Tight Rope (Squee)

Her attention jarred, realizing she’d been thinking of something else while her eyes glanced over the words. Quickly, she consorted her story, flipping back pages until she reached a part she truly remembered. Three pages back. With a sigh, Echo scooted the electronic device away from her. Her head fell onto the table. Hard. Arms flopped on top of her head. She’d been getting tired of reading anyway.

So, for a long moment, she paused and listened. Nothing but quiet. Rolling onto her cheek, Echo exposed one eye, circling it around the room. Nobody but her. November had left a little while ago to do… to do something. Echo didn’t recall. She hadn’t been paying attention. There was one foggy memory that she had raised a hand to the departing woman, but nothing further. Nothing.

Nothing.

An odd concept.

She’d heard it used several times as an action or a subject or a description. People would say they’d be doing nothing as an excuse. Generally to hide something from someone without coming up with anything better. Always subject to suspicion. Space was called a nothing. Was it really? There were stars and planets and moons floating out in the nothing. Devoid nothing, but it couldn’t be. “Sweet nothings” was something she’d read in one of her novels, meaning something unimportant and unworthy of remembering. Each time, nothing was something. So what was nothing? Nothing was nothing? Now that didn’t make any sense…

Echo snorted and decided to stop thinking. Her arms slipped off and lay on the table. Echo closed her eyes and simply breathed. Slowly, her hands whispered over the table’s surface, noticing the imperfection of its dents and little scratches. Without knowing, she smiled. She liked the table top. Her feet slid off the seat and rubbed them over the textured floor. The floors shallow bumps and ridges were purposely put there. Designed to forbid a slip while expertly constructed to be dependable, to be part of the whole ship. This table was similar to the floor. It had been made to be a dependable eating surface. Yet, the longer it remained a table, the more it bore the scars of scraping utensils and dents of heavy objects once finding a place to rest. Echo’s fingers gripped the edges of the tables and rocked it gently. Wobbling. It certainly wasn’t top notch any longer, but it still remained reliable.

Affectionately, Echo patted the table before standing. She could count on her datapad to be there when she returned. Her feet shuffled over the floor as she went to the wall. Experimentally, her palm pressed to it, and then she moved it up and down. Created to be durable. To protect her from the deadly atmosphere of space. The redhead turned and fell back against it, lifting her hands and running her knuckles against it. It would catch and support her if she needed something to lean on.

The smile was still on Echo’s face as she slid down the wall. Her head back against it, and the uplifted hair falling on her face. As soon as she reached full crouch, she sprung back up and darted down the hallway, yet she tried to keep as much contact with the floor as possible. Echo pulled up short at the armory, pressed in the code, and entered. Her gaze seized on the subject of her visit. She picked up her pistol, checked it was unloaded, and double checked her safety was on.

Here was a finicky creature. Her fingers roamed its form, feeling its unique design, and again closed her eyes with that smile on her face. Here was something that needed to be cared for and required special attention. It was dependable as long as she treated it nicely. The moment she neglected it, the moment this friend of hers could turn on her. It would refuse to cooperate. Refuse to be her protection. Refuse to be her support. She needed this pistol to work when she needed it to most. Or else she could be cast off to flounder. What joy was there in floundering? Especially when floundering could lead to hurt or death?

Looking up, Echo stared at Delta’s rifle. His friend. She would never want to be in its path. He cared deeply for this friend of his. Once the triggered was pulled, there was no way to stop its devastating fury. It was fast. Far too fast to counteract, to consider, “whoops, I made a mistake”. Once the bullet was shot, it could not be stopped until it achieved its purpose of vengeance. That bullet had not been unleashed without reason, because Delta never attacked without reason.

Echo returned her pistol to its rightful sleeping place. As she turned to leave, her peripherals caught sight of something else important. Delta’s armor. An object symbolizing protection. Except, it wasn’t like a ship that housed many inhabitants, but it sheltered only one. A hard outside shell to protect the squishy, fleshy, vital parts that go inside of it. Echo had approached it and was touching it. It kept him safe from dangers unexpected and expected, but only him. But even armor could crack, or a bullet could get through, and the shell was then useless. The soft parts within got hurt.

Echo’s hand paused at the chest armor’s center. Her smile was gone. Carefully, she drew her hand back to herself, stepping backward away from the armor. Then she turned and fled the armory and returned to the kitchen.

Her datapad still sat on the imperfect table. Ignoring it, Echo faced the countertops, quickly making her mind up to make something to eat. After contemplating what ingredients she had at her disposal, she set her mind on preparing a halfway decent and hot meal. Once she’d cooked it, Echo split the contents in two. She shoved two bottles of mineral water in her cargo trousers and took up the two plates and silverware.

Walking through the halls, she was smiling again, until she saw a section of the wall. A large crater disproportionate from the rest of the ever smooth wall. Echo halted and stared at it. The crater Delta had made before landing on Ylesia to find her. Her support was imperfect! It was a story of failed control and reckless abandonment. With a shiver, the mental picture of her hand over the heart of Delta’s armor popped up and disappeared. Echo continued down the hall a short ways, stopping this time in front of Delta’s door.

Using the utensils as a tool, she managed to press the button to activate the door to open. “Hey,” she said lightheartedly, her smile back. “Knock, knock. I, uh… well, here’s food.” Echo shuffled forward into the room and offered him one of the plates.

So Delta mulled in these thoughts, pondering all of the things he'd felt since his brain went crazy. He missed the calm, the serenity, of Green Meadows. How he could do something without any of those nasty feelings in his brain. His blue eyes peered down into his folded hands, not seeing the fleshy organs but rather the memories of what he'd done.

The soft hiss of the pnuematic mechanisms opening the door cast him out of the small reverie, and shot his eyes upwards to meet the source of the noise. It was Echo, bearing a small smile and a few trays of food. Something pulled his lips thin at the mere sight of her, and a small amount of warmth kindled within his heart. It wasn't the fires of rage and retribution, at least it didn't feel like it, the feeling was... pleasant. Yet it wasn't. That warmth quickened the beats of his heart, and almost made his eyes misty.

"Hey, Echo..." he stopped to eyed the food, and to let his stomach grumble, "good. I haven't eaten since... well... before Commenor." The man stood and brushed aside his knife and sharpening equipment, amongst a few other things, so that she could set the trays down. It was all he could do not to snatch one of those trays from her hand and devour it whole. He had no doubt in his ability to do so, either.

"So... umm... what brings you here?" he couldn't help but feel like anything done wrong, out of protocol, would result in the end of his life. It was a hard thing to explain, nervousness. "Not that it matters...," he quickly clarified, a light blush on his face.

“Before Commenor?” Echo questioned as her brow wrinkled. The drugs back on Ylesia had dulled and blurred some memories. She couldn’t quite tell how much time had passed between her capture to the time the drugs waned off. Just reminding herself of those drugs brought back a deep, minute yearning that tugged at the very back of her mind. It hung around, brutally living day in and day out, since the time it had faded. The longing leeched to her heart, trying to make her desire, having those drugs again. That very desire whispered sweet nothings (HA!; there was that strange word ‘nothing’ again) to her mind, in an attempt to convince her to do perform to her heart’s content.

The dose of the considered “memory draining” drug, combined with the sedatives and yet another syringe full of another, unknown drug, it had wreaked havoc in her mind. To say straightly, she could recall something terrible happening to her (though she was unsure on the detail of any deed), and that Delta and November and something/someone else had liberated her. She did remember part of her capture, though the edges of the images were frayed and stitched with others. There was darkness and rage and characteristic stubbornness.

Now, Echo could remember previous to her capture, the frustrations she had that she was older than her last true memory. How there were gaps in her life. Gaps that she could not fill no matter how long or how hard she pondered. It carved a giant hole in everything that she knew and resonated a feeling, which she did not know was called, of despair. She was flawed in her mind without the chunks of memory.

Here she was again, flawed and troubled, by her unknowingness. Echo despised it. But, there was a cause this time, and it was those drugs. Those evil, horrid things, as she deemed them, were nothing but rapists of her memory. Echo wouldn’t willingly, much less forcibly, allow them into her body again.

It still nagged to spite her self-conviction. It perfectly defied her! So, for now, Echo could only keep the yipping dog at bay with her foot. And it nipped and barked and salivated on her foot, but with iron will, Echo kept her foot out there. One day she’d bring her foot back and kick it into some galaxy far, far away.

“Sounds like you need to eat more,” she finally finished. In reality, no more than a couple of seconds had passed. Echo made a quick eye-judgment of which plate had the greatest amount of food, and handed it to Delta with the silverware. Then she yanked out one of the bottles of mineral water and passed it to him as well. Promptly thereafter, she sat next to him, crossing her legs and balancing her plate in her lap. The expression of happiness, with that hinting smile, was still pressed to her face.

"So... umm... what brings you here?"

“You disappeared. Been quiet. Was bored.” Echo listed, a pause in between each phrase as she thought them up. She lifted a fork of food to her mouth. “Didn’t see you eat. Decided it would be… a nice thing to do.” Echo smiled again before it disappeared to chew. “Haven’t talked to you much since… well, you know… getting off my drug-induced state-of-mind. Just… wanted to talk.

“That’s what the people in some of my books say. ‘Just came to talk’. Or, ‘Let’s talk’. So… let’s talk. Are you okay with that?”

The big man only gave a light shrug in response to the fiery haired girl that sat beside him. "Eh. I eat when I'm hungry, Echo." In truth, despite his lack of eating, he hadn't been hungry since his companion was taken from him. His brow furrowed at the realization that her disappearance was the catalyst for his body's change in behavior. At first he assumed the sweltering heat of anger had overtaken it, but after some thought it was obvious that her disappearance was start of it all.

Not only that, but it was just then that he realized just how hungry he truly was. Those blue eyes flicked down towards the tray she'd brought, and soon after his mouth was tasting the mediocre cuisine that was starship food. It was the best he'd ever had. his eyes rose up to meet hers when she spoke again, and his face greeted her fleeting smile with one of his own. At first, at least, the man wasn't entirely sure what he should say in kind. So he thought about it while he chewed on some of his chow.

"It was. Thanks, Echo." No, no, that wouldn't do. he had to actually talk back, that's what she wanted. Not just respond with courtesies and thanks. So the man thought for a trice, and tried to pick something out of his experiences as a whole. After nothing came to mind, his mind simply shut down in yet another seemingly hopeless attempt to find some sort of question. Low and behold, after a second or two, one was presented to his mind's eye.

"So, have you... felt... any weird stuff since we got away from Green Meadows?" The question was fairly open ended, far more than he intended it to be, but the man found that the question itself was tougher to convey than he originally thought it would be. Of course he knew that she'd felt stuff: he'd felt things himself. And her emotions seemed to be far more volatile than his own, which was saying alot. Five minutes ago he was wallowing in a pool of self pity and loathing, and now he felt a flutter in his gut every time her eyes met with his. Delta more intended the question to be "what have you felt", just... in a more polite way.

It was also an indirect and unembarrassing way to ask if she felt the same thing he felt when she was close, or their eyes met. Not that he'd ever admit it.

“I think we’ve all kind of felt some weird stuff. I just find it amusing that saying you feel things is the only way of describing it. It’s not exactly like…” Echo looked around her suddenly. She then lifted her head and gazed at Delta. Impulsively (and obviously without much thought) she stretched her arm up and touched Delta’s cheek with her fingertips. “It’s not like me touching you now. And that’s… well, that can be confusing.”

In the time she held her fingers to his cheek, they began to burn. His skin was warm, yes, but it shouldn’t be burning her. It wasn’t the kind of burn like from a pan either. Rather… a good kind. Something of a thrill ran the length of her arm, too. All this was unexplainable to Echo, as much as the sudden, lovely twist of her stomach and the rise of her heart in her chest. It was fascinating. Yet at the same time, a cold claw wedged it way in her spine, startling her with realization of her doings. Her hand leapt back from his face. She hadn’t meant to!

Where’d that thought come from?

Echo turned her head downward, rubbing her hand on her knee as if to make the burning go away. She felt the sting in her cheeks and tilted her head enough to turn her hair into a shield. This way, she could hide her apparent awkwardness and embarrassment from Delta.

Then her mind questioned such doings. What was so terrible about having Delta see her embarrassment? Wasn’t he supposed to be her friend? Friends in the stories always confided in each other, let them see their tears and aching blushes. Why then, if Delta was a considered friend, did she look away now and cover her face and refuse to let him look her in the eye? She thought she was extremely out of place, here, in this room sitting beside Delta. Almost like she was intruding on forbidden ground and had been caught. Now Echo was ashamed of her actions, because she believed she had trespassed.

“Even November seems a little strange.” Echo struggled to maintain a steady voice. As soon as she thought she might stop blushing, her thoughts circled back to touching Delta’s cheek for under a second, and the redness returned instantly. “From time to time. She’s nearly fainted on occasions. I think whatever kept us from experiencing bizarre things is still functioning in November.”

Echo stopped rubbing her knee at the same time she finished speaking. The silence, though it hardly settled for more than a moment, pressed upon Echo. This discussion of feeling things kept renewing what she’d felt when she’d touched Delta’s cheek. The warmness and tenseness of the blush was beginning to hurt her cheeks. Another subject had to be talked about.

“Have you, mm, learned anything? Like what your real name is since our known names were an alphabet? Did I ever tell you what mine was?” Echo, trying to relax her facial features, looked up again at Delta and tried to ignore the nagging little voice attempting to remind her of her recent deed. “Cuz I met my mother and other people on Ylesia. It’s one of the few things not melted together in my memory. I was called Serenity while I was there. Learned some other things too but, mm, you talk next.”

Delta blinked down at Echo. It wasn't a blink of incredulity, astonishment, or confusion. Much confusion. It was a confused blink to accompany the look, but it was also one of embarrassment and shame. The heat that his fiery headed friend felt in the tips of her fingers seemed to transfer to his cheeks, as each began to burn to the point where even his ears stung a little.

Not knowing why only made the feeling worse, though. Even after she pulled away and hid her face. Why did her touch make his face sting like that? It made no sense. Yet, at the same time, Delta liked the feel of her fingers on his cheek and the way her eyes looked when she did it. His hand moved up to cover half of his cheek and the bottom part of his jaw, a vain attempt to shield his cheeks from her gaze and not make it look like he was trying to do so, before he realized that she had turned away.

He still covered his cheek, of course. Until she moved her head just enough to see him. Then his hand was practically thrown down beside him. Which didn't make much sense to him, as its purpose there was to cover up his cheeks from her. Though thinking about it that deeply quickly renewed the whole situation within the man's mind and made the blush worse. Soon after that his view on the world seemed to back away, but he stayed in the same spot. Almost as if he was a first person observer of his own actions. "N-no, I haven't found out what my name was, and... no... you didn't..." he heard himself answer her in an uneven tone.

And shortly after that it was his turn to talk. Normally he would have been intrigued by her mother, her name, and where she came from... but he was far too busy thinking about how dumb he must look. His cheeks were almost pure scarlet and his voice from before was the uneven it'd ever been. "Umm.." that Force awful sound seemed to go on for eternity before he silenced it, and actually began to think on what to say. Or try. His next words were poorly chosen and hardly thought upon, but his mind instantly latched onto a subject the second it found one, "w-would going back to green meadows be better, Echo?"

He cringed at himself and watched his head turn towards her. that was the wrong thing to say and he knew it. He was tired of all this crap, especially this awkward stuff that made his stomach twist and the beat of his heart quicken and slow at the same time. "Or... maybe not...," he attempted at a clumsy save.

A few moments passed before, much to his chagrin, he saw his hand move towards her face. The fingers attached gently brushed the hair away and tucked it behind her ear while the thumb drifted across her cheek.

In that moment Delta decided that he would kill whatever took control of its body. Were it possible to kill instincts and impulses.

“Go back to Green Meadows?’ Echo repeated, almost immediately snapped out of her embarrassment. She sat upright. “Why? What’s at Green Meadows that’s not here?” Her head and eyes had turned to face him, this time not showing any nervous energy and she remained focused on his scarlet face. That was a funny color to see on him.

She had asked the question too quickly and too rashly. As soon as it was out of her mouth, Echo knew some examples. Her suddenly stiff posture curved, and she slumped slightly as she named them, “Other than… well… an abundance in halfway decent food, and knowing what the heck we’re doing, and never having to worry about fuel… Not having to deal with such oddities…” Her eyes had slowly moved away from his face and they rested on the floor. Her lips pursed a little, but then she rubbed them and drew a sighed deeply. “Oddities that are… odd…

“But, Delta, what about not being able to remember? I find it strange that I expect to see a different face in the mirror almost every morning. And I don’t recall with I’ve gotten a couple of these scars like…” she twisted her arm over, and pointed to a pinked line down along her triceps and curve halfway around her elbow. “Like this one. Or the circular one I have on my outer thigh. This one…” she reached up and pulled down her tank top some to reveal the entirety of her scar, “This is the only one I really remember except the couple during training and the couple near my ribs. And this one…” she indicated the scar on her chest. “I keep expecting to be fresh each day.

“But it’s not, Delta. Doesn’t that bother you? To have dents or scars and other odd aches and don’t know where they’ve come from? How did they get there? I think Green Meadows had something to do with it, and I don’t want to… have… everything gone again.” Echo faltered here as she glanced back up to Delta. Her gaze leapt between his blue eyes and she sighed through her nose. Once again, her face turned downward.

“Though it’s a bit harder. We have to… feed ourselves now and we’re kind of short of food for three people on board the ship and we have to pay for our own fuel now… Meadows made that easier, but I don’t want to submit my knowledge for an easy meal, Delta. We got out for a reason—hm?” Echo stopped talking suddenly as she felt something against her face. It brushed softly against her cheek and pushed her hair from her face. She noticed Delta’s wrist when she’d turned her head. From his wrist, her stare leapt over to his face, and this time she couldn’t look away.

After a long moment, Echo reached her hands up, placing one on his wrist and wrapping the other around the back of his hand. Slowly and gently, she pulled it away from her face and lowered it down in between where they sat. While her expression wasn’t disgusted, and it leaned toward the passive side, Echo wasn’t sure how to react to his action, so it remained more neutral. As she set Delta’s hand down, hers lingered on his a bit longer than necessary. “Well… I, mm… so I learned something on Ylesia.”

Her heart fluttered at such at the thought she was having, which she found strange. Echo stirred, fueled by a nervous but emboldened energy. She uncrossed her legs and rearranged herself so she sat on her feet, legs folded under her. Her hands fell into her lap, and she didn’t look at Delta too much beyond sneaky glances because it made her heart pulse nervously, almost like a strange type of fear.

Control of his body was given back over to him as she retorted with a query, and answered her own question quickly thereafter. Delta continued to watch her in silence, observing her beautiful face as she spoke. In truth, the "oddities" that she spoke of did in fact bother him. He had gotten used to his look in the weeks since his escape, but he still couldn't get over how he'd aged so long in a single night. Had Green Meadows done something else to him? Aged him? Put them into a coma? He shook his head... no... he would remember them doing something to him, and that didn't explain the scars that seemed to pop up over night, either. It was almost as if someone had taken his body for a joy ride.

Then her hands wrapped around his wrist, the one that brushed away a stray lick of flame from her face, and tucked it behind her ear. Just as she couldn't break her gaze from his, he couldn't from hers. Even so, at first at least, a pang of hurt struck at his heart when she placed his hand between them... her own smaller ones lingering for a trice. “Well… I, mm… so I learned something on Ylesia.” "Echo..." he whispered in reply, almost apologizing for the touch. What was worse was that he didn't know why he felt like that. She didn't seem disgusted or repulsed, more neutral... but who was he to judge emotions? He thought that the men that shot him and took her were friendly enough... until they drew a gun.

Delta didn't continue as she shifted about to sit on her heels on the bed, and move her hands from his to rest on her lap. Why didn't she look at him? Her sneaky glances didn't seem to be anything bad, but rather... apprehensive? Again, he didn't know... and it frustrated him to no end. "What... umm..."

Silently and within his own mind, the man cursed himself for not acting. Which was odd, because he found that he had no idea what he should have done. "Well... she didn't leave when I brushed her hair away, and didn't look like she hated it..." he pondered as he observed her sidelong glances and her pretty face. Cautiously, he reached his hand out and gently moved her chin so that her face was facing his. Just then, he seemed to realize why he really didn't want to go to Green Meadows. Just then part of him realized that he spoke, but he had no words to continue and, "umm..." stumbled out as a result.

It wasn't to gain answers, lose the bad stuff he felt, or forget all the stuff that happened. All of that could burn in chaos for all he cared. He didn't want to go because of her, the pretty girl with grey eyes that seemed to swallow him up like a great void. He wanted to speak, but it seemed as if doing so would commit some barbarous kind of sacrilege. Yet he didn't know what to do, so he watched those grey eyes though his blue, not willing to speak and unable to move.

When his hand came up and took her chin, Echo flinched. Her shoulder curved inward, her chin dropped down and away in his hand, and her lungs emptied quickly. It seemed to her that her heart thudded once in dread and fell quiet. She hadn’t meant to. It was reactionary, remembering subconsciously the squeeze of a man’s hand as he turned her face to his. Her eyes briefly clenched shut, but they reopened by the time Delta had gently circulated her face toward him. When their eyes met Echo’s tense muscles relaxed and she unfurled, knowing there was a difference between Delta’s blue eyes and that one man’s dead charcoal stare.

Echo found the air again, letting loose a shaky breath through her nose. Only Delta. Not… not the creature that she recalled then and there. That was only a vague memory, too, something she knew only by the sudden touch. How odd… But Delta’s touch was definitely different than that of her memory. So she allowed her chin to rest heavily in his hand and she granted him the sight of her face, but that was probably because she was immobile.

Questions churned through her mind. Why? Why, why, why? She asked herself softly. And what was the significance? Where was the meaning? Why was it all important? … Why was she looking at these situations of tumbling and fumbling like she would analyze a book or a story?

“Y-you want to know?” Echo was embarrassed by the stutter, but there was such a surge of nervous energy flowing throughout her body. She was walking into a field of the unknown. She didn’t know which steps to exactly take. Like the missing blanks within the files of her memory, Echo was so very uncertain, so very frightened, because she was stepping on blanks. Each blank could and would reveal something to her, and maybe some of those blanks weren’t good things.

Slowly her hand came up and wrapped loosely around Delta’s arm. She applied gentle pressure, trying to direct his arm and hand away from her face. “It’s a secret, though, so I have to tell you quietly.” Echo’s knees shuffled, turning her toward Delta more and she leaned toward him. “You have to come closer.” Delta unfroze after a moment and came to her. Echo kept eye contact with him, except she started holding her breath. “Little closer.”

Suddenly, Echo’s lips drew back into a smile. She hadn’t the faintest clue as to why, because her fingers were in a twitchy mess while her toes curled in some sort of delight. “Ready? I learned…” quickly, she closed the space between their heads, pressing her lips against his, all but closing her eyes.

This was right, right? It had to be. In the stories, the people who liked each other kissed. She liked Delta, right? Well, those stories also centered themselves on something called love, and Echo still wasn’t quite sure what that concept meant. She knew she liked Delta, though. He’d always been there, in her Green Meadow’s memories. He’d killed the animal that jumped her on Dxun. Delta had rescued her on Ylesia. He was always nice to her, even if she wasn’t nice to him all the time, and she felt guilty about those times. She wished she could make it up to him. She knew she wanted to be nice to him, like making him something to eat.

Yes, she liked Delta. A lot. So wasn’t it okay to kiss him?

Did he even like it?

Echo only kept her lips against his for a couple of seconds. She pulled away a couple of inches hearing only her own heart and curious thoughts, and her silent prayer that he was okay with what she just did. Leaning back further, her eyes lifted back up to where Delta’s would be. She swallowed and said in a small voice: “See?”




“Hey, find out what I lost before
Hey, must change the shape I’m in
Hey, never go back again

I don’t wanna waste away
Like I saw myself fading yesterday…”
~ Fade Away by Day of Fire

“Y-you want to know?”

Delta nodded, remembering that she told him that she learned something on Ylesia. But it must have been a big secret, because she told him to lean close. He did, never once breaking eye contact with the woman as he moved a quarter of the way to her. “Little closer,” she said, and Delta was unsuspecting. Any closer and they would be really close. Like, really really close. Closer than he's ever really been to her, but he moved closer all the same.

Before he knew she moved in to steal a kiss from him. At first his eyes went wide in alarm, but soon after his expression shifted and his mouth opened to kiss her back. Something happened then, and it wasn't something that he expected. A tiny shock, but not a painful one, built up in his brain and charged down his spine, causing gooseflesh to prickle up in its wake.

The man indulged in the feeling for a few moments before she finally pulled away and spoke in a small voice. Delta stayed silent for a few moments before replying in a tone to mirror "That... felt weird... how'd you do that?"

Without thinking, or even really waiting for the girl to respond, he moved in to kiss her again. Enjoying the look of her face when it eclipsed his view. Once more he felt that little jolt, and even noticed the world light up in a way that he didn't think possible before. A big, quirky grin crossed his face as a result. "I... like what you learned."

The translation of light waves, to action potential, to meaningful perception of environment that gave November, and all humanoids, vision, was something she had often studied but, like all the rest, had never completely understood.

What she saw held significance.

It held more significance than the feeling of her feet, snug in shoes, or the cold temperature of the metal doorframe on which her hand rested, or the slight feeling of air moving past her cheek, or the taste of her own teeth, or the gentle pressure of her lab coat on her shoulders, which is why her conscious was not aware of any of these sensory inputs. It held even more significance than the thought that had just occupied her mind – the comprehensive report of all that had surpassed in her capture and detainment of Yankee. She had organized it into a logical pattern of presentation that held the highest probability of comprehension, and lent itself best to recall by the audience, Delta and Echo.

All that had flicked to her subconscious in an instant.

The instant the opaque door slid silently away, her occipital lobe translated what she now saw. She saw Delta, and Echo, recognized by her mechanical efficiency. They were touching. With their lips. It was like a computer with a whisk affixed to it – in the context she beheld, this action had absolutely no use or explanation.

But it had significance. In almost every case, even if a thing did not have ostentatious explanation, it had significance. A whisk could mark a computer as a target to be hacked, or the source of information.

Delta was touching lips with Echo, which meant he was bestowing significance on Echo.

November blinked.

Blinking did not make her eyes forget, or her conscious mind move on.

She heard words. Words she basely comprehended at the moment, but would not be able to recall later.

They were occupied. With significance. She would relay her information later.

She took a step back. Allowed the opaque door to close. But opaque meant nothing to her brain. She
couldn’t close an opaque door on a memory. Green meadows could. November paused a moment, and
tried. The memory remained. So did the door, cold and unmoving in front of her.

It did not make much sense to stand and stare at a door.

November turned her body, and moved towards her room. This, too, sunk into her subconscious, with her perfect report, the knowledge of her accomplishment. Steps. Movement.

Significance?

A question. A curiosity.

She beheld the opaque metal of the door to her own quarters. Then she was in her quarters, standing over her cot without the recollection of the movements taken to get there. All those her subconscious had executed. What was in her conscious mind held much more significance.

It was the significance. The significance that had always been there, always been looming, was made clear to the eye of her mind. It crushed her. Made her pieces crunch into a pile in the dust.

November crumpled to the ground.

She felt… she didn’t know. Was she feeling anything at all? There seemed to be an overpowering haze that prevented her from thinking, from reasoning and being logical as she looked at Delta. She couldn’t think. Not properly. Thoughts… came in spurts.

Rampant with worry.

Did he… Did he like it?

Does he…?

Have I wronged him? Does he feel wronged? Think… Think wronged? Is that right?

Say something, Delta!

Gooseflesh bumped her skin as tendrils of ice tickled her spine, namely the base of her neck. Those thoughts all halted and the inside of her head was quiet and still, but far from peaceful. Her insides roiled and twisted as several emotions clashed, some with swords and some with shields. The eye of this cyclone rested her hope – in danger of being uprooted from the very core and tossed, battered around by stormy winds of destruction: sorrow, anger, disappointment, and fear.

It made perfect nonsense.

It meant… so much… so much… his next words would weigh the meaning…

And that… that made sense.

"That... felt weird... how'd you do that?"

Heat rose in her chest and the corner of her mouth flickered nervously. “I ju—“ She didn’t get a chance to explain. He leaned forward, diving down, touching their lips again. Like a shock of lightning, her heart throbbed sharply once, and thrice more with the surprise jolt ebbing. Her eyes closed, she reached her hand up and pressed only her fingertips lightly to his jawnline in the briefest of seconds. He sat back, though Echo remained slightly forward, still and unmoving as she lifted her eyelids to look up at him.

"I... like what you learned."

Echo closed the slight part of her lips, feeling her face begin to sting and burn. She knew her cheeks were beginning to redden to the color of her hair, and so she cast her eyes away. “I… uh… I-I’m glad. It’s… it’s… Here, I’ll take your plate and um… Yeah…” She staked the plates in her hands and stood from the bed. “I should wash them, yes…” Echo moved to the door, cradling the plates and avoiding his face. The door slid open before her but Echo didn’t pass through, but paused… unsure…

She couldn’t simply leave like this. Downcast gaze and a tremble in her voice. She’d seen Delta do that several times, and then he’d headed for the armory. Once he’d come out prematurely, water in his eyes. It had made her… so sad.

So Echo lifted her chin and twisted her ankles, gazing at Delta for a long moment. The blush still pinked her face and the nervous smirk felt awkward, but she didn’t know she looked hardly more than a teased girl. “I’m glad you, uh, liked it. Was…” She couldn’t look at him while she talked. Down went her gaze and she picked absently at the plates. A hand swooped up and tucked hair behind her ear in one smooth motion.

“I like you.”

Having that said, Echo couldn’t bear stand being in front of him lest she melt into puddle on the floor. She backed out of the room and fled down the ship’s rounded hallway without closing his door.

Maybe she ought to speak to November when she gets back...