He’s doing what all the new trainees do, trying to keep the “floor” of the shuttle below his feet, though there’s no gravity to hold him there. I want to laugh at him—but I’m forced to admit he’s doing okay.
I toss him one of the ration bars and then take a few bites of one myself before shoving the rest into my back pocket for later. Flynn looks as worn down as I feel, exhausted and restless at the same time. I know we need to find a way back down to the surface, but now that I’m able to breathe, I’m realizing how tired I am.
I have to keep moving or I’ll never get up again. “Wonder what else we’ve got up here,” I muse aloud, reaching for the next locker over and finding more of the emergency packs, all with their seals unbroken. “Each of these is designed to keep a pair of soldiers alive for a fortnight, with the ship’s H2O recyc system.”
“That’s months’ worth of food,” Flynn replies, finishing his bar and popping open a few more lockers, all stuffed with the emergency packs. “Or even years.”
“There are dozens of them.” My mind is turning over slowly, inching around an idea, unwilling to look at it directly. “It must’ve been set up for a transport mission, so it could take a shuttle full of soldiers somewhere remote.”
Flynn’s turned to the other side of the shuttle to see if there are more of the packs in the rest of the lockers. But I can’t stop looking at the one I opened. Months’ worth of food for a platoon.
Years, for two people.
“We could just go.” The words come out in a whisper, and as I say them, I find I can’t look up, can’t see Flynn’s face. I can’t bear to know his reaction.
Still, I can feel him turn toward me. I can feel the air move as he makes his way back. He ducks his head to try to see my face, but I still can’t look at him. No matter what he’s about to say, I don’t want to hear it. Hearing it will make what I’ve just said real.
“Never mind,” I say sharply. “I was just kidding.”
But I wasn’t.
“Jubilee.” He’s got one hand wrapped around a handle to steady himself, but the other reaches for me, his fingers tracing the outline of my face.
“Just drop it, Flynn. Forget it.”
He’s silent for a few seconds, speaking only with the weight of his eyes on me. I can feel my face flushing hot with shame, with guilt, under his gaze. “Where do you want to go?” he asks finally, a smile in his voice.
I glance at him and then away again. “What do you mean?”
“Where do we go? Anywhere in the galaxy. Where does Jubilee Chase want to live?”
This time I look at him longer, properly, scanning his face for some sign of what he’s thinking—some judgment, some hint of blame or guilt that I’m standing there, talking about leaving his people and mine, about abandoning our whole lives. About running away. But he only smiles at me, his fingers sliding from my cheek to twine around a floating lock of hair, making it spiral slowly in midair.
“Not Corinth,” I say finally, my voice emerging somewhat hoarsely. “Too busy, too many people. But not any place too new either. Maybe Patron, I liked it there. Haven’t been any rebellions for quite a while now.”
He grins, his smile easing away some of my horror at my own impulse. “As long as there’s a sky there, like this one, I’m game.”
“It’s not quite like this, the air gets in the way. But we could find ourselves a mountaintop where the air’s nice and thin, and it’d be awfully close.”
Flynn shifts, sliding his foot more firmly under the handle bracing him. “And what does Jubilee Chase want to do with her life, if she’s not hunting down rebel leaders and skinning them alive?”
“I don’t know. Something extremely boring. I could go to night school and learn dentistry.”
That makes him laugh, a quick burst of a chuckle that makes my own lips curve. “Oh, God no. No way could you be a dentist.”
“I could! I’d be a damn good dentist.”
“Lots of call for dentistry on deserted mountaintops, eh?” He’s watching my face, eyes tracing over my features like he’s trying to memorize them.
“Well, what about you? You could go be an accountant or a mechanic or something.” I try to gesture at him, but I end up unbalancing myself.
Flynn leans forward, wrapping his arm around me to steady me and him both. “Definitely not an accountant.” His voice is low, thoughtful. “Maybe a mechanic, though. I could be the one to keep the engine of our…What do you drive when you live on a mountain, anyway?”
I have absolutely no idea. The only time I was ever on a mountain was during basic, and I had to learn the bare essentials for snow combat. “Uh. Skis?”
“Well, I’d make sure the skis kept running smoothly, didn’t break down.”
His face is close to mine, his hand warm against my back through my shirt. Despite the smile on his lips, his gaze is so sad it feels like my heart is ripping in two, turning to ash as I look at him. He knows as well as I do that neither of us is leaving Avon alive if we touch down again. He’ll never see snow, and I’ll never teach him what skis are.
I want so badly to just turn off communications for good, to go dark, to let this shuttle drift until we get captured by the gravity of some distant star. I want to wrap my arms around him and let my feet come free from the handles and just let our bodies go. His eyes move to my lips, and I know he’s thinking the same thing; I can feel it in the way the air charges between us. I can almost taste him half an inch away, can feel the way the tiny hairs on my skin lift and reach for him like plants seeking the sunlight.