Previously [9]

[10]

Derek stood watching Doc Liz behind the glass wall of the operation room. Doc had never looked more tired and miserable. Her white overall was covered in black stains of the Murblard’s blood. She looked at Derek and showed a thumbs up. Derek nodded. The green giant took up whole two operation beds. The med bots hovered around cleaning up and disinfecting the room. The slow beeping of the life support equipment marked each second of the Murblard’s saved life. Derek waited until Liz got out the shower.

“You owe me big time!” She said. “To make me operate on that chunk of green meat…” Doc Liz shook her head.

“Thank you, Doc. You’re the best!” Derek gave her a tired smile.

“Don’t waste your charms on me, Cap! There’s someone else whom you should be wooing,” Doc Liz replied with all the wrinkles and lines on her old face rising in ridicule.

Derek swallowed hard. Doc could see straight through him, as always. He nodded and marched away slowly.

***

Derek stood by Sophie’s cabin. Heart pounding, palms sweating, lump-in-throat, heat rising up his face. Yep, just as it’s supposed to be. Derek remembered the feeling all too well. For a second he hoped Sophie had fallen asleep. Until the door swooshed open and Sophie took him by the hand. She didn’t wait for Derek to start stuttering, Sophie kissed him. Minutes passed in sweet oblivion, holding each other close, until Sophie pulled him to her bed. Derek stood unmoved.

“What’s wrong… I thought…” Sophie murmured nervously, fidgeting with the zipper on his uniform to undo it.

“I… I’ve been raised according to the code of old beliefs,” Derek stuttered. Sophie glanced over his body. Derek was a handsome, muscled man in his mid-thirties. Black hair, grey eyes. A real catch.

“Um… have you ever been with a woman?”

“Yes, I have,” Derek replied with a nervous smile, “my wife.”

“You have a wife?”

“I had a wife. I buried her,” Derek paused to take a deep breath. “The Ghouls… she… She got caught in a shooting between the Ghouls and the Rebel forces. There were no available Gravediggers in our area. I gathered some men and we… buried the dead ourselves. After that, I formed an official Gravedigger crew. We got the Vulture05.”

The silent pause lingered, interrupted only by baby Annouk cooing in her sleep. Sophie held Derek’s hands.

“I’m sorry about…”

“It’s been ten years. I’m alright,” he said sternly.

“What is the old code of beliefs?”

“In the oldest parts of Orpheus, there is a… a code according to which a man and a woman should share bed only after wedding,” Derek explained quietly.

“Oh… that’s… “now it was Sophie’s turn to stutter. To her great surprize, Derek got on one knee. Though his hands shook, he had obviously gathered all his courage to ask her the question.

“Will you be my wife? I don’t have a ring, but when I get the chance…”

Sophie stood blinking.

“I will,” she finally replied . Baby Annouk woke crying. It took Sophie a while to sooth her back to sleep. Derek watched Sophie holding the baby gently to her heart, she hummed a melody he hadn’t heard since childhood. Exhausted, the Gravedigger Captain sat on Sophie’s narrow bed, leaned back against the cold wall of Vulture05, and slipped into a peaceful dream.