in the violent heart

She swirls her coffee around in its mug. It reads 'World's Best Dictator' and it was a gift from DuBois and Shapiro for her birthday. It is one of her most prized possessions.

Outside, Anke yelps loudly as her sister chases her around the garden. Eva smiles, leaning sideways to watch. The two run faster and faster, their brother Coen joining in after a while, all of them yipping noisily.

They are growing well.

Perhaps it is not the best idea, keeping them all so close to the house. The land under Eva's name is vast and there are many animals in the sanctuary that need much more constant care, that are much more in danger of extinction, that are more peaceful to be around on the few days of rest she gives herself.

Eva Stratt does not care. She is too fond of them and she allows herself this one small fondness, in the grand scheme of things.

She takes a sip of coffee. It is not her preferred one; she had been in line for it, stood in the doorway of a shop it took her two hours to drive to, opened her mouth and-

Said the wrong order.

She had driven back with her mind silent, shocked at herself. The cup with the coffee she didn't like rattling in the cup holder beside her. Hadn't been able to even nod in acknowledgement to the keepers as she passed them by.

And now she sits. In a silent room, drinking the wrong coffee, thinking about the day that marks the last hope humanity has for the team of the Hail Mary to send them a message.

She hopes that they managed it. That they somehow miraculously found a cure in that short span of time, that their pilot had gotten them through all the problems deep space could throw at them, that their engineer could fix every problem their hastily built ship threw at them, that their-

That their scientist who had blazed through discovery after discovery about Astrophage biology as easy as breathing had done it again, one last time.

Eva Stratt takes a sip of the coffee and exhales shakily.

The door creaks open- she whips her head around with bated breath, trapped in the sense memory of Baikanour, where there was only one officer nearby enough to so brazenly walk in, and for a second she can see a flash of yellow, a yipped hello, a crooked grin-

Charilaos pushes the door open the rest of the day with his head and trots in.

Eva slowly relaxes. Ducks her head down and chuckles, tears coming to her eyeline but not falling. She clicks her tongue and watches Charis perk up, tail swaying as he jumps up to her side, sniffing at her hair and ear curiously as she runs her hand through his fur.

He is the quietest of them all, with her, always willing to curl up by her side instead of running around with the rest. The first animal they acquired, back when Leclerc's guilt had first spawned the plan to maintain spaces for wildlife and the list of species for translocation were being drawn.

"Just because they're common doesn't mean they don't deserve protection!" She still remembers him protesting. "They're more likely to slip to the cracks, in fact-"

"Your biases are showing through!" Dr. Lokken had shouted from the other end of the table.

Dr. Ryland Grace had flipped her off with the same hand that had the fox bracelet and Eva Stratt had quietly written it down.

"I am sorry," She says abruptly. Charilaos lifts his head at her voice and stares at her with his blue eyes, clever and trusting at the same time. "I am sorry for what I did to you."

The fox stares back at her, uncomprehending the apology meant for his namesake. He licks at her hand.

("I was the one who vouched for them," Ryland grumbles next to her. "I should get to name him."

"Your names are terrible. And astrophage took half of Vulpecula's stars two decades ago- it is not even a constellation anymore, and didn't even look like a fox when it was."

"Mean to me," Ryland pouts, tossing a pen across the desk at her. "Fine. If not Vulpecula, then how about Oranssi?"

"Is- is that the word orange in Finnish? Get out of my room at once, who even gave you your doctorate-")

Charilaos looks at her now, lovingly. Grace of the People, is the only thing she could call him in the end.

"I-" Eva's breath hitches and it is only then that she realizes she is crying. "Grace, I am sorry-"

Charis whines and laps at her face as she finally breaks into sobs, on the day when the person who she was once closest to, the one who knew her inside and out, the last person on the whole planet who could bear the sight of her- has finally run out of food twelve light-years away.

She sobs for a long time, and sobs harder when the fox kit that Ryland was supposed to watch grow up whines at her sorrow and tries to burrow himself into her arms. Comforting her, just like his namesake did, even though she is undeniably a monster, was undeniably the reason why the fox could never go home.

The sun has set by the time she stops crying. Charilaos has fallen asleep in her arms.

Eva sighs, thumping her head back on the couch. She has to leave tomorrow- there are already whispers that the first lawsuit will be upon her shoulders soon as governments settle in for a thirteen year wait, and she must begin the process of keeping her project underground but running, while dodging the efforts to put her in a jail cell planet-wide.

She has to say goodbye to this room and the sanctuary. The animals and the keepers who respected her, the moors and the wind.

But Charilaos comes with her, wherever her path may lay now. She is not strong enough to leave him behind twice.

Eva sighs, staring out the window at the stars beyond. Locates Tau Ceti with ease, and imagines her apology and her grief travelling across all those solar systems to the coffin of the only person she called home and misses him like her own heart.

She wonders if he'd ever forgive her. There is no way to know- nothing except an endless self-torture lies down that path and she is too busy a woman to grieve for long.

But still. In the darkness where she has allowed herself one hour of fear and loathing and disgust and sorrow- she admits that she would give anything to not have to wait for 13 years that she may not survive to know.

-

And then two years later and eleven years early, the Beetles splash down in the Atlantic covered in foreign metals and filled to the brim with Astrophage that the Hail Mary Crew did not have to spare- and Eva Stratt is woken up and told that they are also password protected by some ridiculous question about constellations that do not exist, and the governments of the world have agreed to call off their manhunt if she comes to help open it.