Editing Intent

<span style="color:#800000"> '''''And more criminality ensues.  Thanks, Andy!''''' </span>



'''Tuesday, 24 Dec 2520''' <br>
'''Kuiper II class, Summer’s Gift'''<br>
'''En Route to Ariel'''<br>
'''2230hrs, ship’s time'''<br>


The crew quarters were never what you’d call spacious but I rarely had reason to complain about the lack of room.  I’d slept in worse accommodations.  As long as I could stand upright, sleep stretched out and had a solid locking door between me and the rest of the ship, I was fine with it.  But until now I’d never had to recover so completely from serious injury and though my bed could hold two, it was a pinch and my insides let me know it.  I wasn’t nearly as bad off as I was three weeks ago, but still… I shifted in Joshua’s arms as a draft from the atmo vents slithered down my bare back.  I shivered despite myself and tried again to find a way to lie without aching.


'''***'''

Rina shifted and Joshua could sense her discomfort. She was still healing. Much better than she had been, but Joshua knew she had been pushing herself harder than she should've been. Not a surprise, of course. If lack of surprise was edible, he'd have enough to feed the crew and 2 first class passengers for a year. But still, he hated seeing her still in pain.

"Do you need me to get up, let you sleep?" He laid his palms flat against her back, pressing down just hard enough to impart some warmth and then rubbed them in slow circles down her spine. "Not really enough blanket for two, is there?"

'''***'''

"Don't need a blanket. Not when I can wear you like a pair of pajamas." Sometimes the proverbial imp just took my tongue and ran with it.

'''***'''

He laughed softly. "If I'm a product, I've clearly been upgraded. I'd much rather be a pair of your pajamas than, say, a can of soda." Not that he would mind being swallowed whole, but he would just keep that thought to himself. She needed to rest still.

"I wasn't kidding when I said you needed to sleep," Joshua said, his voice growing serious, his brown eyes looking at her with concern. "You're not whole yet. And we have so many big things ahead of us on the path. I love being here with you, but I don't want to get in the way of getting you better."

'''***'''

Common sense urged me to take the out he offered me. My dislike of coddling demanded I refuse. I caressed his face and kissed him instead.

"There you go again," I said when we came up for air. I didn't elaborate on my meaning. I knew I wouldn't have to.  I squirmed until I was under him and drew him down for another kiss...

'''***'''

Joshua didn't have any idea how long it had been but he knew he was exhausted and spent. Sweat was dripping off of him. No more danger of being cold, he thought. As he lay there, pressed up tight against her, he shook his head in amazement. "You're an evil woman. You know I can't resist you. And you use my weakness against me." With a free hand, he brushed her dark locks of hair back and kissed the side of her neck.

'''***'''

He put his mouth on me and I was a goner. Despite what he said, I wasn't the only person adept at exploiting weaknesses and since turn about was fair play, we both enjoyed ourselves with mine. Since I was flat on my back, there were quite a few Joshua could take advantage of without much effort and it wasn't long before he had me at his mercy.

Served me right.

When I could see again, all I could say was, "Wow."

'''***'''

"Now, what was I saying again? I've completely forgotten." It was something about sleeping and Rina getting better, he seemed to recall. Arden would probably be upset - he almost certainly didn't prescribe what they just did. Then Joshua imagined telling Arden that he and Rina had thought about him in bed during the night and Arden's probable reaction, and he broke out into laughter, startling Rina. "I promise..." he said between gales of laughter, "I'm not laughing at you." And the laughter grabbed hold of him again and he was eventually forced to sit up from the coughing, until the laughter slowly came to a stuttering halt.

'''***'''

I levered myself upright and sat next to him, stroking his back until the fit passed.

"Wanna share the joke?" I asked, slipping an arm around his waist and hugging him.

'''***'''

"I was just thinking that this wasn't the kind of bed rest Arden would prescribe. And what his reaction would be if we told him that we were thinking about him while we were sprawled together, arms intertwined..." He trailed off and wiped some sweat from his brow before it dripped into his eyes. It didn't seem quite so hysterically funny now. Perhaps one of those you had to be there in his head moments. ''Ah well.''

He hugged her a little tighter, enjoying her presence beside him. Seemed like a long time since they had been together, but then again the last couple of months felt like they had been years.

'''***'''

"Better not tell him. He'd have a conniption. Speaking of conniptions....," I added, sighing. Enjoyment wasn't a strong enough word for what I felt bedding Joshua, but right now there was something more important I needed to discuss with him. "What can you pick up from me right now?"

'''***'''

It took a minute for Joshua's brain to catch up with Rina's thought pattern. 

''Pick up? I just picked her up...does that count? Ok, wait, what?''

But eventually he realized she had completely shifted gears and was thinking about his reading abilities. "Well, I'm not actively reading you, so I'm not sure. I mean, I can guess from the atmosphere and situation and your body language what you're generally feeling. But that doesn't take me reading. I have to be focused on it to pick things up." Most of the time, he silently amended his statement. He hadn't been focused on Brian at the time, that's for sure.

'''***'''

"Then focus, Joshua," I said evenly and steeling myself to give nothing away through expression or touch, I went through my memories and dredged up the worst episode of my life.

'''***'''

He shrugged. "You know I don't read the crew, right? But willing consent trumps all, so here goes."


Joshua opened up the door in his mind and sent it seeking to Rina, planning to grab her surface thoughts and no more. He had been expecting something pleasant, especially considering what had just happened in the bed they were sitting on. So when the flashes of anger, the brief images of a man in uniform, and the pain, oh god the pain hit him, he was completely blindsided. He started to scream and bit his tongue to keep himself from disturbing the entire crew, filling his mouth with the coppery taste of blood. He whimpered in pain briefly before shutting the door to his mind again as he slumped back against the wall, trying to get his bearings.

His head hurt now, a throbbing that matched the throbbing pain from his tongue and he couldn't find any words to ask Rina what the hell that was all about. Just breathe, he thought, just breathe. Think about calming routines. And he started to mentally walk himself through katate-dori ikkyo omote. Forcing himself to step through the technique helped him relax and his accelerated, almost gasping breathing slowly approached normal.

'''***'''

I had my arm around him so I felt it the second he latched onto my thoughts. I heard him bite back his cry and I grit my teeth and kept on thinking. Thinking as hard as I could through that entire filthy business, all stops pulled. It was a dirty trick, especially right after some pretty joyous sex, but I knew that it would be the last thing he'd expect to encounter and therefore it would hit him hardest.

He was still shaking when I relived the memory to the bitter end and I watched the clock on my door controls. A minute scrolled by and his pulse started to slow. Another minute and his breathing evened out. Three minutes after I started timing it, he was almost back to normal and I made myself take the next step.

"What did you do to shut me out?"

'''***'''

"First, let me say," and Joshua slowly lifted his head to look her straight in those beautiful brown eyes, "what....the...hell?" His tongue felt swollen...no, probably was swollen and the words didn't sound quite right to his ears.

He put his finger in his mouth and blood was dropping off it when he removed it. "Could I also ask for a towel or something so I can spit this blood out?" He shook his head. He saw where she was going with her questioning, but did she really need to do that? He was on board! No convincing necessary that he needed to learn some defenses. Certainly not this kind of convincing.

"Seriously, Rina, the heavy duty headache wasn't necessary. I'm well aware of the need to prop my defenses up. No need to ambush me during post-coital bliss to make your point." She didn't do anything half assed, for sure.

'''***'''

Nodding silently, I rose and fetched a towel from my locker and a water bottle from my stash and handed both to him. I leaned against my desk and crossed my arms, the casual pose a stark contrast to my nudity and my mission. I winced as he spat and swallowed convulsively, knowing the state of his tongue was my fault. The state of his mind trumped all else, however, and I hardened myself for further cruelty should my task call for it. Too much was at stake to coddle him now.

I waited until he cleared his mouth and when he finally looked at me again, I explained myself as best I could.

"You’re right. It was a dirty trick.  But we’ll be in the Core in less than ten days and God knows what will be waiting for you when we get there.  I had hoped we’d have more time before Blue Sun found you, but Meridian nixed that.  They know you’re still alive, they know your triggers are still working.  They’re going to come for you, Joshua, so you have to be ready.  At least, you have to be better prepared than you currently are.”

I kept my voice low and my expression neutral, and prayed he would understand that it was the only way I could get myself through this. I couldn't let my feelings for him sway me from what I had to do.

“Just like learning a martial art, you’re going to get thrown on the mat a few times.  Blue Sun isn’t going to fight fair.  I can’t either.  So that was the first lesson. The first of many. As many as it takes until we build you a fortress that even I can't break through. And trust me, what you saw was just a taste of what I can throw at you."

'''***'''

"''Ai Yah Tien Ah!'' I was just feeling like a normal human being again, damn it." Joshua took a sip of the water bottle, the water both painful crossing his tongue and cool comfort down his throat. He looked over at her, standing nude against her desk, and despite the mental desire to maintain the anger, it flowed away, just leaving him shaking his head in amazement. "I wanted to stay furious, but your nudity disarmed me. I can't stay angry with that body staring me in the face. I just can't."

Looking away from her to gather his thoughts, he mentally rewound the last few minutes, getting back to the last question she had asked. "I shut the door in my head, Rina. That's how I kept your memories out."

"You know it could've crippled me," he quietly admonished her as his fingers rubbed between his eyes, trying to mitigate his growing headache. "I only went surface deep. If I had been trying to go deeper, not knowing what I was getting into..."

'''***'''

''You know it could have crippled me.''

His warning slapped my conscience full on with a well-deserved load of guilt and I bit my lip to keep it steady.

"The idea is to keep that from happening, no matter where you are, who you're with or what you've just been doing." I pushed off my desk and knelt on the deck in front of him, the work of one step. "You said you closed that door. How?"

'''***'''

He rubbed the back of his head and closed his eyes for a minute, not saying anything. Then he opened them again. "I actually picture a literal door. Green, wooden, with a white frame and a shiny gold doorknob. That's what I picture opening when I go to read and that's what I picture closing when I stop. My handlers were big on visualization, but they didn't care so much what I visualized. "

The headache was starting to fade a little which made Joshua grateful. "You wouldn't believe how fast I slammed that door shut when I entered your thoughts."

'''***'''

I could see I was going to need to be a little more succinct.

"Okay. Fine. You told me what it looks like. You haven't answered the question. How did you close the door?"

'''***'''

"I picture myself shutting the door. Literally reaching forward in my head and slamming the door shut, letting the thoughts bang up against it, like they normally do." Joshua wasn't sure he could explain it anymore clearly to someone who couldn't do it.

'''***'''

''Now we're getting somewhere...'' The deck plates ground into my knees and shins and I knew getting up later would hurt, but I didn't care. The discomfort would keep me sharp, keep me from giving in to sentiment.

"So if you keep that door closed all the time, how did Brian get through?"

'''***'''

"Brian and Nika" he said ruefully, "had so much emotion going on. What normally might have been a quiet breeze outside the door? A blowing hurricane smashing up against the door, forcing it open." He winced a little, remembering how much it had hurt. Joshua tried to picture the exact moment when it happened, but everything blurred together as his brain tried to do him a favor by softening the blow of those past painful memories.

"And once the door was open..." He made a whistling noise, sounding eerily like a wind blowing outside a bedroom window. "No getting it shut until the winds stopped blowing."

As he finished recounting, Joshua realized that there was no way Rina could be comfortable on the floor like that. Hell, she was having trouble just being flat in bed. He reached his right hand forward, a quiet offer for a hand up that he hoped would slip past her need to tough it out.

'''***'''

It was a measure of my resolve that I seriously thought about taking his hand only as a way to mentally hammer him again with my memories. To test his boundaries and push his buttons. It was a mindset I'd absorbed from Mike. It was the sort of mind that enabled him to do the job, however distasteful, until he'd reached his objective. I'd been on the receiving end of it not once but several times and I knew intimately how it felt.

Joshua wasn't ready for that. Not yet.

So I took his hand and put nothing but thanks behind it. Good thing too. The deck had made waffles of my shins and the blood rushing to my feet made me lightheaded.

'''***'''

Joshua watched Rina as she got herself settled on the bunk and could see she had put herself through some pain on the floor. Seemed to him there was being tough and then there was just using common sense. He certainly wasn't going to mention that now, so he volunteered some information.

"The drugs make a difference," he admitted. "On an every other day schedule, sometimes I forget to lock the door, if I can stretch this metaphor any farther. Or realize that it is just standing wide open. It's possible that is what happened with Brian and Nika, because honestly, I don’t remember exactly how I ended up on the floor."

'''***'''

I got myself prone and rubbed my eyes, listening and thinking aloud.

"You say you forget to lock the door. That suggests a deliberate series of steps go into locking it. Sometimes it's standing wide open. How is that possible if it has a doorknob? Does it mean the tongue didn't engage the throatplate? Did a passing breeze blow it open? Just how strong is that door? How well does the latch work? How many times a day do you give it a rattle to check it?"

I was getting cold again and I crossed my ankles and my arms and frowned at the ceiling.

"You say the drugs make a difference. How? Do they make the door stronger? If they don't, do they lessen the wind strength? Or do they make the wind howling into the room less noticeable?"

If I could get a handle on the problem, assess the environment we were working with, I could start thinking of ways to conquer it.

'''***'''

Joshua sighed as he took the blanket on the bed and stretched it over Rina's legs and up to her waist, hiding some of her best parts. In a world that was as far from the physical as it could be, Rina's literalness could end up being a stumbling block. Or, he tried to think positively, maybe it would lead to paths he had never considered.

"You realize the door is just a mental construct, right? My handlers told me I could visualize it as anything I wanted, and everyone would have their own way of looking at that freeing of the mind." He paused, looking for the right way to explain it. "Have you ever thought you shut a door and then realized a couple of hours later that you hadn't? You'd swear that you did, but there it is, letting the bugs into the house. That's what going short on the drugs does. I'm not as aware of my door or what condition I've left it in."

He took another sip from the water bottle, sloshing the water around in his mouth before swallowing. "When I take the drug every day, the door stays shut and locked and I don't even have to think about it. But when I'm off of them, if I'm not making more of a conscious effort to make sure my door is shut and locked against the constant stream of thoughts blowing outside my door, I might find that it isn't shut and I'm reading people's feelings."

'''***'''

I listened as he covered me up against the chill and I realized my mistake. Or thought I had.

"If the door's just a mental construct, have you ever envisioned protecting your mind in a room that has no door or windows? What about making a door appear only when you need to Read someone?"  I sighed, visions of green doors and steel bulkheads and windowless rooms chasing each other behind my eyelids.

"Until we can get you a steady supply of meds, we've got to find a way to have you do for yourself what the meds do for you. If we can do that, you might not need the meds at all." I thought of the meds I had Arden buy me on the sly, knew they sat not a yard away in my desk drawer. I debated telling him about them and decided to test the waters first.

"If you do get hit with a...mental attack, would taking a dose of your drugs right then protect you from it? How fast does that stuff work, anyway?"

'''***'''

Joshua hadn't really thought before changing how he visualized his door. He should have, but he hadn't. Something to consider, for sure. The empty room wasn't a bad idea, or maybe changing the door to something with heft to it, like a vault door, complete with the big wheel. Would that slow him down when he needed to open it and read someone?

Traveling down that line of thought, he almost missed Rina's last question. A quick dose of the flomoxipan wouldn't work...would it? He realized he had no idea. For all the training on how to read people's minds, he could find shocking gaps in his knowledge about things related to his powers. Like mental defenses. Or his drug. Blue Sun making sure that leash stayed on tight.

"I don't know, Rina," he admitted "It might. It might not. I've never thought of the floximopan as an instant reaction drug, more like something you take regularly to prevent flareups. And death. And death-like symptoms."

He shrugged, indicating his lack of solid knowledge. "But for all I know, it could work that way. We'd have to ask Arden. Or another doctor like Valerie." 

'''***'''

“Ask Arden. Leave Valerie out of this,” I said quickly, amazed he could even think of including her.  “She’s compromised.  And when you ask Arden, make sure she can’t see or hear you, or have you forgotten that wire behind her ear?”

Wetwork.  Eavesdrops.  Clandestine agendas.  Hidden motives.  Wheels within wheels…

It had been years since I’d gone to Ariel, years since I’d had to eat, sleep, and breathe the Byzantine cloak-and-dagger mindset.  I scrubbed my face with my hands, feeling the first tremors of the shakes in my fingers as my paranoia got into full swing.  God, it was like the war all over again…and I hadn’t missed the sickening parallels between what I’d done to Joshua and what the Lieutenant had done to me.  Worse than, really, because no matter what that raping bastard had done, I could retreat inside my head and escape until he was through.  I’d left Joshua no such option.  

At the time I had thought only to hammer home a valid point, a lifesaving one, and my zeal had blinded me to the hideous nature of my crime.  Now that I’d a moment to reflect on it, I realized too late what I had done.  Shame seared me head to toe and remorse hollowed me out.  Horrified by what I’d done, I turned my face to the bulkhead. 

And wept.

'''***'''

Rina's sudden sobbing caught Joshua completely by surprise. He sat there stunned for a few seconds, running the conversation over in his head.

''Doors...visualization...mental construct...flomoxipan...asking a doctor...was the idea of asking Valerie really so hideous?'' There's no way she would cry over something like that.

He quickly realized the cause didn't matter - she did. He moved down to the floor on his knees, echoing the pose Rina had just been in. From there, he reached forward and hugged her. "Whatever it is, Rina, it will be okay, I promise." And Joshua patiently waited for her to tell him what had gone wrong.

'''***'''

I felt his hands on me and I flinched. Self-loathing had me curling up into a tighter ball to avoid him, fear froze my tongue.  It was that night on the Decatur all over again, amplified ten times over, and as I had then I didn’t know what to do with myself now.

''You could stop sniveling and own up'', said a dry voice inside me.  ''Don’t insult the man by keeping him in the dark.  That’s how you got into this mess.  Sit up''.

I swallowed hard and turned around. ''Time to face the music''.  

“I’m sorry, Joshua,” I breathed.  “I’m so very very sorry.”

'''***'''

The connection she must have made just a minute ago finally popped into Joshua's head. Shit. He felt so poorly equipped sometimes dealing with the emotional issues. If he was performing physical surgery, he could've learned what to do and not to do from Arden. Times like these, he wished Christian had been around longer to learn from. The skillset of a Companion would've been so helpful as he attempted to perform the equivalent of emotional surgery.

''Think, Joshua! What did Rina need to hear first?'' And then after that, what he did he need to say to make sure she didn't destroy herself over this? He prayed to whatever gods might be watching and decided to entrust his faith in his love for her.

"I accept your apology for surprising the living crap out of me." He pulled his arms out from around her, placed both hands on her cheeks and moved her head so she was looking straight into his eyes. "But I do not accept any apology for trying to help me build my defenses." 

He hurried on before she could say anything. "I know, or at least I think I know what you're thinking. Without reading you. And while there may be similarities between what happened to you and the pain (admittedly bad) you just caused me, they're just that. Similarities. Do you know why?"

'''***'''

I heard his words and wanted to deny them. Honesty compelled me to admit it was foolish pride prompting that denial. There was true remorse, I knew, and contrition. And then there was sheer pigheadedness. If Joshua could forgive my transgression, I had no right to argue. I could accept it and try to forgive myself as he had. I didn't believe that would come anytime soon, but for his sake I could try. So my thoughts ran as he cradled my face in his hands and I realized he was waiting for my answer. Not trusting myself to speak without making things worse, I just bit my lip and shook my head.

'''***'''

"Intent, Rina. It's always about intent." He kept looking her in the eyes, his face serious. He wanted her to stay focused on what he was saying and not beating herself up mentally. "Rape is about power, or so I've read. What was done to you was not about sex. It was about power and controlling you through use of power." 

Then he smiled softly. "If you accept that as true, then you have to see that whacking me over the head with your memories was the exact opposite of that. You weren't trying to keep control. You were trying to give me control. To enable me to defend myself. And that makes all the difference."

He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. "Admittedly, you could've maybe used a less painful memory and/or given me some warning. But honestly, it lessens what you've overcome and who you've become to assign what you did the same weight as that hideous act of rape. I love you and I'm not going to let you give yourself undeserved guilt over this."

'''***'''

Despite having experienced Joshua's magnanimity of spirit before, of having benefitted from his patience and grace, I had yet to touch the bottom of that particular well and as he'd done before, so he did again.  In my experience, such capacity was rare and until Joshua crossed my path, I'd encountered it only once in another. And I wondered what the Universe meant to tell me as a consequence. I'd just been hit by the Karmic clue-bat and as befitting the nature of such an event, I knew it would take a little time for the import to sink in.

For now, I had Joshua and I had his forgiveness and though the sense of the greater message had yet to come to me, I had to trust that he was right.

"You're right," I said. "You're right."

'''***'''

He removed his hands from her face and nodded at her. "Darn tootin', I'm right. I may not be right very often but I'm right on this one." He climbed up off his knees and pain shot down his legs. What was that he had mentally muttered at Rina about common sense? ''Suck it up, soldier.''

Joshua settled on the bunk beside her, a tight squeeze, but one they were familiar with. "Now," he continued, putting his hand on her shoulder, "we just need to set some ground rules about future lessons, right?"

'''***'''

"God, yes. If they're all going to be as disastrous as this one, I don't think I can stay the course." Now that we were back on familiar ground, I was able to relax and match his tone. I was still shaken by my misstep but could carry on, despite. "And on that topic, how do you want to proceed?"

'''***'''

''Good.'' 

Bringing the topic back around like nothing had happened did what he had hoped - kicked Rina back into gear and gave her something else to focus on. "While the '''attacks could come at any time''' strategy is a solid one, it has some flaws." He moved his hand from the shoulder down to her back, lightly rubbing, trying to maintain some basic human contact while talking.

"Mostly just it throws my mental health out of whack to be constantly on alert all the time. And if I'm mentally out of whack, I'm not learning much about how to keep that door shut. And selfishly? I don't want to give up what normalcy we have. I need it to stay sane when it gets crazy, as it seems to do a lot on this ship. But we could definitely involve Arden and do some testing with the flomoxipan, if we can afford to buy some extra." The idea of spending extra precious credits almost made Joshua not suggest the idea. But a few credits spent wisely might save trouble down the line, he thought.

He tried to make sure his voice was reassuring as he suggested another modification of her original plan. "And even without randomness, it seems to me there's value in pushing my alert defenses and testing what I can take when I'm aware. See if I can't find a way to dull that pain from the hurricane force emotion blowing through the open door."

'''***'''

At his mention of using extra meds to test our theories, I knew I couldn't keep my stash a secret.

"Hold that thought," I said and sat up, reaching over him to pull open my desk drawer. I didn't have to reach far, the tight quarters helped, and I was able to put the zippered case in his hands without straining myself too badly. "Here's fifteen extra doses to experiment with. I'll need to know how to prep them, but having an extra pair of hands to administer them can only help, right?"

'''***'''

When he saw her pull the extra doses of his drug out of her drawer, he winced as he bit his already wounded tongue in an attempt not to say something hurtful. Extra drugs meant she had bought some on the sly. Meant she didn't trust him to be able to manage his own drugs. Meant she thought of him as a child, at least about some things. How was he supposed to learn how to survive out in the real 'Verse if the crew thought of him as a big kid that needed to protect?

''Intent, Joshua, intent.'' He repeated to himself the exact words he had just told Rina. She meant well and was trying to look out for him and that was what was important.

He took a brief, calming breath and put all his training into making sure she didn't catch the bump in the road, keeping his voice pleasant and calm. "Sure, extra set of hands is good. And this means no spending ship credits for testing. How long have you had these?" He threw off the last question casually. He was hoping it was a while ago. Buying them recently and more importantly, '''hiding''' them meant she still wasn't quite ready to give him credit for being a 32 year old adult and not a 16 year old kid.

'''***'''

I caught the subtle change in tone and knew I was in for it. Having already decided on this course of action, I had to take my lumps along with any lauds, and confessed.

"The last time Arden restocked his supplies, I gave him the last of my cash to get these. I thought if you ever ran out or if our regular supplies got raided for their street value, I'd still have these on hand to tide you over."

Which was the truth, but I knew how it could be perceived and having said the words, I had to trust Joshua would take their kinder intent over any unfavorable one he could assign.

'''***'''

He nodded. "Sure. I get that." 

Joshua occasionally got a little frustrated the crew didn't see him as an adult sometimes. Frustration, though, was a small price to pay for a crew who cared about him and for a friend who gave up the last credits she had to buy him medicine. Gods only knew that they were unlikely to have personal funds again anytime soon. Made her purchase even more sweet. And thinking about that, he gave her a kiss on the lips. "Thank you," he said, really meaning it.

"We'll start training regularly?" He looked at her for confirmation. "Heck, we can even combine it with language lessons and call it Russian Defense class."

'''***'''

"There's a dirty joke in there somewhere," I said, easing back against the bulkhead. "But I don't have the energy to find it."

I ran my fingers through my hair and looking down I saw that I was still naked. We both were. And it struck me as funny that the events of the past hour would be conducted without a stitch on. Combat surely rated something in way of armor. Then again, since Joshua and I were discussing metaphorical combat, maybe metaphorical clothing applied. I was just too tired to see it.

"We'll do it regularly, as often as you feel up to it." I dragged myself back on topic. "But let's wait before we try it again?"

'''***'''

"No, definitely not right now." His headache had gotten better, but he was suddenly exhausted. Whether the strain on the mental defenses or the heavy emotional lifting, he was definitely feeling it now. He yawned, barely able to cover his mouth in time.

And the most clear indicator was looking over at Rina naked next to him on the bunk and only having thoughts of sleep. "Do you want me to stay or go?" he asked, trying to suppress another yawn.

'''***'''

"Stay?" I asked, not quite ready to give up the comfort of his company. "There's enough room if we both sleep on our side." And there was, with a little to spare.

'''***'''

"Stay," he affirmed. And with that he crawled into position next to her, laying his arm around her. Joshua tried not to tell her that he loved her too much. He didn't want to unsettle her by making her think that he was becoming clingy. But he thought she needed to hear it tonight. "I love you, Rina. Good night. Sleep well."

'''***'''

Always considerate, Joshua had left me the outside edge and the extra room it afforded. The blankets and sheets rustled as he eeled in behind me and in a minute we were both drifting toward sleep. His arm was a warm weight around my ribs and his thumb absently stroked my skin.

"You too," I sighed, eyelids fluttering and let the rhythm of his breathing and his caress soothe me to sleep.




<span style="color:#800000">'''''Since this season turned out to be RP heavy, it's only fair to include the link to everyone's efforts.'''''</span><br>

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