“Sit down over, uh, there” She pointed to a crate standing on its side, quickly shoving a pair of oil-stained overalls off it. She pulled the crate in front of a large comfy chair, and while Gabriella got out of her gear and coat Lissia dug around for her medical supplies. She managed to find some bandages and her medical stapler. After washing her hands, she also grabbed some water and some rags that had been boil-washed for exactly this kind of thing.

When she saw Gabriella’s back she tried not to wince, but the long scars looked gruesome. Gabriella sat hunched over on the crate with her elbows on her knees. She had pulled one strap of her tank top off her arm and pulled it down to expose more of her back. Lissia sat down on top of the laundry on the chair and began cleaning the cuts.

There was a fair bit of blood, but as she washed it off the thin lines of the cuts looked less bad. Most of them would scab on their own and just needed to be dressed. One of them was worse where one of the swarmer’s legs had been torn out and would need to be stapled.

Lissia cleared her throat and grabbed the stapler. “It’s really not that bad, but this cut here” she gently put her hands next to the cut as she spoke “will need to be stapled, so ya know, brace.” Gabriella just nodded and muttered something that could be interpreted as a go-ahead to Lissia.

She turned on the stapler and placed it at the top of the cut. It scanned the wound and beeped a conformation, so Lissia clicked the trigger. Gabriella made a suppressed grunt as the staple went into her back, but when she did not say anything else Lissia continued. She worked her way down the cut, and Gabriella was mostly quiet through the rest of it.

With the stapling done Lissia finished cleaning the cuts and began dressing them with the bandages. Lissia worked in silence, and Gabriella did not seem much for conversation either. They had patched each other up plenty of times, but as with everything else between them it seemed different now. Even though it was strictly medical it felt intimate, and everything seemed anything but with Gabriella now. As Lissia finished dressing the cuts she cleaned her hands in a rag and broke the silence. “You will probably have some scars, but other than that everything is going to heal just fine.”

Gabriella shrugged the strap of her tank top back on and stretched her back carefully, testing the bandages. “Unless they get infected.” She said as she looked around the room, and then to Lissia. “This place was always a mess, but this is something else.” Gabriella continued.

Lissia shrugged, trying to not look as embarrassed as she felt. “Yeah well, I didn’t live here before. But point taken.” She got up and scooped up an armful of laundry. “I’ll see if I can find you something clean to wear, unless you plan on being stained in blood and Sgark guts the whole trip.” She walked into the small kitchen area and dumped the clothes in the multi-washer and set it to ‘fabric – clothes.’ Afterwards she began rooting through her dresser for anything clean.

When she found nothing, she began checking cabinets, and stumbled upon a box she had deliberately stashed out of sight. It was filled with papers, some clothes, a mug, and some loose rifle parts. General stuff, but more specifically Gabriella’s stuff. Lissia grabbed the box and handed it to Gabriella. “I guess this is as good a time as any to give you this back. Think there is a shirt in there.”

She in fact knew every item in the box, and particularly the shirt that was in it. Right when she had been exiled it had been a reminder of Gabriella, and she was not proud of the number of times she had fallen asleep clutching it. It had ended up in the box when even Lissia felt it was getting sad.

“Huh, thanks.” Gabriella said as she began rooting through the box. She grabbed the shirt and walked into the bathroom to change. She came back a bit later wearing the loose shirt. It was a strange contrast to the otherwise very deliberate outfit she wore on this kind of mission. She wore a pair of practical, but very worn, pants. Over them she wore a pair of knee-pads, with the pants tucked into a pair of black boots. After throwing her tank-top into the multi-washer she picked up her red jacket and frowned as she examined the cuts in its back.

The duster was made of some red leather adjacent material and was about knee length. Gabriella had had it for years, and it was gradually falling apart, despite her best attempts. Lissia thought the cuts in the back would classify it as broken beyond repair, but Gabriella dug a needle and some heavy red thread out of her box. Lissia privately rolled her eyes, but cleared the comfy chair and turned on the light next to it to give Gabriella a place to work. She sat down, eyes already on the needlework.

“Are you ever gonna let that jacket die?” Lissia asked as she sat down on her bed.

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Gabriella shot her a look. “Just as soon as you let this rust bucket die.” She said, gesturing with the needle to the ship around them. “If someone found a model exactly like this one tomorrow, brand new, you would still insist The Kestrel is the best ship in the galaxy.”

Lissia pursed her lips. “Yeah, well it keeps proving me right.” She eventually answered.

Gabriella smiled into her work as she answered. “And that’s why I keep repairing this jacket. It’s never proven worthy of anything less.”

“And where the hell would you get another jacket?” Lissia interjected.

“Also that” Gabriella agreed as she sighed and put down her work. “If you run into a tailor let me know, because they are somehow harder to come by than mechanics.”

As Gabriella leaned back in the chair, carefully inching her injured back into the chair, Lissia realized how tired Gabriella was. She was tired herself, which was not that strange considering their run in with the Sgarks, but Gabriella seemed totally exhausted. It was the kind of tiredness that took a while to build up, and not that she was looking for it, she noticed Gabriella had dark circles under her eyes.

She put her head down on the headrest and rubbed her eyes with her hands. “I gotta remember to tag that hulk as infected.” She muttered to herself. “Need to write a report as well. Explain why I turned up less than a fourth of the cells I expected.” Lissia had always left the managerial stuff to Gabriella because she had not seemed to mind it. Now it sounded like everyone else at Haven had begun doing the same.

“Doesn’t Davidson usually take care of stuff like tagging?” Lissia asked unsure if Gabriella had even realized she was talking out loud.

Gabriella opened her eyes with a slight frown and got back to her needling as she answered. “I keep forgetting it’s been a month since… Anyway, he retired. He’s been running security since before Haven even had atmosphere, so it only seems fair he gets to take it easy.”

While she had a point, it came as a surprise that Davidson had stopped working. He had been doing it forever, and was getting kind of old, but it had always seemed like he would be working behind his desk until he died. As head of security he had of course administered the limited militia Haven had, but gradually the job had grown in scope. As they began mapping and scavenging he kept records of which ships were picked clean, which had reactor leaks, and most importantly which had Sgark infestations.

While not everyone in the sector followed the security directives that came from his office, everyone stayed away from potential salvage marked Sgark on the charts. Those were just the things Lissia knew about. She had gotten the impression from Gabriella that he did a million things behind the curtain. No one else could do the job he had done. Except maybe… It suddenly dawned on her. “Oh my god Gabriella, did he make you take over his job?”

Gabriella sighed like she had expected Lissia’s reaction. “Davidson didn’t make me do anything. He asked and I accepted. How about a ‘congrats Gabriella, good for you’?”

Lissia got up with an exasperated sound. “That’s not what this is about. You were already taking care of half the station, how the hell does everyone expect you to be head of security on top of that?”

“Well what the fuck was I supposed to say?” Gabriella almost yelled. “Should I just have said no and forced him to work himself to death? His fucking lungs are killing him Lissia. The least I could do is let him retire with some dignity.” She rubbed her eyes, the coat abandoned in her lap. “Besides, no one else could pick up after him. No one forced me, but I didn’t have a choice. Not really.”

Lissia had known things had changed in a month, but in some part of her had expected most of it to stay the same. Gabriella had always worked too hard. She had always stayed too late and come home exhausted. Even then Lissia had tried to make her take a break, but she had always been afraid of letting others down, and asking her to do more had always come with the expectation of her saying yes.

Lissia wanted to throttle Davidson for putting Gabriella in this position, but she had to admit that it made sense. Gabriella was one of the few people in the militia who had actually done admin work, and combined with her experience, she was the only real candidate. Maybe she should have said no, but how was Gabriella supposed to?

“I’m sorry Gab. You’re right. I just, worry about you.” Lissia carefully began.

When Gabriella stayed quiet, Lissia looked over at her, but she was sound asleep. Her head had fallen back in the chair and her breathing was slow and heavy. Careful not to wake her, Lissia picked up the jacket and needle and put it down on the armrest. Gabriella had always had a habit of falling asleep in the middle of some project, and for the first time everything felt exactly like old times. Getting up Lissia grabbed a blanket from her bed and draped it carefully over Gabriella. She went to the pilot seat and checked the autopilot. It read forty minutes until Haven. She manually adjusted the flight plan to a more fuel efficient, but slower flight. The display jumped up to two hours and twenty minutes until Haven. Saving the power was nice, but Lissia really wanted to let Gabriella get some sleep. If she was too tired to argue she was desperately in need of some rest.

Lissia stretched her arms above her head and yawned. She could use some rest herself, so she leaned her chair back and pulled her denim jacket off to drape it over herself. At this point she slept better in the chair than her bed, and she quickly drifted off to sleep.