Christian and Nika Sitting on the Bridge, K-I-S-S ... Nevermind

The terms day and night have little meaning on a spaceship. After all, with no sun, how do you know for sure it is morning, noon, or evening? Still, humans need some sense of order imposed upon their little universes, so the crew keeps to a specific schedule for meals and shifts. At the moment, a little over one half of the ship's compliment is asleep. Rina, Mike, and Arden rest in their bunks. Nika sits on the bridge, listening to the music of the stars. Christian joins her, moving gingerly. He's still smarting from the damage he took during the earlier firefight. Carefully, he sits down in the co-pilot's seat. He doesn't say anything. He just watches out the cockpit glass.

"You're awfully quiet," Nika finally offers. She glances toward him. This is the first watch she's taken in the two days the ship's been underway, aside from just getting them off Osiris's surface. "Working up to what you want to get off your chest?" she asks him, her eyes once more on the Black outside the porthole.

Christian glances over, then looks back out into the black. "I can't sleep but I'm drowsy." He says. "The painkillers Arden gave me. When I get a lot of that sort of thing in my system it doesn't knock me out. It keeps me just barely conscious. I was just... zoning."

Nika ohs softly, and then smiles a bit. "Sorry... the drugs are doing a number on me, too. I'm only supposed to be on watch for a couple hours, just enough to let other people sleep. Honestly, just being upright is making my head throb," she admits.

Christian slides his fingers through his blonde hair, tossling it a bit. "After we drop our young ladies off, do you want to go up to Blue Sun and make contact with the Harbinger?"

There is silence at the question. When she finally speaks, it's softly. "No." Yes. But no too. "I could have signed back on anytime in the past two years, Christian. I chose not to. For a lot of reasons that I just... don't even know if I have words for. And now... " She pauses. "I believe that people are put in one another's orbits for a reason. That we go from life to life with the same group of souls, the people most important to us. And if I'd been meant to go, it would have coincided with a time when I wasn't tied up with something important. So for this time, in this place... I'm supposed to be here. And here I'll stay." She looks at him and smiles a little. "That's not to say I don't miss them. Or that I don't wish they were nearby."

"Except..." Christian says, drawing out the word, "... you aren't tied down. Not anymore. We've gotten the cure for Mike, hopefully, and we're going to be putting down in a safe place for the girls. If there is a point where you want to walk away, now would be it. We can find a new pilot if need be and no one will fault you for being where your heart is."

Nika's reply might surprise him. "They're my home, Christian. They'll always carry a part of my heart with them, wherever they go. I flew with them for eight years... that's nearly a third of my life." She hesitates. "But I'm still supposed to be here. I'm not sure why. If I weren't still supposed to be here, though, the opportunity to go back would have already presented itself -- if I'm supposed to leave and go back there, they'll be parked somewhere that we land without me ever realizing it ahead of time, and I'll have nothing going on with this crew. Do you know what I mean?" She puts her head back on her chair's headrest. "That'll be when I have to consider that I've done what I'm meant to do here. That I've ... impacted all of you in whatever ways I was supposed to, and vice versa. All things have a reason."

Christian glances over and smiles. "I'm Buddhist. We're not quite on the same level as Hindus when it comes to the great wheel but I understand the idea of karma well enough." He looks back to the window. "It is beautiful out there."

There's a grin, a tired one. "I'm not Hindu. I'm just... eh, whatever you'd call me." She looks out and says softly, "Yes... yes it is." Out here, where there's nothing but the ship and the Black... she's peaceful. It's all the extraneous stuff that makes her stress.

"I could probably eventually talk it out of you." Christian says, his voice soft but not hard to hear, "I think you'd appreciate me being more straight forward, though. What happened back there is bothering you. A great deal."

And there he goes. She was almost completely unstressed about it for the first time in a couple of days when he opted not to take her opening salvo earlier. Nika's muscles tense nearly instantly. "Yeah. It does." She looks at him and just asks straight out, "You and your folks head jobs, or is Companion training just that gorram good at body language?"

"A Companion is taught to read body language, facial expressions, to analyze what a person says and does, use it all to form a hypothesis... its a lot like psychology. A friend of mine used to say that a Companion would make the best spy in the 'Verse." Christian shrugs. "Do you want to share it with someone? I'll listen."

"You're the third person on this crew who's made the offer, Christian," Nika says quietly. "I didn't realize I was an open book to the gorram lot of you." She doesn't sound particularly pleased about it, honestly. "I don't... really have words for any of it. I can't tell anyone that I'm sorry I did it, because I'm *not*. I'm sorry that it had to happen... but I'm not sorry I did it."

As if that makes sense to anyone but her, she figures.

"You're sad that you're a person who can do the act. You aren't sad about the act itself." Christian says, nodding his head. "It is frightening, to see the darkness inside of us."

There's a long pause, and Nika says quietly, "Yeah. Something like that." The darkness outside is so much simpler. "I thought I was done with that life. And the past few weeks have pretty much shown me I'm not. I can't decide how I feel about that."

"I killed someone." Christian says. "That's why I left the Guild. It was self-defense... I misjudged a client and he took certain games too far. I protected myself and in the process he ended up dead. I think it horrified me, knowing I could kill someone with my bare hands if I had to."

There's a startled expression as Nika looks at him, sympathy in her gaze. "Everyone has the capacity to kill when it comes to defending self and other from an immediate threat, Christian," she says quietly, looking back out the porthole. "It's when you can do it without being afraid, without the adrenaline surge that comes with it, that it becomes more questionable."

"Can you?" Christian asks, turning towards Nika. His eyes are intent on her face, refusing to look away.

"Yeah," Nika says quietly, keeping her eyes on the porthole and allowing him to see only the lovely line of her profile. "He wasn't an immediate threat to us. Didn't have a weapon. We could have tied him up and left him there. Sure, we'd have paid for it in that he could describe us to the authorities, but... the 'Verse is a big place."

"Well, then." Christian says. He struggles to his feet and walks over, slowly, until he stands right next to Nika. "You have a choice. Who do you want to be?"

"If I had that answer, Christian, I'd probably already have worked through this." Now she does look up at him. "I can't... and won't... regret that I killed him, because he *was* a threat. It was just not an immediate one. And the safety of this ship and her crew are my priority. Always. The rest?" She pauses, her words a slow drawl. "Well, darlin', the rest just ain't nothin' but chaff."

"I don't think you need to worry." Christian says. He bends down and presses his lips to Nika's temple. "I don't agree with what you did," his lips move against her skin as he murmurs the words, "but I understand it. You're our mother bear, I think."

Blowing out a soft breath, Nika actually leans a bit into the light buss and laughs softly. "Odd to think of myself in that light."

"Nothing more ferocious." Christian says. His fingers slide into Nika's hair, then comb through and free. "I'm tempted to offer to take you to bed tonight." He says. "I'm lonely. But I don't think it would be right for us."

The long hair is loose and a bit tangled as his fingers slide into it, but Nika doesn't tense or pull away from him. Even when he says that. She smiles just a little; his words bring back memories of other times, other places, other men who've eased the moments of darkness. "No," she says quietly, "It's not time. If I took you up on that offer -- and it wouldn't be the first time that's been my refuge of choice -- I think it would ruin something between us right now."

Christian stands up. "You're right." He smiles. "And I do like what's between us."

Nika looks up at him as he stands, her smile genuine. "I do too." And then she quips mildly, "Besides... Arden said anything that raises the blood pressure might actually kill one of us. I can't have *that* on my conscience too!"

Christian laughs. "That'd be terrible. I don't think I'm allowed to die during sex. There are rules or something." He turns around and walks towards the exit of the cockpit. "I'll see you in the morning, Nika. Sleep well when you do."

Funny how the one who appeared to understand the best was the one she'd expected to have to justify herself the most to. "Good night, Christian," Nika tells him softly.