Her name is Katherine; Wash calls her Kat, and she calls him Hoban.

She's lived on Londinium all her life. He's just there for flight school. The clean air tickles his throat sometimes, makes him cough.

All the central planets are rich and clean, and Kat's nothing more than a product. But she's fine with it, and Hoban likes her well enough.

She brings him fruit and multiple orgasms. He brings her to his bunk for privacy, and scratches her with his stubble when they kiss.

Hoban's room is small and cluttered, but there's a bed and a lock on the door, and a bathroom down the hall. Kat never takes him to her place.

There's a table next to the bed; taking up nearly the entire surface is a printer that looks like it's going to collapse as the table shakes from their exertions. There's also some plastic dinosaurs on the floor, and it freaks Kat out, but she doesn't ask.

Hoban's inside her, pounding her into the mattress, moaning "Kat, Kat, Kat," into her mouth. Kat's digging her nails into his back, her body all but pulsing with anticipation.

That's how they are when the printer rattles to life, all flashing noises and odd sounds. Kat opens her eyes when she feels Hoban pull out, climb off her and lunge for the paper that's come out the machine. She's shocked; so is he, but for different reasons.

"Tsai boo shr!" He exclaims as he studies the paper in his hands. Kat frowns and sits up. Hoban swears again, smiling wider than he'd ever smiled for Kat. "Daemon was supposed to send this weeks ago." Daemon. Kat recognises the name; He's a friend of Hoban's, piloting a ship now, and sends vids and charts that bore Kat to no end. But during sex?

"Hoban?"

"Look at where he's been!" He exclaims, more to himself, because he doesn't even show her the paper. But she can see that it's just another star chart, no different than the hundreds of others that litter Hoban's floor.

He sits down on the bed and runs a hand through his hair, looking amazed, and happy. His eyes are still glued to the paper, and now he's talking about stars and vortexes and words that don't make sense to her, but he couldn't be more excited.

Kat couldn't care less about Daemon, the stars, and now her go-se boyfriend. She snatches the chart from his hand, tears it, crumples it and hurls it away. Hoban flinches as it bounces off the wall.

"Kat," he says.

"We were making love," Kat says. "Gorramit, Hoban, you were inside me!"

And he can't say anything. Stammers and tries to pull an excuse out of his pigu, but he can't find a way to tell her that he loves the stars and the black the same way that he loves her - if not more.

He shrugs his shoulders, and his smile's gone now because she's wrecked the chart and he's wrecked the relationship.

"Yeah..."

Kat gives him nothing but a cold stare, and then she's gone and Hoban's alone, just him and the stars.

He throws his sheets in the laundry basket and tapes the torn star chart back together.