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Emily watched her sister-wife move through the assembled throng smoothly and missed the days when that was her role - and her thoughts strayed, bringing a smile to her face even as it bought a bitter edge of sorrow, and Honor's head snapped round, her eyes meeting Emily's.

She shook her head and her sister-wife returned to her task amid the aristocracy of Manticore, so different from them in her Grayson gown and Emily allowed herself to sink into the fantasy briefly - the one where she moved just as smoothly, where she followed their Honor out into the crowd and kissed her in front of the gathered crowds, and later kissed her far more intimately.

"What ever do you find so fascinating, Emily?" The smooth voice of her cousin and her queen startled out of her fantasy.

"Honor, your majesty."

"You'd look good dancing with each other." Elizabeth sat beside her. "And I think now at least you're happier for her presence in your life." The queen smiled mischievously. "I better get back to my courtiers, Emily, but I'll be leaving you in safe hands."

She watched her cousin walk away, and almost failed to notice Honor's approach as the younger woman approached from her right side with her armsman and tree cat in tow, and then they were arranged as they often were, Honor lent against Emily's chair, positioned so the older woman could stroke her hair gently. This was a form of contentment she hadn't realised she was missing, but she still wished ...

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Mike resigned herself to waiting for Honor the day that her friend stumbled through the door to their shared room, wild-eyed with bruises like someone had tried to grab her and skittish enough that Mike could guess why. Who was answered by Pavel Young's state at breakfast the following morning. She did her best for Honor - reported her suspicions to the commandant - tried to get her to tell what happened, but Honor either couldn't or wouldn't tell and Pavel Young became the ghost that haunted them both at the academy. (Neither of them were ever alone with him after that.)

They were split up after the academy by seperate postings and people seemingly determined to play the patronage game for her. They met rarely (she spent far too much time attached to Home Fleet; Honor at least got to chase pirates from time to time) and each time they met, it never was quite time. (Casimir. Basilisk. Yeltsin's Star) Then came Nike. How was she suppose to compete against her male cousin and Honor's damn sense of honor? She bloomed under his attention and Mike bit her lip and helped him. (Teaching Honor about make-up was fun. She didn't need it, but it was just the icing on the cake so to speak.)

She's still waiting, more than a decade after the bruises, but Honor is worth waiting for.

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She's swapped her uniform (the one she built her identity on it) for the impractical gowns in ivory and jade (Harrington green as it's now to be known - all her guardsmen wear it as well - if she's ever allowed back to Manticore it's the colour her court dress would be trimmed in). She can't run in the dresses - can't fight - is still working out how to command in them (they took away the stars, but her Harringtons still look to her, listen to her, even though she wonders why).

The gowns come with a need for a maid. With a new way of life that's not the one she wanted, but she's passed the point where she could have pulled the trigger herself, so she'll make this life her own.

Andrew offers her Miranda, and Honor finds another anchor to life. Miranda and Andrew and Nimitz are the only ones who touch her now Paul's gone. Andrew is the one who keeps her whole physically; Nimitz is holding her mind together ... and as Miranda touches her, dresses her, she slides beneath her skin, and brings Honor to life again briefly (she's not ready to ask for anything more - she doesn't deserve anything more - anything more would still be a betrayal - the memory of Paul is still too raw).

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It all began with a kiss.

It was a chaste kiss. The kind of kiss that she'd seen the Protector's wives share when she'd accompanied Honor to a dinner at the palace. That she's seen Howard Clinkscales' wives share once or twice at meals at Harrington House.

The kind of kiss that was a declaration in its own right, and not one she'd been expecting Honor to ever make at all - let alone first. It was more than enough to open her eyes, to show her that the woman she'd be waiting for was finally ready for her.

The second kiss was nowhere near that chaste. She knew Honor had a truly phenomenal learning curve; she should have guessed that it would apply in the bedroom when she had the proper motivation.

(She could have done without her own personal armsmen though - Beth was going to laugh her head off, and tell her it served her right. She should never have taunted her cousin about her bodyguards.)

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The balance of power in the House of Lords shifted and twisted, and Honor found herself standing on the Field as Mike tore off the star that represented her sole hyper-capable command. Tore off the Manticore that represented her Queen and the hard worn stripes of her rank. Tears glittered in Mike's eyes, but protocol carried them both through and Honor locked her knees as Mike snapped her sword and turned her back to march away.

Beowulf called. Her mother's world would accept her - and they'd let her hunt Mesans to her heart's content.

The next time Mike saw Honor, she wore the maroon tunic and charcoal grey trousers of the Beowulf System Defense Force and an interesting selection of new scars, and stood half a step behind Beowulf's ambassador to Grayson.

She looked ... gaunt.

"Forgive me, Honor?"

Nimitz's tail twitched and his claws extended a little further, bright white against a tunic devoid of the medals Mike had had to tear away. Honor's eyes widened and she tapped the ambassador's arm and whispered a handful of words into his ear.

He nodded.

Mike's Admiral smiled.

The kiss was still unexpected.

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Mike cursed a little as she had to watch two of Honor's far more nimble and surprisingly well armed frigates pounce on the slaver she'd been stalking.

"Skipper?" Her com officer looked up from his terminal.

"Yes Samuel?"

"The third frigate is requesting that we identify ourselves."

Mike shut her eyes and pictured Honor as she had seen her last, and her crew blinked at the small smile that crept onto her face.

"The passcode they're looking for, Samuel, is HSBRYCYH–03 and you can throw it up on the main screen. I may as well let you see who is stealing our prizes. I think most of you will appreciate this surprise."

It took a long 30 seconds to transfer the transmission to the main screen, and the pleased murmurs from her bridge crew, when they saw Honor, were gratifying.

"Welcome to Silesia, Mike."

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“I want to watch you, Honor.”

Emily’s request hangs between them for weeks (not intentionally - they just have bad timing - Elizabeth’s accelerating the League war’s timetable again) and Honor finds her mind returning to the idea over and over again in the dark of her stateroom, trying to tease out why it made her shiver (it was a delicious shiver, but exhibitionism is something she’s never even considered).

She doesn’t have much of a libido (never has - the feedback she receives through her empathy is what guides her body’s responses to Hamish) and the ‘Talks’ her mother had tried to give her (Beowulfian sexual mores were interesting) hadn’t helped. But there’s something undeniably erotic about Emily’s request and in the quiet time in hyperspace, on the voyage back to Manticore, she gives in and touches herself and tries to imagine that her wife is watching from her life-support chair, murmuring instructions and painting images with words.

Her body’s response is immediate and exhilarating.

If this is something Emily wants - if she can get pleasure from watching her then Honor will acquiesce to her request. She gets pleasure from simply imagining it; with Emily - her wife’s pleasure layered over the top of that … her mind supplies the memory of Emily’s reaction to the taste of the rich dark Andermani chocolate they’d been gifted and an aftershock ripples through her body.

She should have remebered that Emily has the best ideas.

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The next time they see each other after graduation, Honor is dressed in a formal gown, in a style that she wouldn't have thought would suit her (but it does) with a champagne glass in her hand and Nimitz draped across her shoulders (doing his best impression of a fur stole) and dear god she hopes the dress is appropriately reinforced for the 'cat. The man she's with is clearly a family member, and is taking a mischevious delight in some of Mike's peers' reactions to Honor and she finds herself drifting closer to them out of curiosity (and her ever present fascination with Honor). 

She'd forgotten that Honor was a Benton-Ramierez y Chou. The idea of her yeoman roommate from Sphinx being a member of one of Beowulf's first families is a little surreal. Mike recognises the man with Honor now; he's her uncle Jacques, head of Beowulf's Intelligence Services; and before she's really aware of what's happening, he's spotted her, and she's been cut out of the crowd neatly. The glass in her hand disappears in the process, but Honor's smiling and Jacques says something to his niece that Mike doesn't hear, but she likes the result. 

(Their kiss was a little demostrative given she was in uniforn and there may be nasty insinuations if anyone saw it, but despite everything Mike is a Winton at heart. She gets what she wants.)

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Andrew watched them both from his position at the back of the firing range with proprietary amusement. He kept one eye on Honor, wrapped around her shorter friend, using her taller frame to shape the other woman's firing position - the antiques they were playing with, being far heavy that the weapons Michelle was used to carrying, and the other on the single entrance to the range.

He needn't have done - after all Jamie and Simon stood watch outside - but it was habit, and contemplated which of the current crop of armsmen he could assign to Michelle Henke. Because even if neither woman would admit it, he knew his Steadholder and her 'cat - and if this wasn't a “date” he'd hand back his pulsar and go back to using one of those antiques they were playing with. Honor Harrington was a good enough instructor - she was teaching the guard Coup for the Tester's sake - to instruct someone in even a martial art without feeling someone up quite as blatantly as she was her friend.

And he'd be damned if his Lady had to hear of the death of another of her Loves if there was anything he could do about it.

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There were only a handful of people who had ever been mated to bonded treecats, and she was the only one that was currently alive. She was aware of the complications that involved ... or at least the ones that others had discovered or admitted to.

Mostly the 'cats amorous-ness and her own didn't actually affect each other, but she should have seen this coming - in fact she supposed she had, hadn't she? She'd delayed her return to Manticore, to where she could have the surgery she needed to repair her arm, for a couple of extra weeks. Long enough to let Samantha's heat start at Harrington, where the 'cats had obviously founded a new clan and established their own home range rather than force them to suppress it.

And because it's a full blown bond heat, it's sapping at her own inhibitions already, and she's managing the problem, only because she's got iron self control (and the three women that she might consider riding this out with are off-planet).

So as soon as she's settled the 'cats into the biodome that's been set up as the clan's private retreat, she intends to lock herself in her suite in the House with the toys that - mortifyingly - she'd had Miranda purchase for her. They've already seen a lot of use.

When she reaches it 'tho, her bed already has an occupant that she's rather pleased to see.