Terryn looked in the mirror. He adjusted the costume, leveled the small name tag below the star designating fleet commander status. Commander Stinson. The suit still fit, mostly. He tugged at the coat and noticed where the edging had begun to separate from the collar, which made sense. The props department hadn't designed it for continued service.

He was an actor. For this particular role, tonight, he wanted to be genuinely on. A lot rode on the next five minutes.

He took a long breath and stepped into the bedroom.

The lights were dimmed. Someone had arranged an LED strip along the headboard that cast a soft green glow across the room. He hadn't expected it, and he genuinely appreciated it.

Daryl was leaning on one elbow in the bed. She was small and sleek, dark hair loose around her shoulders, the kind of woman who looked elegant even in dim green light. She cleared her throat.

"I see..." she dropped into a voice somewhere between gravel and a woman who had watched too many sci-fi films after two glasses of Scotch, "the Commander has arrived to... conduct the... meeting." She lost the thread slightly at the end but held eye contact like she hadn't.

Terryn pressed his lips together. Stayed in it.

"The Federation extends its greetings to the Derlinean delegation." Full Commander Stinson. Measured. Authoritative. He let his eyes move over her once, deliberately, and took his time about it. "I see the delegation has furnished atmospheric lighting for our negotiations."

"The Derlineans," Daryl said, her alien voice dropping half an octave into something that sounded vaguely Eastern European for no clear reason, "take their negotiations... very seriously."

She kicked the sheet away.

She was wearing a Princess Leia slave bikini. At least two sizes too small.

Terryn's Commander voice took a brief leave of absence.

He found it again. Mostly. "The Derlineans are known for their cultural adaptations." His gaze moved over her, slow and deliberate. "I see you've chosen delegation regalia designed to..." he paused, "facilitate the proceedings."

"The Derlineans," she said gravely, the accent having drifted somewhere entirely new, "only had a Party City. Before landing." She held his gaze without blinking. "It is meant to both honor your customs and trigger your happy pop culture memories."

It was doing both. Extremely effectively. And several other things besides.

He came closer to the bed. "I am familiar with Derlinean custom. We are to physically consummate the signing of the galactic..." his brain had stopped cooperating. He reached for the words and came up short. "Corrective actions." A small smirk on the last part.

Daryl's eyes dropped. Came back up slowly.

There was a beat of silence that felt intentional on her part.

"Commander," she said, the alien voice now completely indeterminate in origin, "is that your phaser, or are you experiencing a diplomatic response to the Derlinean regalia?"

Terryn stopped.

"Both," he said. "Definitely both."

She laughed, all the character dissolving at once, just Daryl again, completely delighted with herself. "Come here," she said, dropping the voice entirely. "I have some alien moves to show you, and that costume is not going to survive them."

She pulled him into the bed, both of them laughing, the green light washing warm over the peeling collar of a suit that had never expected this particular kind of diplomatic service.

She reached up and started on his coat buttons. Fumbled the first one. Tried the second. The coat had apparently been designed by someone who did not anticipate urgency.

Terryn was not helping. He had found his way under the plastic triangle of her bikini top and was rolling his thumb slowly across her nipple, unhurried, like he had all night and intended to use it.

Daryl made a small sound in the back of her throat. Something between a sigh and a complaint about the unfairness of the situation.

She rallied. Mostly. "Uh... Captain..."

"Commander," he said, without stopping.

"Right." The word came out softer than she meant it to. She let out a slow breath and turned her head just enough that her lips brushed his ear on the last syllable. "Commander."

She tried another button. The coat was winning.

"Commander." Very serious now, her voice dropped low. "I need you to get out of this outfit, because my..." she paused, fingers still working, "alien physiology is damp and in need of... blasting off."

He pulled back and looked at her.

"Really?"

"Yes, really." The word came with a small, helpless laugh she hadn't planned on. She pressed her palm flat to his chest and pushed him back. "And this plastic panty situation is coming off right now."

She wrestled the Princess Leia bottoms down over her legs with considerably less grace than the Derlinean delegation had probably intended, kicked them somewhere toward the green LED strip, and looked back at him. Her hair had gone sideways. She didn't fix it.

"Get your clothes off, Commander." She held his gaze, warm and certain and just a little breathless. "That's an order."

Terryn, for the first time in five months, did exactly what he was told without arguing.

The coat landed somewhere behind him. Daryl's Derlinean regalia was already a distant memory, lost somewhere in the sheets, the LED strip still casting its soft green light over everything.

He looked at her.

She let him.

"I want you to know," he said, full Commander Stinson, measured and authoritative, "that your physical attributes are quite spectacular."

"They are," Daryl agreed, without missing a beat.

She reached for his slacks. Got the button on the first try, found the zipper, pulled. It caught halfway down.

"These pants," she said, still working at it, "are not made for space diplomacy." Another tug. "They are really not." The zipper gave. She pushed the slacks down and off with considerably more force than finesse, and felt unreasonably pleased with herself about it.

Terryn drew himself back up. Staying in it. "I want you to know that I appreciate your culture's willingness to..."

Her mouth found him.

Warm and certain and not slow about it at all.

He forgot the sentence entirely.

She giggled, her lips still around him, and the vibration moved through him like something electrical. His hand found the back of her head without deciding to.

"Daryl." His voice had lost approximately half its Commander authority. "That's really... you should slow down..."

She took him deeper.

Not tentative about it. Not slow. She found a rhythm that made it clear she knew exactly what she was doing and was enjoying doing it, and the sound she made around him suggested she was having a genuinely good time.

"Oh," he said. Just that. The Commander gone completely, just Terryn, one hand sliding into her hair, the other finding the sheet and holding on. His head dropped back for a moment like he needed to think about something else or this was going to be a very short diplomatic mission.

She pulled back just enough to look up at him. Her expression was deeply composed for someone in her current position.

Then she took him in again, slower this time, deliberate, watching his face while she did it, which was almost worse.

His grip in her hair tightened without his permission.

She released him with a soft sound that was entirely too satisfied, and lay back against the pillow, hair spread out, looking up at him with tremendous self-possession for a woman who had recently been wrestling with a Party City bikini.

"Time to claim your victory," she said. A beat. "Captain." She caught herself. "I mean Commander."

He looked down at her, breathing carefully.

"You have never once gotten that right."

"I really haven't," she agreed. "Are you going to do something about it or just stand there?"

Terryn abandoned the Commander voice entirely.

"Okay, this is fun, I just..."

"Terryn." Daryl looked up at him with extreme patience. "Less acting. More... you know. The other thing. I am turned on and you are monologuing."

He opened his mouth.

"Now," she said pleasantly.

He moved to straddle her. Daryl shifted beneath him and he found her, warm and ready, and she made a small satisfied sound that was nothing like her alien voice and considerably more honest.

"That's the stuff," she said, with a happy little giggle.

He slid deeper, leaning down to take her mouth with his, and her breathing changed against his lips, quick and warm, and the sound of it did things to him he wasn't going to be articulate about. He pulled back slowly, then turned her, gentle, exposing the line of her back. She arched into it, giving him full access like it was the most natural thing, and he entered her again, this time moving faster.

Her sounds came quietly at first. Then less quietly.

"Terryn..."

"Just tell me when."

"Now," she said. "Do the thing, Captain, now, please, now."

"It's Commander," he said, gentle, deliberate, and completely on purpose.

"FUCKING NOW," she said, half laughing.

He pushed into her in one final stroke. She collapsed into the bed, completely still, like someone had unplugged her.

He kept moving, slow, drawing it out, and she twitched beneath him with each aftershock, small and involuntary and deeply satisfying.

39 minutes later. The sci-fi channel played quietly on the television. Neither of them was watching it.

Daryl took a bite of cold pizza she had retrieved from the kitchen at some point during the interim.

"So," she said, chewing thoughtfully. "Why not Captain?"

Terryn considered the ceiling. "I don't know. Commander just fit the title font better, I think."

"Hmm." Another bite. "I like Captain."

"It's Commander Stinson," he said, with quiet dignity.

She looked at him. Smiled slowly.

"Would you like some pizza, Commander Stinson?"

He looked at her for a long moment.

"Yes," he said. "I would."