That was the first time I initiated any kind of affectionate gesture with Hailey outside of when I calmed her that first day in the mess hall. The number of times she's cuddled up to me, given me hugs or just kept me company should have made it a simple thing to return the favor. But, it's been so long since I've had any kind of interaction with someone not kept at arm's length that I'd almost forgotten how. I've had to close myself off, harden my heart, to survive out here. I had to lock away my empathy, compassion, even the ability to love to not be taken advantage of and left to rot. Now, I've found someone that I can unlock all those imprisoned emotions for, that deserves to have them.

I think she may have been as shocked as I was, because I didn't see her move on the internal sensors for several minute afterward. It's not right for her to be the only one giving any kind of affection. She's had it far harder than me, left alone on this ship for so many centuries. It was painful for me remembering how to feel, how to care for someone, but she's worth the pain.

It's been a week since then, and while it can be awkward or embarrassing at times, it's in a good way. I've communicated to her how much I care about her just as she has to me, and sometimes when one of us remembers that, we'll get flustered because neither of us really knows how to deal with it. But, we know it's a good thing, so it's a good, happy kind of embarrassed that we're not ashamed to share.

Now that we're under way, there's alot more work to keep us busy. Typically I help Hailey with the maintenance if it's something I know how to do, a ship in motion requires a lot more work than one simply idling in space. The rest of the time, I spend my time reading the ship system maintenance manuals and studying other things a SUNS captain is supposed to know. When there's no urgent maintenance to be done, Hailey gives me hands-on instruction on a ship system that we haven't covered yet. I'll admit I'm still not looking forward to when we get to the reactors, those things still terrify me.

While we try to make time to cook our meals together, often times lunch is a synthesized premade meal. That's not to say the food is bad, but we prefer to make it ourselves as often as we can, there's just something about a freshly cooked meal. It's become our little tradition, and I think Hailey enjoys it as much as I do. After lunch, I typically spend time on the recreation deck working out. I don't look like a skeleton anymore, and I don't know if this is how fast humans are supposed to put on weight and build muscle, but I'm not going to complain if Hailey gave me a tune up when she gave me a new leg.

It still feels weird eating three times a day, but Hailey insists that is what human bodies are optimized for. Back on The Hab we only ate twice a day, once in the morning and again in the evening. After I struck out on my own, it wasn't unusual for me to only eat once a day as that was all I could afford. Now 'dinner' as it's called I guess, we always just called it the morning and evening meals, usually ends up with us in the recreation room watching a 'movie.'

There are a lot of old 2D movies in the system. Hailey says there should be newer 3D films as well to play on the holoprojector, but they've mostly been removed. Almost every SUNS-era cultural work is missing from the ship's database according to Hailey. That still leaves more than I could ever consume in ten lifetimes. I'm still learning a lot about human history, though Hailey is quick to remind me that even movies based on historical events are dramatized retellings embellished for entertainment purposes.

Hailey herself has relaxed around me now. It used to be outside of meal times and our past arguments that it was rare for her to be 'off duty.' Now, unless she's teaching me or doing something else involving the ship's operation, she relaxes with me instead of spending her time in the maintenance section.

We've been traveling all this time as well, with no problems slowing us down thankfully. Hailey says it should be some time before the Brane Drive needs maintenance. Apparently, it uses some pretty exotic elements. While we can manufacture spare parts in the machine shops' fabricators, sourcing the materials for them is a different matter.

The only other equipment on the ship that requires such rare elements is the reactors, but those can just be recycled or reconditioned while the reactor is offline. The ship produces a lot more power than it needs. Even with the FTL drive running, we only use a fraction of the energy produced. You could shut down over half the reactors, and it wouldn't affect the ship at all. Hailey says they all have to be operational though, something about maintenance protocols and balancing the load. I didn't really get it.

I'm actually recording this in a logbook while I sit here in the captain's office. Hailey says as the Captain, I need to keep a record of events on the ship. She says it will help with learning from my mistakes and keeping track of things I learn. I don't have much else to work on at the moment anyway, I've already completed my daily physical exercise routine and bookwork on the ship systems. Dinner won't be for another couple of hours either. I admit, it seems to be helping me clear my mind, if nothing else. I've been nervous about going back 'home' to The Hab.

Home, I've never really thought of it as that. It was just the place I lived. Home isn't a place that could kill you in your sleep, where you struggle to survive every day, where no one cares if you live or die outside of your utility and ability to contribute to the community as a whole. To me, home should be a place where you feel safe, and the people accept you for who you are, not what you can do. I never felt that there, especially after I told them I was leaving. Their entire universe consists of that hab station, and if I was going to leave, then that made me an outsider.

We should be arriving at the hab station tomorrow. I've had a lot of long nights wondering what will happen when I get there. Will they be happy to see me? I'm certain Uncle will be if only to know that I'm alive. But the rest, I don't know. There's Tayle, she was always nice to me, even after everyone else started to ignore me after I told them I wanted to leave The Hab. She was kind of the big sister to all the kids my age, and I have to admit I had the biggest crush on her, but then what guy my age didn't. I knew I had no chance with her, she was older than me by enough that she would be paired off long before I reached the age where I would have been eligible. I think she ended up with Kal, that cold bastard always creeped me out.

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There were all the other brats I ran with getting into trouble too. Arvin, Tank, Gericht, and Winri. We got into so much slag when we were kids, always finding new ways to get into trouble. There's not a lot for kids to do on a broken-down station once we were done with our chores and classes, and bored kids always leads to trouble. I have no idea how they'll react to me now, I left right after I came of age on my sixteenth. It's been over eight years since I left, more than enough time for them to have changed. Void only knows how much I've changed, they may not even recognize me.

I look up from where I'm manually typing out my log on the desk's holo-display as the door to the office opens letting Hailey in. I could have dictated my log entry using my NIL, but there's something satisfying about using a physical interface.

"Something you need, Hailey?"

"Um, maybe? Not really?" She fidgeted nervously in front of my desk.

"Hailey, whatever it is you can tell me no matter how small an issue you might think it is."

"Well it's just, will I have to go on the hab with you?" I leaned back in my chair. I probably should have thought of this myself, Hailey was going to be encountering possibly hundreds of people she'd never met before.

"No Hailey, if you want to stay on the ship that's fine. I'm not going to make you do anything you're not comfortable with."

"No, it's not that. Well, not just that. I'm um, not actually supposed to leave the ship." I raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, really, then how were you planning on hacking the beacon then?" I gave her a teasing smile.

"Oh, that's easy, I would have used a remote-controlled drone with a built-in graviton transceiver operated from the safety of Subspace." She gave me an impish grin as the smile fell off my face as I realised how difficult I'd made such a simple task.

"You mean I went through all that hassle, stuck in that EVA suit for hours, when we could have been simply sitting in Subspace safe and sound watching a movie eating a pizza the entire time?"

"Yes, Captain!" Hailey beamed at me, her smile filled with satisfaction and amusement at my realization.

I groaned, collapsing forward onto my desk to hide my embarrassment as Hailey giggled. Burying my face in my desk also had the added benefit of hiding my blush from her. Did this girl realize what she did to me when she was like this? I felt like my face was going to burn off, that smile should be illegal. Taking a moment longer to let the cool surface of the desk lower the temperature of my face, I sat back up.

"Well, I guess that's what I've got you for then, isn't it? To fix all my stupid plans before they get me into a situation I can't fix."

"Come now Captain, you're not that bad. It was an easy mistake to make. You aren't that familiar with human technology and its capabilities, it's entirely understandable how you wouldn't think to use a remote-controlled drone." Hailey chastised me.

"Maybe so, but I didn't even stop to listen to you either."

"Yes, and I could have been more assertive with you as well and made you listen. I didn't do everything I could either. We've both resolved to do better, and going over this again isn't going to change anything, ok?" I nodded, sighing.

"You're right, but it still bothers me. To get us off that topic though, how are the preparations for tomorrow going? The hab is probably going to need a lot of spare parts made for it to keep them going. The place was half functional on a good day, and I can't imagine much has changed since I left, that place never changes." I let out a scoff at the thought of anyone on The Hab having the motivation to look farther than their next meal.

"The machine shops and fabricators are all ready to go. I did a final maintenance pass on them all this morning. As long as they have scrap we can use as feedstock, I can make just about anything they need. But..." Hailey trailed off, another question she didn't think it was her place to ask me on her lips. I simply watched her, she needed to learn to speak up without me prompting her every time. Finally, she worked up her courage.

"Why do you want to help them so much? From what you've told me, most of them didn't particularly like or care about you."

"Sometimes I ask myself that question too, Hailey. To me, what it all comes down to, I guess, is that I feel that I owe them for taking care of me. Even from a young age, I was running around telling anyone who would listen that I was going to leave The Hab and make it big. They knew that every resource they invested into me was going to be wasted, that it would serve no benefit to The Hab. Most of them took that as an excuse not to give me anything more than the bare minimum. I was fed because I could still do chores while I was there. I went to classes with the rest of the kids because it didn't cost them extra to teach me, and I could learn to do more chores." Hailey came around the desk and leaned on it next to me, a soft look in her eyes.

"You feel like you have a debt to pay. Even with no love lost between most of them and you, there's still this feeling that you owe them something for what they did for you."

"I know it doesn't really make a lot of sense, but it's how I feel. I know that most of them will never return the sentiment, to them my life was just future investment. Even after I decided to leave it was a pragmatic decision to get what value out of me they could before I left. That debt is the only thing left holding me back. Once it's gone, I think I'll start to feel like I'm really free. No more strings to hold me down, making me feel obligated to do things for people I don't even know. I will decide for myself who I owe, and what I owe them." Hailey slid into my lap wrapping me in a hug, and I let my own arms encircle her pulling her snug against my chest. After a moment, there was a sniff, and I could feel her nose wrinkle against my neck.

"Captain, you stink. Go take a shower, I won't have any stinky Captains on my ship." I huffed a light laugh, in all my introspection today, I'd completely forgotten to shower after my medically mandated workout. Still, she didn't have to say it like that.

"Just for that, I'm picking dessert today." I poked her in the side eliciting a squawk as she jumped out of my lap. Whether it was from my statement or actions I don't know, maybe both. She skipped a few feet away from me, hands behind her back and a grin on her lips.

"Not if I get there first, Captain. Better make that shower fast, no stinky officers are allowed in the kitchens." She sing-songed as she dashed out the door.

Yes, I definitely like this Hailey much better than the one who closed herself off, showing only small bursts of emotion. The small spurts of emotion before had been disconcerting in a way, when put next to her typical emotionless behavior. Now that it was reversed, she felt much more natural, more human.

One thing I hadn't mentioned was the debt I had to her. She had given me a new, better life, and for that I owed her a debt I wasn't sure I could ever repay. But this was a debt I was fine repaying, even if it took the rest of my life.