Victor wandered around the Nexus halls, looking at the students going to and fro from their position assignments. In the days since they had narrowly escaped the Speluncam, a lot had happened. Lucas and the students who worked the lower decks had gotten the fabrication machines working, so food would no longer be an issue so long as they had matter to convert. Fumio had created two Vice Captains to take his place while he dealt with other ship issues. One was Eve, the other was Miguel. It was strikingly similar to the power organization on the other Nexus, though Victor had said nothing when it was announced.

Victor himself had kept a low profile, he wanted to avoid ship responsibilities in order to better be able to deal with the plethora of external existential threats facing Nexus. Fumio had agreed to this, creating a new position for that purpose.

Rajia had insisted that classes be reinstated now that they had some degree of safety. Continuing their education would make them more versatile. Fumio had wanted to wait, but when Eve pointed out that changing circumstances might bring them back to Aurora, he relented. A ragtag group of adolescents months or years behind in their learning would be in a bad position.

Victor found his feet planted in front of Eve's quarters, blinking blankly at the electronic plate to the side of her white sliding door. It read: E. Storm. Things had gotten odd between himself and her for reasons he couldn't quite put into words. After a few moments of consideration he began to continue his stroll past her door. The speaker just below her face plate crackled to life.

"You're not even going to say hi?"

He froze, feeling stupid. If someone was in their quarters, motion sensors alerted them to anyone standing still near their door. She had probably been peering at him with the small camera invisibly mounted somewhere near the top of the door. He felt like he had failed some test or other.

Her door slid open and he could hear her voice from within.

"Well? What are you waiting for?"

Though part of him wanted to make an excuse or run in the opposite direction, Victor willed himself to enter her quarters. At this point he was more equipped to deal with alien invasion than being alone in a girl's room. He looked around, noting the little touches here and there that made her room a stark contrast to his relatively spartan sleeping area. On the wall display there was a picture of her, Rajia, and a few others girls smiling. Victor guessed it was taken shortly after they had arrived on Nexus. Victor used his wall screen for study or analysis, but otherwise left it off. It had never occurred to him to use it as a picture frame, and would have found asking anyone, even Alex, to take a picture with him to be embarrassingly awkward.

"So what brings you by my door, Vance?" She said with a smirk. It was old news that he preferred his first name, but it was less of a sore spot now and more of an annoyance. Victor shrugged in answer to her question.

"I've just been walking the halls and thinking. I happened to walk by."

Eve eyed him for a moment without blinking, a blank expression as she surveyed him. Her head tilted to the side.

"Is that so?" She said, sitting on her bed as Victor leaned against her desk. It was perfectly alright for him to be here. They were colleagues on the ship and had been through much together, after all. So why was it so hot in here? Victor was tense. "Victor, I'm just going to come out and ask. Have you been avoiding me?"

Victor stood up from the desk, folded his arms, and raised an eyebrow.

"Why would I do that?"

"I don't know. I thought you were just shy around girls, but you don't avoid Rajia or the others. Just me."

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"I haven't been avoiding you," Victor reassured her. Sure, he had rescheduled a deck meeting or two that coincided with hers, or missed a few meetings she had held, but that had just been timing. "Is there anything else?" He asked, turning to leave. He didn't really want to leave, but he didn't know what else to do. He got a strong feeling he was about to embarrass himself.

"Victor, I can only think of two reasons left to explain why you keep avoiding me."

Victor froze where he stood.

"Either you really hate me. Or...."

"Or what?"

"Or you really like me."

Victor turned in case his blush showed through his caramel complexion.

"I don't have time for this. Eve, we're fighting for our lives, here. I've got to figure out --"

"Are you afraid of me, Victor?"

The words hit Victor like a solar flare from the nearby star. He walked over to where she now stood next to her bed and stared her in the eyes without blinking. His expression was intense, fierce even, but she didn't look away. He realized that he would never be capable of intimidating Eve.

Mustering all of his courage, he leaned forward to plant a kiss on her lips.

He was falling. Disoriented.

At first he thought it was from the kiss, but he realized that he had felt nothing on his lips. When he opened his eyes he found himself spiraling into darkness, an open nothingness surrounding him on all sides. He tried to shout, but no sound left his mouth, and as a dim scene appeared around him he realized why. Someone was holding him up in the air by the collar, squeezing so tightly he couldn't breathe. The man wore white, and on the arm that held Victor aloft a rainbow bracelet glowed. All around him were translucent, green, shifting halos. The man was saying something, he seemed angry. Victor tried moving, kicking, but it was as though he was a passive observer from within his own body. Willing against the barrier that kept him still, he reached for the man, but the closest he could get was the inside of the man's jacket pocket, where he felt a flat object. Victor sense something looking at him. Not the man, but something within the halos of green shifting all around him. It was a figure that reached out to him with a hand and a whisper.

Victor....

Victor was on the floor of Eve's quarters, choking on himself and gasping for air.

"-you alright, Victor?" Eve said, patting him on the back. As Victor became able to speak, he realized that he didn't really know what to say or how to explain. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you like that. Do you need to get some air?"

Great. Now Eve thought he couldn't handle a kiss. He was sure never to get invited back to her room, now. Was this the space sickness he had heard of? The past weeks had been incredibly stressful, and now this situation with Eve... Had he snapped under the pressure? All the more reason why he should never have entered in the first place.

"I'm sorry, Eve," he said.

Eve shook her head, clearly hurt but keeping her composure as best she could. It was unlike Eve to act this way usually. She probably never would around him, again.

He got up to leave, but realized that there was something on the floor underneath him.

It was a military badge that read: Dominic Landaar. On the badge was a picture of the man from Victor's strange psychotic break. He looked slowly up at Eve, who was staring at the badge in confusion.

"Victor, where did you find that?"

Victor shook his head in silence.

"In nightmares."