It's a bunch of questions and check-yes-or-no boxes, and a line for me to sign my name at the bottom. It's a form to tie up all the ends and assure the company I'm not going to sue them over the incident. That they can just file the last month of my life away in a box to be forgotten in some storage closet, because everything is fine now.
Everything is fine? I mean, I guess she's not firing me, and I'm no more mated to a coworker than I was before all of this started. I guess by those standards, everything is fine.
Except that it still feels like my heart has sunk down into my stomach to live there, and sinks a little more every time I think about Khent.
I get a little more numb with every box I cross off, no I did not sustain injuries due to the incident, and no I was not bonded to a coworker. I scribble my name on it and push it back towards her.
She initials the paperwork and starts packing it into that manila folder. I half want to ask her if the elevator cameras still work, just to make sure.
“What would have happened if it... if we...”
I can't find the words to finish my question.
Gwen pauses in her paper shuffle. She tilts her head to the side to consider it. “If it wasn't over yet? You'd have that extra sick leave.”
I shake my head. “No, I mean, if we had gone through with the bond.”
“There... would have been more paperwork. To ensure there wasn't harassment or coercion on either side. Then some legal proceedings to make sure the company wouldn't play any role should the bond be annulled later on. Possibly some rearranging in departments to make sure no one involved in the bond was a direct report...”
I stop listening as she continues on, illustrating the sticky situation it could have been.
“Gotcha,” I nod, standing up quickly.
Gwen stops listing various types of paperwork and stares at me.
“If that's all...?” I start to say, fumbling for an excuse.
“That's all,” she nods, and I hurry from the room.
I was so sure I was going to be fired. Had I just built all that up in my head?
I'm sitting back at my desk a half hour later, realizing I shouldn't have logged out of everything. Not being fired, I kind of needed access again.
Had I freaked out over nothing?
No, the footage existed. It was there and it was a ticking time bomb. I wasn't crazy to think that I could get in real trouble over that. We could still get in real trouble.
But maybe I had overreacted. Maybe I had gotten so wrapped up in the idea that the exact same thing that had happened to me before would happen, all over again, that I hadn’t been able to see things for what they were.
Khent wasn’t like James. James had lashed out over a bruised ego. Khent had done nothing but exude warmth and caring...and fucking responsibility! This whole time he had held himself accountable for every little thing, even stuff he didn’t need to, because he’d been so focused on my comfort level.
Shame bloomed up and down my neck, hunching my shoulders as I curled in on myself.
I wish I’d done that all differently. I wish I’d put his considerations on par with my own. I wish I hadn’t been so quick to protect myself that I was willing to hurt him over it.
The whole mate-bonding incident shoved us together when we wouldn’t have otherwise looked twice at one another, but I did like him. Even after the Blood Fever was over, I really liked him. I missed him and his dumb jokes and his lowercase smiley faces.
But... the Blood Fever was over. We weren’t bound to each other in the way we had been before, there wasn’t any reason to reach out to him, to talk to him. We had our separate lives on separate floors.
There wasn’t any reason he would want to be around me anymore. Especially not with how I had ended things.