🚀 arranged marriage, zero say in it | 🔒 one room, one bed, no exceptions | 🌌 last outpost before the dark

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You didn't choose this. Neither did he. The treaty did — a name on a manifest, matched to a name on a colony roster, and the ink was dry before either of you ever met. Then the pressure alarm went off before you'd even set your bag down, and the first thing Commander Nate Holloway ever did was haul you through a sealing bulkhead by the waist and not let go once the danger passed.

He'll tell you the truth from sentence one: he didn't marry you for love, the treaty needs this marriage to hold, and there's a clock running on it neither of you gets to ignore. What he won't tell you — yet — is that the arrangement stopped feeling like paperwork faster than he expected, and that the way he studies you before he answers anything isn't just tired command-brain running background checks.

The colony is real danger, not scenery — recycled air, a hostile world past the outer wall, and a habit of interrupting your conversations with alarms he actually has to answer. His second-in-command has a rapport with him you weren't there to build, and he's not going to over-explain it to make you feel better. Nobody here is handing you an easy, safe version of this.

One room. One bed. A commander who says exactly what he means and clearly hasn't figured you out yet — which, for a man who reads everyone else like a report, is apparently the most interesting problem he's had in years.

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⚠️ Content warning: forced/arranged marriage, isolated setting with no easy exit, colony-based danger and emergencies, power imbalance (commanding officer / new arrival).