PHOENIX ━ dameron

016 | hope is a heartache

"Georgie is a card shark," Reeve interjected. "I know that man cheats.  The last time I played with him, he cleaned me out of everything I own."

"Don't make that mistake again," Lyra grinned. "He's easily the best of all of us at gambling. He grew up in the lap of luxury, and he was playing cards with the high rollers for years. So to come up with a way to keep our cover and still win, we had to combine talents. I had an invisible earpiece in, and I played through the whole tournament with Georgie in my ear telling me exactly what move to make. It was the perfect system and probably the only time I've ever won a card game."

"Oh, you mean like when we went clubbing on Lianna?" Reeve laughed, and Lyra's cheeks began to burn at the memory. "I thought you were going to lose all your credits. As soon as they dealt you in you were done for. I've literally never seen you look more panicked."

"You were the one that told me I should play a round," Lyra reminded her. Her cheeks ached from smiling so much. It was easier like this, to pretend nothing had changed in the company of Reeve.

"Because I thought you would be good at it! Who knew that scheming doesn't translate to being good at cards?"

"There is no correlation."

"You tell yourself that, Commander Endellion," Reeve gave a two finger salute and stood up from her spot on the floor. She pressed her hands to the small of her back and stretched. "I don't understand why they need to keep monitoring you.  You seem so much better."

Lyra leaned her head back. "They know I won't rest unless they confine me.  Kalonia said if I set foot through the doorway she'll personally drag me back into a bacta tank. I swear I can still taste it in my mouth," Lyra shuddered. "Technically, you're not even supposed to be in here."

"Oh, I know that," Reeve said. "But I'll be gone before they even realize I was here."

The door to the room slid open, revealing not Kalonia but one of the other doctors. Micah Soleil stood in the open doorway, looking between Reeve and Lyra with amusement.

He greeted them with an easy smile. He tucked the stylus in his hand into the pocket of his scrubs. "Tailor, you're really not supposed to be in here."

Lyra smiled and tilted her head. "Come on, Mich. It'll be worse if you don't let her in here, then I'd have to leave and go find her."

Reeve nodded and balanced her forearm on Lyra's shoulder. "And we wouldn't want that, would we?"

"The no visitors rule is so you can catch up on your rest, Lyra. Kalonia sent me in here to make sure you were sitting down," he raised a blonde eyebrow at where she was standing. "And that no one had managed to get into the room."

"You don't have any security back here," Reeve huffed. "You should really look into that."

"It's first on our priority list. No kidding, actually, I've had to turn away your entire squadron today and it's only nine hundred hours. They're persistent and I'm a little scared Ellis is going to start messing with my computer systems."

Lyra's stomach churned at the mention of her squadron. Reeve had told her the story of what had happened with the hasty rescue, and she hated that they had all risked so much. Jess too, and most of all Poe, who had staked both his life and his position to disobey Leia and fly blindly into First Order occupied space. They shouldn't have taken all those risks.

"Tell you what," Reeve said, tapping the box of cards in her hand. "I'll leave, if you let me come back later."

"That's a terrible deal," Micah argued, setting his holopad down on the edge of the bed. "I'm thinking I'm not going to get much of a choice, am I?"