Chapter 5: The Signal's Embrace
The jacket smelled like him. That was the thought, stupid and simple, that finally unspooled the knot in Gwen’s chest. Ozone, solder, the faint, clean scent of his soap cutting through the station’s recycled grim. She lay in the dark, the leather creaking under her grip, the neon from the corridor painting hellish stripes across the low ceiling.I’ll wait.
He’d whispered it like a vow.A promise with no expiration date. And waiting was a luxury the galaxy had stripped from them.Waiting meant drifting. Waiting meant another silent year, another lead gone cold, another night where the only warmth was memory.She thought of Keith’s sharp grin, always softened for her. She thought of Pidge, small and fierce, who Matthew spoke of with a reverence that bordered on pain. They were out there, or they weren’t. And she was here, clinging to a piece of clothing like a child.It wasn’t enough.A cold clarity settled over her. It wasn’t about circumstances, or loneliness, or the desperate heat of a near-death kiss. It was about the anchor he’d become.The steady, quiet center in her spinning chaos. And she was done being terrified of it.She rose, the jacket still draped over her shoulders. The corridor was nearly empty, lit by flickering amber panels, the air smelling of burned lubricant and spilled beer. She didn’t hesitate.Her boots made soft, sure sounds on the grating.
The Mirage’s hatch recognized her biometrics, opening with a pressurized sigh. The ship’s interior was dark, save for the soft, omnipresent glow of dormant consoles. And there, in the cockpit, a single active screen cast a blue pallor over his face.
Matthew was slumped in the pilot’s chair, his head propped on one hand, glasses slightly askew. On the main display, the Garn signal pulsed in a slow, repeating waveform, lines of code scrolling beside it.He looked exhausted, hollowed out.She stood in the doorway, watching him. He hadn’t heard her come in.“Any change?” Her voice was quiet in the humming dark.
He started, twisting around. The exhaustion in his eyes shifted into something else—concern, then a guarded warmth.“No.It’s stable.A repeating loop, like a beacon. I’ve… I’ve been running diagnostics on the star-drive. We’ll need a full charge for the next jump.” He rubbed his eyes. “You should be sleeping.”
“I couldn’t.” She stepped into the cockpit, letting the hatch slide shut behind her. The familiar space felt different now, charged.She stopped beside his chair. “You’re not sleeping either.”
“Too much to think about.” His gaze flicked from her face to the screen and back, a nervous habit.She reached out and stilled his hand where it fidgeted with the console’s edge. Her fingers were cool over his warm skin.He went very still.
“Then stop thinking,” she said.
She bent down, her wild black hair falling like a curtain between them and the star-strewn viewport. She took his face in her hands, her thumbs brushing the smudges under his eyes.This time, her kiss wasn’t a surprised collision.It was slow, deliberate. A soft press of her lips against his, testing, then deepening when she felt the sharp intake of his breath.She tasted the bitterness of old coffee and the unique, warm flavor that was just him.
A low sound escaped his throat, part relief, part hunger. His hands came up, one tangling in her hair, the other splaying across her back under the jacket, pulling her closer. She lost her balance, or he guided her; she wasn’t sure. She settled into his lap, straddling him in the wide chair, the worn leather cold even through her pants. The jacket slipped from her shoulders, pooling behind her.
“Gwen,” he breathed against her mouth, her name a prayer and a question.
“Shut up, Matthew.” She kissed him again, harder, nipping at his lower lip.“No more waiting.”
Her words shattered his restraint. His arms locked around her, crushing her to him. The kiss turned frantic, messy, a year of sidelong glances and suppressed longing exploding into heat. His glasses fogged, then were clumsily pulled off and discarded onto the console with a clatter.Her fingers pushed into his unkempt brown hair, gripping tight. His hands slid under the hem of her thin station-shirt, his palms rough with calluses but his touch unbearably gentle as they swept up the ladder of her spine.
She broke the kiss, panting, forehead resting against his.“Here.Now.”
“Here,” he echoed, his voice ragged. His hands came around to her front, fingers working the fasteners of her pants. She helped him, shoving the fabric down over her hips, kicking them off to land somewhere in the dark. The cool air of the cockpit touched her skin, raising goosebumps, but his hands were everywhere, warming her.He fumbled with his own clothes, his movements urgent. She leaned back, just enough to watch him, to see the boyish face she knew so well transformed by a raw, wanting need that mirrored her own.He freed himself, and her breath hitched. She’d seen him in various states of undress over the months, in tight quarters, but never like this.Never hard and wanting, his cock flushed and ready.She didn’t wait. She rose slightly on her knees, guiding him with one hand. Then she sank down onto him, taking him inside her in one slow, staggering glide.
They both cried out, a ragged, simultaneous gasp that drowned the hum of the ship. He was thick, filling her completely, a stretch that burned in the best way. She held still for a moment, head thrown back, letting her body adjust, feeling him pulse deep within her. His forehead fell against her collarbone, his breath hot on her skin.“Oh, fuck,” he choked out. “Gwen… you feel…”
She began to move. Slow at first, a rocking motion that dragged him almost all the way out before sheathed him again. His hands clamped on her hips, fingers digging in, helping her find a rhythm.It wasn’t graceful.The chair squeaked in protest. Her knee knocked a control panel, sending a harmless sensor alert flashing on a screen.None of it mattered.
The only light came from the instrument panels, painting their straining bodies in washes of blue and amber. Sweat gleamed on his temples.She rode him harder, faster, chasing the coil of heat tightening low in her belly. Each thrust brushed a spot inside her that made her see stars.
“Look at me,” he gritted out.She forced her eyes open, meeting his gaze. His glasses were off, and his eyes were dark, unguarded, full of awe and desperate affection.It was too much. It was everything.“Matt,” she gasped, her rhythm faltering. “I’m close… god, don’t stop.”
His hands slid from her hips to her ass, gripping her, holding her deep as he thrust up into her from below.The new angle was devastating.The tight coil snapped. Her orgasm ripped through her, a silent, breathless wave that clenched around him, milking him deep inside her.She shuddered, her cries muffled against his shoulder.
The feel of her pulsing around him undid him. With a choked-off groan, his own release followed, hot and sudden. He held her tight, his body shaking as he spilled into her, his breath a broken prayer against her neck.
For long minutes, there was only the sound of their breathing and the ship’s eternal hum. She collapsed against him, boneless, his softening length still nestled inside her.His arms came around her, holding her together. She felt his lips press gently to the sweat-damp skin of her temple.Reality seeped back in, pixel by pixel. The Garn signal still pulsed on the screen, indifferent.The coolant leak still needed fixing. The galaxy was still at war.Gwen lifted her head. His eyes were closed, peace smoothing the worry from his face.She ran a finger along his jaw. “The diagnostic on the star-drive,” she murmured, her voice husky. “What did it say?”
He smiled, a slow, real smile that lit up his whole face.“It needs a full charge. About six more hours.”
She shifted, wincing slightly as she disengaged from him, but not moving from his lap. “Good. That’s time.”
“Time for what?”
“For this,” she said, kissing him softly.“For a shower. For maybe, I don’t know, sleeping in an actual bunk together.”
He traced the line of her eyebrow with his thumb. “And then?”
She looked past him, out the viewport at the indifferent stars.“Then we chase the signal. We find our family.” She brought her gaze back to his. “Together.”
He nodded, pulling her close again, not for passion now, but for the solid, quiet comfort of it. Outside, the station continued its noisy, perilous orbit. Inside the Mirage, for a few stolen hours, they were just Matt and Gwen, two lost pieces that had finally clicked into place, finding a new kind of gravity in the dark.