He’d seemed smaller than she’d ever remembered. A pale, wispy thing, held in place by heavy blankets, or else he would surely dissipate at the slightest breeze. Perhaps the king-sized bed didn’t help matters, but! But! See the bandages! See his wearied, labored breaths! Didn’t he [i]need[/i] this kind of care? Dear Dolce. Dear heart. Forgive her. [i]Forgive[/i] her.

So she was caught off-guard when the woolen lump leapt to her arms hard enough to make her stumble. And when her shocked, laughing introduction was so rudely interrupted by overjoyed kisses. And, she couldn’t recall if she pushed him down, or those tiny arms pulled [i]her[/i] in, but she did distinctly recall a whiff of cigarette smoke as her mind turned to deeper concerns. A week was a long time, after all. They had a litany of kisses to perform. 

For greeting, for surprise, for dispelling worries both real and imagined, for every night of absence, double for every lonely morning, for indignation at now, of all times, to be so full of cheek, and you must be quiet now or [i]else[/i], for the way you speak when you must finish your thoughts even when you are melting to uselessness, for the love of your wool, for the love of your fur, for love, and always for love. And when they’ve both lost their breath, they cannot be close to halfway done. She clutches him tight to her chest, and presses fond, lingering kisses to his forehead whenever she thinks of him absent, and he pecks at her cheeks with contended little bleats whenever he thinks of a world without her.

“I thought-”

“Shhhhhhhhh. Shhhhh, darling. No more thinking. Not tonight.”

“I’m allowed a little thinking. Captains have to think”

Unassailable logic. She yielded the point, but it cost him dearly in nibbled ears.

“I thought I might never see you again. And. Now, I think I know what to say. What I should have said, but I didn’t know how to say it. That I even needed to say it.” He does not name the time. He does not have to. They are in [i]her[/i] ship, after all. The space is theirs, the light is theirs, the warmth and the safety is all of their own making, but it remains her ship.

“Ah.” She adjusts. Her arms close tighter. “Is it…?”

“It may not all be pleasant. But. I think, we ought to go over it, all the same. For us.”

For us.

Could she have imagined him tackling so directly that which he’d evaded and excused before? Just how had her little chef - no, her little [i]Captain[/i] spent this week?

“Yes. Yes, I know, darling. I. There are some stories I must tell you as well. Old, old stories.” She hears him gasp. “Stories that I should have told you long, long ago.”

“...but not tonight.”

“Not tonight.” She lifted his chin, and marveled that such a face could be his. Could be [i]hers.[/i]

“Not tonight…”