[ If someone had told him a month ago that watching a woman eat strawberries would be one of the most intimate things he’d experienced in his life, he would have laughed them out of his quarters or off the bridge. And he probably would have assumed that Sam sent them with the sole purpose of teasing him. Now though? Now, watching La’an settle into the bed and bite into one? He can’t help but smile. Maybe it’s the vulnerability, maybe it’s the trust; the fact that she’s willing to be this in front of him even though he knows how put together and guarded she usually is.

It’s a gift. And not one he plans on wasting.

Jim settles behind her on the bed, one leg braced on the floor, the other knee tucked up under him. He knows he should start on her hair, that’s why he’s here, but he can’t help but reach out and brush impossibly gentle fingers over her shoulders, down her arms, lingering over bruises he finds, over those surface scrapes. Each one drives home how close he was to—-

Maybe that’s why he admits to her, voice quiet in the air between them: ]

I was terrified. When I got the notification. [ he hopes she knows the one he means ] you were my first call, after I saw Sam was missing, but when you didn’t answer—-

[ he draws a breath and brings his hands back to her hair, working gently through a tangle as he continues, speaking to the strands more than to her ]

—-I hated the idea I might have lost you.