Private What Was Left Behind

[Zesiro]

The fact that he admitted to liking ration bars earned a look from Zesiro so unconvinced it bordered on scandalized. "That is not the defense of them you seem to think it is." A laugh escaped her despite herself. "I suspect that is what happens when a person eats enough of them. Eventually, they stop being food and become a personality trait."

The amusement lingered in her eyes as she accepted the hand he offered, her fingers settling naturally into his. She did not need the help standing, but somewhere along the way, the gesture had stopped feeling unusual and now felt almost as natural as the conversation itself. As they started toward the boarding ramp, the joke about skeletons finally reached her, and the laugh that followed was warmer than the first. "I do not keep skeletons either," she said, glancing toward him. "Though I suppose between your collection of hair samples and my collection of bad decisions, neither of us should be allowed to answer certain questions without legal representation."

The smile softened before it could turn sharp. What struck her most was not the joke itself but the ease with which it had come. Hours ago, he had looked at her as though she were an interruption. Now he was making jokes about DNA archives and skeletons. It felt like progress, the good kind. As they descended the ramp and stepped into the evening air of the starport, she found herself watching him from the corner of her eye. Something in him had shifted. The grief was still there, the loneliness too, but they no longer seemed quite as heavy as they had when she first saw him standing among the dead. Perhaps sharing a burden truly did make it lighter.

"I should warn you," she said as they made their way toward the market district, her hand still comfortably linked with his, "a grocery store is probably going to be overwhelming." A trace of amusement warmed her voice. "You have spent nearly two decades surviving on meal bars. There are entire aisles devoted to things that are essentially ingredients pretending not to be ingredients." She looked up at him, her smile deepening. "And if you have never stood in front of a shelf trying to choose between thirty nearly identical products while questioning every decision that brought you to that moment, then you are about to receive a very educational introduction to modern civilization."

The gentleness in her expression never faded. "After that, we will go back to the Candlewake, make something simple, and prove that surviving and living are not actually the same thing." The certainty in her voice felt steadier than anything she had possessed that morning. Then again, that morning she had not expected to spend the evening holding hands with a man who cataloged the dead, lived inside a traveling memorial, and somehow made her feel less alone than she had in years.

Life was strange that way, and for once, she found she did not mind.

Malach Orren

 

[Malach Orren]

His eyes fixed on her and his mouth hung open for a moment.

"Some people have different tastes, you know," he said. "Maybe I just ate them often enough that I started liking them. But ration bars aren't part of my personality. They're just food."

The fact that he felt the need to defend them at all probably wasn't helping his case.

Still, her laughter at the comment about skeletons earned a faint shake of his head. There really weren't any skeletons aboard the Candlewake. Though as he thought about it, he did begin to wonder how some of the ship looked to outsiders. Boxes of hair samples, stacks of journals, personal effects collected from the dead. Seen through the wrong lens, it could paint a rather unfortunate picture. Perhaps that was something he should think about in the future.

They descended the boarding ramp together, and he listened as she explained the realities of grocery shopping. Aisles filled with food. More varieties than he could easily imagine. The idea felt almost excessive. His thoughts immediately drifted toward the practical problem.

"If there are that many varieties of food, what happens to what isn't bought?"

It seemed like a reasonable question. Surely there couldn't be enough people purchasing everything before it spoiled.

His gaze remained fixed on the road ahead as they walked, her hand still resting in his. The gesture felt natural enough now that he barely thought about it. Almost. Her mention of returning to the ship to cook eventually caught up with him, drawing a slight grimace.

"We may need to clean the kitchen first. It's mostly being used as storage right now."

Zesiro

 

[Zesiro]

The look Zesiro gave him when he admitted to liking ration bars was so openly skeptical that it lasted several steps before she finally laughed.

"I'm fairly certain that's what happens when someone eats enough of them," she said. "At a certain point, they stop being food and start becoming part of who you are."

The amusement lingered in her eyes as she shook her head. The more she learned about him, the easier it became to imagine years slipping past aboard the Candlewake without him noticing that entire portions of an ordinary life had quietly vanished. Somewhere along the way, he had stopped thinking about meals, stopped thinking about rest, and convinced himself that surviving was enough.

It was equal parts admirable and alarming.

When he asked what happened to all the food that wasn't bought, she wasn't even surprised. Most people would have been wondering what they wanted to cook. Malach had immediately skipped ahead to supply chains, spoilage, and distribution.

"Some of it gets bought. Some of it gets discounted. Some of it gets donated. Some of it gets thrown away," she admitted. "More than should, if we're being honest. There are people who spend a great deal of time trying to solve that problem, though tonight I think we can leave it in their capable hands."

A smile returned as she glanced toward him. "We have more immediate concerns."

The mention of the kitchen earned a laugh from her before she could stop it. Of course, the kitchen was being used as storage. The Candlewake was overflowing with journals, records, keepsakes, and fragments of lives that might otherwise have disappeared from memory. It would have been far stranger if every room aboard still served its original purpose.

"Cleaning won't be a problem," she assured him. "If you've spent eighteen years cataloging the dead, I think we can manage a few hours reorganizing a kitchen." Her smile widened slightly. "Though I should probably inspect it before I make any promises. For all I know, you've converted the oven into archival storage." The suspicion in her voice was entirely playful, but as soon as she said it, she found herself wondering whether it might actually be true.

As they continued through the evening streets toward the market district, her hand remained comfortably settled in his. The city around them was still bruised from the fighting, still rebuilding, still grieving, yet for the first time that day, she found herself looking forward to something remarkably simple.

Not answers. Not healing old wounds. Not unraveling the uncertainties of the future. Just a trip to the market, a kitchen that probably needed rescuing, and a quiet meal shared with someone whose company she had come to value far more quickly than she would have thought possible.

The simplicity of it felt unexpectedly precious. Perhaps because both of them had spent so many years living without enough of it.

Malach Orren

 

[Malach Orren]

"But if food is still being thrown away, are those hands really capable?" he asked.

The thought weighed on him. What if—no, that wouldn't work. How about—still no. Ideas chased one another through his head at a frantic pace, each one running into problems before it could fully form. He was so caught up in it that he barely realized he was being pulled along the street until the tug on his hand brought him back to the present. His eyes refocused and he quickened his pace to fall back into step beside her, offering an apologetic look before turning his attention to where they were going.

While she said cleaning the kitchen wouldn't be a problem, she hadn't seen the kitchen. It wasn't just boxes. There were piles of journals, keepsakes, carefully catalogued hair samples. Drawers were full. Cabinets were full. Counters were full. Even working together, it would take time to reorganize because every item had a place and a purpose. The entire ship was arranged according to a system that made perfect sense to him, even if it looked like chaos to everyone else.

"No, I didn't put anything in the oven. I was afraid I might accidentally turn it on and destroy everything. Can't say the same about the fridge, though. Or the cabinets. Or the drawers."

He bit at his lower lip.

"Not sure where we're going to put it all."

Normally he would have been paying attention to the city around them. He would have noticed the people, the expressions on their faces, the little signs of joy and grief that so often drew his attention. Instead, all of that seemed distant. Present, but difficult to focus on. His attention kept returning to her, and the thoughts that came with her. The world passed by in a blur because, for perhaps the first time in years, he simply wasn't looking for the things he usually looked for.

By the time his attention returned fully to his surroundings, they were approaching the grocery store. He didn't know its name, but the purpose of the building was obvious. People entered empty-handed and left carrying bags of food, or accompanied by droids carrying them.

The moment they stepped inside, he stopped.

Color filled every direction. Fresh produce. Shelves stretching farther than he expected. Aisles upon aisles of things he didn't recognize. The sheer scale of it overwhelmed him.

His mouth fell open slightly as his gaze wandered from one section to the next.

"There's so much..."

Zesiro

 

[Zesiro]

The question about wasted food earned a thoughtful look from Zesiro. "No," she admitted after a moment. "Probably not." There was no easy answer to that, not for someone like Malach. "Capable people still make mistakes. Systems do too. Sometimes the problem isn't that nobody cares. Sometimes it's that too many people care about different things at the same time." Her thumb brushed lightly across the back of his hand. "We can solve the galaxy's food distribution problems another day." The faint smile that followed suggested she wasn't entirely convinced he wouldn't eventually try.

But when he began describing the state of the Candlewake's kitchen, her smile widened. The more he explained, the more she suspected she had dramatically underestimated the scale of the project awaiting them. "Malach," she said, laughter hiding in her voice, "you're describing an archaeological dig, not a kitchen." The image of opening a cabinet only to discover three years' worth of journals and cataloged samples was becoming alarmingly easy to imagine, and yet she found she wasn't bothered by it. Every story he told about the ship revealed another piece of who he was. "We'll figure it out," she said easily. "We don't have to solve eighteen years of accumulated storage in a single evening." One step, one shelf, one drawer, the same way grief was survived, the same way lives were rebuilt, the same way futures were made.

Then the grocery store arrived. The moment they stepped through the entrance, she felt him stop completely. The hand in hers went still. Zesiro turned toward him and understood immediately. To everyone else, the place was ordinary: bright lights, shelves, produce displays, families negotiating with children, droids announcing sales. The sort of place people stopped noticing after the hundredth visit. But for Malach, it may as well have been another world. His gaze moved from one display to the next, trying to take everything in at once and succeeding at none of it.

When he finally spoke, her expression softened.

"There is," she answered quietly, stepping a little closer and gently squeezing his hand. "You don't have to look at all of it. You only need to look at one thing at a time."

Her blue eyes drifted toward the nearest produce display.

"See that?" she said, nodding toward a stack of fruit. "That's where we're starting. We're not feeding the entire galaxy tonight."

A child rushed past them with a cart much too quickly; a parent scolded; two elderly women debated vegetables with the seriousness of military strategists; the ordinary life of the place unfolded around them. For the first time, Zesiro found herself seeing it through his eyes: the abundance, the color, the sheer normalcy of it, the quiet miracle of a world where people could simply choose food from shelves.

Her fingers tightened gently around his.

"Come on," she murmured. "We'll take it slowly."

And she started toward the produce section at an unhurried pace, as though she were introducing him to a new world rather than a grocery store.

In some ways, she suspected she was.

Malach Orren

 

[Malach Orren]

He opened his mouth as if to protest, but quickly realized she was probably right.

His mind immediately started running through alternatives, solutions, possibilities. None of them were practical. They had come to buy food. She was going to cook, and he was going to learn. He had already promised her that. So he closed his mouth.

The comment about the kitchen resembling an archaeological dig, however, was difficult to argue with. He scratched at his leg for a moment before tapping his fingers against the same spot.

"Yes, in a way it's probably very similar," he admitted. "We can do it, but it will take time. It would have to happen eventually anyway, since you and your daughter will be staying on the ship. Might as well be now."

They would find somewhere to put everything. They had to. Rooms needed to be cleared. Space needed to be made. Perhaps that was what finally forced him to address a problem he had been avoiding for years. The Candlewake had never been intended to hold everything forever. Sooner or later, he would need somewhere more permanent. Somewhere the collections could be stored, organized, and preserved without consuming every spare corner of the ship.

But those thoughts faded as his attention returned to the grocery store. More specifically, the fruit she had pointed out. His eyes followed it almost immediately. He started toward the display, only to pause as a child pushed a cart past him. Then her comment about not feeding the entire galaxy brought his earlier thoughts rushing back. The wasted food. The people who could use it. The things he couldn't solve all at once.

He shook his head.

"One thing at a time. Right."

A faint smile touched his lips.

"I can do that."

His attention settled back on the fruit display.

"I don't know what any of this is," he admitted. "Or what we're supposed to do with it."

Zesiro

 

[Zesiro]

Zesiro watched him catch himself before he could spiral too far into the impossible shape of galactic hunger, and the small smile that touched her lips was more affection than amusement. He was trying. That mattered more than whether the effort came easily. In many ways, this seemed no different from the moment he had stood frozen at the entrance, overwhelmed by shelves and color and choice. The world was offering too much at once, and he was learning, slowly, to let himself hold only one piece of it at a time.

"One thing at a time," she echoed gently.

When he admitted he didn't know what any of it was, her expression softened. She stepped closer to the display without releasing his hand, guiding him with the same unhurried patience she had used at the entrance. The fruit sat in neat arrangements beneath soft market lighting, polished by mist and careful hands until it looked almost decorative. To most people, it was ordinary. To Malach, she suspected it was another entire language he had never been taught to read.

"This is produce," she said, nodding toward the tables and bins. "Fresh food. Fruits and vegetables, mostly. Some are eaten raw, some are cooked, some can be used to make sauces, soups, stews, fillings, preserves, or just something sweet enough to remind you that food can be enjoyed instead of merely endured."

She reached for a piece of fruit from one of the nearer displays, turning it lightly in her hand so he could see its skin, its weight, the way the color deepened near the stem.

"Fruit is usually the easier place to begin because most of it doesn't require much from you. You wash it, cut it if necessary, and eat it. Some are sweet, some are sharp, some are soft, some are crisp. People use them in breakfasts, desserts, drinks, or simply eat them as they are." Her eyes flicked toward him, warm with quiet humor. "Which means they're already more cooperative than a ration bar."

She set the fruit back carefully, then gestured toward the vegetables nearby.

"Vegetables tend to ask a little more of you, but not as much as they would like you to believe. Most can be chopped and cooked with a little oil, salt, and heat. Some go into soups because they soften and give flavor to the broth. Some are roasted until the edges brown. Some are used as the base for almost everything else because they make food taste as though someone cared while making it."

Her smile widened slightly at that, though her tone remained patient and matter-of-fact.

"For tonight, we keep it simple. Something warm. Something filling. Nothing that requires a degree from a culinary academy or three hours of arguing with kitchen equipment. We choose a few vegetables, something with protein, maybe a grain or noodles if the market has something easy, and by the time we're done, you'll have eaten a meal that proves food can do more than keep the body functioning."

She paused beside the display, giving him time to look instead of rushing him toward a decision.

"The trick is not to think of all of this as one enormous problem to solve. It's just ingredients. Pieces. Like your records, in a way." Her gaze drifted briefly toward him. "A single item doesn't explain the whole story, but when you put the right pieces together, they become something more complete."

Only then did she release his hand long enough to pick up two different fruits, holding them where he could compare them.

"We can start with something easy. Pick one that looks interesting to you. Not the most practical. Not the one you think we should buy. Just the one you want to try."

Her blue eyes met his again, gentle and encouraging.

"That's allowed too."

Malach Orren

 

[Malach Orren]

He suddenly felt overwhelmed as she explained the countless things fruits and vegetables could be used for.

His free hand rose to his forehead and he felt a little dizzy. Somewhere deep down he knew all of these things existed. He had probably known many of them as a child. But those memories were buried beneath years of disasters, battlefields, and the lives of countless strangers. They were so deeply hidden that they may as well not have existed at all.

"So much..."

She continued describing the different things that could be done with fruit. The only parts that made immediate sense to him were cutting it and eating it. Everything beyond that felt increasingly abstract. Preserves. Juices. Desserts.

His stare grew more vacant with each new possibility. Then she moved on to vegetables. That was worse.

His mind was good at processing grief. Good at listening, understanding, and helping people navigate emotions. Somehow, though, it could not wrap itself around the sheer number of things one could apparently do with produce. It was simply too much information.

"Pieces."

The word escaped him almost absently.

Not everything at once. Pieces. Like a puzzle. Like a problem to solve. One thing at a time. One meal. One side dish. Simple. Simple he could manage.

His focus gradually returned, and he looked back toward her as she explained that they could choose just one thing and build the meal around it. One ingredient. One thing he wanted to try. That seemed manageable.

His gaze drifted back toward the displays of fruits and vegetables. Most of them were completely unfamiliar. If he was going to try something new, though, perhaps starting with a fruit made sense. After a moment's consideration, he reached out and picked up a purple fruit covered in small green nubs.

Holding it up slightly, he looked back at her.

"How about this?"

Zesiro

 

[Zesiro]

The moment she saw his expression, Zesiro understood she had overwhelmed him. Not because he lacked the intelligence to follow what she was explaining. If anything, he understood too quickly. He had taken every word she offered and immediately began assembling it into something larger than it needed to be. Fruits became desserts, desserts became preserves, preserves became ingredients, and ingredients became meals. Somewhere in that chain, the possibilities had stacked themselves too high, turning a simple produce section into another impossible problem he felt responsible for solving. She recognized the look because she had seen it before, most often on Hannah, who always tried to understand everything at once instead of one piece at a time.

So when he repeated the word pieces, she didn't add anything more. She simply smiled and let the simplicity stand. For a moment, she watched him work through it, watched the way he forced himself to narrow his focus. The grocery store stretched around them in all its overwhelming abundance, shelves overflowing with choices most people stopped noticing years ago, but she could almost see him reducing the entire market to a single decision he could actually make. One fruit. One choice. One step. It reminded her of the way he approached grief when helping others, never all at once, never every memory or every loss, but one story, one person, one conversation.

When he finally reached toward the display, her eyes followed the movement of his hand. A moment later, he lifted a strange purple fruit covered in green scales, holding it up as though presenting evidence. The sight drew a warm laugh from her. "Well, that's certainly not where I expected you to start." She stepped closer, amused but not surprised that he had chosen the most unusual thing in the entire section. Somehow it suited him. "If I'm remembering correctly, that's a dragonfruit." Her smile deepened as she looked between him and the fruit. "It looks much more dangerous than it actually is. You cut it open, eat the inside, and that's more or less the entire process. No complicated preparation. No secret techniques. Just fruit." She paused, letting the reassurance settle. "Which makes it an excellent choice for a first attempt."

She suspected he understood the real meaning beneath the words. Taking his arm gently, she guided him farther down the aisle, slowing her pace so the displays became less intimidating up close. Apples, citrus, and root vegetables are separated into smaller, more manageable groups rather than one endless wall of color and possibility. "We don't need to understand all of this tonight," she said softly. "We aren't opening a restaurant. We aren't feeding a city. We're making dinner." Her blue eyes drifted toward him, warm with quiet encouragement. "So let's keep it simple. We have a dragonfruit. That's one decision already made. Now we find a few things for a meal, and after that we go back to the Candlewake and rescue your kitchen from whatever archaeological catastrophe is currently happening inside it."

The smile that followed lingered as she squeezed his hand. "One piece at a time, remember?" And somehow, standing beside him beneath the bright market lights while families pushed carts around them, she found herself smiling not because of the fruit or the food or even the prospect of cooking, but because for the first time since they had met, Malach wasn't trying to hold the entire galaxy in his hands. He was looking at the next step.

Malach Orren

 

[Malach Orren]

"It looks strange," he said, turning the fruit over in his hand. "But also like it would be delicious."

When she took his arm and guided him onward, he allowed her to lead without complaint. His attention remained fixed on the fruit. He turned it over once more, studying the texture and color as though it were some sort of artifact.

Fortunately, he managed not to walk into anyone.

The fruit would probably be the last thing they ate, given how she had described it. Somehow, that made him look forward to it even more.

The mention of the kitchen finally pulled him back to the present, and he frowned slightly.

"It's not a catastrophe. Everything in there is important, and it's arranged intentionally. It's not as though I just threw things around without thinking. I'm not a hoarder."

He wasn't. For all the things aboard the Candlewake, there was no trash. No piles of forgotten junk. He was meticulous about keeping the ship clean. Things had to stay organized. Otherwise items could become mixed together, misplaced, or separated from the records they belonged with. He couldn't allow that.

In truth, there was very little aboard the ship that belonged to Malach himself. A bed. His pack. The handful of things he carried inside it. Everything else belonged to someone who no longer needed it.

His gaze drifted away from her and settled on the display beside them. Vegetables this time. Some were familiar enough to stir old memories. Others were not.

The small green ones caught his attention. He remembered those. They had not been good.

"Are we having meat?" he asked, looking back toward her. "I remember my mother always choosing vegetables that went with whatever meat we were having."

The memory caught him by surprise. For so long, there had been so few of them.

Zesiro

 

[Zesiro]

The immediate defense of his kitchen drew a smile from Zesiro that she didn't bother hiding. She had expected it the moment she saw the faint frown appear on his face. For all his kindness, Malach was clearly capable of becoming surprisingly protective when the subject turned to the Candlewake and everything contained within it.

"I know you're not a hoarder," she said, the warmth in her voice making it clear she wasn't teasing him for the accusation. "I've seen enough of the ship already to know the difference. Hoarders keep things because they can't let go of them. You keep things because they matter."

Her gaze drifted briefly toward the dragon fruit still occupying most of his attention before returning to him.

"That doesn't mean your kitchen isn't in desperate need of rescuing."

The smile widened slightly before she let the subject rest. There was no need to win the argument. The kitchen would speak for itself soon enough.

As they moved farther along the produce section, her attention followed his toward the vegetables. The shift in his expression was subtle, but she caught it all the same. Recognition. Memory. Not much of it, perhaps, but enough to pull something from a place that had remained quiet for a very long time.

Then came the question about meat.

For a moment, she simply looked at him.

Not because of the question itself, but because of the memory attached to it.

His mother choosing vegetables to accompany a meal. Such a small thing. Such an ordinary thing. Yet she suspected it might be one of the oldest memories he had spoken aloud all day.

"Do you want to try meat?" she asked gently. "I prefer having some with dinner, but we don't have to if you'd rather start with something simpler."

Her eyes drifted toward the refrigerated section visible farther down the aisle.

"Though if I'm being honest, I think your mother may have had the right idea. Most meals become easier once you decide what the main course will be. After that, everything else is just choosing what goes with it."

The words were meant for dinner, but as soon as she said them, she realized they applied to far more than food.

Life often worked the same way.

People became overwhelmed when they tried to solve everything at once. But if you chose the important thing first, the rest became easier to arrange around it.

Her hand found his again, giving it a gentle squeeze.

"So, what do you think?" she asked. "Would you like your first real dinner in nearly twenty years to include meat?"

Malach Orren