arjun and Ashanti had been, when the rocks had struck. Chrisjen makes no mention of it, instead relating that she's been drafted into the acting Secretary-General's cabinet, and that they'd been able to retask the watchtower satellites to help destroy any further rocks—thanks to the scattered pieces of the puzzle she'd been able to put together at least in part due to everything Bobbie had been doing.
Chrisjen pauses. Bobbie's breath hitches and her body tenses. It, at least, remembers where the build-up to her emotional devastation had begun, even if Bobbie's brain had been thrown off kilter.
"I can't begin to imagine how much it must hurt to see Mars betray everyone like this," Chrisjen says, of the ships they'd seen get handed off to the Free Navy. "They've never fucking deserved your patriotism and loyalty, but they've always had it. It's been goddamn annoying, sometimes, but I respect it. It speaks well of you as a soldier and as a person. There's no one I trust more to help me put a stop to this madness. And I know we'd agreed that we should try to talk in person about things that affected our relationship, but Jesus fucking Christ, Bobbie, we've wasted so much time already and now we're at fucking war."
Her voice catches in her throat. Bobbie wipes at her eyes again, in time with Chrisjen doing the same on the display in front of her.
"So," Chrisjen says. Back straight, throat cleared, eyes locked onto Bobbie's even from twenty minutes in the past. "No more fucking around. I love and adore you, and I can't wait for you to be where I can keep you safe. Be careful. I need you to not get yourself killed out there."
Even knowing what's coming, it's no less devastating the second time around.
She'd spent months working with the same sort of black marketeers who'd made this war possible instead of doing what she'd been born to do. And rather than judging her, or making her feel worse than she already does about herself—rather than holding it against her that Bobbie had fucked up their relationship because of her misplaced loyalty to Mars, as she would be wholly justified in doing—Chrisjen had instead told her that she's the most patriotic and loyal person she knows. Had told her that she loves her. Not in spite of it, but because of it.
Fuck.
Everything had gone to shit around them. Bobbie had lost the marines, Chrisjen had lost her power; and now the Mars she had once known has been exposed for a lie, and Chrisjen has lost untold millions of the people she's worked her life to protect. Maybe even including her husband, who she hadn't spoken with since the election. And for a moment—just for one nasty emotionally spiraling moment that Bobbie will never speak of to anyone—she wonders if Chrisjen had meant it, or if she had just been reeling from the bombardment and reaching out to the one person she knew she still had.
But no. Chrisjen doesn't say things she doesn't mean. Or, well—she's a politician, she says things she doesn't mean all the time. But not things like this. Not things that would wreck Bobbie if she hadn't truly meant them. And she'd known, really. She thinks they both had. But after their year of separation, saying as much when they'd been on Luna together working things out would have been too far too soon. They'd both been too raw to take so big a leap, things between them too tentative and delicate to throw that big a bomb into, even if it was true.
But knowing—hearing, at last, in her own voice, that she has the love of someone like Chrisjen Avasarala…
Well. It's sure as shit a nice purgative for the past year or two of self-loathing.
At length, she gathers herself enough to become aware of the awkward silence coming from the rest of the cockpit. Alex had run out of things to studiously pretend to do, and had instead moved on to making himself as small and immobile as he could, in hopes Bobbie wouldn't kill him for overhearing.
Nice, but unnecessary. Chrisjen had told her she loves her. She would broadcast it on widebeam to the whole fucking system, if it wouldn't give their position away.
"You can unclench now. I'm good," Bobbie tells him. She has to clear something out of her throat first, but still. It's the truth.
He slowly unfolds in his seat, shaking out his arms. He's silent for a beat, then can't resist any longer. "Was that, uh…?"
Bobbie can still hear the words in her head. Soft and melodious, even in Chrisjen's throaty timbre. "Yeah."
"Huh." He sounds confused—whether about the fact they'd never said it before, after all this time, or about the fact of their relationship at all. But Bobbie knows the wonder in her voice had been plain to hear, and all it would take is one quick glance in the cockpit mirror to see the stupid smile on her face. Accordingly, he gives his beard a scratch and tips his head to the side, just visible at the edge of his crash couch. "Least one good thing came out of this mess. You sure you ain't got a reply you wanna send?"
She probably should, she knows. Chrisjen had said it at least in part due to the concern that Bobbie would get herself killed out here, and that was without even knowing about the Free Navy ship they'd taken out with just her outdated black market power armor and a small bomb. They're still tracking the fleet, so the possibility of death still looms large. She certainly understands the desire to make sure Chrisjen knows she's loved in return, lest something go wrong.
But she can't bring herself to say it for the first time in a message that she'll surely have to try several times to get out. Not with Alex right there, no matter how sincerely he would promise to plug his ears. Not with Naomi in need of their help, and their full concentration.
"I'll tell her in person," Bobbie says. It's a promise, and god help the motherfucker who tries to make her break it.
She has a crew to fight for, and a woman she loves to fight to get home to. And as it turns out, that's all she'd ever needed to feel like herself again.
Bobbie doesn't say it.
Not at first. Not when they reunite on Luna, in the narrow two minute window Chrisjen forced into her schedule so she could meet Bobbie at the docks when the Rocinante arrived. Their embrace is all they need. There's too many people around anyway.
Rhodes looks apologetic when he shepherds them away from each other, but needs must. She wrangles clearance for Bobbie to head to her rooms in the government sector, and arranges new clothes to replace the ones she hadn't had time to pack before going on her pursuit of the Martian traitors. Chrisjen makes a few more orders here and there, yells at the Martian ambassador some more, and a few hours later, Bobbie is officially her liaison. They'll figure out what the fuck that really means later.
Bobbie still doesn't say it. Not in the middle of a UN reception room surrounded by government and military officials. Chrisjen thinks—just for a moment—that she's about to, though. When she hears the familiar ma'am from behind her, and sees the hesitance in Bobbie's face as she steps a little closer to her.
What Bobbie says instead is—
"Ma'am, I heard about your husband. I am truly sorry."
The grief would swallow her, if she let it. For Arjun, for the millions dead on Earth, for the millions more dying of cold and starvation while they dithered up here about how to fight a war. Bobbie looks at her like she's had the time in Chrisjen's living space to see the mess she's made of it, in her disgrace and Arjun's absence. Like she's asking what her place is in Chrisjen's life now, with so many deep wells of grief between them. Whether her grief for Arjun is too large to leave room to love her, too.
What can she say but the truth? Arjun had always liked her, even when Chrisjen had been too stubborn to admit it herself.
"He would have been happy to know that you were at my side." She manages a bittersweet smile, and adds, "I am sorry for your loss as well."
Bobbie gives her an awkward little smile in thanks. Averts her eyes, and looks hesitant about something again. Chrisjen is helpless but to reach out to her. She touches her arm, and instead of saying what they really need to say, in this moment, in this room, Chrisjen introduces her to the military officers she'd been talking to. Neither of them can hide their pleasure when they call Bobbie 'sergeant.'
Bobbie hovers behind her shoulder for the rest of the reception. Protective, supportive, or simply reluctant to part from her; all three, she imagines. Then they learn an entire Martian fleet has fucked off through the Ring, their ships and their support bought and paid for by Marco Inaros giving them the protomolecule. Bobbie's new job starts with the realization that damn near a third of Mars' military were not just profiteers, but deserters, traitors, collaborators, responsible for destroying two UNN dreadnoughts guarding the Ring on their way through.
So, Bobbie still doesn't say it. There isn't much room for personal conversation, in the sit room.
It's countless hours and silently exchanged glances and stolen touches amongst the brass later when Bobbie does say it. When they're both exhausted, physically and emotionally, and have finally conceded that there's nothing left for them to do until some ships get into position. After they've collapsed into bed together without even bothering to undress, and woken up a few hours later still tangled in each other's arms.
"You should get off Luna," Bobbie murmurs, nearly into her ear with how close they are. "Pick a flagship and some escorts, and make the seat of government mobile. It's not really safe, here. If he's got even one more stealth-coated rock…"
She's not wrong. A ship is a hell of a lot smaller target than Earth, or even Luna. The joint chiefs were probably already making a plan to that effect.
"You just want to get back to the good old days," Chrisjen nonetheless teases, low and heavy with sleep. Before genocidal Belters and mysterious fucking Ring builders, when all they'd had to worry about were a few protomolecule hybrids, a single avaricious businessman, and a handful of others desperate to outbid each other for his experiments. When they'd shared a cabin on a warship, and whispered secrets in the dark.
"I love you," Bobbie says at last. A bit of a non sequitur, but not really, not in the context of everything they've been through. And not a whisper. But instead something final, resolute. Something she's proud of, and secure enough of to share it openly. "And you're the one who pretty much made loving you my official job, so I don't think you get to throw stones about having ulterior motives, here."
Chrisjen laughs then, fully and freely, for the first time since before the rocks had fallen. She buries her face against Bobbie's chest and relishes the sensation of her strength pulling her close. It morphs, perhaps inevitably, into a cathartic little cry, at feeling her here, alive, in her arms, solid and real and with a promise to fight at her side through whatever may come.
Bobbie presses a kiss to her hair. "I'm sorry it took me so long."
She pulls back just enough to tilt her head up and get lost in Bobbie's eyes for a moment. "You got there before I did, whether you knew it or not." Chrisjen's speech at the state dinner wouldn't have hurt her so much, otherwise. "I just had the luxury of not having an existential crisis every time I considered the possibility of loving you."
"Aside from the century-long age gap, you mean."
"Fuck you, you'd be lucky to have me if I had both feet in the fucking grave."
"I know," Bobbie says, laughing and pulling her back toward her after Chrisjen's indignant shove to her chest had pushed her away, under the low Lunar gravity. "I know," she says again, "but can we try to postpone that day for as long as we can?"
Bobbie's sincerity is as infectious as her laughter; both are tangible things in Chrisjen's chest as she drinks her in. Her Martian warrior, fierce and protective, tender and playful, hotblooded and resolute and absolute shit at basic emotional competence—but working on it. Breathtaking, in every respect. It's a testament to her skill that she hadn't died out there on the Razorback, now that Chrisjen knows what she'd been up against. It's a miracle that they'd been able to come back together, after the fallout from her court martial. It's a fucking gift that they had met at all.
They're not going to squander it anymore.
"Let's go win this war, Bobbie." She leans in and presses a soft kiss to her lips. "Then we can talk about how long we're going to be stuck with each other."