No Agenda - Part 2

They finished the material conversation over the rest of the meal and the PADDs got pushed to the side at some point without either of them formally deciding to put them away and the conversation kept going in the way conversations did when the work was just the opening rather than the point.

He talked about the ship with the particular quality she had noticed before, like it was something he had built rather than bought, which in most of the ways that mattered she supposed he had. He talked about the modifications he wanted to make over the next year, the systems he wanted upgraded, the capabilities he was working toward. He had a clear picture of what he wanted the Dutchman to become and it was not a vague ambition, it was a specific vision with specific steps and she found herself genuinely interested in it in a way that went beyond professional investment.

She was aware that she was enjoying herself more than a working dinner strictly required and that the line between the working part and the other part had moved some time ago without a formal announcement.

"Can I ask you something?" she said.

"Go ahead."

"The dataport." She had been wondering about it since she came aboard and had been deciding whether it was her business and had concluded that it probably was not but that she was going to ask anyway. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to."

He looked at her for a moment and she could not entirely read what was in his expression but it was not closed off, more like someone deciding how much of something to hand over. "What do you want to know?"

"How long have you had it."

"Eight years," he said. "Give or take."

"Does it hurt?"

He seemed mildly surprised by that question, like most people asked different things. "Not anymore. Did at first. The integration period is not particularly pleasant." He turned his mug in his hands. "Now it's just part of how I work. I don't notice it most of the time."

She nodded slowly. She had seen the scar tissue at the base of his neck when he had leaned in to look at the relay housing the night before and she had had a professional assessment of what the implantation procedure involved and a separate non professional response to the idea of someone having gone through that and she was not going to examine either of those things too closely right now.

"It must have been a significant reason," she said. "To do it in the first place."

"It was," he said, and his tone did not close the subject but it held it at a certain distance and she respected that and did not push further and he seemed to register the fact that she had not pushed and something in his expression eased slightly.

"You're good at that," he said after a moment.

"At what."

"Knowing when to leave something alone." He looked at her with that quieter version of his expression. "Most people either push or they go so far the other way they make it obvious they're avoiding it. You just move on naturally. It's a skill."

She considered that for a moment. "I grew up around people who had things they didn't talk about," she said. "You learn to read when a door is closed versus when someone just hasn't opened it yet. Those are different things."

He was quiet for a moment looking at her in a way that suggested he was doing his own version of reading something. "Which one is mine?"

"I don't know yet," she said honestly. "Probably depends on the thing."

He nodded slowly at that and she had the impression that was an answer he found more satisfying than a reassurance would have been.

The tea had gone cool without either of them noticing and the planet kept turning in the viewport and she was aware that the dinner had long since stopped being about the material specs and that they were both aware of that and neither of them had done anything about it and she had been deciding for the last twenty minutes whether she was going to.

She set her mug down and made the decision.

"Can I say something that isn't about the suits or the fabricators or the ship?" she said.

He looked at her steadily. "Go ahead."

She kept her eyes on his because looking away would make it a bigger deal than she wanted it to be. "I like working with you. I like how you run this ship and I like the crew and I appreciate that you sent that message tonight because it gave us a reason to be here." She paused and chose her next words carefully because she meant them and she wanted them to land correctly. "But I'd like to know if you'd be willing to do this without the reason sometime. Just to spend time. To get to know each other outside of what we're both trying to build here." She held his gaze. "Off duty. No agenda."