Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda

He tried not to see so much of her in Zoey.
They would’ve been about the same age. A year or two apart, at most. Zoey was a redhead, but sometimes when Mamore’s hellish sunsets shone in Emily’s brown hair…
It wasn’t just looks, either. Zoey always dove headfirst into things, to help, to learn. When the port stabilizer’s hydraulic line developed a leak, she wanted to know how Gavin knew it, how to fix it, and volunteered to climb up into the thruster’s narrow maintenance access hatch before he’d even said they needed to open it. She had… a questing mind, that was the phrase he recalled.
Would they have been friends?
So once bitten, Gavin was twice shy any time Zoey wanted to throw herself in the middle of something. Before she could try her first solo landing, Gavin made sure she knew and could disassemble every piece of a landing strut. It wasn’t enough to know how to throw their little freighter into an Angle and Dangle, but when to do it, and why it worked better against a pursuer in a Longsword than a Covenant Seraph.
The slow pace of his instructions made Zoey chafe—probably more than Gavin intended, since she aced most repair jobs the first time. Flight was a little trickier, since she’d spent most of her life on solid ground. Falling in every direction through space didn’t come as naturally to a girl who grew up helping fix JOTUNs as rewiring a terminal block. But while Gavin could set her up to fail the first time she tried a maneuver, she’d usually nail it the second time.
Further damning his cautiousness was how fast he found Simon’s lessons by contrast. When they set down on some rock with an atmosphere with nothing more important to do, they’d take the cheap ammo out to practice shoot. As soon as Zoey could group shots with a handgun, she wanted to try an assault rifle—and Simon put one right in her hands, over Gavin’s protests.
Simon’s approach had its merits, though. When the MA5B, even braced on an empty crate, kicked back and slammed into her shoulder, Simon almost fell off his seat laughing. But Zoey cleared the rifle, set it back, and admitted she needed to use something smaller for now. Her own decision, made through the benefit of firsthand experience.
He wondered what Emily had learned to shoot first.
It wasn’t fair to Zoey, letting his perceptions of one color the other. She was her own person, and deserved to be treated like it. But all the marks—the eagerness, the determination—were there. Losing people opened her eyes to how fragile life was, lit a fire under her to be proactive in keeping hers. All those stories about right and wrong pushed her to dig her boots in fight when something needed fighting for.
Last time, he’d encouraged a girl to believe everything she worked for was right, just because Gavin happened to believe in it, too. He knew now he should’ve done something different. Could have, damningly. Would have, if he’d just been… older? Wiser? Better…
So he needled her with practice, with questions, with doubts, so she would think things through. Much as they annoyed Zoey, he hoped she’d see the point in them one day. Even if she still scrunched up her face at him like he was a weird old man asking stupid questions.
None of it stopped her, though. She wanted to know everything just in case, to be prepared if… what? What did she need to be ready for? What sacrifice did she feel she had to make?
Category:The Weekly