Emma came back to work on the Bridge two days later. In those two days, Grey scrambled uselessly to encompass the changes she instituted, until he simply gave up and watched her rearrange their lives from top to bottom. It was easier to sit back and watch. He was never going to keep up with her.
Besides, there were always the long hours of the night when she was in his arms and he could give her his undivided attention, with no interference from the many people around them.
Emma recruited a small army in the two days before she came back to the Bridge. Grey was astonished when Leanne and Paulie both appeared in their quarters, to play with Victoria and take her off their hands for a few hours.
He was staggered when his own parents appeared on the Bridge. He hadn’t spoken to them in person for well over a year, even though he called every few days or so. His mother hugged him, then threw herself into Emma’s arms and cried, while his father patted her back, his own eyes glittering suspiciously.
Then his mother picked up Victoria and cooed over her, while Victoria waved a plump fist in her direction and smiled.
Emma’s mother was the last of the private recruits. Anat Vicario was introduced to his parents and all three exchanged glances that seemed to speak volumes. They instantly settled into a corner of the sitting room and began to talk with their heads together. It was as if they had been friends for decades.
On the third day, Emma pulled herself out of Grey’s arms, dressed in one of her more conservative skirts and shirts, prepared breakfast and fed Victoria. When Anat arrived, Emma took his elbow and smiled up at him. “Time for work,” she declared, as Anat burped Victoria and crooned softly to her.
It felt as though Emma had never been gone from the Bridge, except all the niggling problems and issues that had been building into a never-ending list of demands seemed to melt away almost magically. How long could he have gone on without a Chief of Staff? He would have said he was coping, yet within a day of her return, when he could feel the tension in his shoulders and chest easing, he knew he had been losing the battle to stay on top of everything.
Now she was back, he could stop to breathe occasionally and not have everything blow up on him.
Even better, there was no longer any reason to stay out of her office. He could walk in there whenever he wanted. The best part of it was her smile when she looked up and saw it was him.
Emma was also firm about the hours they stayed on the Bridge. They could work from the apartment, only she insisted they return there at a reasonable hour every night. She also made sure the Bridge personnel went home when they did. Crises did happen, but with communications across the ship so seamless and instant, there was no reason for anyone to spend their life on the Bridge.
Grey didn’t argue with any of it. He became deaf whenever anyone outside the Bridge disapproved of the wholesale changes Emma was making. He had no intention of halting her little revolution.
The first two weeks held the biggest changes. Even afterward, Emma kept refining and adjusting their lives, ironing out the kinks and making it work. Victoria thrived, the center of adoring attention by so many people. Even the Bridge guards liked to stop and talk to her when she was taken on outings.
Emma insisted that as many of the outings involve her and Grey as possible and the work on the Bridge was adjusted to accommodate their joint responsibilities as parents. It was then Grey understood why she had involved Leanne and Paulie in her care schedule. They were as invested in Victoria’s wellbeing as Grey and Emma and willing to cooperate as necessary to provide the time they needed.
Their first venture was a walk through the park in the Palatine, with Victoria on Emma’s hip, or his. They took the closed car to the Palatine entrance and a taxi-boat down to the surface. It was a warm day in the biosphere and the trees overhead provided welcome shade as they strolled the paths and stopped to feed the ducks on the pond, which delighted Victoria. It quickly became their favorite outing. The Palatine residents tended to mind their own business and they could enjoy being alone—a rare treat.
On one of those occasions, they brought a meal with them and Emma spread a blanket. Victoria wasn’t quite sitting up, although she was rolling endlessly, laughing at her own prowess as she squirmed around on the blanket.
Grey watched as Emma helped Victoria to sit for a moment. It was late in the afternoon, Palatine hours. Emma’s hair was a soft halo around her as she sat with her feet tucked under one hip, chatting with Victoria and laughing at her efforts to sit up by herself.
It struck Grey with the force of a blow to the chest.
He was happy.
“What’s wrong?” Emma asked anxiously, softly.
“I love you.” He rubbed his temples, trying to ease the ache there. “I didn’t want to, but I do.”
“That’s such a terrible thing?” she asked, still speaking softly.
“You don’t understand. I don’t get to be happy. I don’t get to have a life. As soon as Kermode was assigned to me, I was warned my life was never going to be like anyone else’s on the ship. The captain is the ship. That’s their life. Then I was assigned to you.” He dragged in a breath, trying to stem the words, to stop himself from blurting it all out. But he couldn’t. “Ten years, that’s how long I thought I would get and I figured, well, I would make it count. I would turn you into the best captain this ship has ever seen.”
“It will have been nine years, in about three weeks’ time,” she said. “Is that what you just realized?”
He shook his head. “I just realized how selfish I’ve been. I can’t stop now, Emma. I want you in my life, I can’t leave you alone…not until I have to and that will be soon….” He stopped. He was trembling.
“We don’t know it will be soon.” She said it calmly.
“If I had your courage, I would send you away. I would find a way to make you hate me.”
“You’re too late by about five years.”
“You’ve hated me for five years?”
“The opposite, you fool.” But her smile was soft and warm.
“I am worse than a fool. I’m a selfish fool. But I couldn’t leave it unsaid. Neither of us knows how long I’ve got left and if it was tomorrow, if I didn’t speak now, then you would never know how much I love you.”
Emma kissed him. It was a promissory note, because Victoria lay between them, gurgling and murmuring, kicking her chubby legs. She took his hand and held it and they watched the ducks on the little lake and this time he could let himself be happy, because now she knew.
* * * * *
As Emma was fond of saying, life moves on.
His ninth year as Emma’s mentor ended and they moved into the tenth year, the days spinning past faster and faster as they settled into their extraordinary life on the Bridge. Emma became more and more his co-captain, her skills maturing and developing. The Bridge personnel took their orders as readily from Emma as they did from Grey, although in public, everyone deferred to him, including Emma.
Victoria learned to sit and then to roll over on to her hands and knees and rock, threatening to stand and walk at any second.
“That is going to require another reorganization of the apartment,” Emma warned him. “My mother is already threatening to tie everything down and install shields everywhere.”
There was no halting the progress of time, Grey realized. Victoria would soon be walking. Change was inevitable, yet the idea no longer instilled the fear in him it once did.
So when the end arrived, he didn’t recognize it because he had stopped looking for it.