Author's Note: A space AU retelling of a scene from episode 5.5 with more kissing.

The Most Luminous Star: shallowness

It's something of a relief that police droids are only authorised to use body scanners on persons of interest. A highborn like Caroline Enys, married to the starship Cornwallis's chief medical officer, is certainly not going to be suspected of anything, even in these paranoid days on the space station New Londinium. That's the attitude Caroline took on, although a part of her mind suspects they were only a degree of separation and Dwight's caution from being on a warrant.

She orders the droids to put the bed back as they found it. "Captain Poldark is very fastidious about his linen," she lies haughtily. If anything, their protocols will mean the bed will be neater than it was before they marched into Ross's quarters, showed their warrant to the visiting Enyses and started turning the place over, looking for something that they will not find now.

The distraction is enough for Dwight to stop Ross from entering through the open door and sign for him to go and hide somewhere. Caroline, focused on filming the droids through her automaton, Horace, doesn't notice. More importantly, neither do the droids. The police didn't send the best models. A slip-up somewhere, or maybe a sign that the conspiracy isn't all-pervading.

The droids finish their work, and Caroline notes that she was right, the bed is now perfectly neat. It's a detail she'll share with Demelza when she tells the story in years to come.

"Do you confirm that, after your very thorough search, you found no incriminating or seditious material in Captain Poldark's rooms?" she asks.

"I confirm it," the lead droid says.

She nods.

"Then your business here is done, yes?" she enquires with the voice of the bored socialite that her parents quite possibly selected as part of her genetic profile.

"It is," the droid confirms. The other two join it in formation and they exit. Caroline blesses all her bio-management lessons. Somehow, she kept her heart rate and breathing under control, played the haughty aristocrat New Londinium is used to.

"Horace, end recording," she orders, putting the automaton down, and checking that the red lights in its eyes are off. "Save recording to personal archive and file on the Penvenen cloud."

The automaton, designed after an Earthen pug of the sort her ancestors would have had, barks in confirmation.

Only then does Caroline dare turn to Dwight, who had been mostly doing his best impersonation of a statue. Had anyone been sick, she was sure he would have managed things perfectly, but in all other exigencies, she is better.

"You were magnificent," he tells her fervently.

"I know," she replies, unable to find fault with his assessment, but rather delighted when her husband walks towards her, cups her face with his surgeon's hands and kisses her soundly. She opens her lips to him, and finds him willing to kiss her even more deeply.

They have far too short a time to themselves before Ross returns to his quarters to demand why police droids were searching one of the Cornwallis's representatives on the Grand Council. But he already knows the answer. After all, Dwight had warned him.