[ he lets her take it, only vaguely reluctant to do so. it's not like she's going to tear it up or set it on fire. and sure enough she hands it back to him with no harm done. miller looks at the woman's face for a moment before tucking it safely away back into his hat pocket. ]

I couldn't drop it because it was too damn convenient. Everything started to connect. There was this ship, those guys from the Rocinante? That's how they met. On the Canterbury - it was just a rust-bucket ice-hauler, you know. Nothing special. But they heard Julie's distress call, and they went to find her. They went to save her. Except they were already too late by the time they got there and someone blew up the Cant for their effort. They got boarded by the Donnager, a Martian ship, and taken into custody, and someone blew that up too. They couldn't have a guy like me on that case, a guy who wouldn't stop turning over rocks til I got to the right one.

And yeah, maybe... maybe I started to care about her somewhere along the way. That's what Dawes seemed to think anyway.

[ there are so many moving parts to this, but he thinks if anyone could understand it would be karen so he keeps going. ]

My friend Semi, we grew up together, just two orphans with shit luck on the streets of Ceres. He got fired from Star Helix too, the same way. For not dropping something they wanted him to drop. He gave me this hat when he left for Eros, he said, "'This'll help you keep your head, Miller.'"

[ he swallows, a hand settling over the hat protectively. ] When I got to Eros to find the truth, he was waiting there for me. He helped me even though he shouldn't have, even though he thought I'd finally gone and lost my damn mind. And that's where I found her, in this no-tell-motel called The Blue Falcon. I was too late, you know. Everyone was too late where Julie Mao was concerned.

And that's how I first met Holden and his crew, too.