The weeks after our escape are still hazy in my memory.

I spent two days just floating in and out of sleep in Stella's medical pod.  When I finally woke up somewhat lucid, it was to Stella checking on me.

  "Good morning, how are you feeling?"  The way she spoke and carried herself made it seem like we might as well have been old friends.  As for how I was feeling…  Well, I was thirsty and my head hurt.  Ow.  I said as much.

With a sympathetic look, she carefully placed a bottle of pain relievers and a pouch of water within arm's reach of me.  I fumbled trying to open the pill bottle and it drifted away.  She laughed out loud and nudged it right back toward me.  Still had the giggles as I took two pills and drained the water.

Stella absolutely insisted I take it easy for a while, both physically and mentally.  I chafed at being away from an engine room for too long, of course, but we sailed smoothly and she was adamant that I let myself heal.  So I rested, and she kept ship.

We made a lot of small talk for a while.  We would walk around the ship or find a spot to sit, and she would ask me about myself.  I'd jabber about growing up in Sanctuary or life on the Kingfisher:  How as kids we'd wait around for the ships to come in every time, because they brought home not just essentials but also new downloads of books, news, vids, games, and just about anything else they could get their hands on to add to our little off-grid network.  How I had always been kind of a know-it-all, which as I got older won me fewer human friends and more inanimate ones.  How Cap'n would chew me out for upgrading something without permission, but didn't really put any teeth in it and I'd share a laugh with the bridge crew later.

Stella would listen with a smile on her face, always ready to coax out embarrassing details or ask me to explain something that it never occurred to me wouldn't be understood.

I didn't get as much out of her, but with enough prodding I found out a little.  Her family were apparently big shots, but she'd pissed people off somehow and been thrown out on her ass—or at least her nice-ass ship.  I couldn't seem to coax her into saying why she'd been chased down by the emperor's cronies, but it won her points in my book just the same.

She also introduced me to the sizable collection of entertainment in her ship's databanks.  The novels and vids she recommended went a long way in keeping me occupied during my down time.  She seemed to enjoy having someone to talk to about them, too.

As we passed more and more days in each other's company, Stella and I began to fall into a comfortable rhythm.  I hadn't really noticed how much of a shut-in I'd become on the Kingfisher, and spending more time with a friendly face around was doing me good.  Stella, meanwhile, didn't seem at all bothered by the energy I tended to give off in bursts, even when my mind drifted back to its cacophony of mechanics and dynamics.  She even said she enjoyed my company.

As I spent my days gently easing myself out of the mental haze, Stella never far off, and my nights in the med pod, my nerves gently stimulated as I slept, I found the memories of the raid and escape becoming clear again, and a lot of questions began to wear on me.

Had the Kingfisher and her crew made it out okay?  Was it wise to have let myself trust Stella so easily?  Would she and the people of Sanctuary be able to get along?  Was the ship's engine faring well under the unique warp field?

...What had made Stella call me 'Miss?'

Eventually I got restless again and decided it was past time to earn my berth.  So I headed for the engine room.

I checked all the system logs since our launch, the lion's share of a month.  There was some concerning data, but the ship's automation had ultimately kept us in better straits than we might have been otherwise.

Then, finding myself still overflowing with energy, I dove right into manually inspecting every essential system that ran into the engine room.  Stella came looking for me just as I was laying on my back on a low catwalk to get at an awkward access panel.

"Hello?  Are you hiding in here somewhere?"

I scooted over to the catwalk's edge and tilted my head back.  "What's up?"

Suddenly I found myself face to face with an upside-down Stella, to the tune of a little alarmed 'ack!'  She must have been walking by just as I answered her.  Her eyes were wide and our noses were hardly a few inches apart, but she didn't make any move to step away.

I broke out laughing, and she finally stepped back with an awkward smile.  I'd never have thought I would see her nervous.  She'd been downright stoic when we met.

"H-hello, Weaver…"

"Who?"

"Oh, well, like your little analogy back when we met.  Whatever you did to the engine, you called it 'weaving satin.'  You still owe me the explanation, by the way."

Oh?  Oh!  Oh, that was actually kind of nice.  I liked it.  Also I really hoped she wouldn't murder me when she found out what I'd done to her ship.

"I wanted something to call you besides 'Miss Cleary' or 'Hey You.'"  There it was again.  "So now you get a nickname.  I hope that's okay, I know I sort of took it upon myself, and—"

"It's nice, Stella, don't worry about the name."  I smiled.  She visibly relaxed a bit.  Just in time for the awkward part.  Whoops.  I had to take a second to pull my nerves together.  "But, uh, Stella?  Have you been thinking I'm a woman this whole time?"

"Oh.  Um.  You're not?"  Oh no, now she looked embarrassed.  Or maybe disappointed?  Or both?

"Not… as far as I know?  I'm flattered, of course, but I…  Um..."  Now her eyes were narrowed.  What did that mean?  Was she angry?  Suspicious?  "What?  What's that look you're giving me?"  

And then she laughed!  That sincere musical laugh of hers!

"Sorry, Weaver, but that's a secret.  Girls only.  But don't worry.  I'll tell you later anyway if you convince me."

I was lost.  Stella wandered off with a wave and a 'Have fun with the engines!'  At least the engines I knew how to figure out.

I was nervous as I sat down across from Stella in her ship's homey little mess.  She'd been nothing but warm and welcoming this entire time, but I was feeling responsible for our circumstances.  I gazed at my meal and pondered how much of her store of provisions I must have been wearing through as we sailed nonstop for so long.

"Good evening, Weaver.  So, how does everything look back there?" she asked, back to her usual confident self.

"Well… That has a long answer."

"Well, you're good company.  I'm in no hurry."  Was she upset and hiding it, or just that easygoing?

"So the ship herself is shipshape, save a graze to the hull, and the drive is working better than I ever expected.  But there is some bad news.  I wish I had checked the logs a lot sooner."

"You were injured," she chided, waving it off.  "Nothing was urgent, so the priority was on healing.  We can figure out how to deal with any other troubles as needed.  I promise." 

I felt like a pressure was building in my chest and behind my eyes.  Just who was this woman to think like that?

"Thanks.  So, the bad news…"  My breathing caught, just for a second.  "We passed through a strange gravity field as we got underway, stronger than anything I've ever heard of.  It may have been related to the shot we took as the drive went patent."

"Which is to say…?"

"The lensing shifted our bearing drastically, so we've been on a wide course, much longer than I intended.  As in we're a good two months out still."

"So I'll inventory our provisions and see if we need to stop over to make it."  She shrugged.

It was too much.  I felt beyond bursting, but it all just kept building up in my chest instead of going anywhere.

"What's the deal with you!?"  I was shouting now.  The pressure still just sat there.  "Why aren't you angry or worried or afraid?  Why let me hang around and be dead weight for so long?  Why give a pirate the run of your ship?  And then I tell you we've been off course, and it's—what, no big deal?  You haven't even asked me where we're going!"

She just sat there for a while after that.  Her posture was as upright as ever, but her gaze wandered around the edges of the room.  When she spoke up again, her voice was small.

"This has been eating at you all along, hasn't it?  I—" 

 I kept taking deep breaths and holding them, as if they might take the weight with them when I exhaled.  It helped, just a little.  

Stella held a breath too, and let it out as a heavy sigh.  "I owe you a lot of explanations, don't I, Weaver?  If we're going to really be in this together, that is.

"For now, though… just believe me when I say that I'm more afraid than I let on, but I'm a lot less afraid of this than of what I left behind. And I've seen enough to know I want to trust you.  And that if not for that heading you set, I would have nowhere better to be than drifting."

Dammit.  She may as well have been a character out of a storybook.  And I believed every word.

After dinner I blew off the rest of my evening playing a video game.  One of the ancient ones Stella had on file, that got everything wrong about starships and aliens.  That was sort of part of the charm, though.  I made my character into what I thought a female version of me might be like:  My same dark freckles, same arched nose, longer haircut but still messy.  Maybe better at talking to people, though.

If Stella had walked in I'd never have heard the end of it.  It would have been 'Oh, cute, you made yourself!' as if the me sitting here with the controller were every bit the same cool tomboyish woman as on the screen.  If only.