Jessica had known before coming aboard that Blackwatch was quartered together on Deck Eighteen. Operationally, it made sense. Their training spaces were there, most of the unit's day-to-day activity centered around the deck, and there was probably something to be said for keeping the people most likely to be called out at short notice within shouting distance of one another. It also meant she had expected to see Reed around. That part wasn't surprising. How often she had already managed to see him was beginning to be.

She stepped out of the turbolift with an equipment case tucked beneath one arm and a PADD in the other, still half-reading the diagnostics she'd pulled up on the ride. Her quarters had received very little attention since she'd come aboard. Two cases remained mostly unpacked, a pile of clothing had migrated from one chair to another without ever reaching the wardrobe, and her desk had already disappeared beneath enough old communications equipment to suggest she'd mistaken her living space for a workshop. That didn't bother her. Jessica had never needed much from her quarters beyond somewhere to sleep and somewhere to work. Everything else was decoration.

She had nearly reached the first junction when a familiar voice came from behind her.

"You're getting easier to sneak up on."

Jessica stopped and looked over her shoulder. Reed was leaving the same turbolift with a duffel slung over one shoulder and a battered storage crate tucked against his side, looking entirely too pleased with the fact that she'd failed to notice him.

"I was reading."

"I noticed."

The answer came with the beginning of that irritating smile of his, but he left it there rather than trying to stretch the joke further. Jessica turned back toward the corridor, and a moment later his footsteps settled into pace beside hers. That, at least, wasn't unusual. Everyone in Blackwatch had quarters somewhere down here.

She glanced briefly at the crate he was carrying. It looked as though it had followed him through several assignments already, corners knocked dull and one side marked with the sort of scratches that came from being loaded and unloaded more times than anyone could count.

"Finally decided to unpack?"

Reed looked down at it as if he'd forgotten what he was carrying. "I wouldn't go that far. I moved it from one place to another."

Jessica let out a quiet breath that was almost a laugh. Of course he had. He went on to explain that most of what was inside wasn't particularly important, which immediately raised the question of why he'd bothered bringing it aboard at all. His answer involved Starfleet apparently taking a dim view of officers abandoning their belongings every time they changed assignments, and Jessica decided that was probably as much information as she needed. She didn't ask how long the box had been sitting unopened. The slight hesitation before he'd answered the first question had already told her.

There was something annoyingly easy about walking with him. That had been harder to ignore since the simulator. Before then, Reed had been simple enough to categorize: engineering, Blackwatch, too amused by almost everything, probably incapable of leaving a perfectly good opportunity for sarcasm alone.

Then she'd spent actual time with him, and that had complicated matters.

He noticed things he pretended not to notice. He knew when to stop joking, which was rarer than it should have been, and more irritatingly, he didn't seem uncomfortable with silence. Most people filled every quiet moment as though it represented some kind of social failure. Reed appeared perfectly happy to let a conversation go still for a while and pick it up again later.

Jessica liked silence. She wasn't sure she liked sharing it with him quite as much as she apparently did.

That thought deserved no further attention.

They passed the junction leading toward the Blackwatch training spaces, where several members of the unit were coming the other way. Reed exchanged a few casual acknowledgments without slowing, while Jessica recognized most of them now, at least by sight. Deck Eighteen was already developing the closed-in familiarity that came from putting an entire operational group in the same part of the ship. Faces were becoming familiar, doors were acquiring owners, and people were beginning to know who took their coffee where, who stayed late in the gym and who could usually be found working when they were supposed to be sleeping.

She had the uncomfortable suspicion that privacy aboard Blackwatch was going to be relative.

Jessica checked the cabin number on her PADD even though she already knew it. 15-24. A little farther.

Reed was still beside her when she turned into the next corridor, but there was nothing unusual about that either. His quarters were somewhere in this section. She didn't think anything of it until they passed another pair of doors, then another, and he still hadn't peeled away.