When Mal was returned to the orchard, she beelined for the back of the giant room in a dead sprint, trying to get as far away from everyone else as possible. In the trees, she slowed to a jog, feeling her heartbeat throb through her bruises and prickle down her fingertips, legs aching at the sudden exertion. Just short of the far wall, she found a chestnut tree to lean against, eyes falling shut as she unraveled a candy and tucked it into the pocket of her cheek.
The defining burst of sugar chased by hints of strawberry was starting to lose its charm. It had been long enough that she was pining for the wild strawberries up north, warmed by the muggy air and leaving traces of tart and sweet under her nails, the puckering taste enhanced with a canteen of cold water. The inside of her mouth felt tacky and overly hot — water was another thing she desperately missed.
She gently rubbed the tender mark bruised into her cheekbone with a sigh, and leaned down to massage the scar tissue tightening up around her calves. She had spent the car ride back hiding in her thoughts while she projected a weepy and cowering exterior, but she was hitting a wall in planning an escape. Render's patience was certainly wearing thin by this point, and she needed to have an exit plan for when she became more trouble than she was worth, but Tai-Song was the one who could see both the big picture and the minute details, the one who could think on his feet and make fast decisions, not her. Every half-baked scheme she could come up with would fall apart in seconds, and knowing that her plans would fail didn't translate to knowing how to correct them.
She dug her fingers into the dead nerves on the inside of her calf, pressing in until she could feel the pressure on the bone. She needed Tai-Song, and naturally he was still nowhere to be found. No one on the twelfth floor would even admit to knowing his name, and with the workers closing ranks to protect each other she couldn't get close enough to exploit the weaker links. The only one she hadn't spoken to was the war-drone, a thought which threatened to suffocate her with a sticky, tar-like dread; thankfully, the matter was out of her hands, seeing as the drone was equally averse to the idea. She doubted there was anything to glean from the drone, anyway: Tai-Song's creations were typically limited in scope, like Goose's, and there was a good chance that this one couldn't even speak.
She straightened up with another heaving sigh, and tapped the back of her head against the tree to ground herself. Judging by the wafting smell of off-tobacco and the fact that the tension in her chest had suddenly vanished, Gwenh was hovering nearby, waiting for Mal to acknowledge her presence. With eyes still closed, Mal decided to let her stew a little longer — she crossed her arms with a gusty sigh and grazed her tongue along the candy still in her cheek, shifting her feet to get more comfortable as she savoured the tiny burst of sweetness.
Gwenh huffed impatiently and stepped closer to loom into her space. Mal pursed her lips to keep the smile at bay, aiming to keep her eyes closed for a little longer, but she had forgotten how in-the-way Gwenh could be to make her point: with barely a second's warning, Mal's nose was suddenly pinched shut, and her mouth fell open on reflex with a tiny noise of complaint. She opened her eyes, finding that Gwenh was leaning in to smell her breath. "What are you—"
"You have candy," she said accusatorily, other hand fixing under Mal's chin, tilting her face to more easily peer inside her mouth. "And you haven't even offered to share?"
"I shared my cigarettes," she protested weakly, her voice made higher and thinner with her pinched nose, eyes snagging on the tangles just below the roots of Gwenh's hair: just looking at the knotted strands made her scalp sting in sympathy.
"That's different, you don't smoke anymore. Give me some candy."
"Ask me nicely." Without meaning to Mal had started to lean into the manhandling, had canted her face to mirror Gwenh's with fluttering eyes, her body always expecting more even though she already had her answer. When reality finally caught up with her, she burned hot with embarrassment and flinched out of Gwenh's grip, crossed arms tightening over her chest as she ducked her head and cleared her throat. "No, I mean – the answer's no. Sorry."
"Fine." She released her without a fight, but didn't give up any more ground; instead, she leaned in even closer, one hand braced on the tree trunk by her head, eyes locked on hers. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, running around with Render?”
She pursed her lips with some resignation; it had been silly to think that Gwenh wouldn't notice the arrangement. “I thought you already knew about that.”
“I was bluffing to protect you, I didn’t think you’d be stupid enough to actually do it!”
Mal subconsciously pressed back against the tree, trying to recover some distance as her face burned with indignation and yet more embarrassment. She didn't want to fight, but without a fight there was nothing to muffle the caustic desire to kiss her, the awful heat of it coiling in her gut and whispering for Gwenh's hands to touch her in all the places she wanted to be touched, across the waist and over the thigh and somewhere in the realm of her throat. Her hands itched to creep under Gwenh's shirt and touch what she had only ever caught glimpses of, hoping to ground herself in the dimples on her lower back, the moles that sporadically dotted her navel and the left side of her waist, the birthmark on the inside of her right thigh—
She pressed back even further against the tree, knees clamping together, and raised her chin defiantly. “I need to know what happened to Tai-Song.”
Gwenh retreated so quickly that she may as well have teleported six feet away. Her eyes flashed with an uncertain, almost fearful expression, quickly covered under three layers of indifference. “What?”
“Did you do something to him?”
She hesitated, and then slowly shook her head. “No. No, I wouldn't have.”
“If you’ve killed him, you’d better tell me now.” It would serve him right, if she did — and it might make getting him home easier.
“Don’t joke about that,” she snapped, rubbing her chin as she looked away. “Yuen-Fa would skin me.”
“Eh, I’d cover for you.”
“Just like old times, huh?”
“In every way.” It was a low blow — it wasn't anyone's fault that her feelings were so vastly different from Mal's, it was just the way things were — but maybe Gwenh would ease up on the constant touching if she knew that it was getting her hopes up. “Did you do something to him, or not?”
“I didn’t touch him.” She crossed her arms and tilted her body until they were no longer facing each other head-on, cheeks pinking as she stared at the ground. “You should move on, find someone else. This is getting embarrassing for the both of us.” Even as she suggested it, she sounded bitter about the possibility.
“How about you mind your own business?” Even to her own ears, Mal sounded just as bitter, if not more-so. She didn't bother to walk it back, too concerned with the square bulge in Gwenh's left pocket: she came closer to fish out a distressed and pinched-up carton of cigarettes, half-empty, the packaging slightly different from the standard ration that Mal had gifted to her — probably the ones presumed stolen. “I thought you lost these?”
Gwenh's brow furrowed as she leaned in to smell them, her thumb pinning the lid open as her fingers squeezed too hard on the corners. Satisfied, her hand dropped to her pocket and pulled out the ration Mal had donated — her right-side pocket, the one she preferred for her cigarettes. “Thanks for the loan.”
“Let’s trade — they’re the same anyway, right?” She stuffed the carton into her back pocket before Gwenh could protest or retrieve them by force, and hooked her fingers on the sleeve-hem of her shirt to tug her closer. Gwenh came willingly as Mal guided them back under the tree, tilting her head as she whispered in her ear, “You know that the ship’s leaving?”
“Tai told me about it.” Her quiet voice held none of her usual distaste for him, yet another strange thing to add to Mal’s growing list of grievances. "So?"
“So — what’s the plan?”
“Don’t have one.” She turned on the spot and let her back thump into the tree, tucking a cigarette between her lips and lighting up.
“What, you’re not going?”
She shrugged.
“What’s wrong with you? You wanted to see the stars, remember?” She did her best to shove down some of her own uncertainty, and hated how her voice came out whiny and desperate: “We were going to run away to Proxima, we were going to go somewhere better, together—“
“Times change, Mal.”
“People don’t.” Her fingers knotted in the fabric of her shirt, still tethered in her sleeve. “What are you so afraid of?”
She exhaled a plume of smoke over their heads, and shook her off with another sharp shrug. “Your cigarettes are weak.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Why do you care, Mal? Why exactly are you so invested in me?”
“Because I love you, you idiot! I don’t care that you don’t love me back—“ She cleared her throat, having slipped into Kanien’kéha without realizing, and started again. “Whether you feel the same or not, I’ve always loved you, and I want you to come home.”
“As if I don’t love you.” She tiredly flicked the ash off of the end of her cigarette. “This is better than home: all the people I care about are safe and far away — present company excluded."
Mal turned to face Gwenh once more, standing too close and boxing her in with a hand splayed flat over her chest. "And what about the people who care about you, who want you to be safe? What about me, or Goose, or—"
"I'm not done here yet."
She snarled wordlessly, frustration at odds with how she tipped her head against Gwenh's collarbone, and the petulant whine in her voice: "Come home."
"Not yet." Her cheek pressed against Mal's ear, and her arm snaked around her shoulders to pull her even closer. "But soon, I think."
The urge to argue died in her throat as Gwenh's hand settled in her periphery, showing off a nearly-black bruise blooming from the vein on the back. She ducked out of her embrace to get a better look, moving as though the mere weight of her eyes might cause more damage. “What’s this from?”
She took another drag, letting Mal hold onto her hand like a gentleman caller. She had the sudden urge to kiss her knuckles. “They pulled me out this morning. Gave me some stuff that was supposed to calm me down. Didn’t really work.”
Mal frowned. Render had sent someone to collect her in the early hours, before anyone else had woken up: maybe Gwenh had reacted poorly to her sudden disappearance. “Does it hurt, when they take you away?”
“Sometimes.” Her shoulders were beginning to hunch. “Doesn’t matter — I can take it. Others can’t.”
She frowned harder. “Did you cover for someone?” That was what she and her brothers did best on the shipyard, assuming blame for younger workers' mistakes and taking the beatings that sometimes came down on them for it, all with matching vindictive smiles.
“No. Apparently calling Claudia a ‘fucking goon’ is grounds for punishment now.” She pulled a move that Mal had forgotten about, smartly turning her wrist and swapping who was holding onto who; Mal hissed at the sudden motion, accidentally confirming what Gwenh suspected as she peered down at the swelling around her wrist. “What’s this?”
“I fell.” She tugged her twice-injured wrist free; Gwenh took hold of her chin instead, carefully turning her face to bare the shiner.
"And this?" Her thumb traced gingerly along the lower edge of a bruise that was probably as ugly as it was tender. "You've gotten clumsy."
"You're still transparent," Mal said snidely. Gwenh snorted disbelievingly. "Stop fishing, it was just a fall."
"Alright, but it'll save me some time if you tell me who pushed you."
"It was Render. I was mouthing off." She turned away and returned to leaning against the tree, feeling safer when only their shoulders were touching. "Checkmate."
"Ye of little faith," she replied, but handily dropped the matter. "You know about Tai's little shadow?"
Her stomach curdled: shadow was accurate, but little was not. “He’s going to owe me a million favours, once this is over.”
“You should be nicer,” Gwenh chided, crossing her arms and pressing more of her bicep against Mal's. “The robot’s okay, as far as robots go.”
“What, you’ve talked to it?”
“Her name’s Zed.” She turned her head to squint at her. "Be nice."
"What's she like?" She didn't really care about or want to know the answer, mostly trying to occupy her mouth so she wouldn't throw up.
Gwenh shrugged. "A lot like he was, back then. I think so, at least — he swears that it's like having another Yuen-Fa following him around. She's never talked to me directly, but I got her to laugh, once."
"What was the joke?"
"You'd hate it, it was at your expense."
She choked out a sound that was half indignation, half laughter. "You ass."
Gwenh grinned back at her, all crooked teeth and wild hair and a birthmark that took on the shape of the continent of Africa when she smiled.
Mal shook her head, and continued, "And— and Tai-Song?" She missed him so potently that she wondered how she could ever think nasty things about him, and in the same breath she was looking forward to smacking him upside the head for putting her through all of this. After so many near misses, she was desperate to reunite, desperate for any way to feel a little closer to him in his absence.
"He's the one turning into Yuen-Fa, not Zed. Wouldn't even consider leaving me behind." Her voice turned soft and contemplative. "I trust him."
"Trust him with what?"
A cloud of confusion settled over Gwenh's face, despite her best efforts to shake it off and return to the conversation. "I trust him," she repeated, as though hoping to reboot her train of thought. "I trust him to—" She trailed off with a frustrated groan, as though she was being forced to speak English on a concept she could only explain in Welsh.
Mal reached out and took her hand, squeezing it twice, and steered the conversation back to safer waters. "I don't think Zed likes me.”
Gwenh's laugh was sharp and percussive, adequately tethered by an opportunity to tease. “You should put down the camera once in a while, work on your people skills.”
“My people skills are fine, it’s not my fault that I’m an acquired taste.”
“That’s one thing to call it.” She pushed off of the tree, blowing out her lungful of smoke before kissing Mal's cheek. “I’ll talk to her for you — if she wants to talk to me.”
“Thanks.” She knew that their little sanctuary couldn't last forever, that both of them had to return to work eventually, but she was still unfathomably sour about it. To keep herself from latching onto Gwenh's leg like a boot, she reached up to the glasses sitting on her head and held them out for her to take. “Here. I tried to keep them safe for you.” She tried not to mourn the loss; they were never hers to begin with, just a series of loans with variable end-dates, but she had grown used to having a piece of Gwenh with her.
Gwenh stared quizzically down at the glasses, looking for all the world like she’d never seen them before. Mal waited for the memories to slot into place, but after a too-long silence it seemed that they never would: eventually, Gwenh shook her head, plastered on a winning smile to hide the confusion, and turned away.
“You hold onto them — I’ll get them back later.”