Consequences of Goodbye

Posted on Mon May 3rd, 2021 @ 5:41am by Alden Loxley & Kindra Graham

Mission: Back in Black
Location: Just over a day from Landfall on Ghost
Timeline: Day 31

He'd found it. That accidentally discarded letter. Alden had read it, multiple times and it didn't get any easier to digest although the guilt had subsided on the second reading. He wondered - had Kindra dropped it on purpose? Was anything a companion did by accident? There was only one way to find out, and those... those weren't his only questions. It took him a couple of days before he talked himself into reopening the old wound for a second time in as many pretend day/night cycles, but then curiosity weighed heavily enough to negate ego.

"Did you rent my shuttle just to tell me you were sorry?" Alden asked, as, around breakfast time, he stormed right into the middle of Kindra's private space without any more warning than his presumptive question.

Tousled hair and a scrunched shirt spoke of a relatively sleepless night, his tone was harsher than his expression, and he had a piece of paper held tightly in his right hand.

Halfway through her progression of yoga poses Kindra was startled by Alden's sudden appearance. In her shuttle, looking like he'd just rolled out of bed, and not in a well-rested way. He seemed downright angry. She straightened from downward dog as his question sunk in. She was dressed in tight elastic trousers and tank-top, exposed skin slightly damp with perspiration, hair in a single braid down her back.

"Yes," she said with simple honesty. Why was he asking this now? "I did need a ride off Santo. I could have booked a different transport. But when I saw you in Caster, I thought it was serendipity."

Kindra's gaze fell to the paper in Alden's right hand, and her eyes went wide. She rushed to where the sari she'd worn to his cabin hung from a hook by the bed and searched the pockets – empty. "Jiàn tā de guǐ," she swore under her breath and turned back to face him, cheeks flushed. "Alden, I…" her voice faltered.

He'd looked up to see fine feminine curves stretching perfectly in clothing that left virtually nothing to an imagination that needed no reminding just how supple and wonderful her form truly was. And Alden's mood had short-circuited. Just stood there, gaze locked, staring.

Daaaaaaaaaaaamn.

Memory could be a cruel bitch and she was definitely playing with a stacked deck as Alden processed Kindra's reply. Yes? Well, okay then. His face struggled to leap from dignified confusion to cognisant acceptance of her response and halted somewhere in between, mouth open and brow slightly furrowed.

"Okay..." Alden lied, because it wasn't. Not really. And not (though he had no way of knowing this) for the reasons Kindra's own thoughts had jumped to. He didn't not want her here, but he absolutely had difficulty in dealing with the apparent complications of his historic abandonment. "But?" He stopped.

Kindra's face was bright red, her words tripping over his name and Alden knew what he wanted to know, he just wasn't sure he needed the answer to that real question. So, caught up with indecision, he asked a couple of wrong ones.

"You needed a ride?" That one was layered with curiosity. It was closely followed by another that captured his unjustified indignance. "Did you really think I just wanted to brag about sleeping with a companion?"

"Just a ride, it's a long story." Kindra barely managed to infuse those words with a verbal shrug, a subtle misdirection to imply said story was boring and unimportant. She didn't want Alden and his crew of family drawn into her problem.

He'd read the letter. That letter she'd written three years ago, where she'd spilled every bit of the emotional turmoil and angst that had overtaken her when she'd left him without a goodbye. His second question targeted a point she'd left out of her retrospective in his cabin, and landed like an emotional sucker-punch. Kindra sank onto the edge of the bed. Alden deserved an honest answer, no matter how embarrassing or painful. "It was one of my fears. The possibility that you thought of me as a companion first, and a person second. The possibility that to you… it wasn't real." She raised her head and tried to catch his gaze. "You never said or did anything to cause me to think that. Fears are not always rational, Alden. This fear came from my personal insecurities."

She steeled herself for the next question. "What else do you want to know?"

A Long Story. Well that didn't bode well, Alden considered in the privacy of his addled mind. He wasted a few seconds indulging some thoughts along the lines of what might constitute a 'long story' for a Companion, then allowed his internal bitching to get a bit more open about that.

"Left someone else sleeping?" Alden threw out there, and instantly regreted it as he found himself caught somewhere between seeking some form of retribution and feeling guilty about that. This pain was three years gone. And her letter explained her reasons. What more did he want?

He knew, but he didn't like the answer to that question. That answer needed alcohol and time before it would see the light of day.

"I thought of you as a person," said Alden, keeping his words clear and concise. "A real person. With real feelings." Someone I trusted. He sucked in a breath and blew it up towards the shuttle's 'ceiling', then held that upward glance a while longer before lowering his gaze back to face hers.

"All this time," he finally continued. "I thought I was just a convenient scratch to some itch you had. A lowering of your standards that you didn't want to acknowledge. You're the reason I took myself off The List."

What else did he want to know?

"Nothing," Alden lied. "It sounds as if you made the right decision." The statement lacked malice, his words calm. "You're still a Companion."

Kindra had stood and opened her mouth to refute his accusation that she had left someone else the way she'd left him. Did he really think that was her long story? She pressed her lips together. Better to let Alden believe that, than to risk getting him involved in her trouble.

And then… he thought she was just using him for sex? Her, a companion? The List – did he mean the Client registry? It even sounded like he'd imagined her using him to play out the kind of clichéd scenario peddled by whores. It hurt to know Alden thought so little of her. And yet, she'd had irrational fears of her own, so why not him?

Kindra took a step toward him, arms bent slightly and palms forward, her words strong with sincerity and conviction. "I swear I never thought of you in that way - a scratch for an itch. I wanted you. I cared for you, Alden. You're smart, and compassionate, you’re a musician, and you made me laugh. I was proud to be with you at that party on Pelorum. I'd've been proud to take you home and introduce you to Margaret and Walter." Her voice cracked on her stepfather's name. Walter was dead.

He didn't shift position, holding his ground firmly in the legitimately rented shuttle, but Alden's expression did break as Kindra spoke of her feelings. His cheeks picked up just enough crimson to deny the truth in his previous declaration of not giving a crap, and he lowered his gaze, awkwardly failing to hide that fact. He'd been more than proud to be with her on Pelorum too, he admitted privately. He'd felt something he hadn't been able to feel since... Alden pushed that thought down. Happiness in a romance was something the Verse didn't wish for him, and he needed to just acccept that.

Alden hadn't missed the catch in Kindra's voice though, on that last name. He saved that question for later, letting Kindra finish what she needed to say.

She continued in a smaller voice, "I wish we could have had more time together before I made that decision. Time to talk, to relax, time to just get to know each other. It took months for me to begin to understand what I was feeling when I wrote that letter." She massaged her temples with one hand. She was such an idiot. Any other person could read that letter and know exactly what she was feeling. After reading it, Alden thought she made the right decision, so she must've been a fool to think she could salvage anything between them. Even so, she didn't regret trying.

As he just pointed out, Kindra was still a companion, and a companion did not wallow in self-pity. She straightened and prepared for one more blow. "If you don't have any more questions for me, then I have a question for you. If I had not left as I did, if I had not made the decision myself, if instead I had waited to say goodbye and put that decision in your hands, what would you have done?"

"I could have helped you understand," Alden said, with a bitterness to his words as he spoke them. "If you'd actually left it for me to read. Instead I got a weirdly generic and harsh mismatch of words that told me nothing other than that you needed to go." He sighed. It had hurt, but that was a long time ago now. And the letter Kindra had dropped on the floor of his cabin here and now? That told him more than he could have likely handled back then. They'd never know how those words would have fallen, he supposed, though here and now, Alden was certain of his mind.

"Some things don't need time to decide," he answered her, finally reaching out his hands as if to take hers, then folding them against his chest in a guarded position. "If you'd wanted to leave - to say goodbye to me - I would have let you go. I was a prisoner once to love and I would not ask it of another." Would he have wanted to say goodbye? No. But she had not asked him for his feelings, only of what his actions might have been.

Kindra shook her head slowly and wrapped her arms around her middle, gaze cast to the floor. "I shouldn't have written that letter at all. What I should have done was woke you and explained everything that was going on in my head and in my heart. You're right, though. I should have trusted that you would help me understand, trusted that together we could find a path forward." So many shoulds, and she'd failed them all. "I was a coward. I never wanted to leave you."

It took her a moment to parse his last statement, then she searched his face with a curious wonder. He did understand that she was in love with him, and still was, otherwise she wouldn't be here. But had he loved her? And how could love make someone a prisoner? Kindra prompted gently, "I don't understand. You were a prisoner to love?"

As her gaze hit the floor, Alden stared at the top of Kindra's head and silently wondered what would have happened if she hadn't left in the night. He listened to the young woman's words and heard every one of them, painted as they were with the emotive sense of hindsight and wrapped in regret. "You weren't a coward," Alden said, his tone lighter now, realistic rather than coloured with pain. "You wanted things for yourself that you weren't sure you could keep, and you chose the one that mattered most." Her career. "Sometimes we do that, and it hurts, but it's necessary." Kindra had lived her life, the life she'd worked damn hard for, and that was okay. "Pretty sure you'd struggle as a Companion with a husband in tow," he half-seriously joked.

Then her eyes sought his, or hunted for answers through his own and Alden froze. He'd said too much, and opened that particular can of worms. The one that haunted his heart and his dreams still. "I was," he answered, and was about to leave it there, but felt the pang of guilt in accusing Kindra of leaving him clueless while wishing to do the same in return. "I was a literal hostage and prisoner to an Alliance officer who later became my wife."

The bitterness and accusation Alden had brought with him to her shuttle seemed to have burnt out, and though Kindra might have argued that yes she had been a coward, she let go of her self-reproach as her mind spun and lingered on the word husband… humor-inflected though it was. She put that tantalizing complication aside to listen to his answer.

Kindra wrapped her head around his revelation. He'd been the prisoner of an Alliance officer, and had fallen in love with her and married her. Scattered details from her cherished memories of intimate moments with Alden clicked into place. It was not hard to guess at least some of what his imprisonment had entailed. She wished he'd told her before, and she was deeply touched he'd chosen to tell her now. Kindra stepped close enough to rest a hand on his arm and look into his deep blue eyes. Her touch and her gaze held no demand, only acceptance and understanding… and love. After a moment she reassured him, "You could not make someone else a prisoner to love. It's not in your nature."

Then there was another piece of this puzzle Kindra needed to ask about. "You, uh…" She swallowed, her focus flitted uncomfortably away then back. "You have a wife?"

------------