.+* Auri *+.

If there was one thing you knew it was that Ryland Grace and you perfectly orbited each other, even when he was far off in San Francisco teaching the next generation of young scientists. It had been that way since you met him in college and it just never stopped. Part of you thought it was written in the stars that Ryland Grace and you were meant to do great things together.

Even after everything that happened with his research paper, even after your lab group dropped you post college from lack of funding, it was still the two of you. Science Partners, pen pals, best buds….among other ambiguous unstated things. You stayed in contact over the years, frequent calls, letters, the stupid punny e-cards he would email you on your birthday every year. There was a time, in college, when the two of you were together almost every day. And your excuse was always that we just work well together.

You knew Ryland Grace, you would say it was your next best subject. However, in this specific, very rare instance, you had no idea what the fuck Ryland Grace was even talking about.

Have you ever considered helping save the planet?

You must have reread the email a thousand times. Enough where your brain eventually shut off from confusion and your head met the keyboard in place of a pillow. Only when a loud thudding rattled through your dingy apartment did you finally realize that you had even fallen asleep. You blinked at the screen, lifting your head from your keyboard, the sun shining through the windows onto your desk. Reaching up, you peeled a small sticky note off your face, rubbing your eyes.

BANG, BANG, BANG. The sound rattled through your thin walls again and only on the second time did you realize it was coming from your front door. You paused for a second and glanced at your small digital clock, it was only six in the morning. Shooting up from your chair you made your way to the door, grabbing an umbrella on the way over, just in case.

You peered through the peep hole, only relaxing for a second when you saw a woman…then her two, what you could assume were body guards, behind her. Right about now you would have called Ryland but he had been off the grid, that email being the first sign of life you had gotten in days.

Shit. Shit. Shit. What do you even do? You glanced back out, seeing them talking amongst themselves before knocking again, the woman calling your name through the door. Quickly turning to the mirror on the wall near the door, you  let out a groan at what you saw. There was mascara smeared under your eyes from sleep and your hair stuck up in fifteen directions, all completed by the oversized t-shirt you had on reading “This gal believes in aliens”. 

Fuck it!

You threw the umbrella to the side, brushed some hair out of your face and opened the door, casually leaning against the frame like everything was under control.

“Hi,” you spoke up, voice rough from not sleep, quickly clearing your throat in response, arms crossed over yourself to hide the stupid shirt. “Hi…uh is there anything I can do for you?”

The women did not look amused, only offering you a nod, slightly peaking into the small studio apartment behind you. 

“Yes, actually, you received an email,” she spoke, sharp, straight to the point. It wasn’t a question really, more like a confirmed fact she was repeating. Her eyebrow quirked ever so slightly at your silence. “Am I wrong?”

You shook your head quickly.

“Yes or no? It is really that simple”.

“Yes, yes, sorry…” you hesitated for a second, coming to the quick realization you had no idea who these people were. And yet, you were so scared to see what would happen if you lied. “Yeah I got an email”.

“Not my decision. Dr. Grace thought however that it would be most efficient,” she continued. “He has spoken very highly of you and from my own research, I can understand why”.

Dr. Grace? Ryland? 

She gestured past you which you could only respond by moving to the side. Her presence commanded space and you respected it, or feared it, there was a lot to unpack. She stepped past you, turning to give a nod to the two men with her who remained outside.

“I am sorry,” you began, closing the door, turning to face her. “Maybe you got the wrong person-”

“That is not possible,” she replied. “He was very insistent that we must contact you in order to move forward”.

For what? Contact you for what?

You watched as the woman moved around the room like it was her space, picking up books and skimming through old pages of notes you had written. Then she turned to face a white board you had mounted messily in your kitchen, scribbled with notes and doodles that surrounded three big words: THE PETROVA LINE.

“Seems we are on the same page,” she mused, the first time you had heard any significant change in her tone. 

The space and the stars and the idea of infinity above had kept you up late into the night as a child. Your parents should have expected your world was one far away from the grounds of Earth, that you would live your life with your head in the stars. Your father used to have to drag you inside from your backyard, you set up with a blanket and a small telescope that they had bought you for your birthday that year. Each night would end the same, your parents calling you to come inside and you asking for five more minutes, which turned into ten, which turned into hours. But your little sixth grade self could not fathom how school was more important than the world above, the possibilities of the stars.

And when you went to college to study that world it was the easiest decision of your life. Then the stars turned on you and you could not understand why.

The Petrova Line kept you up at night.

“You studied the Tau Ceti System, yes?”

The name of the planet system sent a shockwave through you in a way you didn’t even know was possible. Tau Ceti was your whole life, or it had been in a distant past, it was a system you believed to have more potential than people truly gave it credit for. Yes, you knew Tau Ceti, however you had let that ship sail a long time ago. 

“Yeah,” you spoke up, quieter than before. “Yeah I did some work on Tau Ceti”.

And you could not help the wave of disappointment that hit you at those words. You had been recruited to a lab group after college that was specifically dedicating funding to researching the Tau Ceti System, and when it fell through, so did all your plans. You had dropped every other offer for the one that, it was everything you had wanted. It was a risk, and it fell through. No one really prepares you for post college as an Astrobiologist, no one ever tells you that you will end up working as a waitress at the Extraterrestrial Eatery near your house. At least you got to wear a cool space suit there. Tau Ceti and your other research had been benched, pushed to the side for evenings when you had nothing else to do.

“Perfect. Now that is cleared up, grab anything that might be important and we can be on our way”.

The women turned to move past you back for the door and you felt like your feet were suddenly glued to the ground. You opened your mouth to speak, before closing it, then opening it again. Yet no sound seemed to come out.

“What is this?” she asked, turning back, gesturing to your face. “I do not need the fish impression right now, this is a serious matter, we do not have the time”.

You immediately shut your mouth, then took a breath.

“Who are you?” you finally cried out. “What is this? No one is telling me anything!”

You felt insane, like you were living in some simulation where everyone knew what was going on but you. Where were the cameras? When were they gonna jump out and say it was all some weird, honestly unnerving, prank?

“I am Eva Stratt, head of the Petrova Taskforce” she began. “And you have been selected by Ryland Grace to help solve the Petrova Line”.

“I have work tomorrow,” you breathed out, a loss for words. The Petrova Taskforce, some of the world's most brilliant minds coming to you…a waitress at an alien restaurant. The email came back to you, the ominous words from Ryland, saving the world. This was news that a long time ago would have been everything you had ever wanted to hear…now you felt like some imposter, out of place.

Why you? Why now? Why after years of beating around the bush did Ryland Grace need your help to solve one of humanity's greatest emergencies. Why was Ryland Grace solving one of humanity's greatest emergencies?

“That will not be a problem,” Stratt countered. “We have already contacted your place of work and put you on an indefinite time of leave”.

“You can’t just do that!” you fought back, even if you knew that was the least of your worries. It was all so much, all at once. Ryland and Tau Ceti and the Petrova Line and saving the fucking planet. 

You remained still glued to the floor, grasping at straws, scared of saying yes…maybe even more scared of saying no. You glanced around the room, the books, the hours of work, the pictures of Ryland and you scattered around the room from college. It had been years since you saw him and maybe that scared you too, seeing him again, reopening feelings you had sworn to bury too deep to ever reach again. 

Your curiosity for the world remained, your love for space had never quite gone away, that would be impossible. It was just more of a hobby now, you looked less like someone with a PhD in Astrobiology and more like a crazed conspiracy theorist. You weren’t the same scientist from college, bright eyed and ready to fly into space if she had to.

Dr. Stratt spoke your name from the silence, your eyes snapping back to meet hers, “the sun is dying.”

The word settled heavy, lingering in the air between the two of you. 

“Dr. Grace is my last hope,” she continued, honest, blunt. “And you are his”.

And that was all it took as you nodded, a loss for words, moving in a sort of trance to gather your things.

-----------

If there was something you would be fine never doing again it was that fuck-ass fighter jet. But now, standing in front of the door to the conference room, you think you might rather go back and ride the jet a few more times to stall. You hadn’t seen Ryland Grace in years…and now you were there, feet away from him and the idea overwhelmed you more than you thought it would.

The ride over had been a bumpy, hazy mess. Anyone you tried to ask about what was happening would ignore you as if you were a ghost…which only left you with more questions. By the time you landed on a boat your brain was too tired to even try to make sense of it all.

You had met Ryland in college. You both ended up in the same class, ‘The History of Extraterrestrial Life’...better known on campus as That One Alien Class. It filled both of your general education requirements, or at least that’s what you told him was your reasoning.  It had taken him weeks to get you to admit that you believed in Aliens and even longer to admit that the class really wasn’t a joke to you. 

The two of you were paired up for most of the semester, spending time whispering in class and making jokes about how deranged the content was. Even if it did open your eyes up to the whole Tau Ceti system. 

You remember the last day of class so vividly. It was your final presentation and Ryland had taken it upon himself to get you these dumb matching shirts reading, “This gal believes in aliens” paired with “this guy probably is an alien”. It was stupid. And it was so perfect.

The thought made you smile, only for a second, before the nerves of it all settled back in. 

There was too much there, floating, left unsaid. And it scared the shit out of you. 

Before you could even fully prepare, the doors opened, your body moving in autopilot as Eva Stratt led you into the room. There you were, suddenly standing in front of what felt like a million eyes, all looking to you like you had answers. You had to remind yourself not to do the whole fish thing again as you just awkwardly gave a small wave, trying hard to keep your mouth shut. What am I doing?  You were a waitress at an alien themed restaurant, not a scientist…at least not anymore. 

Stratt introduced you to the room, briefly detailing your credentials to be here. You had kept your gaze straight, scared to look in either direction, straight was safe, straight was easier. You had imagined what it would be like seeing him again, more times than you would ever like to admit, and this was nowhere close to what you thought it would ever be. In a room surrounded by some of the world's most important people. 

“This is Dr. (last name),” you hadn’t been referred to as that in a while…and you could not lie, it felt kinda good. “She has researched the Tau Ceti system most of her career and will help us identify why exactly the Tau Ceti star is the only one not losing energy”

Great. They really loved leaving out the important details. You knew the star, probably more than the back of your hand but there was still immense mystery to it.

“Anything you want to share, Doctor?” Stratt finished, turning the room over to you and you made the one mistake, moving your head. There, at the left end of the table was him, Dr. Grace. Not an email, not a letter or postcard, not a lingering memory…no it was really him, looking at you. Every emotion you had ever felt about him hit you at once in a way that made you want to grab on to the nearest wall so as to not crumble to the ground. Ryland, your Ryland, the same one you remember, albeit a little older, a little more tired. Your heart stuttered for a moment, actually stuttered, like it too had forgotten how to function. And all you could do was muster a small wave. Nothing could have prepared you. 

You had spent years pretending that he wasn’t the sun of your own personal solar system. It turned out that was much easier when he was not standing feet away from you, his glasses practically falling off his face.

You swallowed, mouth running dry. And funny as it was, after all the years, after all the anticipation and wondering, your body eventually went back to the familiar state it always did when it saw him. You softened. Your heart beat steadied and your breathing returned to something much more normal.

Stratt cleared her throat, your eyes snapping back to hers.

“Um…Tau Ceti is… pretty dang cool,” you finally choked out, the people around the room sharing looks between each other. “...Thank you”.

Sporadic, unsure claps filled the room as you took a step back, ready to smash your head through the nearest wall. You did not lie, Tau Ceti was pretty freaking cool. But you were sure that was not what the Patrova Taskforce really needed to hear from you at that moment. 

“Thank you,” Stratt said, a slight shake of her head, before she gestured towards the empty chair in the one section of the room you had planned on avoiding for at least a little longer. You tried to ignore her before one of the men in suits began to guide you there himself.

Each step you took felt heavy, like your body was trying to stop you. But there was the other part, your heart racing in anticipation, in want. This was what you had wanted, your work hadn’t been the same without him. You two brought out a fire in each other, seeing the best in the mess of crazy ideas the two of you brought to the table. The two of you.

As you walked down the table, a few of the other scientists took turns shaking your hand, welcoming you on board. Maybe your speech was not a total mess afterall. You hadn’t even realized you had made it to the end of the table, his hand reaching yours before your brain could catch up. 

“Tau Ceti is pretty dang cool,” the familiar voice spoke. Your eyes immediately met his and you felt like the world had stopped for just a second. Every version of him you remembered and every version you didn’t hit you all at once. Then you felt him squeeze your hand, his head slightly tilting. “Earth to alien girl?”

It was an odd feeling, seeing someone after so long. The memory of him was hazy until that very moment. You had tried so hard to remember the shade of his eyes and the way they kinda squinted up when he laughed. You had tried to commit those things to memory, tried to live through the pictures, but nothing compared seeing them in-person, in front of you.

You tried to form words, frozen in place, only coming back to reality as Stratt began to talk once more. You quickly sat down, pulling your hand from his and forcing your attention forward.

There were a few seconds where neither of you spoke, ignoring the weight of his eyes on you. You were supposed to be professionals…since when were you ever professionals? You were on a boat, with the world's best scientists, saving the planet…next to your best friend. And somehow, that felt like the most overwhelming part. You were sure your brain would eventually catch up one day, the shock fading with every minute that passed.

Then he slightly shifted in his chair, “Pretty dang cool?” he asked, just loud enough for you to hear, just like the two of you used to do in those alien class lectures. A smile grew on your face, one you tried to bite back.

“I panicked,” you whispered back, eyes still focused forward on Stratt, nodding along to words you weren’t even hearing. You didn’t have to look at him to know he was smiling too.

The silence again, the silence of years of pushing off visits and ignoring the hard questions. It made you twitch slightly, racking your mind for anything to ease it.

“So, are you the one responsible for the U.S. government pretty much knocking down my door this morning?” you whispered from the quiet, a slight quirk of your brow, gaze still set forward. 

“Guilty,” he said, seeing him lift his hands in mock surrender in the peripheral of your vision. You could almost roll your eyes at how predictable the response was, slightly nudging his foot with yours under the table. He let out a quiet, breathy laugh, one you wanted to be the reason for forever.

“I didn’t think you would come,” he spoke again, his words softer this time, real.

Those were the words that broke your focus, your head turning to meet his gaze, really meeting his gaze, for the first time.

“Kinda didn’t have a choice,” you replied, half-joking, the other half completely honest, thinking back to the morning and the woman who was now commanding the room. Then you smiled, looking back at him, “But I would have come regardless”.

Even if you still weren’t exactly sure what all this was, what you had somehow signed up for. Even if it made you question who you were, why you were here…what you were to him.

You looked down to your lap. You were among the greats because Ryland Grace said you should be. You were not quite sure yet if that was reassuring or terrifying.

“It’s gonna be like old times, huh?” he added, as if it would make it all easier. “You know, you and me, figuring things out, putting the pieces together”.

Fuck. That did not make it any easier.

The meeting breezed by in a blur, words flying all around you as you tried to catch up to speed with what exactly was happening. You could pick out Petrova Line, Astrophage, Tau Ceti, among several other things you weren’t quite sure on. 

And then it was quiet. Just you and him, alone, in a room that now felt much too big. You both started talking at the same time-

“So-”

“Hey-”

You stopped, laughed, apolgized…tried again.

Then you did the exact same thing once more.

“Out of sync,” you joked, a quiet laugh, as the adrenaline wore off and gave way to a feeling you could not describe. You knew him but then again, it had been years. It was finding the balance between an old friend and a stranger. 

“It’s been a little bit, huh?” he added, hands digging into the pocket of his jeans. You finally got a glimpse of his shirt, a science pun you were sure he was so excited to show his class of middle schoolers. 

“Yeah, just a little bit,” you added, feeling exposed now without the other people in the room, the slightest bit bitter that it had taken all this to see him again. But then again, who really was to blame for that? You looked down at the ground for a second, shuffling your feet against the floor, racking your brain for anything.

 “So…saving the sun?”

You barely got the words out before he stepped forward, closing the space between the two of you, pulling you into a hug. So tight, like you might disappear. You stood there for a second, air caught in your throat before you caved into the feeling. Your arms looped around him, head rested against his chest, as if this was something the two of you just did.

“I missed you,” he said, honest, real.

You stayed there, just together, quiet in the chaos of the day.

“I missed you too,” you finally let yourself say, quiet as if the whole world was listening and you wanted it to be just for him. “Why me?”

He quickly pulled away, as if he was shocked into motion, a wild look on his face, you almost started laughing.

“What?” he gasped out, dramatic as ever.

‘What do you mean ‘what’?” you countered, slightly shoving him in the chest. “Why am I here, dumbass?”

“Hey, so first, we are not cursing anymore,” he scolded, his voice morphing into something you only imagine came from years of teaching. “Second, you are the only person I know who would be crazy enough to show up here”.

He shrugged as if it all was nothing, that dumb smile on his face, as he began to move towards the door. “And you would kill me if I got to research Tau Ceti and you didn’t get the invite”.

You wanted to interject, fight it, but you knew, deep down somewhere, that Ryland never stopped knowing you and you never quite stopped loving him. 

“You just gonna stand there?” he asked, already at the door, holding it open. “Or are we gonna do some science?”

It really was like no time had passed between college and now…well if you ignored the millions of dollars worth of equipment now at your complete disposal. It’s funny, the way the body reverts back to old habits. The way Ryland and you moved in the lab was your own sort of rhythm, brains connected in a way that seemed almost superhuman. You needed to grab a tool, he dropped it on your desk before you could even move. He had a question, you were answering it as the question left his mouth…then he would smile at you and roll his eyes and go back to his work. It should have felt different after all this time…and it just didn’t. It was dangerous. And it was so wonderful.

The Vat, or Stratts Vat as everyone began to call it, was a hodgepodge of every science you had ever dreamed of. You could talk to a biologist from across the world and then suddenly meet an engineer who happened to be from your hometown. For a while you pretended that this wasn’t what you wanted, you ached to go back to what was safe and comfortable. But as you stood there, another day on the boat, you realized that maybe this is what you had been waiting for. You were researching again, being curious, all the things your younger self could have only dreamed of. 

Your days were mostly spent with Ryland, the two of you poking at astrophage while you dug through old research papers you had on Tau Ceti. Your presentation was coming up, only revealed to you a few mornings ago by Dr. Stratt. She had come into the lab early, you had just woken up, believing it to be a perfect time to tell you that you would be addressing the taskforce with any details you had on the planet system. You sat there, swiveling back and forth in your chair, your sidekick on the other side of the room jumping up and down about a new development in Astrophage breeding.

“I wish I had your energy right now,” you groaned out, shuffling through your notes.

“Tau Ceti not treating you well?” he asked, peaking his head around a shelving unit that slightly blocked your view. “Did you try taking it out to dinner first?”

All you could do was flip him the finger, scribbling notes at the same time. “You think I haven’t tried that yet?”

He let out a laugh, coming around to stand behind where you were sat working. You had been really trying, but there were some things that just needed to be seen to be understood…and one of those was Tau Ceti. You had theories, tons of them, hopefully enough to be of help.

“She is still my greatest mystery,” you admitted, turning your chair to face him.

“Well Rome was not built in one day,” he looked at you, a serious look on his face regardless of the word choice. “And Tau Ceti is not gonna be understood that quick either".

You let your head dramatically fall to rest on the desk, quietly groaning into the sleeves of your jacket. Then you felt Rylands hands on your head gently shaking it.

“Hey,” he began, a laugh already escaping him, you mentally preparing yourself for whatever he would be saying next. “Remember they used to call you the brain!”

“Uh, you used to call me the brain,” you retorted, lifting your head up and shoving his hands away. “and it was and still is stupid”.

He grabbed your head once more, shaking it around, “C’mon use the brain, I know it is in there somewhere”.

You turned to glare at him, his lopsided smile making it hard for you to be upset at anything. The energy settled down, the man leaning back against the desk across from you.

“Do you think this is all gonna work out?” you spoke up, looking back to your notes. “Tau Ceti and the Astrophage and all of it?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, blunt and honest. “But beats sitting around and waiting for it to solve itself…ar at least that it what I choose to tell myself”.

You just nodded, letting him fade back into his work as you faded back into yours. If Tau Ceti wasn’t enough, the constant push and pull between Ryland and you was. You told yourself to keep it easy, to ignore it, all those dumb feelings squashed down from college that threatened to bubble over any second. You buried yourself in your work, that was easiest. But there would be nights where you would fall asleep at your desk and wake up to a blanket thrown over you. Or mornings when the mess you left in the lab were cleaned up…and there would be Ryland, a small wave and a smile, doing a ‘cheers’ with his coffee mug. You could not let yourself read into it, because then it would be all the much harder to eventually pull away. 

The presentation day had come in a blur, you now standing once again in the front of that room, papers gripped so tightly in your hands. You were never good at the presenting part of it all. In the bustle of the room you were able to find him, him waving his hands above his head to get your attention. You smile, he shot over two giant thumbs up, and all you could muster was one half as enthusiastic one back. You turned to look through your notes when he caught your eye again, pointing at his head and mouthing “the brain”, which you could only roll your eyes in response, a quiet laugh fighting its way out of you.

“Alright everyone,” the powerful voice of Eva Stratt entered the room, coming to stand beside you in front of the projector screen. “As you know, Dr. (LAST NAME), has been working hard gathering information on Tau Ceti, which will be our final destination for this trip”.

Everyone around the room turned their full attention to you as the women gestured to you and took a seat. Deep breath. 

Your heart was jumping in all sorts of directions, as you fidgeted with the clicker, trying to get the presentation to flip to the next slide.

“Hi,” you began.

“Tau Ceti, it  is pretty dang cool!” Ryland called out from the back, heads turning to him, him once again shooting the thumbs up.

“Uh, yes…as Dr. Grace put it, "Tau Ceti is really ‘dang cool’,” some of the scientists laughed at that, the stress easing the littlest bit off your shoulder. You began clicking through slides, diagrams of the systems and the potential planets in its orbit. “Thank you for your enthusiasm”.

You took one last deep breath before diving right in, trusting yourself and the years of work you had put into this already.

“What makes Tau Ceti so interesting, while not an exact match, is that it has the potential to be the closest relative to our own solar system,” you began. “Which means, there is a great likelihood of it supporting life or even already having life within it.”

“Now we know that the Tau Ceti sun is the only star to have not been impacted by the Astrophage, however what is harder to understand is exactly why,” you continued, switching to the next slide, getting into a rhythm. It was easy when it was your whole life's passion. “Which is why our mission is going there, to better understand it…however I have some theories that could be useful to prepare our travelers for what exactly might be going on”.

There was first, the idea that the spectral output on Tau Ceti did not match that of what Astrophage was looking to feed on. However the spectral output is very similar to the Sun so it would have to be significantly off to be a problem, which was unlikely. Along with this, there could be some sort of natural defense, like dust specific to that atmosphere. However, the most exciting idea was that of evolutionary pressure…another lifeform that could be eating away at the Astrophage to keep it in balance. While so extremely far fetched, it was the one that made you the most excited to get the data back from the scientists on the Hail Mary. It could change everything that scientists know about that system.

“But the honest answer is, we don’t know until we get up there and bring back some samples,” you closed out. “Now we do have to be aware that this planet is around twelve lightyears away from us”. 

You were in a rhythm now, comfortable enough to really look up and around at the people in the room, several of them taking notes and nodding along. “Which means we are kinda looking at it in the past. The light we are seeing right now left Tau Ceti twelve years ago. Which is incredible, but there is the risk that this system is already gone or changed and we wouldn’t know until we get there”.

“However,” you flipped to your final slide. “The data we are able to gather from here points to strong evidence that this system is very alive and this trip will not only open doors for Astrophage but open up a world to an entirely new solar system that could be inhabited by human life”.

You clicked again, the slideshow coming to a close, “And, uh, yeah that is it from me…thanks guys”.

The sound of applause filled the room and you finally felt like you could actually breathe again rather than having to remind yourself to. Your face hurt from smiling, looking around the room, taking it in. You imagined your younger self, sat with her big telescope and book of constellations in a chair in the back. She is smiling, the biggest smile you have ever seen. She knew all those late nights would eventually pay off. Even after your original Tau Ceti lab fell through, even when you couldn’t find a job and ended up at an alien restaurant, even when your door got busted down by Eva Stratt…all those days led to this moment, right now. You wished you could go back and tell the girl in college that it would be okay, that she was enough, that one day she would do big things. But eventually she would learn and that made it all the more worth it.

And there was him too. You found his eyes in an instant, it seemed to be the first thing your body did. It was an old habit, one you could not break, nor really wanted to. He was beaming, an ear to ear smile, waving at you like you had just accomplished something so incredible and not just given a presentation. You made your way towards him, your bodies drawn together like magnets. However with each step you took, you felt like you were being pushed further and further away as people began to come up and shake your hand or ask you questions. Further and further until he faded away in the back of the crowd, now a lone hand stuck up above the crowd trying to get your attention. A thumbs up and you knew everything was gonna be okay.

----------

You were sitting at the bar, hot off the mic with Ilyukhina, who had forced you up against your will. The slight buzz in your head was enough to make you cave, you were sure that was the whole reason Ilyukhnia had insisted on getting you a few drinks at the start of the night. All of it leading to a horrific and yet kinda beautiful version of “Space Oddity” by David Bowie …it felt fitting.

She had bought you a final drink as a thank you, one you were nursing now, looking around the room. Grace had stayed late in the lab, normally you were there too, but the others in the lab had started to joke that you hated fun and you were determined to prove them wrong. You were fun! Very Fun.

You hadn’t been down to the bar before, didn’t quite understand how people could celebrate knowing what was approaching. You weren’t even on the ship and you could barely get your brain to settle at night enough to fall asleep. The room was full of people, singing, laughing, leaning into each other and finding comfort. It made you smile, maybe made this whole thing feel more real. It made the pit in your stomach worse. 

Your eyes caught on DuBois, a drunk Shapiro leaning against his arm, the two of them laughing together, in their own world. Your gaze lingered, unable to pull away. The way they could laugh togethering knowing that DuBois would be gone, not set to return. They had people here, people they were leaving and for the first time that really hit you. You tugged your gaze away, looking back down to the bottle of beer in your hands, half empty…it would stay that way. You couldn’t help it though, like it was a piece of art, you found yourself looking back at the two of them. She looked at him with a quiet kind of intimacy, like the two of them could know what the other was thinking without speaking a single word. They moved in a perfect rhythm, a messy, beautiful rhythm. They weren’t just leaving behind Earth, they were leaving behind their people…a chance at a normal life.

You were gonna be sick. Quickly you set your beer on the table and left the bar pushing through the groups of people singing until you were finally out onto the deck of the ship, cold wind smacking you in the face. You gasped for air, but no matter how much you took in, it still didn’t feel like enough.

The ocean was dark ahead, it was like an abyss and as you looked up, you were met with the bright stars, their shine almost too bright with no other lights around to dim them. You felt so small, and in the grand scheme of things you were, and it both terrified you and brought you some peace. 

Your grip was tight on the railing, it almost hurt. You needed to be stable, grounded, anything-

“Hey,” a familiar voice approached from behind, your body tensing before slowly relaxing. You didn’t have to turn back, just slightly nodded your head, an invitation. 

“Hey,” he repeated himself, this time softer, as he came around to your side, gripping onto the railing next to yours. “Earth to alien girl?”

“I thought you were working late?” you spoke up, anything to take your mind off earlier, get rid of the image of people who would never see each other again. 

“The lab gets kinda lame without a certain scientist analyzing everything I do,” he joked, but you could not get yourself to laugh. “I love your analyzing…that’s uh, that’s what I meant”.

It was almost a compliment, a small smile crept on your face that quickly faded out as another gust of wind hit you, the waves crashing below you. The two of you sat there in silence for longer than you ever had before.

“You okay?” he broke from the silence, turning his head to look at you.

You nodded, “Just cold”.

He nodded back, unconvinced you could tell, as he began to reach for his jacket regardless. You did not fight him on it, you were cold, maybe it would help. The chunky fox cardigan draped over your shoulders as he absentmindedly buttoned the top to keep it  from falling off of you. You mumbled a quiet ‘thank you’, bundling into the thick yarn. 

“So are you gonna tell me what is really wrong?” he spoke again, him still standing in front of you, adjusting the sweater so it covered you. You met his eyes, his head slightly tilting.

“Have you seen Dubois and Shapiro?” you finally allowed yourself to speak your thoughts into the air. 

He nodded, returning to stand next to you, leaning once again against the metal rails, "Yeah, they are definitely hooking up”.

“No,” You shook your head, “There’s something more, you can see it in the way they look at each other”.

The silence met the two of you again, the waves below you getting louder and louder, them in their own conversation. You wondered if the waves too had problems like this, if they thought about the world and what they were meant to be. You felt nauseous, you chose to blame sea sickness. It hurt even more because maybe you wished he would look at you like that. You supposed that was your last tether to Earth, last tether from making you lose your mind…it seemed to be him.

“I just cannot imagine knowing the person that you loved was gonna be gone in a few days, just out in space, floating…and you just never see them again. And you can’t even do anything about it” your voice slightly quivered, it was all too much. The several drinks in your system did little to ease your worry, you actually think it made it worse. “After I lost…after my parents, I mean, it took so long to be okay with not getting a goodbye. But they, I mean Shapiro gets to say goodbye. How do you even say that kind of goodbye knowing they are out there and will die, alone?”

You hadn’t realized how blurred your vision had gotten until you looked up, finding Ryland’s gaze, his eyes scanning your face. He had been there, in college, when your parents had passed, had sat up with you for weeks on end keeping you distracted, helping you stay on top of work when your world felt like it was ending. 

He carefully reached to wrap his arm around your shoulder, pulling you close to his side, a silent kind of comfort, the kind you liked. You rested your head against his chest, melting into his touch, allowing him to be strong for you for a little. It made your head hurt, all of this and him…there was always him.

You weren’t sure how long it was before he spoke up again, you had counted at least twenty crashes of the waves against the boat. It seemed to be the only thing you could think about without falling apart.

“Where do you see yourself after all this?” he asked, pulling you the little bit tighter against him. You were not in the headspace to dig into that, nor the question he was asking. Because where did you go? You were doing the thing you had worked your whole life for and then what? Back to the restaurant? Back to serving punny dishes named after planets and pretending you were fulfilled? 

“Probably go home,” you began, your voice thin, a little shaky. “Can’t keep the Extraterrestrial Eatery without their best server for too long”.

It was supposed to be funny but it came out dejected. A quiet laugh escaped him at your words.

“That’s not-”

“That’s exactly what it is,” you cut him off, sharper than you meant it to be, gaze set down at your shoes, at the hem of his sweater, at anything that wouldn’t make you think so much. “That’s my life, Ryland”.

Before this your life had been small, so miniscule…your dreams seemed so far away. Now you were here, it was all right in front of you. You didn’t even think you would ever get this close to studying Tau Ceti, all the resources right there for you to use. 

“This…all of this is everything I ever worked for,” you continued. “Being here, doing things that actually matter, and then it’s just gonna be over”.

The lab, Tau Ceti…him. You had grown so used to it, too comfortable and the feeling of it being torn away felt weird. But that was life, you would adjust, or you would try.

“It doesn’t have to be over,” he offered, trying to comfort the ache in your words. And it hit you, with a force that could have sent you overboard. Your head snapped up, looking at him, you opened your mouth to say something but stopped yourself. 

“I gotta go,” you spoke, in a daze of sorts, his words replaying over and over in your head.

“Hey, no. Come on” he too stood up, no longer leaning against the railing. “Talk to me, I am here! We could go sing karaoke or  something, be stupid, forget about it”.

“You hate karaoke,” you countered, already edging towards the stairs back down into the boat.

“Maybe I could like it?”

“I am gonna go to bed,” you turned back to him, lying through your teeth. You searched his face once more, took a mental picture of him standing right there, breeze blowing through his hair, glasses slightly tilted. He looked perfect.

“It does not have to be over,” you repeated, more to yourself than to him, before ducking down into the stairs and back down the hall. You were sure he called your name but your body could not turn around. It could have been the alcohol in your system. Maybe you were losing your mind. Maybe it was a little bit of both, but your feet carried you right to Dr. Stratt’s office.

You didn’t even knock, pushing open the door, her head snapping up from the silence. Her eyes slightly narrowed, you standing there in the doorway, trying to catch your brain up to your movements. 

“Take me instead,” you blurted out, desperate. 

The woman did not react right away, just studied you, like she was weighing something you couldn’t see. 

“I have nothing keeping me here”.

At least, almost nothing.  

“I have worked my whole life for this,” you continued, words spilling out of you before you could even really think them through. “Tau Ceti is my everything and now I am here. And I can do it, I want to do it”.

You swallowed, a shaky breath, so loud in such a quiet room.

“I need to”.

You stood there, feeling so small in the doorway, waiting for something, anything that would confirm that you weren’t making a mistake. Doctor Stratt just nodded her head, short and direct, like she always was.

“Go get some sleep Doctor,” and you just nodded back, your brain going completely silent for the first time that night.

--------

When the explosion happened a few days later, it was all the justification Eva Stratt needed. The day had been a mess, the loss of those doctors devastating, the power of Astrophage even more extraordinary . There was no time to even process though, as just as quickly as it had happened, Dr. Stratt had pulled you into a conference room. The plans moved fast, there was no time to delay with launch day approaching. You agreed as quickly as it was proposed, Ilyukhnia sending you small thumbs up from across the table.

The explanation was a blur. The coma, the four year trip, the three hours until you would have to be ready. Three hours before your life changed forever. That was all it took for everything to become real. But you nodded along. You had a duty now, not only to yourself but to Dubois and Shapiro and all of humanity. For Ryland Grace and his students, for the young girls out there dreaming of studying the stars. It would all be worth it, for them. It had to be.

You made your way back towards the lab, moving in a sort of hazy trance. You were allowed a few personal items to bring with you on the ship, most of the ones you wanted to bring were stored on the shelves of your desk. A picture of you and Ryland at a weird alien museum your class had gone to. A photo of you with your parents on move-in day at college. Your favorite book. A journal of your personal notes. And that stupid alien shirt.

You smiled, piling the items into a box you kept in the lab, when the door came rattling open. 

Ryland Grace came stumbling into the lab practically lit on fire, out of breath, a million emotions on his face. You knew it before he even spoke the words.

“What are you doing?” he asked in a panic, searching your face, his eyes shooting in every direction, him taking steps closer to you.

“I don’t-”

“No, you aren’t doing this,” his stopped you. “What are you doing? They can’t just take you?”

“I volunteered,” you countered back, simple, straight to the point…it would make it easier. You turned back to the box, finishing placing the items, scared what looking back at him would do. He was quiet behind you and that hurt the most. Maybe it hurt because of the quiet, maybe it hurt because he didn't have more to say.

“This is it for me,” you said, still facing the box, busying yourself with organizing and reorganizing the objects, anything to keep from facing the truth. “I have studied Tau Ceti my whole life and now I am going to see it, I am going to help save this planet”.

“You don’t know that,” he bit back. “I mean we can hope but you have no idea if this is even gonna work-”

“Beats the alternative,” you countered.

“And what's the alternative?”

That made you turn, you finally facing him. He looked so tired, a mix of confusion, anger, sadness… somehow all at once. 

“This,” you admitted. “Going home to that apartment, living through pictures of a better time while I work that shitty job. That’s not living, that is not how I am going to live!”

“So what, now you are just going off to die?” he was upset, you hadn’t seen him like this in a while, not since his theory about water had not been received well in college.

“I am saving humanity”.

“Oh wow, yes, real courageous of you,” he retorted, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Fuck you Ryland,” you said, quiet, cold. “You’re the one who brought me here”.

His eyes snapped to yours, the two of you just looking at each other, breathing.

“And it was supposed to be a temporary thing,” he bit back. “Empahsis on the whole temporary part of this all. I mean, just a couple of days ago you were saying how you couldn’t imagine people having to say goodbye like this.” 

You didn't have the heart to tell him that you hadn't planned on saying goodbye to him at all. It was wrong, you knew that, selfish, but you couldn’t get yourself to do it. He was your last tether to Earth and it was growing thinner and thinner.

“I have nothing here for me,” you spoke from the silence.

“You have-” and then he stopped himself and your head once again snapped up to meet his eyes.

“Say it,” you spoke, quietly, pleading for him to say the one thing that could make you stay. “Please Ry, just say it”.

Everything hung there, floating in the air  and he couldn’t, his head just slightly shaking in disappointment. The tether snapped right there. 

“Okay,” it was so breathy, barely even a word. You had no more fight left in you, no words left to say, nothing he could do that would change your mind. He was too stuck in his ways, too stubborn. You grabbed the box, looking at him once more, before you shoved your way past him and out the door of the office. It was quiet, too quiet down that hallway and when you looked back he was looking at you and you just gave him a smile, a small one…I will learn to forgive you.

You felt no regret.

Not when Eva Stratt thanked you for your sacrifice. Not when the doctors came in and prepared the injection that would put you under. Not even when the needle pierced your skin. You only did, just for a second, when you heard your name. When his voice called through the room, faint but desperate. It was muffled, your vision growing thinner and thinner, fading at the edges. The voice just grew quieter and quieter. A hand gripped tightly onto yours, shaking you more and more until you felt nothing at all.

----------

The first thing you realize is that you cannot open your eyes, like they are glued shut. You squeeze them a couple times, blinking over and over until they finally force themselves open.

So bright!

You should have just kept them close. You blink a few more times.

Then you realize that you can’t move, and not because your arms are stiff…no, there is a giant, what you could best describe as, plastic bag wrapped around you.

“Eye movement detected,” you  practically jump out of your skin at the sound disrupting the silence. The voice is clean, almost inhuman, as it once again repeats its previous statement. 

You try to move your arms, nothing. Your legs, nothing. Your fingers…just a little bit. The feeling of helplessness crashes all over you at once as you come to the slow realization that this was not just a bad case of sleep paralysis. 

Before you could even begin to make sense of it, a giant robotic hand swept across your vision, reaching down to unzip the human sandwich bag you were being trapped in. Now was your change, you shifted your weight as much as you could side to side until you rolled and made contact with the hard floor. A groan escaped you, the only sound you could really get out.

What the actual fuck?

There are tubes, connected in places you didn’t even know were possible. But nothing was as alarming as the realization that you had no idea where you were…no idea who you were. You looked around in a panic, trying to worm around off the ground, the robot hand stopping you in your place, lifting you off the ground and placing you back onto the table. You left out a mix of muffled objections, the most you could muster…your vocal chords were somehow still waking up. The computer acted before you could even protest, removing all the tubes, sensations you had never felt before and hoped to never feel again. At least, you assumed you had never felt them before. 

You saw it as your chance, the robot hand busy putting the tubing away, you jumping off the table and immediately crumbling to the ground. 

“Fuck!” the sound surprised you…you were making progress. Using the little strength and feeling in your limbs that you had, you scooted and crawled across the floor. Where was the door? Your head snapped back and forth, up and- There it was, on the ceiling, of course it was. The ladder connected to it seemed daunting but what choice did you have.

The robot spoke again, speaking a name, or you assumed it was, “detected, alive”.

It must have been your name, huh, you didn’t completely hate it. You continued to move across the floor, slow, scared that the robot arm might just yank you right back into the air. 

“Movement detected in the dormitory," the robotic voice spoke once again, causing you to speed up. It was trying to blow your cover, ruin your plan. Who knew, there might be a whole army of robots up there ready to get you. With each scoot across the floor, the feeling in your limbs began to find itself again. By the time you reached the ladder you were able to somewhat pull yourself up, each step getting harder and harder. You were tired, even if it seemed you had just woken up from some coma-like situation. You reached the top, banging the door over and over until it eventually popped up.

Reaching the top, standing on solid ground again was a feeling you had a new respect for. Then you turned your head…and you came to the jarring realization that you weren’t on solid ground at all. A giant window looking out into the great plane of stars…you were in space. You took slow, cautious steps towards the window, scared that you might somehow get sucked out. 

It was beautiful, you were at a loss of words for a reason other than your inability to talk. 

“Holy shoot,” a voice spoke from behind you, you stumbled slightly turning around, throwing your hand up in defense. “You are awake”.

“Am I?” you asked, genuinely…you wouldn’t have been shocked if you had died and were now in some weird waiting room. 

The look on the man's face was one of relief and that was enough to slowly allow your hands to fall back to your side. He seemed slightly more put together than you were, except for the glasses titled slightly on his face…though he made no move to readjust them. Maybe he was an alien and that was how they wore their glasses? Were you an alien too?

“Where am I? What is this? What…” you trailed off, once again catching a glimpse of the stars. The feeling was hard to explain, like you were floating in your own head, nothing there but faint blurry glimpses of something that you knew came before this. But no matter how hard you fought, you could not get yourself to decipher the memories. “I can’t remember what…”

He nodded as you spoke, and you knew he understood. You couldn’t understand, but your body softened slightly, your heart beat became steady and your breathing returned to something much more normal. 

“I, uh, I woke up a couple days ago…in that room,” he tried to explain, looking as if he too was piecing it together in real time. “Where do I even start…”

You stood there, helpless, waiting for something.

“We are in space,” you rolled your eyes at his words, pointing out at the window next to the two of you. “Oh right, well, just clarifying”.

“Anything else genius?” you didn’t mean to come across as on edge but you were confused and hungry and annoyed that your brain could not do what it was meant to do.

“We aren’t in our own solar system,” he spoke again, finally with some seriousness to his tone, you perking up and meeting his gaze. “We are, according to the map in the control room, in the Tau Ceti system about twelve lightyears away from Earth”.

He trailed off on the last word, giving you a second to absorb…but you were not a sponge and your brain was rejecting all of it. It made no sense, it was insane…but so was the giant robotic arm that picked you up earlier. 

“We were sent here for a reason,” he finished. “I just am not sure what exactly that is yet”.

He then paused, a long pause, like he was choosing his next words carefully, “we were sent in a group of four”.

“Oh,” you looked up at him, a feeling of relief washing over you, maybe they knew more, maybe they had been awake for longer. “Well, let’s just go pick their brains?”

“They didn’t make it,” he added, the words sitting heavy in the air.

You just nodded, unsure of what to say, scared of how it would all feel once your memories began to trickle back like his were. 

Would they have been your friends? Would the grief hit you later? The words sat weird in your stomach, even weirder knowing that there was a time where you knew everyone on this ship, there was a time where you knew why you were there. People who were your friends and now it was just you and strangers, chosen by some sort of fate to survive. 

“What happened to them?”

“What am I? Your magic eight ball,” he joked, a weak attempt at trying to lighten the mood…you hated that it made you smile the way it did. “Don’t fight it, I know it was funny.”

“Oh wait, the memories are coming back…” you pretended to think, before letting a blank look spread on your face. “You’re an asshole”.

He threw his arms in mock defense and you weren’t sure why but it all felt so natural.

“I found some vodka earlier,” he offered up, a shitty solution, a temporary one for sure, but a solution nonetheless.

“We brought vodka?” you paused. “At least we know we had fun”.

He laughed and you laughed too, anything to keep you from thinking about what this all was, what this meant and how exactly you get back to Earth from twelve light years away.

The man, who you learned was named Ryland Grace, took you around the rooms he had already spent time exploring. The labs…so you were scientists? Then the controls, and the space suits and the shelves of equipment that you could not even begin to understand. He eventually showed you a small closet, one containing boxes labeled with four names, pulling the one with yours on it down. 

In yours were some pictures…one of the two of you, so you were friends? Maybe? You should go with friends for now. Then a picture of two older individuals stood next to you, in front of the sign of a college…they must have been your parents. Did they know you were up in space? Did they send you up here? The thought made your head hurt so you stopped, tucking it away, it was for another day. There were too many questions floating as is. Then the shirt, a giant shirt that confused that shit out of you even more. You took it out of the box, holding it up to show him and the two of you just burst out laughing. 

“So I have bad taste in clothing?” you asked, trying to regain your breathing, him wiping away the tears from his eyes. 

“You should see some of the other clothes people brought,” and those words were just the start. Too much vodka flowing through your system, the two of you found comfort in trying on stupid hats and shirts packed throughout the ship. At some point you found yourself collapsed on the floor with him, laying there, the bag of alcohol laying between the two of you.

You talked for hours that night…well you assumed it was night, trying to hypothesize about who the two of you might have been. Were you smart? Where had the two of you met? Were you friends? Somewhere in your mind you felt like there was something else there. But you did not want to dig there, when you tried your head would just pound right back. So you laid there, accepting the silence of space, accepting that none of it made sense.

“I am glad I am not alone,” he spoke up from the silence, so quiet you might have missed it.

“I am not sure why, but I feel like we were meant to do this together,” you replied, turning your head to the side to look at him.