Lindsy had finished her shift at 1200 and had not wasted any time. She had changed into a soft taupe set, a loose knit cardigan over a fitted tank and matching lounge pants, comfortable in the way that only made sense once you were somewhere private. Her hair was down and still slightly damp from the shower, falling loose and unbothered around her shoulders. She had curled up against the pillows with her PADD, going through nothing important, just letting the quiet of the early afternoon settle into her.

The planet sat warm and gold in the viewport, the city lights of the station catching against the stars beyond, and the room held that same warm light, the shelves along the wall glowing softly with the small collected things she had brought aboard. She had been there maybe twenty minutes, comfortable and unhurried, when the door chimed.

She did not have to guess who it was. She set the PADD down beside her and called for the door to open and Zedd stepped through in a grey waffle knit pullover and dark drawstring pants, looking like a man who had been on his feet since 0600 and was glad to no longer be.

"You're off early" Lindsy said, and the warmth in her voice was immediate and unguarded in the way it only was when it was just the two of them.

"Early shift wrapped clean" he said. "Nothing broke, nothing caught fire, nobody needed me for anything. I decided that was a sign." He looked at her curled against the pillows with her hair loose and the warm light catching the gold at her wrists and something in his shoulders loosened that had not quite been loose a moment ago. "You look comfortable."

"I am comfortable" she said, and shifted to make room. "Come be comfortable too."

He crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed and then, after a moment, gave up on sitting properly and stretched out beside her, propped against the pillows with the casual ease of someone who had done this enough times now that it no longer required thought. She tipped sideways into him without really deciding to and he put an arm around her and for a while neither of them said anything and it did not need filling.

"What were you reading" he said eventually, nodding at the PADD.

"Nothing. Just scrolling." She set it further out of reach, onto the nightstand, and settled more fully against him. "How was the shift, really. Before the part where nothing broke."

"Routine. Mei-Lin and Avery have the secondary systems running cleaner than they have since we left dock, which is good because I'd rather not think about secondary systems for a while. Cormus ran diagnostics on the Reach for most of the morning and came up to report it twice, which either means there's something wrong with the Reach or he wanted an excuse to come up to the bridge." He shrugged. "Either way, fine."

"Cormus has been in an unusually good mood the last couple of days" Lindsy said, carefully neutral.

"Has he." Zedd's tone was equally neutral, which from him was its own kind of tell.

"Mm." She did not elaborate and he did not ask, and there was a comfortable understanding between them that whatever was happening in the lower decks would surface in its own time and neither of them needed to chase it.

The light through the viewport shifted slightly as the ship held position and the planet rotated, throwing a warm wash across the bed, across the two of them tangled together against the pillows. He reached over and laced his fingers loosely through hers where her hand rested against his chest, and neither of them looked at the gesture or commented on it because it did not need commenting on.

"I could get used to this" he said after a while, quiet, looking at the planet rather than at her.

"The quiet afternoon, or the quarters, or the company" Lindsy said, equally quiet.

"All of it." He looked down at her then, and the look was simple and unhurried and entirely without performance. "Mostly the company."

She smiled, the small private smile that she had not had much occasion to use before this ship, before this man.

The quiet stretched comfortably and Lindsy traced an idle line along the edge of his sleeve, not quite drawing shapes, just needing something for her fingers to do.

"Can I ask you something" she said.

"Always."

"We've never really talked about before. Properly, I mean. I know the practical version, from the cantina, from working together. But not much else." She tipped her head back to look up at him. "Where you're from. Your family. That sort of thing."