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tube tightening until her knuckles were white. “Not…organic…?” she whispered hoarsely. “That’s an artificial eye?”
    “Yes. I lost my right eye nearly three years ago.” The second mission he had been assigned to. He’d been lucky that all he lost was his eye. That had been a particularly hairy mission.
    “But it looks so real!” she insisted, peering at his eye more closely.
    “The first one sure didn’t,” Rys recalled almost ruefully. “This is the fourth model they have outfitted me with, and is by far the best one. The only minor setback to the surgery is that they couldn’t completely repair my tear duct in that eye socket. The duct works, but not as well as it did before. I have to keep my ocular implant moistened with that solution every three days or so.”
    She raised a shaking index finger to trace the thin scar that led from the corner of his eye to his temple. “That scar suggests that there was more to your injury than just a damaged eye.”
    They’d had to reconstruct part of his skull, too. It hadn’t been a simple wound by anyone’s standard. He didn’t know how to respond without causing her undue concern, so he just shrugged.
    “Judging from the location and length of this scar, I would say you came close to being killed, didn’t you?”
    “I had excellent doctors, no one could have had better care.” That was the only response he could think of to put her at ease, without directly fabricating a lie.
    Sara’s eyes clenched shut and she drew in a shaking breath. “You’ve seen far too much of war, Arystair.”
    If this small, barely visible scar set Sara off, Rys made a mental note to never allow her to see his chest. She’d faint dead away. “You came in with a question for me, didn’t you?” he offered, hoping to change the subject.
    Sara shook her head, not in disagreement, but to mentally draw herself back into the present. “Yes, breakfast?”
    “I like breakfast,” he agreed seriously, trying to lighten the mood.
    That made her smile, almost. “Most teenaged boys do. What would you like for breakfast?”
    “Anything is good.”
    “That is not what I asked, Arystair. What would you like me to fix you for breakfast?”
    He paused, thinking that one through. He wasn’t used to anyone preparing a meal specifically for him. Breakfast was whatever they were serving in the chow hall, or if they were out on maneuvers or a mission, it was a freeze dried ration. “Would it be possible to have waffles with real strawberries on top?” Since she was asking, he might just as well shoot for the moon.
    That amused her. “Real strawberries? Is there such a thing as fake strawberries?”
    “You probably don’t want the answer to that question,” he assured her with a mock-shudder. “Believe me.”
    She finally relaxed and laughed with him. “I’ll take your word for it. I believe we do have some fresh strawberries that need to be eaten. Since waffles take a little longer to make, we usually reserve them for the weekend menu, when we have more time in the morning. How about some pancakes with strawberries instead?”
    “That sounds great, too.” Rys wasn’t sorry he wouldn’t be eating those dry rations that were meant to last for twenty years. Anything was a trade up from that.
    “Is there anything else ,” she waved the tube meaningfully, “that I need to be told about?”
    “That is the only physical consideration I have,” he assured her. Everything else, the doctors had been able to fix.
    He wisely didn’t voice that out loud.
    She handed the tube back to him and stood up. “Right. I’ll start on those pancakes. Be ready to leave in about an hour or so.”
    “Yes ma’am.”
    Sara gave him a warning glare, closely resembling what they used to call “the laser death stare” when their training sergeant was unhappy about something.
    He winced. “Sorry. It’s a pretty ingrained habit. They drill manners into you at the academy,