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Welt had always liked March’s smile.
It was hard not to, really: she smiled often and freely, her cheer infectious. Sometimes he thought perhaps her seemingly innate warmth was in defiant response to all those years she’d spent frozen, but those were no doubt just the foolish idle musings of an old man. It was true, though, that he still remembered her expression in the moments she’d awoken after they first found her, and did not think he’d ever forget. Her eyes had looked distant and confused as she came back to herself, focused on nothing, almost glassy - but as soon as she’d registered their presence leaning over her, she’d smiled. A small, gentle thing that’d had no right to be so trusting.
But then, as they had come to learn, that was March: when she gave you her trust and loyalty, she did so unreservedly and with her whole heart, almost to the point of naivety. He had to admit that it worried him, sometimes, especially in those first few months - her curiosity to explore new places and meet new people was insatiable, a bubbling force of excitement they couldn’t help but indulge. But she’d displayed an inner strength that was near indomitable, an almost steely determination to make the most of her new life even as she remembered nothing of her past.
So her sunny defiance; her unfailing kindness - it was precious to him. And perhaps, again, it was the sentimental fatherly instincts of an old man resurfacing, but he wished to protect that. Not that he would ever voice such thoughts aloud; Welt was fully aware such a desire was selfish and verging on patronizing. She was neither a child nor his daughter, though they were fast becoming family in all the ways that mattered. It was enough, he thought, to be able to watch over her from the sidelines and witness her strength of self growing with each passing day.
“Mr. Yang!” The day she showed him her newly acquired camera, her smile was one of pure joy. “It’s pretty cool, don’t you think?” March threw herself down beside him with a carefree lack of grace, leaning in to arrange herself comfortably against his side; she’d taken to doing that recently as she settled into life on the Express, fitting herself into each of their lives as though she’d somehow always been there.
“It is,” he said, fondly amused as she pushed the device into his hands for his inspection. “Although I confess I don’t know much about cameras. Between the two of us, you’re probably the expert.” It was a compact thing, not overly complex but certainly more charming than the phones they usually relied on for such things.
“Oh,” she said, and looked oddly delighted, “maybe I can teach you someday.” But then her nose wrinkled slightly as she reached over him to turn it within his hands, fingers cool against his own as she fiddled with the dials and buttons beside the small screen. “Although I’m still learning exactly what all this stuff does, so you might be waiting a while.”
The weight of her was a warm comfort against him, bittersweet; a reminder of what had been lost to him even as he couldn’t help but shift to help her settle in more easily. It had been so long that he almost wasn’t sure how to react; March was free with her physical affections in a way that was far removed from Himeko and Dan Heng, who were both so fiercely independent and private.
“I’ll look forward to it, then,” he said, “though I do apologise if it was practical advice you were hoping for.”
March just laughed, shaking her head as she flicked on the screen to scroll through some photos. “No, it’s okay. Actually, I wanted to ask you to be one of my subjects.”
“Me?”
Perhaps she mistook his surprise for discomfort as she quickly added, “You don’t have to! But Himeko already agreed, and I just thought–”
“March,” he interrupted gently, “I’d be happy to.”
Her smile was brilliant.
Though Welt did not know it at the time, the dangerous thing about March was that it was near impossible to refuse her anything.
It began with portraits - simple images of him gazing out of the window into the glittering depths of space, engrossed in a book (which, honestly, was impossible to concentrate on when March was flitting about the room, the click of the camera’s shutter distractingly loud). All at her request, of course. At his age, Welt had long thought he’d be past feeling self conscious about such things, but it was hard not to shift uncomfortably under her avid scrutiny.
“How about tapping your cheek like you’re deep in thought,” she said, voice bright. “I think that would look cool.”
Welt gave her a wry smile as he complied. “If that’s your goal, I fear you chose the wrong subject.” The words on the page in front of him stared back, incomprehensible. “I think you’d have better luck with Dan Heng.”
She paused then, lowering her camera to look at him curiously. “Do you think so?” Though it had been truth spoken in jest, he’d not expected such an earnest response. “There’s more to looking cool than just being serious all the time, Mr. Yang.”
“Oh?”
Her lips curved mischievously as she began to approach him, one hand coming up to rest on her hip as she looked down at him where he sat. “He’s so stoic all the time.” She leaned in as though to share a secret, so close that her warm breath and silken strands of hair brushed against his ear. “So I take photos of him looking silly.”
In a whirl of faint mint and jasmine March withdrew with a laugh, taking up her usual spot sitting against him, knees drawn to her chest as she brought up the camera to flick through the photos she’d taken.
“That doesn’t really dispute my point,” he said, “it’s going to take more than a pose to fix an old man like me.”
“It’s not about fixing,” she retorted, turning to frown at him with an indignant gaze, “do you really not realise you’re the most impressive person on the Express?” Words rarely failed Welt Yang; in fact, he prided himself on knowing what to say on near every occasion. But for that, he found he had no response. Her eyes softened as she leaned her head back against his shoulder, hair spilling down over his arm. “I think this is the first time I’ve seen you look so surprised!”
Welt cleared his throat, turning the page in his book as though he’d been paying any attention to it at all. “I appreciate the sentiment, March, but–”
“It’s true!” She closed her eyes, then, and it was easier to look at her when she was not gazing at him like that - like she could see through him, almost uncomfortably perceptive. “I’ve always appreciated how you’ve never been too busy to talk to me, not once. And I don’t know if you thought I wasn’t listening, or maybe you really just have no idea how amazing the things you’ve done are.” She fell silent for a moment, brow furrowing though she still did not open her eyes. “But it’s really made me happy that you’ve shared so much of your past with me when I have none of my own to give in return.”
His chest felt as though it were caught in a vice, so unprepared was he for the raw honesty in her voice. “I–” Welt swallowed, finding himself fumbling for words, embarrassingly inadequate. “I’ve always enjoyed our conversations, March. You don’t owe me anything.”
He rarely had the chance to see her like this, so still and unaware of being studied; her pale lashes that brushed against her cheek, the gentle curve of her upturned nose, the small pink bow of her lips.
“Anyway,” she said, a teasing smile slowly spreading, “you’re not that old.” March at last opened her eyes again, blinking slowly but gaze oddly astute as she caught him staring. “Because if you think about it,” she rearranged herself to relax more comfortably against him and stifled a yawn, “given how long I must have been out there, if anything I’m way older than you.” A startled laugh escaped him, and she looked pleased as her eyes drifted shut again. “Poses…” she mumbled, “you should try more, Uncle Yang.”
The warmth that rushed through him at the affectionate familiarity of the title caught him off guard, and it was almost instinctive, the way he brought up a hand to brush away the messy strands of hair that had fallen across her face as she shifted, breathing slowing. Only in sleep did her smile fade, mouth now strangely pensive
“If you like,” he said softly, and his book fell closed against his lap, unread.
True to his word he indulged her, because he could do little else - in the months that followed assuming whatever ridiculous poses she’d gleaned from their conversations about his former work. He regarded March’s insistence that he looked ‘super cool’ with little more than bemusement, but it was no hardship on his part when it seemed to bring her such genuine delight. After all: he would do anything to keep the smile on her face.
“See?” She pushed the camera into his hands, apparently still somehow convinced that he would derive any sort of personal gratification from seeing photos of himself. “You look so good!”
Welt winced, dutifully examining the shots. “I’m glad you like them.”
“Backhanded praise!” March folded her arms, but her exasperation was fond. “We could use these as recruitment images for sure.”
“Sometimes I think you enjoy seeing me suffer,” he said drily, and she pulled a face, giving her head a small shake.
“Could you at least give me some useful feedback?” She worried her lower lip with her teeth, lost in thought. “I know you said you don’t know much about cameras, but you’re an artist, right?”
Welt grimaced, but diverted his attention back to the screen to analyse the photos more carefully. “I feel artist is something of a stretch, but– if that’s what you want, of course I can. It’s not so different from storyboarding, really. See, here, rather than always have the subject being in the center of the image–”
It was so easy to fall into conversation with March, her attention focused and questions endless, her thirst for knowledge - at least when the subject interested her - unquenchable.
“Show me an example,” she said at last - and there was something different about her smile now, a hint of something unreadable that made his stomach twist. “Take a photo of me.”
“I– all right,” he said automatically, still distracted by whatever it was that had somehow shifted without his knowledge or awareness.
She was backing away, hands behind her as she tilted her head and called out, “how do you want me?”
When Welt spoke at last, he found his throat was dry. “Turn mostly away,” he said, and the words came from him without much conscious thought. “Then look back and just smile.” It was easy to place her in the scene, framed by the lush plants and tall lamps of his room - like she was at home there. As the shutter clicked, her smile was dazzling.
“Let me see!”
As they studied the picture together, it was clear from Welt’s perspective that it was certainly lacking in some regards - he had no skill for focusing the camera correctly, and the lighting was perhaps too dark, obscuring much of March’s expression - but her eyes were wide and the gentle curve of her lips reassured him that she was pleased.
“Thank you,” she said quietly, and before he could think to react she was tugging him down by his jacket to press a kiss to his cheek, warm and soft. “I really learned a lot today.”
Uncle Yang, are you busy?
The message came late at night as he was reading, the room lit only by the soft glow of the lamp beside his armchair. Concern spiked within him uneasily; March rarely messaged him, preferring instead to bother him directly whenever possible. Or perhaps she’d just always been kind enough to accommodate his own distaste for the faff of navigating his phone's many functions. He tapped out his answer carefully, reminded of yet another reason why he disliked it - he was painfully slow.
I’m just reading. Shouldn’t you be asleep?
Her response came back almost immediately, and he imagined March curled up in bed, her fingers flying over the screen.
I can’t sleep.
There was a short pause as she continued typing, then:
Anyway, I’m not a child. I can stay awake if I want!!
Welt frowned, closing his book and setting it aside, both thumbs hovering over the keyboard. In text, it was harder to read her emotions. The phone pinged again, a sticker of Pom Pom sticking their tongue out filling his screen.
If that’s what you want, then of course. He hesitated. But you said you couldn’t sleep, not that you didn’t want to.
There was a longer pause, then, that stretched on for so long that he thought perhaps she’d ended up falling asleep after all. He was about to stand up to ready himself for bed when the screen lit up once more.
I’ve just been having more photography thoughts, I guess. What do you think of this one?
There was another stretch of silence as he waited for the image - recently she’d been focused on capturing the varying landscapes of each planet or ship they visited, and still frequently sought out his feedback. It was always in person, though, slipping the camera into his hands, leaning over him to scroll through the shots to find a specific image - never sent to his phone.
Yet his breath still caught in his throat in surprise, gut twisting as the photo that now filled his screen was March - and only March, looking up at him from where she lay in her nightdress, hair haloed messily around her head. His hands were frozen, because it was intimate enough that even he could not be blind to the implications, her smile soft and gaze half-lidded. Head tilted to the side, the line of her neck was indulgent, leading to the shadowed, exposed jut of her collarbones and the swell of her breasts covered only by thin white fabric.
He thought of deleting it; of closing the conversation and pretending he had never received it. But it was too late for that: they had always been honest with each other, and he’d not do her the disservice of lying now.
The composition is good. But don’t tell me you really wanted artistic advice, March.
Welt found he felt oddly nauseous as he waited for her reply, yet still couldn’t stop his eyes from drifting back to the photo. It wasn’t that he had ever been unaware of her beauty, her curves, or the pale lengths of her thighs that the short skirts she favoured revealed - rather, they had been things to compartmentalise; acknowledge, but not dwell on because they were not for him. Despite her jokes she was still so young - and he was not that kind of man. Or so he'd thought. Of course she’d always looked at him with eyes full of affection, but– she’d called him Uncle Yang. Had confided in him. Had fallen asleep so innocently against his shoulder. He’d thought–
Well, now he wasn’t really sure what he’d thought.
No.
Her response was short and pointed; he’d almost been hoping she’d deny it - that it somehow really had been just an innocuous photo, a snapshot of her bored and sleepless state of mind. Another message followed soon after:
I guess I just want to know what you really think. Of me.
Perhaps responding to the picture had been his first mistake. Certainly, what he said next was his second. His hands were unsteady as he fumbled to type.
March, I don’t want to talk about this via text. Can I call you?
Almost instantly:
Wait.
Because he should have known: he knew her, after all, her earnest determination, her refusal to give up, her preference for always seeking him out in person. So when the knock came on his door, it shouldn’t have been a surprise. It wasn’t a surprise. Later it would all come back to him, a cascade of irresponsible decisions that made him question exactly what his intentions had been from the beginning, playing back their every interaction in his mind.
And of course he answered the door, because to do otherwise would be leaving her to stand alone in the hallway outside his room in only her nightclothes.
‘You shouldn’t have come’ is what he wanted to say - but as she slipped inside, bare feet padding across the carpet, her loose nightdress slipping down to expose one pale shoulder - the words stuck in his throat, and he knew his silence was damning. She closed the door behind her with a gentle click before turning to look up at him - and though her jaw was set with a quiet resolve, it was impossible to ignore the quick, shallow breaths she took, or the shadowed hollows of her throat as she swallowed.
In the end it was March who broke the silence, her bravery exceeding his own - and how could she have such a seemingly high opinion of him, when he failed at such a simple task as this? Though she was not a child, nor his daughter, was this not a boundary it was unforgivable of him to cross? Had he not promised himself he would protect her?
“If you didn’t want me,” she said, voice quiet but steady, “you wouldn’t have let me get this far.”
The words were a knife to his gut, deadly in their accuracy. Because however well he knew her - she had come to know him in equal measure.
“March,” he said at last, voice rough, “that’s not–” he cut himself off and tried again, “I didn’t–”
She tilted her head to one side and could have remained silent; could have watched him struggle to find words - but March was not cruel, never cruel, and instead reached out to take his hands in her own.
“I know you didn’t,” she said, and the smile she gave him was sad; something that he had never wanted to see nor be the cause of. “That’s why I had to.” She slipped one hand free from a grasp he hadn’t even been conscious of tightening to reach up and gently pull off his glasses, setting them to the side. “It’s okay,” she said, and whatever resistance was left within him crumbled as her smile slipped.
Then all at once his mouth was on hers, bent down to kiss her clumsily with a desperation he’d thought had been lost years ago. March tasted of mint, lips opening to him with a soft noise that sent a hot thrum through his body; almost blindly he reached out, one hand twining through the softness of her hair as the other found its way to the dip of her waist, the thin fabric no barrier to the warmth of her skin. She was so light as he lifted her, slim legs locking around his back, pulling away just long enough for him to feel her lips curve against his, her fingers coming up to cup his face, thumbs tracing the lines at the corners of his eyes.
As Welt carried her to the bed he kissed all of her that he could reach: her nose, her cheeks, her jaw - and the part of her he treasured the most, the smile she now couldn’t seem to hold back. It was too easy, shamefully easy, to slide his hand up along her thigh as she lay beneath him; she wore nothing under her nightdress and her breath hitched as his fingers slid through her wetness.
“Please,” she said, and as their eyes met he realised that likely she did not quite know what to ask for, but the trust he saw there was painfully unwavering, even clouded as it was by her want for him. It was something he no longer deserved, he knew, but as she tugged ineffectually at his shirt he was too far gone to deny her anything. Unbuttoning it with unsteady hands, he shrugged it off before moving down to kiss the softness of her stomach; her hip bone, shifting further still to part her legs and mouth at the wet heat of her. March trembled under his tongue, thighs tightening around his head as fingernails dug into the flesh of his back. It was almost unspeakable, the hot weight of his lust for her, so deeply buried beyond recognition for so long.
“Up, up,” she choked out, and reluctant though he was to raise his head, it was worth it to see the flushed pink of her cheeks, eyes glazed and lower lip swollen and red from attempts to stifle her voice.
It was reckless and unworthy of her, of him, but when she pulled Welt back over her, fingers working his trousers open to curl around him as she lay beneath him with her dress ruckled up above her breasts, it did not occur to him to do anything other than sink into the tight heat of her.
Slowly, he tried to move slowly; lips grazing hers as they could do little but gasp into each other’s mouths, wet and open. He’d long thought his self control had been fully lost at the door, but the final remaining thread of it snapped when she hooked her ankles around his waist and dragged him in deeper, breathy choked out moans melodic against his ear.
When he came it was with his face pressed helplessly to March’s neck, following her over the edge with her hands buried in her hair, the waves of pleasure overwhelming as she tightened around him.
She held him inside her long after his movements had ceased, fingertips tracing his shoulder blades and bumps of his spine. Her lips and breath were soft against his cheek as she murmured, “you're not going to have a crisis are you, Uncle Yang?”
Welt’s heart still had not slowed from where it hammered in his chest, and at her question nausea spiked once more, bile in his throat. “I will if you keep calling me that.”
When March laughed so brightly, though, it was hard to feel anything like regret. Shoving him off her gently, she moved to instead straddle his chest, looking down at him with mussed hair and skin still flushed from exertion, the room behind her a soft blur. “You never answered my question,” she said, and with her splayed over him like that he couldn’t help but slide his hands up to rest on the soft skin of her thighs. “About what you really think of me.”
There were, of course, a hundred different things he could say: that she had brought a spark of joy back into his daily existence; that the Express was a brighter place for having her on it; that her kindness was something he valued dearly and would give anything to preserve. Once more he found himself foundering for words - these were likely not the answers she was looking for, no matter how true they might be.
“We’ve always been honest with each other,” he said, voice low but firm, “so I must confess, I’m not sure what it is you want to hear. That you’re beautiful? That I love you dearly?” Her eyes widened at that, smile slipping as her lips parted in surprise. But that in itself was no revelation, at least not to Welt. “But, March, what I do want to say that the highlight of my days has always been our conversations.”
The smile that slowly curved her lips then, was like the dawning of the sun, picture perfect.
Because Welt had always liked March’s smile - and as long as she was smiling, he knew everything else was secondary.