Chapter Text
“What kind of scale compares the weight of two beauties, the gravity of duties, or the ground speed of joy? Tell me, what kind of gauge can quantify elation? What kind of equation could I possibly employ?” -Ani DiFranco
The Aegis cruiser maneuvered far more delicately than Jupiter expected given its size and configuration, gently scooping them into a hanger. A slight tug of gravity took hold and they drifted gently down to the deck before her full weight settled back onto her bones. Caine did something to the emergency space suit thing and it literally melted off her before clanking to the floor, now nothing more than a small box-shape joined seconds later by Caine's.
The door to the hold slid open and a cheering group of Aegis personnel poured inside, led by a more subdued but still-smiling Captain Tsing and a very subdued but relieved-looking Stinger.
Caine had told her, while they waited for the cruiser to bring them in, just a little of what had happened, and Jupiter saw Stinger like a multiple exposure: here, face blank, shoulders hunched, hands behind his back; on Orous, gun trained on a betrayed Caine, flush with determination and regret and anguish and hope; in her destroyed living room, at her back, rock-steady and ready to charge.
Jupiter shook Tsing's hand and thanked her, and did the same for each of the crew crowded around her, and when Stinger made to melt into the tiny crowd she caught the hem of his jacket.
"Majesty," he started, hands up, but she grabbed one hand and squeezed.
"Caine told me. We'll figure it out," she said. "When Kiza's okay, we'll figure it out."
He nodded once, twice, then grabbed her shoulder and dragged her in for a quick, hard embrace. She stepped back when he released her and kept going right over backward as her head swam and her knees turned to jelly.
Caine caught her. He eased her down to sit on the deck and knelt at her side. She tipped into him, whatever rush of adrenaline that carried her through the few hours swirled down a drain, and everything just throbbed - her back, leg, arms. "Oh, ow."
"Easy," he said and she wanted to burrow into him, but something wet smeared against her cheek; she pulled away to see the mangled ruin of his shoulder.
"Oh my God, Caine." She batted away his questing hands as he patted over her and tried to get to her feet. "What happened? We need to get you to a doctor!"
"Why don't we get you both to the infirmary," came Stinger's dry interjection, and she and Caine both looked up to see him roll his eyes.
Caine insisted on supporting her to the Aegis infirmary, with Stinger and Mr. Percadium and Captain Tsing rounding out the escort. She knew he'd prefer to just scoop her up, and by the third corridor she regretted not allowing him to, but he'd carried her so much, and he was hurt, despite his insistence that he was fine; she saw how deep those gashes went, saw the torn muscle and the pull across his mouth when he moved that arm. But she did let him lift her onto the medical bed, because she wasn't sure she'd be able to climb up onto it without ending right back on the floor, and she didn't complain when he helped her lie back, or removed her boots.
But when the doctor approached with a glowing blue canister she sat up, recoiling. "No!"
The doctor was confused. Stinger and Percadium and Tsing were confused. Caine was too, but his brow furrowed and his mouth opened a little - scenting the air, no scenting her - her panic, revulsion and shame probably like a neon sign blazing over her head.
He exchanged a look with Stinger, and then like dominoes Stinger turned to Tsing, who turned to the doctor, who eyed Jupiter warily and slowly set the Regenex canister aside.
"We have other methods, though their results are not as quick," he said
"That's fine," she told him, "totally fine." One less thing she'd have nightmares about.
The alternative was a wand that emitted a faint buzz, not unlike the drone of Stinger's bees, that sent a wave of warmth through all the aches and bruises purpling up, and some kind of liquid band-aid stuff that sealed over the scrapes and cuts on her skin.
Caine had pushed away all attempts to get him to another medbed until the doctor declared her okay, and when the doctor approached him with the canister of RegeneX, he hesitated, and with a quick glance at Jupiter, shook his head. A sick little knot hardened in her stomach at how easily he followed her lead, despite his pain, a knot that burned with the reminder of Titus' scorn at her naivety, at the sheer scope of this new world and its complex horrors.
"It's okay," she said. "Caine, take it. Please." Only then did he relent, allowing the doctor to press him back onto a bed, tsking at the mess of his shoulder as the doctor cut away the ruined shirt.
Jupiter laid back on the infirmary bed, head pillowed on her hand, and watched Caine as he watched her. She blinked and everything faded into night.
Her footsteps echoed a counterpoint to the frantic drum of her heart as she walked the great hall to Balem, but she never got close, and he just sat there framed by the roiling blood-red guts of the world she was named for, sat there holding a long thin knife like a needle to her mother's throat, still so far away even when she ran, feet pounding, a stitch in her side like the point of that knife, breath gasping as she yelled incoherent pleas and then the night-black floor crumbled away and Jupiter fell, kept falling and falling and someone watched her, someone calm, serene and cold as marble, someone with her face, watched her all the way down-
She burst awake to quiet and the faint glow of starlight. In that light she saw Caine seated at the opposite end of the bed alcove, angled so he rested against the alcove wall, his booted feet hanging off the edge, one large hand curled around her ankle like a warm, firm anchor. "Easy, you're okay. You're safe."
She gulped in the comforting stale, recycled air of the Aegis cruiser - no perfumes, or incense or the stench of burning wires and blood - and concentrated on Caine's thumb rubbing soft circles against the knob of bone. "How long was I out?"
"A few hours." His thumb shifted to rub along the top of her foot. "What were you dreaming?"
"Falling." Jupiter stared at his hand on her, her heart slowing to match the gentle strokes of his thumb. "I'm tired of falling."
Caine crawled up next to her, curled around her. "I'll always catch you."
"I know," and she did - he'd come after her after all, come after her into that terrible storm - she was saving that astonishment and what it meant for later, when she could understand it, appreciate it, could thank him without the fear that still trickled like ice through her veins. "It's just..."
"You're safe." He repeated it again and again, and she realized he was reminding himself as much as her, and she closed her eyes and sank back under again, lulled by the soft whuff of his breath against her face and the steady certainty of his voice.
"You're safe. I'm here."
*****
The next morning she went home.
She left Caine at the end of her street, the warmth of his mouth lingering on her lips from a kiss; this one unhurried, without the specter of it maybe being the only one.
"I will be nearby," he said into her hair as he seated something behind her ear. "Temporary com," he explained. "Tap it once to contact me, three times if you need help."
"I need all the help," Jupiter said and squeezed him hard before stepping back. "We need to get you a phone. Texting will be way less conspicuous." Still, she loved the idea of having that connection to him and gently touched the tiny round piece of metal hidden by her hair, still warm from his fingers.
Caine sketched her a tiny bow. "As you wish, your Majesty."
The house sat silent when she crept inside. Captain Tsing had assured her that her family would wake normally, with no memory of their ordeal. Still, Jupiter snuck upstairs and peeked in on Moltka and Mikka, and listened at Vassily and Irina's door for Vassily's bellowing snores.
She had maybe 20 minutes before her mother's alarm sounded, enough time to get inside, crawl into bed and pretend nothing happened.
Jupiter stood in the kitchen, still saturated with the smell of dinner, of coffee, of home. No, she couldn't pretend that. Not when she'd lived a lifetime in the span of days, a fast-forward glimpse into so many possible futures that her head spun if she thought about it too hard. It would, in some ways, be so much easier to forget, to have Captain Tsing do to her whatever they'd done to her family. But there was Caine. And Stinger and Kiza. And an empire on the brink of transformation, waiting for her.
She could not, would not pretend, not entirely, so she rummaged through the basket of laundry by the basement door, dressed in the tiny hall bathroom, and started the coffee.
*******
Three days later she ducked out between houses, making promises she'd meet Mama and Nino at their 3:00, that she needed to run an errand: "A personal errand, oh my God, okay, do you want me to tell you the sordid state of my possible yeast infection?"
Caine sat on a bench in the little park a few blocks from the 3:00 house. He wore worn jeans and a flannel shirt that pulled tight across his broad shoulders and a little knit beanie that looked ridiculous and adorable and possibly nefarious in the summer heat, and he still had his boots and gloves, and a small, wonderful smile when he looked over his shoulder as she approached.
She sat next to him and tipped into his side. "Hi."
"Hi," he said, and she felt his breath in her hair. "Are you well?"
"Yeah," she said. "Better now." They'd spoken a few times, quick conversations over the tiny com thing as Jupiter had skulked around the house to avoid prying ears and questions, just a few sparse words to convince Caine she was in one piece and convince her he wasn't a dream. She slipped an arm around his and buried her face against his shoulder.
"Hey," he said, and now she felt gentle fingers stroking through her hair.
"I'm fine," she insisted into the soft flannel. "Really. Did you raid Stinger's closet?"
"Kiza supplied them. She said black leathers would look suspicious in these areas, but she didn't have a lot to work with." Caine was enough bigger than Stinger that the jeans looked painted on. It was a very good look on him.
"How is she? How are they?"
"Good. They left yesterday for Orous. Kiza will get her recode priority, thanks to your intervention."
Jupiter shrugged. She still hadn't quite sorted out how she felt about Stinger selling her and Caine out, but when Captain Tsing had let slip that even with the money from Titus, it would still be months before Kiza would get her treatment, Jupiter had decided it was as good a chance as any to test her new queenly credentials. "Captain Tsing did all the work."
"It was still kindly done."
She let that lie. "When will they be back?"
"About a week. While Kiza's getting her recode, Stinger's going to file our pardons and the request for your guard assignment with the Legion. He thinks he can use money from Titus to fast track everything so we can get our wings, too, without having to wait until we rotate back into rank."
"What about-" the words went dry in her mouth at the implications. Caine had his pardon. Caine would go back to the Legion to get his wings. Caine would go back to the Legion, to the Skyjackers, to his life that was stolen from him.
It made no sense, the sudden gaping pit in her chest. She'd known him for like a week. Why did the thought of him leaving feel like the world was falling out from under her again?
"- and once the pardons clear the system, and we have our wings, Stinger's going to submit my request for a transfer out. He thinks they won't give him too much trouble if he can drop your name a few times."
Jupiter blinked up at him. "Transfer?"
The corner of his mouth quirked up. "You didn't hear a word I said, did you?" Amusement, not irritation.
Jupiter yanked her arm from his and so she could cross hers. "I was possibly occupied with panicking that you would leave. With your pardon. Like you said you wanted."
He had the good grace to look sheepish. "What I wanted, I didn't think I could have."
"Because I'm royalty. And you're a splice."
Caine tugged at the hem of his glove. It was a little strange seeing him fiddle anxiously. "Because I've never gotten anything I haven't had to fight for, to kill for. And then you stood there, and offered me your throat..."
It was Jupiter's turn for chagrin. "I did come on kind of strong."
The laugh he let out was gentle, and settled into a genuine smile, enough to show the tips of his canines, so she didn't begrudge it - she liked the look of it on him too much. "You were nothing I've ever imagined, and I, well, panicked."
She couldn't begrudge him that, either. It's not like his life these last few days hadn't been as much of a dizzying whirl as hers. "And now?"
Caine shifted so he faced her and gently uncrossed her arms. He cupped her hands in his: kissed her knuckles, the base of her thumb, the pulse in her wrist. "I didn't come back for you only to leave you again. I will stay with you as long as you will have me."
The rush of elation burst out of her as, "Oh, thank God!" as she launched herself against his chest, cheek smushed against the soft flannel, inexplicably close to tears when his arms settled around her.
"Jupiter, I can't promise I'm not going to fuck up. I can't even promise that I won't-" He swallowed hard. "Remember that I don't know what happened. I don't know that it won't happen again. I don't know that I'm-"
"Hey, no." She untangled herself and held his chin, forcing him to look at her. "You're amazing, that's what you are. Astonishing. Outstanding. I could go on at length, embarrassingly so."
His cheeks flushed. "It's still a risk."
Jupiter slid her palm along the line of his jaw, pressed her thumb to the corner of his mouth, drawing him down. His lips were so soft and warm under hers. "You're worth it," she said against them, and kissed him again.