"No" she agreed, and there was something warm in it too. "Turns out that worked out alright."

"Can I tell you something" she said. "And you don't have to do anything with it. I just want to say it out loud."

"Always."

"I've been doing this a long time. Contracts, postings, crews. And I got good at not getting attached to any of it, because attachment is what gets people hurt when the contract ends or the ship moves on." She traced the edge of his sleeve again, slower this time. "I came aboard the Dutchman two and a half weeks ago thinking it would be the same shape. Better terms, better fit, but the same shape. Do the job, keep some distance."

"And now."

"And now I have a cooktop and you're lying in my quarters in the middle of the afternoon for no reason except that you wanted to be here." She looked at him. "Two and a half weeks. That's not the shape I was expecting, and it happened faster than I'm used to anything happening. I don't entirely know what to do with that yet. But I don't want to pretend I haven't noticed it either."

Zedd was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke his voice had lost some of its usual ease, replaced with something more careful. "I wasn't expecting it either, if that helps." He looked at the ceiling. "I hired a navigator. That's what this was supposed to be. And somewhere in the first couple of weeks it stopped being that, and I didn't really notice it happening until it already had."

"Is that a problem."

"No." He said it simply, without hesitation. "It's just fast. I don't usually move fast on anything, especially not this. So I've been a little caught off guard by how little that seems to matter." He looked at her. "I don't know what I want out of it long term. It's been two weeks. But I know I don't want to pretend the last two weeks were nothing, just because it's early."

"That's further than I'd gotten an hour ago" Lindsy said, and there was warmth in it, not quite a laugh but close.

"We don't have to figure out all of it today."

"No" she agreed. "We don't." She settled back against him, the tension she hadn't quite noticed she was carrying easing out of her shoulders. "I just wanted you to know. That I noticed. That it matters, even if it's early."

"I noticed too" he said, "For what it's worth."

The quiet settled again, easier this time, and after a while Lindsy shifted slightly so she could see his face better.

"Okay, different question" she said. "What's something that annoys you that probably shouldn't."

Zedd thought about it, actually thought about it, which she appreciated. "People who don't close cabinet doors. Doesn't matter where, doesn't matter what's in them. If a door is meant to close and someone leaves it open I feel something close to rage." He glanced at her. "Your turn. Same question."

"People who reorganize my charts and don't tell me." She said it with absolute seriousness. "I will find out. It will take me four seconds to find out. Just tell me you moved something."

"Has that happened recently."

"It has happened on every ship I've ever served on, at least once, and every time I have considered it a personal betrayal." She was smiling slightly. "What did you do for fun, before all this. Before the ship, before any of it."

"Depends which before you mean." He thought about it. "On Epsilon Prime, not much. There wasn't a lot of fun to be had. I used to take old equipment apart just to see how it worked, which I guess counted." He shrugged. "Later, when I was moving between ships, I got into puzzles. Locks, specifically. Mechanical ones, the old kind, not the electronic stuff. There's something satisfying about a problem that doesn't fight back, it just sits there until you figure it out."

"That tracks." Lindsy said it like she'd suspected as much. "I used to build model ships. Tiny ones, the old pre-warp kind, with actual moving parts if I could manage it. I still have a couple, packed away somewhere in my cases." She paused. "I haven't built one in years. I should probably start again."

"I'd want to see that."

"You'd be bored within ten minutes, it's extremely slow and extremely fiddly."

"I like slow and fiddly things. See: locks." He bumped his shoulder lightly against hers. "What's your comfort food. If you could replicate anything right now, no thought to whether it's good for you."

"Sweet rice porridge. The kind my mother used to make when one of us was sick or upset, with crystallized ginger on top." She said it without hesitation, like it was an old, well-worn answer. "It's not exciting. But it's the thing I think about when I think about home." She looked at him. "Yours?"

"Something fried. I don't care what. Anything fried, with too much salt, eaten standing up in a kitchen that isn't mine." He grinned slightly. "Very different vibe from sweet rice porridge."

"Very." She laughed quietly. "Okay. Worst habit. Something you do that you know is bad and have made absolutely no effort to fix."

"I don't sleep enough and I don't really try to." He said it like a confession, but a cheerful one. "I've just always run on less than I should. Drives people crazy."

"Noted." Lindsy said it lightly, but there was something underneath it, an acknowledgment that she was now one of those people. "Mine is that I overprepare for things that don't need it. I'll spend an hour on contingency plans for a five minute conversation. It's not always useful. It's just what I do."

"I noticed that during the hiring." Zedd said it with clear amusement. "You had an answer ready before I'd even finished asking the question, every time."

"And it worked."

"It did work." He conceded the point easily. "Alright. Last one, and then I think I actually might fall asleep, fair warning. Favorite place you've ever been. Doesn't have to make sense, just somewhere that stuck with you."

Lindsy thought about it for a long moment. "There's a stretch of coastline on Rigel IV, near where my grandmother lived. Cliffs, mostly, and this very specific blue the water turns at a certain time of day that I've never seen anywhere else." She said it quietly. "I used to go there when I needed to think. I haven't been back in years." She looked at him. "Yours?"

"Honestly? Here." He said it simply, gesturing vaguely at the room, the viewport, the bed, all of it. "Not the most interesting answer. But it's true right now, so it counts."

Lindsy didn't say anything to that, just settled more fully against him, and the planet kept turning slow and gold below the viewport, and the afternoon went on being exactly as unhurried as it had been since it started.