Ilsa boarded the first reputable passenger liner flying out from Praxica VI. She had no particular destination in mind other than elsewhere, nor did she care how long it took to get there. When she'd achieved some distance, she could put out feelers, see about finding herself a job somewhere planet-bound until she decided what to do with herself. There were always companies willing to hire data security specialists from the wrong side of the firewall, as long as they came with the right credentials, and Ilsa wasn't in any particular hurry. She had some money yet in her private accounts, and Kai would see her share of Dantes's fee deposited. She could certainly trust him that far, even if she'd given him no indication of where she intended to go.
The truth was, Ilsa didn't know where she intended to go. No particular system or sector called out to her in moments like this. She'd been a wanderer far too long to think of any one place as home. As a child she'd been accustomed to living wherever her father could find work; as an adult she had crafted her own life the same exact way. Even before Kai she had been constantly in transit, usually to wherever she could accumulate more skills or equipment or deeper access to the data at her fingertips.
There was comfort to be found in a life on the move.
Except everything was different now without Kai. Seven years was a long time to grow accustomed to traveling with a partner at her back, and Kai's sudden absence proved disquieting. After three restless days, Ilsa caught herself looking for him in the crush to disembark.
Gantry Beta was a frenetic colony in a border system. It was a messy quilt-work of a planet that had belonged to no one until joint terraforming teams from six worlds crafted a breathable atmosphere out of its base components. It was the perfect place to land and catch her bearings. No one noticed or troubled her amid the anonymous chaos of species. Ilsa felt alone and unnoticed in the sprawling city that surrounded Gantry Beta's third largest spaceport.
She stayed for a month, all the while wondering if Kai would appear on her doorstep. Ilsa hoped and dreaded and wondered what she would say, but she was never able to give herself a sure answer. The memory of their final conversation still ached—words she was painfully accustomed to, she had heard them so often and from so many people.
She'd never expected to hear them from Kai.
Ilsa had made few lasting friends in a lifetime of constant motion. Self-sufficiency was simpler, and the truth was she found most people exhausting. Only a handful, a persistent few, had stuck around long enough to work their way past her instinctive defenses. All of them had let her down eventually. Most had wanted something more than friendship, and had walked away when Ilsa wouldn't give it. Some had left her on better terms, a natural parting of paths. None had ever stayed, and until Kai, that hadn't bothered Ilsa at all.
Until Kai, she hadn't trusted anyone enough to rely on them; now she knew what it was like to have someone stick around. Seven years. It was a completely different paradigm. No wonder she felt truly lonely for the first time in her life.
No wonder she was disappointed when Kai didn't appear.
By the time she left Gantry Beta, Ilsa had a job offer in the Prihe Cluster and a bank account freshly padded by the Roy Vis Medica Group payroll. She'd spent a month resisting the urge to look for Kai's footprints in the local data stream, and she left without giving in to her own curiosity. There was no point in knowing Kai's location or itinerary. She wasn't going to contact him, and she certainly wasn't going to return contrite to his side.
She boarded an Aian light liner without looking back, and set out to work the entirely legal side of data security.
There was no shortage of jobs after that initial jump. Ilsa had a skill set in high demand, and within six months she'd set herself up with her own corporate front and a brand-new business account. Vance Security Consultations. Travel expenses almost always landed on the companies calling her in, and no job kept her in one place for more than a couple of months. She chose gigs based more on distance and duration than on pay. The wanderlust that lived beneath her skin had mounted to new heights, and instead of planets and cities, Ilsa found herself tiring of entire star systems. She felt more restive with every breath she took, and there was no one beside her to slow her pace.
Ilsa forgave Kai eventually. A year out. Two years. She realized the tight knot in her chest had loosened and begun to unravel. She wasn't angry at Kai anymore. She missed him too much. Every ship she boarded had a stranger in the seat beside her where Kai belonged, and the wrongness of it all gnawed at her with dull persistence. She was painfully aware of the constant gap where her best friend should have been.
She still didn't give in to curiosity or try to track him down. She recognized futility when it was staring her in the face.
Exactly three years after Eleazar Dantes, Ilsa Vance returned to Naius V. It was pure chance that brought her back to the planet where her final mission with Kai had begun. The Naiasuss Research Institute offered her a package too good to turn down. Their primary research hub was on the farthest continent from the port city she and Kai had called home between jobs. She had no reason to let sentiment prevent her from accepting the generous offer.
Besides, Ilsa chided herself, she couldn't let the past dictate her entire future. She and Kai had too much history for her to avoid every planet that reminded her of her absent partner.
So she settled in to a new job and a brighter city, relieved when she arrived to sleek streets that were entirely unfamiliar. Even the air smelled different, and at night, there was no glimpse of stars through the powerful glow of city lights.
Ilsa worked hard for the Institute, even when familiar restlessness began to edge beneath her skin. She stayed buried for days at a time in her data screens, breaching security wherever she could in order to find the weakest points, then helping craft sturdier walls and smarter traps. It wasn't thrilling work, or even particularly challenging, but she was damn good at it.
Two weeks into her stay, she upgraded from the cramped room provided by the Institute to a private apartment several blocks distant. The neighborhood was quieter, the apartment larger, and she had enormous windows along two out of five walls. The apartment was on the twenty-second floor, and this high up from the street, Ilsa had a perfect view of the endless horizon.
She worked six days out of every seven, and on the seventh—her first day to herself in her new accommodations—she was startled by the tone that signaled a visitor at her door. It wasn't a communications alert from the building's main entrance, where any guest should have been held up by the security checkpoint. It was the chime of her own front door. Whoever it was had bypassed the building's security somehow, and the thought set Ilsa's nerves alight with warning.
Ilsa was already awake despite the early hour, dressed in a loose skirt and well-worn sweater. She'd wanted to watch the sunrise through the wide spread of her new windows, perched on the faded sofa that had come with the apartment. The chime nearly startled her into spilling her coffee. She set the mug on a small end table as she rose, and collected her gun from the end table's only drawer. She favored excessive caution over carelessness, and it was with quiet apprehension that Ilsa approached her door and reached for the control panel beside it.
She tapped the voice control and kept her tone cool. "Yes?"
"Ilsa, it's me." Kai sounded tinny through the cheap control panel, but there was no mistaking him.
Ilsa dropped her hand, severing the connection before her choked gasp could carry into the hall. She felt unmoored as adrenaline rushed through her, carrying an incoherent mix of hope and panic. She set her gun down on the kitchen counter, and then jabbed her finger too hard at the control panel in her hurry to undo the lock.
The door slid smoothly open as she fell back a step, and Ilsa gaped at the improbable sight of Kai Othen standing in front of her.
He wore the same brown jacket he always wore. There was the same careless dusting of stubble along his jaw. He looked rumpled around the edges, as though he'd only just arrived planet-side and had barely paused to rent a room before hurrying to her door. The too-bright sunlight from the windows cast him in sharp contrast and made him look like some kind of statue instead of a living, breathing man.
The sight of him sent relief spinning through Ilsa's blood, and she took another step back so that she could brace one hand on the sofa.
Kai watched her from the door frame for several seconds, but finally asked, "Can I come in?"
"Yes," Ilsa said. Her fingers tightened on the faded cushion beneath her hand. "God, of course you can come in. What the hell are you doing here?"
Kai gave her a wry look, all exasperated fondness as he stepped inside the apartment. "I'm here for you. I hoped we could talk."
She let go of the couch and approached him cautiously. The door slipped closed at Kai's back, the lock automatically engaging with a quiet ping. She peered up at Kai, half-expecting him to disappear as abruptly as he'd arrived. She felt silly needing the reassurance of contact, but she set a hand to his arm just the same. Ilsa exhaled slowly at the solid feel of muscle beneath his sleeve, sturdy and familiar. She closed her eyes and dropped her hand, drawing a steadying breath as she let herself believe he was actually here.
Ilsa gasped a small squeak of surprise when Kai's arms closed around her, crushing her in a hug that squashed the air out of her lungs. Her eyes opened, but she couldn't see Kai's face. He had her wrapped too tightly, his face buried against her shoulder. When Ilsa managed to get enough leverage to return the hug, Kai's only response was to hold on even tighter. He was shaking.
By the time he let her go, Ilsa's chest had begun to hurt, and it was only partly for want of oxygen.
Kai took an apologetic step back, a sheepish expression on his face. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his coat and watched her with a faint tilt to his head. He had the air of a child who feared he may have done something wrong but wasn't yet sure. Waiting for either anger or reassurance.
Ilsa took a moment to collect herself, but finally she said, "You came back."
Kai's expression clouded, his brow creasing at the center. "Of course I came back. We're partners."
Ilsa shook her head, denial and uncertainty transparent in the gesture. "No one's ever come back before."
Kai's face smoothed as comprehension overwrote confusion. He looked more at ease somehow when he confessed, "I'd have come sooner, but I wasn't sure you wanted to see me. Even now... I thought you might send me away, but I needed to try."
Ilsa's voice lodged hard in her throat, a bundle of messy emotion catching and nearly choking her. I'm glad you're here, she wanted to say. Or maybe, Thank you for coming back. The words wouldn't come, though. The sentiments clogged somewhere in her chest, and she turned her back on Kai, looking for some excuse on which to focus a sudden excess of energy. There was only the kitchen, with its narrow beverage pod at the corner of the counter still cued up, hot and ready.
"Do you want coffee?" she asked, managing to ease the superficial question past the roadblock in her throat. "You look like you've been up all night, let me pour you a cup."
"Ilsa." Kai's voice was firm. Fond. Surprisingly patient.
Ilsa subsided but couldn't bring herself to turn around. Not yet. Not when she still didn't know why he was here. She didn't want to believe he was the kind of man who would track her down across the known galaxy just to make a second bid for her romantic affections. She knew him better than that. But people had let her down before. Ilsa wasn't sure what she would do if Kai managed to compound his mistakes.
"I'm sorry," Kai said, and Ilsa stopped breathing.
She turned her head, glanced back over her shoulder and let herself meet his eyes. He looked exhausted and sad and completely sincere.
"I'm sorry," he repeated. "I let you down, and I hurt you. It's taken me a while to work out how badly I fucked up, but I do get it now."
"Kai..." Ilsa turned at last. She inhaled shallowly as her voice tapered away to nothing.
"I took you for granted. I made assumptions. I said awful things..." Kai's mouth turned down at the corners, and the hazel of his eyes darkened with regret. "I'll understand if you still want me gone. Say the word and I'll be on the next flight out." He paused, looking distinctly unhappy. "I already booked a seat, just in case."
The knot of feeling in Ilsa's throat loosened at his final admission, and a lighter sensation started twisting its way free. Pre-booking travel arrangements, before he'd even come to see her, was so perfectly, typically Kai that she almost smiled despite herself. He would never take the chance of someone calling his bluff if he couldn't deliver, so he had covered all possibilities before reaching her front door.
It was without any conscious intention to answer that Ilsa heard herself say, "I don't want you to leave."
A heartbeat passed before Kai seemed to process the quiet assertion, and then a grin spread across his face. It was a wide open expression, a relief so honest that looking at it made Ilsa's chest ache. She felt one corner of her own mouth twitch upwards with relief all her own.
"I miss working with you," Kai admitted. "I want you back if you'll have me."
Ilsa sobered, wariness winning out over incautious relief. She caught the flicker of doubt in Kai's face at the change, but she couldn't afford to blindly reassure him. She needed to know exactly what she would be getting herself into if she said yes.
"Are you still in love with me?" she asked, and held her breath as she waited for him to answer.
"A little." Kai offered a sheepish smile and a helpless shrug. There was embarrassed apology in the slouch of his shoulders. "But that's my problem. I'll get over it."
"I can't do this again, Kai. My feelings aren't going to change, and I can't spend the next five years wondering if I'm leading you on."
"Hey," Kai said softly. He took a step towards her, looming close without touching. "Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I'm not a complete idiot. I don't make the same mistake twice."
"And you're really okay with this?" Ilsa asked. "With going back to the way things were? You want to work together even knowing I'm never going to feel that way about you?" She willed him to say yes. She wanted him back so fiercely it hurt, but she couldn't accept a reunion on any other terms. She couldn't promise him more than she'd already given, and she sure as hell couldn't do this if they didn't understand one another perfectly.
"You're my partner," Kai said simply. "That's all I've got any right to ask for."
They were at a crossroads, Ilsa realized. Two paths stood before her, entirely opposed, and only one of them included Kai. There was no halfway and no middle ground. She had to let him back in completely or let him go forever. Compromise would only tear them apart.
Trust was dangerous. It was an opening in vital defenses, a gaping vulnerability. It was the potential for fresh agony if he let her down, and Ilsa couldn't pretend the possibility didn't terrify her.
But trust was also a deliberate gamble, and Ilsa recognized the stakes. Kai wasn't a man to make empty promises. He was watching her now with fierce understanding. Ilsa was surprised at how easily she believed Kai would stand by his words.
"Okay," she said at last. "I'm in."
Kai's face split into a grin as wide and warm as the sunshine streaming into Ilsa's apartment, and this time she found herself grinning back. Her chest ached with a bright, sharp hope, and she threw her arms around Kai's shoulders. She had to stretch onto her toes to reach, and Kai laughed, wrapped his arms about her waist in return and lifted her easily off the floor.
Ilsa buried her face in Kai's coat and smiled into the soft leather.
When Kai set her down he was still smiling, even as he retreated far enough to let her breathe. "I could buy a second ticket," Kai offered, mischief in his eyes. "We could get off this rock today."
"I have a job to finish first." Ilsa arched a pointed eyebrow. "I can't just shove off in the middle of a contract. Aside from the ding my professional reputation would take, they still haven't paid me for my services."
"Right," Kai conceded reasonably. "Then I guess I'd better get my pack out of that storage locker and find a place to stay."
Ilsa didn't hesitate. "You can stay here. There's a second bedroom down the hall."
Kai blinked at her in surprise. "Are you sure?"
She nodded. "Positive. Go get your things."
Ilsa watched him disappear through the door. She felt giddy and lightheaded, content in a way that told her she'd made the right choice. There was an easing in her spine, a loosening of the tight regret she'd been carrying with her since Praxica VI.
"Welcome home," she said to the empty room, and grinned so wide her face hurt.