Chapter Text
CHAPTER ONE
“Holy shit.” Ryland’s neck craned as he watched Eva Stratt leave the stage and exit the party as if she didn’t just simultaneously blow away and devastate everyone in the room.
Ilyukhina whipped her head towards Ryland, who was still clapping furiously and following Eva with his gaze.
“This is the first time I’ve ever heard you swear…and first time I’ve seen Stratt smile…or show any emotion. Weird fucking night.”
Her eyes brimmed with tears, and she dramatically put her sunglasses on despite being in a dimly lit room at 10 PM.
“She…has smiled!” Ryland countered, but not entirely confidently.
“Mm, maybe for some of us.” She said with a suggestive smile.
Ryland huffed out an exasperated laugh-sigh and chugged the rest of his beer in one swig. He thanked the server and gathered his notes. He knew he looked like an antisocial dork for bringing his work to the party, but he desperately wanted to avoid being coaxed onto the stage for karaoke, so he had to look somewhat occupied.
Shapiro suddenly appeared with a tray of vodka shots, and Ilyukhina cheered and turned away from him, so Ryland attempted to use the distraction to slip away unnoticed.
“Heading out now? Have a good night!” Ilyukhina says in a sing-songy voice.
Ryland winces and turns to see her handing him not one, but two shot glasses.
He gave her a puzzled look and raised his hand to decline her offer, but she lowered her sunglasses to look at him and aggressively tilted her head toward the door Stratt had just exited.
“What are you -” but before he finished his thought, she had been whisked onstage with Shapiro, conveniently leaving the two shot glasses next to Ryland.
His eyes lingered on the door, and he felt a strange pang in his stomach. Seeing Stratt on stage was shocking. And endearing. And breathtaking. God. He’d only had about two beers over the course of two hours, but his head felt light and buzzy. He shook his head as if to will the buzziness away, grabbed the two shot glasses, and headed out the door.
As he walked into the hallway, a blast of cold air hit him, and he knew someone had recently opened the door to the ship deck. He headed for the big metal door and suddenly felt a wave of uncertainty wash over him as he held the two glasses.
He eyed the window ledge next to the deck door and considered abandoning the glasses there, but jolted when he heard footsteps behind him.
“Dr. Grace.” Eva Stratt walked down the corridor towards him, draping a navy blue scarf over her shoulders as she made her way towards him.
“Oh, hey! I thought you were outside. I was just…”
She stopped several feet away from him and gave him an inquisitive look.
“You were looking for me?” She sized him up, and her gaze landed on the drinks he was holding straight out, overly cautious about spilling them.
“Ilyukhina.” He offered the name as if it explained everything.
“Ah.” She nodded, as if it did.
Several seconds went by in the dimly lit corridor as the music from the party switched from karaoke tracks to much louder, raunchier music. A slightly muffled, “Shake that laffy taffy” reverberated through the hall.
“I don’t even know what to say about what just happened in there. You killed it. You…literally made everyone cry.”
“And to think I almost sang this instead.” She turned and gestured toward the party. “A joke.” She quickly added, with a proud look in her eyes.
“A joke!” Ryland let out a loud belly laugh that took him by surprise. When was the last time he had laughed like that? He joked around with the crew as often as permitted (and also when not), but mostly he laughed at his own jokes.
“I seem to recall our first conversation establishing that you don’t do jokes.” He looked at her with mock suspicion.
“You remember that? And yet…four years of incessant jokes.”
Ryland laughed again, and one of the drinks spilled down his wrist, but with his other hand occupied, he couldn’t do anything about it. The liquid slid down the cuff of his sweater and slowly dripped down his forearm.
“I wasn’t going to have both of these in my room by myself if that’s what you’re thinking. That would be depressing and pathetic.”
“I wasn’t thinking that.” Her voice was quieter than before.
They stared at each other for a moment before Ryland finally opened his mouth to respond, but Eva broke the silence first.
“May I?” Apparently a rhetorical question, as she plucked one of the glasses from his hand without waiting for an answer. She had taken the glass that had spilled over his hand, giving him an opportunity to wipe his hand and wrist on the side of his jeans. The small action struck him as exceedingly tender for some reason. She had noticed a slight inconvenience and solved it for him.
With her glass, Eva walked to the deck door, turned to face Ryland, and leaned her back against the door without opening it.
“Where you going?”
She glanced up at the giant, capitalized, “DECK,” signage and then back to him.
“Oh, the deck.” He said quietly, mostly to himself, and his cheeks slightly flushed.
“I’m going out to have a smoke. And do shots, apparently.” She gestured toward the drinks, and raised her eyebrows at him. “Care to join?”
“You smoke?” Ryland couldn’t recall seeing her take a smoke break. Or any break ever. They spent a lot of time together, especially in the late afternoon, poring over and finalizing their reports and coordinating various meetings with…every important person in the world. He had never noticed her leave for more than three minutes at a time. He certainly never smelled smoke on her when they were sitting side-by-side in meetings, or walking shoulder-to-shoulder down the corridors as he struggled to keep up with her stride, despite having longer legs than hers. In fact, not only did she not smell like smoke, but on the rare occasion, Ryland would catch a hint of an intoxicating peppery, citrusy, Earl Grey scent on her, especially when she brushed her hair out of her way to analyze his reports better. The scent was both soothing and spicy, and always caught him by surprise, as it certainly wasn't from the standard-issue hygiene products provided to everyone on the ship. No, this was something just for Eva, a small luxury, and she used it seldomly.
“No, not since I was a teenager.” Then a pause. “Dubois.” She said, mirroring his earlier, “Ilyukhina.” There was a glint in her eyes.
“Everyone’s just pushing alcohol and cigarettes onto us tonight. I feel like I’m in high school again, ha.”
Not true. Nobody offered him alcohol or drugs in high school as much as TV made him think they would.
Eva seemed to read his mind and gave him a doubtful look, but generously refrained from saying anything.
He abruptly remembered she had asked him a question moments earlier and nodded too enthusiastically before saying, “Yeah, let’s…do shots!” A phrase he never thought he’d be saying to Stratt.
She kept her back to the deck door and maintained his gaze as he closed the space between them. She didn’t make any move to push it open, so he stretched his arm next to her and placed his hand on the cold, steel door mere inches away from her face. The buzzy feeling he'd felt earlier amplified, but the music in the corridor somehow grew quieter. He gently pushed, and the door slowly gave way behind her, eliciting a slight yelp sound before she spun around gracefully, not spilling her drink.
Eva walked toward a small staircase on the deck and sat on the second-to-last step. She patted the step next to her, as if summoning a puppy to sit. He did. She had her back against the side railing and her knees positioned toward him. He did the same.
After a few moments of silence she asked, “What song would you sing in there?”
“Oh, uh. I don’t know.” She looked at him expectantly because clearly that answer wasn’t good enough. “It depends. Are you in the crowd or not?” He laughed and tried to think of anything that wouldn’t make him look like an idiot in front of his boss.
“Yes, of course I am.”
“David Bowie, Modern Love. I do a killer Bowie impression. Under the right, alcohol-fueled circumstances.”
She glances down at their drinks and then back at him. “The night is young.” She raises her eyebrows and lifts her glass up to him.
A frigid gust of wind whips past them and she gets a full-body shiver.
“Oh, you can take my sweater if you want. It’s wool.” He offers. It was probably 40 degrees outside, but he felt uncomfortably warm.
She shook her head. “No, thank you. The cold feels nice. I was burning up on stage. Besides, the…” she takes a moment and brings the glass up to her nose and makes a small, and slightly disgusted ugh sound. “Tequila will warm me up.”
“Sorry it’s not gin.” He says, holding up his glass to Eva.
“I don’t mind. I haven’t had tequila since university. I remember it being…not so good for me.”
“Oh? I feel like I need to know about University Eva Stratt.” He raised an eyebrow at her, imploring her to keep talking about her college days.
She rolled her eyes and nudged her knee against his as if to admonish him for being interested in her dumb, youthful escapades.
Ryland holds his glass up. “To Eva Stratt and…breaking through the atmosphere.”
“Oh.” She looks surprised and pauses before saying, “It hasn’t happened yet.” Her response wasn’t doubtful of the work nor was it based in superstition, but there was a hint of melancholy behind it.
“But it will. To Eva Stratt.” He reiterated.
She took a deep breath and they momentarily stared at each other over their glasses before tipping them back at the same time. Ryland sputtered and barely choked the tequila down. Eva didn’t flinch. Of course.
“What? How is everything you do so cool and nonchalant? You don’t even like tequila!”
“Maybe I am mysterious.” She says, referencing the conversation they had just earlier in the night.
Ryland feels a sense of regret and sadness, recalling their previous conversation. He had meant the comment about her being mysterious as a compliment, but now he realized it just meant he didn’t know her at all. They had worked together for over four years and he had learned more about her tonight than the entire time he’d known her.
He recalled past meetings and remembered her quickly shutting down and moving quickly past any personal questions anyone had asked her to get back to the work. But as he pondered the information he did know about her, a realization hit him. They had been in her office, or on the deck, or in his closet office, just the two of them. She had been forthcoming with personal information - just not when others were around. Just when it was the two of them. Oh.
“No, not mysterious. I just don’t know you as well as I should.” There was a charge in the air, and Ryland noticed her knee never moved away from his after her playful nudge.
“As well as I want to.” He amended.
Then, for the first time in their working relationship, Eva was the first to break their eye contact. She reached into her pocket to pull out a pack of Marlboro Reds and a brass lighter with the initials HES engraved on the front. She set the lighter on her thigh momentarily and settled the cigarette to her lips. Ryland picked up the lighter, grazing her thigh in the process. He gently cupped his hand around her face to block the breeze as he lit the cigarette for her. Before the flame faded away, Ryland noticed a brief, wild look in Eva’s eyes as if the flicker of the flame ignited something in her, too. She inhaled slowly as he lightly placed the lighter back on her thigh, letting his hand and gaze linger a second longer on her thigh than necessary. Eva finally exhaled away from him, then offered him the cigarette. Ryland had only smoked a handful of times, and he coughed so violently he nearly vomited.
“I can’t keep embarrassing myself in front of you, so I shouldn’t.” He awkwardly laughed.
“You haven’t embarrassed yourself in front of me.” She replied earnestly.
“You’re just saying that to be nice.”
“You know I wouldn’t do that.”
Ryland dropped the subject and watched her take another drag of the cigarette. Normally, smoking was something he frowned upon, but it was intoxicating watching her take long drags, hold it, and turn away from him as if to protect him from the smoke.
“H.E.S?” He asked, gesturing down at the lighter.
She took another drag.
“Hannelore…Eva Stratt.” She brushed her fingers over the engraved letters.
“Oh! Eva’s your middle name?”
“Eh, it’s more like two first names? Hannelore Eva, but Eva is my call name.” A pause. “Ryland Alexander, yeah?” She asks.
“Whoa, yep. That’s crazy, how did -”
“It’s in your file.”
“Ah. That’s impressive that you remember…Hannelore Eva Stratt.” Ryland said.
“Just Eva, Ryland.”
He had never really referred to her at anything aside from Ms. Stratt or truthfully, just Stratt, and she had always called him Dr. Grace or Grace, but hearing her call him Ryland and getting explicit permission to call her Eva pleased him. She hadn’t touched her cigarette in several minutes, and in a move that surprised them both, he plucked it from her fingers and took a drag, exhaling away from her. She looked surprised, maybe even impressed by his boldness.
“Noted, Eva.” He was grateful there had been no coughing or vomiting to ruin the moment because sharing a cigarette with Eva exhilarated him and unearthed a feeling he’d not felt in years. Maybe ever.
She tilted her head down and smiled and the warmth he felt from causing her to smile was interrupted by a spattering of frigid raindrops that quickly turned torrential.
She stood, patted his head, and said, “Let’s go. You owe me that Bowie impression.”