[If there is disappointment in his denial, it's so minor as to be inconsequential - there and gone like a breath of air passing through the room. Elsewhere there are other, greater things to be concerned about, bigger things withheld. If the ache of him weren't such of a familiar one, maybe it would be the thing to reel her back.
But it is familiar - as known to her at the lines of her own hand or the labyrinthine corridors of the Station -, so it does not. He excuses himself and she takes it in turn: a simple nod, the greying sheet of her hair rippling, and then Cathaway steps back from him and rolls her shoulders around, as graceful as a banking ship.]
Should you need anything--
[There's no need to finish the sentence. He will know it regardless - that if he should desire her assistance or simply her company, all he need do is ask. If it was his intention to draw back from her, she has beaten him to it; it takes little more than turning from him for her to slip away in thought if not form: the cord of their link between them thinning into the delicate, lonely filament of a spider's web.]
no subject
But it is familiar - as known to her at the lines of her own hand or the labyrinthine corridors of the Station -, so it does not. He excuses himself and she takes it in turn: a simple nod, the greying sheet of her hair rippling, and then Cathaway steps back from him and rolls her shoulders around, as graceful as a banking ship.]
Should you need anything--
[There's no need to finish the sentence. He will know it regardless - that if he should desire her assistance or simply her company, all he need do is ask. If it was his intention to draw back from her, she has beaten him to it; it takes little more than turning from him for her to slip away in thought if not form: the cord of their link between them thinning into the delicate, lonely filament of a spider's web.]