Page 73 of Fought and Found

She hooks one finger in the strap of my gauntlet. Tugs, once—not to move me; nothing moves me—to be felt.

"And lovey. Tonight we own the clock."

Five words. The purr drops half an octave and a passing dock worker looks around for the machinery fault.

She looks at me. Small. Fierce. Certain. The bite mark visible at her collar. The woman who dismantled my framework, my employer, and my entire understanding of what I was built for, all without raising her voice.

"I'll be fine," she says.

"I know."

"If you hear shouting, that's normal. Morrison shouts. It doesn't mean anything."

"I know."

"If you hear crying, that's also normal. That one might be me."

"I will be here."

She reaches up. Her palm flat against my chest—over the marking at my sternum, over the purr. The touch is small and grounding and it says: I am coming back.

She goes inside. The door seals.

I stand in the corridor.

My tail stretches toward the closed door—the tip reaching, straining, as though proximity to the polymer would bring her closer. The purr has not stopped since we docked. I cannot make it stop. Thebonding frequency fills the corridor with a low, steady vibration that makes the overhead lights hum in sympathy.

A station worker passes. Stares. A seven-foot crimson Xarthian standing outside a dispatch office, purring, tail pointed at the door, claws retracted, gold eyes fixed on reinforced polymer. The universe's most dangerous lost puppy.

"She will be fine," Sprout says. Still at my shoulder.

"I know."

"Morrison loves her. Morrison is incapable of expressing love through any mechanism other than operational infrastructure and occasional violence. The confrontation will be loud and unpleasant and will end with Morrison helping because Morrison always helps. This is how their relationship works. It has worked this way for twelve years. I have the data."

"You are attempting to reassure me."

"I am providing contextual data to prevent you from breaching a reinforced door. The replacement cost would be deducted from Flossie's docking fees and she would be cross, and a cross Flossie is a problem I prefer to manage proactively." A pause. "Also: yes. I am attempting to reassure you. Do not make this a habit."

The orb settles into a steady hover at my shoulder. The warm amber glow. The AI that monitors everyone and trusts no one, sitting beside me in a corridor, keeping me company while the woman we both belong to fights a battle neither of us can fight for her.

I wait.

Through the door—muffled, distant, not words but shapes of words—I hear voices. Morrison's, sharp. The pitch rises. Flossie's, steady. Holding ground. The cadence of two women who love each other and are fighting about it.

I could resolve every word. Xarthian hearing does not offer the option of partial listening. But I am choosing—deliberately, with effort—to hear the shapes rather than the content. This is her fight. These are her words. The conversation on the other side of that door is between a woman and the person who raised her, and I was not invited, and the not-being-invited is the trust.

Morrison's voice rises. Falls. A silence that stretches long enough that my tail presses harder against the polymer.

Flossie's voice. Steady. Warm. The real warmth—not the performance, not the broker-dismantling register. The underneath thing. She is telling Morrison something true. I can hear the truth in the shape of it even without the words.

Another silence. Longer.

A station maintenance worker walks past for the third time. The third time, he stops. Looks at me. Looks at the door. Looks at my tail pressed against the polymer. Looks at my face.

"You waiting for someone?"

"Yes."