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iffeelscouldkill · 4 years

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it only means there is no room for you to fall [Epilogue]

A/N: This is a follow-up to it only means there is no room for you to fall, my alternate post-episode-5/episode 6 Sana/Arkady/Violet fic that I wrote uh... last September, wow. It won’t make much sense if you haven’t read that, so go read that fic first!

Those of you who follow me on AO3, or who followed the fic on AO3, will know that I already wrote and posted an epilogue to this fic about a week and a half after it was written. But I never posted it to Tumblr. I liked it, but I also wasn’t that happy with it - there was too much “plot”, and not enough of the fluff and indulgence that I’d so enjoyed when writing the first fic. And I liked how the first fic ended, so I sort of wanted that to be a stand-alone on Tumblr, until I was happier with the epilogue.

I never intended to rewrite it - I was originally planning to write a follow-up fic or two in the same ‘verse, and figured that once those were written, I would post the epilogue to Tumblr first so that it made sense. However, I lost a bit of steam with the next fic in the series, so that didn’t quite happen.

Fast-forward to now, and... well, I’m sure I don’t need to spell out why I needed a dose of fluffiness and self-indulgence in my fic-writing life. So, I decided a couple of days ago to have another go with writing this epilogue, and see if I couldn’t write a version that I was happier with. Turns out I could! Here it is :D

---

The first thing that Sana is aware of when she wakes is that she’s very, very warm.

The second is that someone is playing with her hair, carding their fingers through the strands that have escaped from the loose plait she wears it in. It feels nice. Sana closes her eyes again.

A vague memory filters through the sleepy haze in her brain. Arkady and Violet hugging her. Arkady leading her into her room, pulling her down onto her bunk, wrapping her arms around her. Violet at her back. She realises that she can hear voices talking softly.

“...might wake up and decide that she can handle it without our help.” Violet’s voice. “She is the Captain, after all.”

A snort from Arkady on her other side. “You underestimate my willingness to flat-out pin her to this bunk until she admits that she can’t handle everything by herself.”

Sana cracks one eye open. “I’d like to see you try.”

She feels Violet jump behind her, but Arkady just smirks, unrepentant. She looks slightly softer-edged in the morning (well, Sana realises that she doesn’t really know for sure that it’s morning, it’s hard to tell on the ship), her normally carefully tamed hair in unruly tangles around her face. It’s a look Sana has only rarely had the privilege of seeing.

“How did you sleep?” asks Violet, and Sana turns to smile at her.

“Like a log. I hope I didn’t snore.”

Violet laughs. “I don’t think so. I would know if you did - I’m a pretty light sleeper. It comes from being a medic,” she adds by way of explanation.

Sana is about to say something else - ask what the time is, maybe - when a key part of the previous night suddenly comes back to her: Ricky Q’s smug voice on the other end of the line. His threats against her crew, and the rendezvous on Hafizah. Sana groans as her head starts to throb slightly.

“Sana?” Violet looks worried, reaching forward to brush strands of hair gently from her face. Sana realises that Violet had been the one playing with her hair when she woke up, and she takes a moment to delight in this tiny gesture of affection from the other woman, who had always seemed quite reserved in her interactions until now. They would brush past each other, sometimes, in the narrow kitchen, and Sana was often guilty of wanting to read too much into the touch of fingers as moonshine cups were passed around, or Violet’s gentle ministrations as she checked an injury. She’d always told herself she was wishing for the impossible. She’s now starting to realise that might not have been true.

“What is it, Sana?” Arkady asks her, tense, like she’s readying herself for a fight. Sana weighs her options. She knows that telling Arkady about Ricky Q and his blackmail will only make her angry, and she doesn’t want to puncture the little cocoon of warmth and calm that they’ve created for themselves. But she also knows that putting her best friend off won’t be well-received. Arkady will probably make good on her promise to pin Sana to the bunk until she opens up about what’s going on (Sana carefully doesn’t think about all the ways that image appeals to her).

Even as she hesitates, Arkady says, “Look, you know all that touchy-feely crap you pull the moment one of us freaking blinks wrong? You know that goes both ways, right? You can’t just... It isn’t right for you to always have our backs, and not let us have yours, too.”

There’s frustration in Arkady’s voice, but there’s an underlying hurt, too, and a hesitancy. Arkady isn’t used to voicing her innermost feelings, Sana knows, and she’s always quick to retreat defensively afterwards, like she’s afraid of being mocked for it. But Sana thinks that Arkady is more afraid that Sana might not trust her with this. That she doesn’t see their friendship (more than friendship? a part of Sana’s mind wonders) as a partnership of equals. Sana lets out a soft breath, fighting down the urge to pull Arkady to her in a crushing hug, which might not be well-received.

“Before I tell you both what’s been going on,” she begins, “Kady, I need you to promise me that you won’t... fly off the handle.”

Arkady eyes her suspiciously. “That depends on what it is you’re about to tell us, because I already really don’t like the sound of this.”

Sana sighs. “Just, promise to hear me out first? I need you to do that for me.” She levels Arkady with her best Captain’s stare, a mixture of sternness and warmth. It works on the whole crew, but particularly Arkady, who will often back down only when Sana levels it at her.

Sure enough, Arkady grumbles but subsides, her cheeks going pink. “All right. Whatever it is, I’ll wait until after you’re done telling it before I blow a gasket.”

Smiling slightly, Sana looks at Violet, whose expression is intent and serious, before she begins.

“Last night, not long after I got done fixing the temperature reg, I had a call from Campbell...”

She outlines the tense exchange with Campbell, his assurances about Red Gregor, and then her accusation, the argument and Campbell’s parting words. True to her word, Arkady doesn’t interrupt, though she frowns indignantly on Sana’s behalf a couple of times. As expected, however, when Sana gets to the second caller and reveals his identity, she explodes.

“What?! What do you mean, Ricky Q? How did that rat bastard even get your number?”

Sana gives her an amused look, but it’s tired. “I told you you’d be angry.”

“Did he hack us? No, he can’t have done,” Arkady says. “Goddamn it, I should have known he’d crawl back up out of the gutter somewhere-”

“Arkady,” Violet says quietly but firmly. She reaches across Sana and takes Arkady’s hand. “Remember what you promised. Let Sana tell it.”

Sana bites back a smile as Arkady goes pink, looking down at their entwined hands as if she can’t quite parse what she’s seeing. “I- fine, whatever,” Arkady stutters.

Violet looks serenely back at Sana. “Carry on, Captain.”

Sana presses her lips together with amusement, and files away the way that Violet says ‘Captain’ to turn over in her brain later, because right now she can’t give it the attention it deserves.

“He talked to the Fowleys, that’s how,” Sana says in reply to Arkady’s question. Arkady’s expression darkens, and darkens further as Sana recaps the conversation and Ricky’s threats.

“That bastard,” she hisses, and this time neither Sana nor Violet stops her.

Violet looks upset. “He said that someone on this ship has been informing to a middleman... but we haven’t had contact with anyone...”

“He’s lying,” Arkady says instantly. “He’s making it up to bait you. Sana, you can’t meet him, you don’t know what he’s gonna do.”

“He knew about Violet,” Sana points out, her voice quiet. “He knew things he never could have found out unless he had some kind of… source. I don’t know what it is,” she goes on, before Arkady can say anything else. “And I don’t believe it’s any of you. But I have to know how he got the intel.”

There’s silence for a few moments as they all contemplate the situation. Sana hates that they’re in this bind, that they have to bow to the whims of someone like Ricky Q because they can’t risk the alternative. And she resents the loss of what could have been a quiet, peaceful morning with her two favourite people if not for this whole mess. (Oh, who is she kidding - the Rumor has never even met “quiet” and “peaceful”).

“I don’t think you should go in without backup,” Violet says quietly. Sana looks at her in surprise, and Arkady does a double-take.

“Hey, that's my line!” she exclaims, mock indignant, but she’s looking at Violet with warm admiration. A tingling sensation spreads through Sana’s gut, and she takes a moment to appreciate the way these shared looks between Violet and Arkady no longer make her feel a stab of jealousy and loneliness; instead, she feels overwhelming affection for both of them.

Still, she shakes her head. “I said I would meet Ricky alone, and I will. I can handle him.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have to,” Arkady points out, practically vibrating with frustration. “You can’t seriously believe he’s going to play fair with his one. You don’t know what shit he’s planning to pull. He could be waiting at the rendezvous with an army of IGR agents!”

Sana shakes her head again. “No. However much of a scumbag Ricky Q might be, he has more to fear from the IGR than we do. He won’t have tipped them off. Listen,” she goes on quickly, “I’m going into this to get information out of Ricky, so I need him to have his guard down. He won’t, if you’re there. And no offence, but I don’t think you could restrain yourself from stabbing him in the gut if you saw him again.”

Arkady shrugs. “Not really sure I see the downside there.” Violet gives a little snort of amusement. Sana smirks slightly, but then becomes serious again.

“I know you’re worried,” Sana says gently. “But I’m still the Captain, and if Ricky is making threats against all of you, I can’t let that lie. It’s my job to make sure you’re all safe. And to make life a living, breathing hell for whoever dares to cross us.”

Arkady smirks and stretches languidly. “I love it when you talk scary,” she jokes, though there’s a spark of heat in her eyes that makes Sana think she’s not entirely joking.

Sana smiles and reaches for Arkady’s hand, lying on the bunk next to her, and twines their fingers together. She does the same with Violet’s hand on her other side. For all that the situation with Ricky Q is a mess, and it could go sideways on them in the worst way possible, she feels calmer than she has done in a while. And her headache has miraculously faded.

“So...” she says. “Is this the part where we talk about... this?”

She feels Arkady go tense, as she’s prone to doing whenever feelings enter the conversation, but to her credit, she doesn’t pull away. Violet is nodding.

“I think... maybe we should? Arkady and I... well, we kind of talked about how we wanted to uh...” Violet blushes bright pink, but forges on, “take care of you, because you always do it for us, and both of us... care a lot about you, and we wanted to show it. That’s why we came to your room, last night. Well, this morning, I guess. I’m not even sure what time it is.”

“I was wondering that, too,” Sana admits. “And speaking of which, I haven’t even thanked you both for-”

Arkady groans and buries her face in the bunk’s one pillow, which she has somehow managed to steal. “Oh my god, can we please skip the speech? You really don’t need to thank us for that. At all.”

Sana knows from years of experience that Arkady’s protesting is her way of saying ‘you’re welcome’, so she isn’t affronted. She shoves Arkady lightly on the shoulder. “It wasn’t going to be a speech. I just wanted to say thank you. That’s all.”

Arkady makes an inarticulate noise of disbelief, and Violet grins.

“And, so that we’re all on the same page about this...” Sana begins, feeling like the ball is in her court now. She’s suddenly unaccountably nervous. They spent the night in the same bed, and Violet has just said that she and Arkady “care a lot” about Sana and wanted to show it, which is pretty hard to misinterpret. But Sana also hasn’t felt about anyone the way she feels about Arkady and Violet. And living as they do in such close quarters, she can’t afford to get this wrong.

“Sana?” Arkady prompts her, and the note of nervousness in her voice is enough to spur Sana on.

“I care a lot about both of you too, and have done for some time,” she says, feeling her face warm with a blush. “As more than just friends,” she adds, to be absolutely clear. “I don’t really know how… dating… will work on the ship, especially not with everything else that’s happening right now - but if you’re willing to give it a try, then so am I.”

Violet nods vigorously. “Yes. I would really like that,” she says, with a heart-melting soft smile. “And, well, Brian and Krejjh seem to manage somehow, so we can probably make it work, too.”

She says it with a grin in her voice, and Sana knows she’s saying it at least partly for the inevitable reaction it will provoke from Arkady when she emphatically declares that their relationship is in no way going to be like Jeeter and Krejjh. There’s a pause as both she and Violet wait for that reaction, but weirdly, it doesn’t come. Sana looks round at Arkady, who is red-faced and fidgeting with the pillow cover.

“So, uh, Krejjh might... know about the three of us already. At least, they know that I have feelings for both of you.”

“Really? How?” Sana asks, and from the surprise on Violet’s face, she can tell this is news to her, too.

“They sorta... gave me a pep talk. Last night. Just before I ran into you in the kitchen,” Arkady adds to Violet.

Violet’s eyes widen. “I wondered what that announcement over the comms was about.”

Sana senses she might have missed quite a bit while she was dealing with the double crisis of Campbell and Ricky Q. She makes a mental note to ask for the full story later. “So, let me get this straight,” she says slowly, because she is absolutely not passing up the opportunity to rib Arkady about this. A lot.

“You took romantic advice from Krejjh? The same Krejjh who kept inviting us to dinner with Brian when he was trying to ask them out? That Krejjh?”

“Well, it worked, didn’t it?” Arkady shoots back, still red in the face. “Anyway, it wasn’t really advice, it was more like... encouragement. They suggested that you guys might be open to the possibility of a relationship involving... all three of us. And something about Dwarnian relationship norms. Apparently polyamorous relationships are pretty normal for them.”

“Huh,” says Violet, contemplatively. “So I guess it’s Krejjh we should be thanking, then.”

Sana smirks at Arkady. “You realise that Krejjh is going to be insufferable about this as soon as they realise we’re together.”

Arkady groans again and faceplants back into the pillow. “Don’t remind me.”

(Sure enough, when the three of them enter the kitchen in search of breakfast - well, lunch technically - about half an hour later, Krejjh’s squeal nearly ruptures their eardrums. “Crewman Jeeter, come look! They’re holding hands!”

“We can hear you,” Arkady complains, half-heartedly.)

#TSCOSI #The Strange Case of Starship iris #fic #ficlet #Sana/Arkady/Violet #Sana Tripathi #Arkady Patel #Violet Liu #it only means there is no room for you to fall #I'm much happier with this version of the epilogue #though I liked some little moments in the previous version like the greenhouse conversation between Sana and Arkady #I had intended to save the fluff and relationship conversation for the follow-up(s)#but I much prefer doing it this way around #obviously Violet still needs to be put in the picture about who Ricky Q is #but she's gleaned that he's not a great guy #if I get inspired to write another ficlet in this verse it will be an alternate Episode 7 with kisses! and cuteness #Tripateliu #new ship name unlocked!#thank you ghostsquidandspacebees :D

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iffeelscouldkill · 5 years

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it only means there is no room for you to fall

A/N: I wrote a fic! This very fun, self-indulgent ficlet helped me get out of a bit of a fic-writing rut that I’ve been stuck in for the past month or so, and I loved writing it. I wrote a longer ramble about it in my notes on AO3, but basically, it’s a post-Episode-5/alternate-Episode-6 fic in which Sana talks Violet through a panic attack after Elion, and then pining ensues between Sana, Violet and Arkady. But don’t worry, it ends in cuddles <3

Content note: This fic contains a description of a panic attack - not from the perspective of the POV character (that is to say, outsider POV) - quite early on. If you’d like to skip over that section, it starts about a dozen paragraphs in with the line “It’s Sana. Are you all right?” and ends with “Eventually, Violet’s breathing slows and quiets.”

Cross-posted to AO3

After the complete and unmitigated disaster that is Elion, Sana is angrier that she can remember being in a long time.

She’s angry at not having been able to do more to protect Violet, Brian and Arkady from what just happened. She’s angry at the creeping certainty that they’ve been sold out, and at what that must mean. And she’s furious at the Regime for causing all of this, for hounding her and her crew across the galaxy, never giving them a moment to rest.

Because she’s the Captain and the crew are depending on her to get them through this, she pushes the anger down, compressing it into a tiny ball, and does what needs to be done. She helps Arkady dump the body of the unfortunate guard at the Capitol Landfill; there’s a hollow look in the other woman’s eyes that Sana hasn’t seen in years, and had hoped she wouldn’t see again. After they get back to the ship, she watches Arkady disappear into the air vents, and tells Krejjh to chart a course for Rosalind.

As she walks through the ship’s corridors, Sana fans herself with her hand. Is she imagining things, or is it warm in here? Her train of thought is cut short as she runs into Brian, who is humming to himself, looking perfectly at ease. Sometimes she thanks God – well, maybe not God, but the universe, or fate – for Brian and Krejjh, and their unwavering positivity at times like these.

“Hey, Captain. Anything more I can do to help?” Brian asks. “Violet and I got the cargo all stowed away.”

“Thanks, Brian. Nothing much at the moment, but if you can help Krejjh keep an eye on the rearview in the cockpit for the next hour, that would be appreciated,” says Sana. “Is Violet around?”

“Pretty sure she went back to her room,” Brian says. “She was starting to look kind of pale and shaky, so I told her I could finish up on my own. I think she went to go lie down.”

“Thanks, Brian,” says Sana. Brian gives her a salute and heads off in the direction of the cockpit.

Sana worries her lips together, thinking about what Violet just went through. She knows that some people – Arkady being a prime example – prefer to be left alone and not bothered with company when they’re upset. But she has a hunch that Violet would benefit from some company right now.

Her mind made up, she walks along the corridor to the other woman’s room and knocks on the door. “Violet?” she calls gently. “I just wanted to check that you’re okay.”

There’s no answer, but the light around the button next to Violet’s door is green, so it’s not locked. Sana hesitates, wondering what the odds are of Violet having fallen asleep this quickly, and then knocks again. “Violet?” she calls, a bit louder. “It’s Sana. Are you all right?”

She listens, and thinks that she hears ragged breathing coming from the other side of the door. Okay then. Sana puts on her Captain Voice (Arkady calls it her Mom Voice) and calls through the door, “Violet, if I don’t hear anything from you in the next few seconds, I’m coming in, okay?”

There’s a pause, then she hears Violet call, very faintly, “Come in.”

Sana presses the button, and the door slides open to reveal Violet sitting on her bed, clutching onto a pillow for dear life. She’s shaking all over and taking uneven, panicked breaths in, her pupils dilated. Sana rushes forward, catching up Violet’s hands without thinking about it and looking into the other woman’s eyes. “Violet. Focus on me,” she says, speaking as evenly and calmly as she can. “You’re safe. We’re all safe. No-one got hurt.”

“Sana-” Violet tries, her breaths becoming faster and sharper. She grips Sana’s hands tightly, her skin clammy and cold.

“Don’t try to talk, just breathe, Violet,” says Sana, squeezing Violet’s hands. “Breathe with me.” She starts taking slow, deep breaths in and out.

For what feels like an age, Violet’s panicked breathing pattern doesn’t change, and Sana wonders if she’s just making things worse with her presence. Then, slowly, she notices Violet’s breaths in getting longer, and her breaths out becoming slower and more even.

“Good. That’s good,” she murmurs, rubbing soothing circles on the backs of Violet’s hands with her thumbs.

Eventually, Violet’s breathing slows and quiets. Once she’s sure that the danger has passed, Sana moves to sit beside her on the bed.

“Thank you,” Violet says quietly, hoarsely. Then, “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologise for,” Sana says immediately. “You went through an unbelievably stressful situation and managed to stay totally calm the whole time. You did amazingly. But it’s okay to be…”

“A total mess afterwards?” Violet asks, wryly.

“I was gonna go with ‘shaky’,” Sana replies, smiling. “The point is, don’t feel bad about it.”

“But… all of the rest of you are so calm and collected when dealing with this kind of situation,” Violet says, quietly. “And here I am just… having panic attacks-”

“Hey,” Sana says, squeezing Violet’s arm, not wanting to let her go any further with that train of thought. “First of all, we’ve had a lot of practice in dealing with that kind of thing. We didn’t develop a whole system of colour codes from nowhere. And secondly, you do not want to see how hard my hands were gripping the steering wheel when Arkady and I drove back from meeting the Fowleys. I think they’re still shaking.” She holds her hands out to show Violet. They are trembling slightly, though in reality it’s more due to the adrenaline of talking Violet down from her panic attack, along with her suppressed anger over everything that’s happened.

Violet laughs slightly (so, mission accomplished) and leans into Sana a little. It feels natural for Sana to put an arm around her, so she does. She’s a tactile person, but keenly aware of other people’s boundaries, and usually prefers to let them initiate contact. Violet, to Sana’s slight surprise, rests her head against Sana’s shoulder. Sana looks down at Violet’s dark hair and thinks about pressing a kiss to the top of her head. Instead, she holds Violet just a little bit tighter.

What started as a brief spark of attraction the first time she saw Violet laugh – startled, when Sana offered her a cup of moonshine that she mistook for a cup of tea – that Sana was sure would die down in a couple of days has grown and grown, into a mixture of attraction, respect and fondness that some days feels too much to contain. Sana has watched Violet devote herself to the hunt for the other Violet Liu, take being thrown into the midst of a crew of renegade smugglers in her stride, and drastically reconsider her entire worldview. She’s resilient, brave, funny and insightful. Also, Sana will admit to having always had a thing for smart women.

Unfortunately, so does Arkady. Sana has seen the way she looks at Violet (and vice versa), and she doesn’t intend to stand in the way of that. Not when Arkady has had so, so few good things in her life to call her own.

Sana used to be on the receiving end of those looks, once upon a time. But she’d been too afraid to act on them, back when it was just the two of them, in case it all went south and they both lost the only person they could really depend on. She told herself she’d rather have a best friend who had her back than a romance that might not last, and she almost believed it.

It still hurt a little when she realised that, at some point, Arkady had moved on from her. But if it has to be anyone, she’s glad it’s Violet. The two of them go well together.

Sana has her crew; she doesn’t need any more than that.

“Um… Have you seen Arkady since we left Elion?” Violet asks, as if she’s somehow picked up on Sana’s thoughts.

“Yeah, uh…” Sana tries to think what answer to give. She doesn’t want to lie to Violet, but she isn’t sure when Arkady plans on coming down from the vents. “She’s around. I think she just needed to… regroup for a bit.”

“Oh, yeah. Okay.” Violet sounds a little resigned. Sana waits for her to say or ask something more about Arkady, but instead she says, “Is it just me, or is it pretty warm in here? – I mean, not ‘me’ in the sense of that cheesy joke, but uh, in the sense that I can’t tell if I’m just-”

Hiding a smile, Sana takes pity on Violet and cuts her off. “No, it’s definitely not just you, I’ve been feeling it too. I may need to take a look at our temperature reg.” Violet tenses, as if about to pull away. “If you need to go do that now, I can-”

“No, it’s fine, it’ll probably start working again on its own,” Sana assures her, and Violet relaxes back against her side. “Some of our equipment is a bit temperamental.” “Temperamental?” asks Violet, with a tiny smirk.

“Oof. Bad pun,” Sana says, smiling. “If it’s still acting up in a few hours, then I’ll give it a closer look. And pray that we have the parts to fix it.”

Violet winces. “Right. And if we don’t?”

“I’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.” Worst case scenario, Sana could probably jury-rig something. They would just need to make sure they picked up the right parts on Rosalind.

Violet nods and sits up. Sana’s side feels suddenly cold.

“Well, still, I shouldn’t keep you any longer - I’m sure you have plenty of more important things that need your attention.” “My number one priority is always the wellbeing of my crew,” Sana says firmly. “Anything else can wait. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah. I’m.. I’ll be fine, Captain,” says Violet with a small smile. “Really.”

“You know you can call me Sana if you want to,” Sana finds herself saying. She’s not sure why; the others all call her “Captain” and “Sana” interchangeably, but she doesn’t think she’s heard Violet use her name yet. Maybe she just wants to hear it once.

Violet gives her a full smile, and it’s devastating. “Thank you, Sana.”

—

The temperature reg does not start working again on its own, and the next six hours are hellish as temperatures slowly and steadily climb inside the ship. Despite Sana’s best efforts, it’s past two in the morning by the time the temperature reg is finally fixed. Arkady spends as much of that time as she can bear lurking in the air vents, avoiding Violet. Finally, when she thinks the stuffy recycled air might be preventing oxygen from getting to her brain and she’s sick of playing back Violet’s horrified expression on a constant loop, she eases herself down and heads for the cockpit.

She winds up talking to Krejjh about the war. It’s been on her mind ever since they ran into Eejhgreb and Krejjh recounted the tale of how – and why – they deserted the military. Arkady has her own memories of that night, but they’re bittersweet. She and her unit had celebrated all through the night, but lurking under it was a fear much greater than anything Arkady had felt during the war. Of what would happen when they no longer had a common cause.

Sana would probably say the conversation has been a “long time coming”, that it’s good for Arkady to get it all out. But all it does is make Arkady feel more frustrated and angry over things that happened years ago. All she’s ever wanted is to put her past behind her.

After they’ve exhausted that topic, as Arkady digs into Krejjh’s stash of fruit jerky, Krejjh jokingly changes the subject. “Speaking of which… do you want some love advice?”

“No,” Arkady says flatly.

“Cripes, trying to lighten the mood a little here, First Mate Patel,” Krejjh says, holding up one of their pairs of hands. “Y’sure?”

“Krejjh, remember when you and Brian weren’t officially together yet?” Arkady reminds them. “And he kept asking you to dinner, and you kept inviting the rest of the crew?” God, that was a shitshow. A very funny shitshow, but by the end of it even Arkady was feeling sorry for Jeeter. All that time spent studying mediaeval Dwarnian hadn’t given him a single clue about Dwarnian romantic customs.

“Yeah, romantic tandem eating is not as universal as you guys think it is,” Krejjh says.

“Well, I don’t need your advice.” God, nothing says ‘romantically incompetent’ like taking love advice from a purple space alien.

Krejjh, of course, persists. “Just sayin’, if y’like someone, maybe don’t spend all your time hiding from them.”

“I’m not being bashful, Krejjh,” says Arkady shortly. “I all but murdered someone in front of her.”

She looks up to find Krejjh giving her an odd smile. “I wasn’t just talkin’ about Science Officer Liu,” Krejjh says.

Arkady stares at them. “What are you talking about?”

Krejjh leans back a little in the pilot’s chair, seeming to look up and out at the stars. “Ya know, one of the other human romantic customs I’ve never understood is why relationships are supposed to be limited to just two people. I guess it’s a hold-over from the whole gender binary thing, but from what I can tell, even most humans don’t think that’s important any more. So why keep limiting yourselves?”

Arkady swallows, her throat suddenly dry. “We do have polyamorous relationships too,” she points out. “They’re not even that unusual these days, but legally there still isn’t that much recognition. A lot of human society is still geared around two-person relationships. And a lot of people still… prefer them.”

“That sounds like a pretty big assumption,” Krejjh counters. “Why not just talk to ‘em? See how they feel about it? What’ve you got to lose?”

Arkady raises an eyebrow. “Okay, assuming we’re talking about me and Liu and Tripathi here and not about you and Jeeter inviting me to some weird interspecies ménage-à-trois…”

Krejjh laughs. “First Mate Patel, I am wounded that you would reject our advances like this.” They put a hand on their chest, a distinctly human gesture that Krejjh has picked up – Dwarnians don’t have a heart in the middle of their chests in the way that humans do.

Arkady snorts, but then becomes serious again, looking down at her lap and toying with the half-open pack of fruit jerky. Now that they’ve broached the topic, she might as well keep going. She could have pretended that they were still speaking hypothetically, or discussing human social conventions, but all of a sudden she’s too tired to keep dancing around things.

“What do I have to lose? One of the best friendships I’ve ever had, with one of the only people I can count on to always have my back,” she says. “And at the same time… someone that I’m only just getting to know, who is also the first people I’ve felt any kind of connection with since…” Since Sana, she doesn’t say.

Arkady can feel Krejjh’s eyes on her, but doesn’t look up for fear of seeing pity in them. “Besides which, Krejjh, my life just doesn’t work that way. I don’t get things that I want – it’s a well-established fact. I’ve had a long time to come to terms with it.”

“That doesn’t sound fair at all,” Krejjh says quietly.

“Yeah, well, life isn’t fair,” Arkady replies. She meets Krejjh’s gaze defiantly, but instead of pity, all she sees is empathy.

Silence falls between them, and Arkady figures that as the person who brought the mood back down again, she should be the one to lighten it this time. But while she’s casting about for another change of topic, Krejjh says,

“Where has Crewman Jeeter got to with that ice? I can’t think who he could be talking to down there.”

Arkady gives Krejjh a suspicious look, not trusting their casual tone. “What, are you implying that-”

“Krrrejjh to all crew,” Krejjh sing-songs, activating their comm. “Folks, this is your pilot speaking. I’ve got a very important announcement to make to the whole crew.”

Arkady stiffens in alarm. “Krejjh, what are you doing?” she hisses.

“Boy am I embarrassed,” Krejjh goes on, in a rueful tone, “but I seem to have misplaced something important. My fiancé? Crewman Jeeter? Along with a cup of ice he totally still owes me? Gonna advise that you sit tight as I dispatch our very own First Mate Patel to the kitchen to solve this little mystery. So, keep an eye out for that, crew, and plan accordingly. Krejjh out.”

Krejjh meets Arkady’s unimpressed stare with a smug look. “Maybe you can’t have everything, but you can at least go talk to Science Officer Liu,” they point out. “Can’t hide from her forever. You might as well clear the air.”

Arkady rolls her eyes and reluctantly makes for the door of the cockpit. “Fine, but if it’s a disaster? I’m officially blaming you.”

—

It’s not a disaster. Although Arkady would never, ever admit it to anyone, least of all Krejjh themself, Krejjh was right. After they’ve got past the horrible first five minutes of what Violet would call “puking it all out”, things get… better. Violet pours them both a cup of kai shui (Mandarin for boiled water – something Violet says her Chinese grandparents drank back on Earth) because they’re out of tea, and they talk properly for the first time since Violet came abroad the Rumor. And okay, maybe Arkady had jumped to a few too many conclusions based on those fraught early interactions.

She’d still liked Violet in spite of what she thought was Violet’s hero worship of the regime, but she’d been fighting it down, convinced that it was just a front that Violet was putting on because she had to, that she’d be shot of them tomorrow if she was given the chance to clear her name and make a clean getaway. It had made it much easier to ignore the feelings flaring in her chest, the way that Violet’s admiration inexplicably lifted her mood, the guilt that she felt over having tricked and lied to her.

Now that she’s come to terms with the fact that she’d misjudged Violet (or at least, judged her too quickly), those feelings have come rushing back in full force. Arkady tries to will her frantically hammering heart to calm down at Violet’s gently affectionate tone as she says,

“Okay, I’m not going to keep arguing with you, because I don’t see us getting anywhere on this tonight, and I’m not even going to try to thank you again for saving my life-” here, a small smile that threatens to give Arkady an aneurysm “-but. For what it’s worth? Except for the times it really does seem like we’re all about to die, living on this ship is the safest I’ve felt since before the war.”

“Well, Violet,” Arkady begins after a beat of trying to find her voice. “That’s very disturbing!” She utterly fails to keep an answering smile off her own face.

“Then why are you smiling?”

“Sometimes I smile! Y’know, every now and then.”

“Good to know,” Violet teases. Arkady mentally composes an epitaph: Here lies Arkady Patel, slain by a cute girl flirting with her. She hopes she’s not blushing as hard as she thinks she is.

An expectant silence falls between them, and Arkady reaches for the first thing she can think of to fill it. “Look, I’m… sorry for vanishing on you right after we left Elion,” she blurts out. Violet gives her a quizzical look, but Arkady has been feeling worse and worse about disappearing and avoiding Violet in the wake of what happened. Sure, she’d been feeling like shit about killing that guard, and part of that had been down to the look on Violet’s face, a look that had seemed to confirm every one of her fears about how Violet saw them. Saw Arkady.

She hadn’t been thinking about what the aftermath of those events would have been like for Violet. How she’d managed to suppress all her panic and terror, remain calm, act and improvise in the face of mortal danger – only to get caught and believe she was about to die. Again. Finding out that Violet has an anxiety disorder only compounds Arkady’s guilt.

“I wasn’t thinking about… you did really well with the, uh. Setting aside your panic thing. But I know it was hard for you, and then you literally thought that you were about to die again when everything went south…” Arkady’s rambling, and she really wishes she could stop. “I just mean, I could have stuck around. To make sure you were okay.”

“It’s okay,” Violet says quickly. “I mean, you’d just – been responsible for getting us out of a really bad situation-”

Arkady snorts. “If that’s what you want to call bludgeoning a guy over the head-”

“-and then I, well, kind of freaked out,” Violet continues over her. “So I don’t blame you for needing some space.” She pauses, and smiles a little. “Actually, the Captain – Sana – came to find me. To make sure I was all right.”

“Really?” Arkady asks, feeling a lurch in her stomach like she’s missed a step. She supposes it must be jealousy, but she’s not sure who she’s jealous of.

“Yeah.” Violet has a soft, admiring look in her eyes that Arkady recognises all too well, though she stopped gazing starry-eyed at Sana years ago, wanting the other woman to see her as more than just a naïve kid. “She just talked with me, calmed me down, and then… sat with me until she was completely sure I was okay. She didn’t once act like she had somewhere else to be.”

Arkady swallows. “Yeah, that’s the Captain for you. She’s one hundred percent genuine with how much she cares.”

“And then she must have gone straight on from sitting with me to her shift in the cockpit, and then to fixing the temperature reg,” Violet goes on. “Brian said she was pretty worn out… Does she ever take time for herself?”

Arkady snorts. “It’s a battle. She can’t rest until she makes sure that everyone on the ship feels loved and appreciated.” She’s aiming for snark, but the words come out fonder than she intends them to. “Trust me, I’ve tried to get her to take more breaks. She acts upbeat, but I think things get to her more than she lets on.”

Violet looks thoughtful. “Maybe next time we should try together.”

She meets Arkady’s eyes, and gives her the tiniest of smiles, just a quirk of the lips, and her eyes are so knowing, and Arkady feels it again, that missed-a-step lurch in her stomach like she’s taken a leap into the unknown. This time, she doesn’t think it’s jealousy.

“She might listen to both of us,” Violet finishes.

“I- uh- sure, yeah, we should. Do that,” Arkady stammers. Jesus. Tonight is not her finest night for dignity, but somehow she finds herself not caring as much as she normally would.

Violet smiles fully and looks away, down at the floor, her cheeks red. “Cool. Great. Um, listen, on a different topic, there’s something that I’ve been meaning to tell you – well, more like show you…”

—

Sana is having a no-good, very bad night.

As if having to run for their lives on Elion and barely making it out hadn’t been enough, the broken temperature reg had stubbornly resisted Sana’s attempts to fix it. She’d sworn and sweated in the engine room as the temperature climbed steadily higher, and eventually managed to improvise a solution with some spare fuse wire and a viciously-applied screwdriver. (She’ll have to switch it out for a more permanent fix after they get some proper supplies, but for now, it’ll do).

It’s coming up on 3 a.m. and she’s hot, irritable and exhausted, but instead of being able to get any kind of rest, Sana has had to endure a tense and difficult call with Campbell that resulted in her cutting off contact with one of their longest-standing and most reliable customers, and leaving Sana with the nagging feeling that she’s made a serious error in judgement. But she hasn’t even had the chance to process that, because minutes after Campbell severed the connection, Ricky Q rose up like an elitist, blackmailing spectre from the depths of her and Arkady’s shared past to make threats against Sana’s crew.

Something about it doesn’t fit right, and she’s convinced that there’s more to what’s happening than Ricky Q’s “middleman” story. Unfortunately, the only way she can know what it is is to play along for now.

Sana can feel a headache building as she practices how she’s going to sell the idea of changing course for Hafizah to the crew. It only gets worse when, in the middle of making the case to Brian and Krejjh, Violet and Arkady enter the cockpit, full of shared excitement about some epiphany they’ve had. They’re standing closer together than usual, shoulders brushing, and as badly as Sana wants to be happy for them, she just can’t deal with this right now.

“So, me and Violet were talking about that alien robot swarm cloud, and she said-” Arkady begins.

“Arkady, is this pressing?” Sana interrupts tiredly.

“It could be,” Violet puts in.

“Is the swarm outside the ship right now, knocking on the door, trying to get in?”

“No, but we think we might’ve found a possible connection-”

“You think you might’ve found a possible connection,” Sana repeats, placing sceptical emphasis on all of the relevant words. She knows she’s going to feel bad about her tone later, that normally she’d be in favour of Arkady and Violet devising theories and following whatever lead they can, but her headache is intensifying and she’s just done with everything tonight. “Have we made any progress on tracking down the other Violet Liu? Are we any closer to solving Alvy’s mystery? Given how we changed our entire course for this, I’d love to get past speculation and into… anything else.”

She sees Violet’s face fall, hurt flashing across it at the implication that the detour to rescue her had been a burden for the Rumor crew. Sana will feel terrible about that later, too.

“Look. We all liked Campbell,” Arkady says gently (for her). “But when somebody turns on us because we missed an appointment? Their loyalty was never worth shit.”

Arkady clearly believes that Sana’s terrible mood is due to Campbell’s probable betrayal, and it’s far easier to let her go on believing it than to go anywhere near the truth, so Sana doesn’t correct her. “I appreciate that. But honestly, it’s just – been a long couple of days, and it’s almost 3 a.m., and I don’t see why this can’t wait until tomorrow?” She injects a pleading note into the last syllable, in a last-ditch attempt to soften things.

“Yeah. Of course,” Violet says.

“Captain, if there’s anything we can do-” begins Arkady.

“Don’t worry, I’ll let you know,” she promises them, already turning to leave the cockpit. As a result, she misses the look of concern that passes between Arkady and Violet, Violet’s raised eyebrows, and Arkady’s slight nod. “Krejjh, I’ll update you on those coordinates as soon as I’m able to.”

“Aye-aye, Captain.”

Finally alone, Sana trudges down the corridor to her room, goes in, and presses the button to lock the door behind her. She flops face-down onto her bunk with a groan.

“Fucking IGR. Fucking Ricky Q,” she mumbles into her pillow.

Barely a few minutes later, there’s a knock at her door, polite but firm. Sana raises her head angrily, and only just manages to clamp down on her urge to shout, “Go away!” She knows that being a captain is a full-time job and that the others depend on her, but damn it, can’t she rest for just a few hours?

“Who is it?”

“It’s me, Captain,” comes Arkady’s voice. Sana frowns. Arkady wouldn’t bother her in her room unless it was important, but…

“Kady, seriously, whatever it is, can it wait?” she asks. “I’m really just… I really need to crash right now.”

There’s a pause, and Sana thinks that her best friend is going to relent, but then her voice comes back, insistent: “This will only take a minute. I promise.”

Sana sighs heavily and sits up, brushing her hair out of her face. At least with Arkady she doesn’t have to be as put-together as she does for the others, but she also doesn’t want Arkady to start asking questions about what exactly has got to her so badly. She walks over to the door and presses the button to open it. “What do you need?”

Arkady stares at her for a few seconds, almost as if sizing her up, and then very slowly and stiffly pulls her into a hug.

“K-Kady?” says Sana, shocked. Arkady doesn’t do hugs unless she’s really, really drunk. “What are you doing?”

“Giving you a hug.” At least the flat, snarky, I’m-stating-an-obvious-fact tone is one hundred percent in character.

After a moment, Arkady lets go. That’s when Sana spots the other person standing slightly apologetically behind her. “Violet? What are you doing here?”

“Also giving you a hug,” says Violet a little shyly. “If that’s okay.”

She waits for a second, and when Sana doesn’t resist, she wraps Sana up in a warm, gentle hug. It’s a little more satisfying than Arkady’s stiff embrace, though Sana was touched by that, in a bewildered kind of way. Violet is very good at giving hugs; she squeezes just enough to make the hugged person feel cared for, but not so much that it becomes suffocating. After a few seconds, Sana hugs her back, feeling a little guilty for taking as much pleasure in it as she does. The only real downside is that some of Violet’s hair is tickling her nose.

Violet lets go after a few minutes, and Sana tries to summon up a breezy dismissal, or better yet, to ask just what exactly is going on, but the words get stuck in her throat.

“Captain,” Arkady begins. “Is something going on? Something you’re not telling us about?”

“Whatever it is… we want to help you,” Violet puts in. “You don’t have to deal with everything on your own.”

“I…”

I’m fine, Sana wants to say. Needs to say. But her throat is closing up, and she’s so, so tired. She’s been holding it together by a thread, and suddenly, that thread is fraying. She squeezes her eyes shut against the suddenly-spinning room. Damn it, don’t let me do this, not now…

“Okay,” she hears Arkady say, and then there’s a tug on her hand, leading her into her own room. Sana goes. She hears the door swish shut behind them and the lock engage.

Sana follows the pull of Arkady’s hand down onto her bunk. Someone is gently taking off her shoes. She lies down and feels warm, strong arms around her, holding her together. Violet slips in on Sana’s other side, a reassuring presence at her back.

Sana blinks and looks into Arkady’s dark eyes. “I don’t understand what’s happening here,” she mumbles.

“We’ll figure it out in the morning,” Arkady tells her.

Violet slides an arm around Sana’s waist. “Go to sleep, Captain,” she says, and so Sana does.

#TSCOSI #The Strange Case of Starship Iris #Sana Tripathi #Arkady Patel #Violet Liu #femslash #just fluff and cuddles and some pining thrown in #this was actually meant to be much shorter but someone (ARKADY) insisted on pining longer than I expected #in all seriousness though I can't blame her #Krejjh is a matchmaker in every timeline #also hugs for Sana plz #this is a fix-it of sorts for Episode 6 in which Violet doesn't bring up the samples right away #and Sana gets the love and support she deserves in the midst of all that ugh #also I have a lot of headcanons about Violet's little smiles okay #I just realised I put them in like... every fic #but she definitely has a cute smile #Tripateliu #Sana/Arkady/Violet #I realised that I originally used two different ship tags for this and the epilogue SMH #but ghostsquidandspacebees came up with the perfect OT3 ship name!

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