"If I like pain, how I'm likely to like it and what else I'm likely to like." She does pull the shawl back on, then, but not perfectly; the bruise is totally covered, but a few slivers of welt are still visible. "Or that I'm actually being abused."

"Oh. Yeah." Standing there awkwardly with his eyes closed, that seems to be the safest thing right now. "I'll - I won't gossip, promise."

"Thanks," she says, and finally leaves.

Okay. Well. That's a thing that just happened.

He takes a deep breath, waits for her footsteps to recede, and then goes back to stacking crates.

If he sees her at any point over the next few days, she'll still be wearing a shawl, but now pinned so that it would be harder to have fall off by accident.

He pretty reliably has a moment every time he sees it, but he doesn't freeze up like that again, and he doesn't stare. He just - looks, and looks away, and then does a very good job of acting normally.

The first day she goes without, there might still be faint traces. Maybe. Certainly no one who wasn't expecting them would see them. He's probably just imagining it.

Yeah no he's not imagining that. But he's getting better at not reacting.

Pity.

...

She goes to see the Captain.

"Bea. What can I do for you?"

"This is potentially somewhat awkward," she says, "but I'm developing a crush on Sargon, and I wanted to ask your advice."

He smiles.

"Well. My advice toward what end, exactly?"

"...Well, for starters, I'm fairly sure he's attracted to me, but it doesn't seem to--generally cross his mind that something might be done about that, even in the abstract."

"...ah. Yes," he says. "That's... he knows that some people would make the assumption that of course you are available, and he is trying not to do that, and overcompensating a little. There's more to it, but that's the simplest part."

"Ah. I can appreciate that," she nods. "...I don't want to make things awkward."

He shrugs. "Do you think you're likely to?"

"I don't know! Companions don't usually have to do the approaching!"

"I think you'll find he's very approachable," says Anwar. "He likes you."

"Okay. Thank you."

"You're welcome."

She goes to find Sargon.

At the big table in the galley, doing weapons maintenance.

"Are you busy?"

"Not enormously. What's up?"

"...Well, to start with, I'm sorry for teasing," she says, waving a hand at the areas until recently marked. "That wasn't really fair to you."