see you, space cowboy.

" no - i really can't blame you. " she'll give it a few more minutes before she jumps to her chosen seat. " truthfully i'm not a fan of space. it's cold and the stars are only beautiful for a while. you've seen one, you've seen most. " plants were her darlings, her children, and her study. her life was dedicated to what the green had to offer.

and if the stories about the lazarus plant were true - the implications were vast. it would be good to see it used to help colonies grow instead of housing their killers. the box is slipped underneath the couch and she huffs as she straps in. " were you part of the fight against terrormorphs? i swear i heard someone tell me a coe was helping someone else that was helping the colonies. hope no one at the rock hears. "

leaning  back  in  his  seat  more  comfortable,      he  continues  with  his  calculations.      he’s  nearly  finished  when  ivy  asks  her  next  question,      and  he  clicks  his  tongue,      watching  her  out  of  the  corner  of  his  eye  this  time  instead  of  taking  his  eyes  off  the  screen.        ❝        i  might’ve  been.      plenty  of  other  coes  out  there  to  help  with  those  terrormorphs.        ❞        his  lip  twitches,      though,      and  he’s  quick  to  relent.        ❝        but    …    yeah.      don’t  think  that  means  i  like  the  uc,      though.      still  can’t  stand  them.        ❞        he’ll  call  it  all  propaganda  before  he  helps  them  any  more  than  that.

❝        right.      hold.        ❞        he  glances  to  her,      makes  sure  she’s  strapped  in,      then  flicks  the  grav  drive  into  power.      once  it  warms,      they’re  off    the  space  outside  shifts,      brightens  intensely  as  they  stretch  through  hyperspace  and  across  the  lightyears  at  much,      much  faster  than  light  speed.    

but the woman searches for a peace she thinks they cannot maintain. they are starborn. they are not meant to be still.

she will not tell him that she had not seen his face in many years. as universes collide , time does not answer to human's understanding. how many times has she seen her birth? how about her death? " wow! " her face lights up as she puts her helmet on a side table. " i haven't seen you in quite a lot time, sam. or any version, of course. " they are the chosen sailors of the blackest sea sailing to temples erected in their honor. and perhaps these lifetimes have given her what a singular one could not: confidence, compassion.

but  then  she  says  the  words  ,      and  every  other  thought  he’s  had  in  his  head  vanishes  ,      and  all  he  can  feel  is  the  sudden  ,      blossoming  warmth  of  hope  in  his  chest  .      this  is  her  .      this  is  the  andreja  he  knew  before  .      it  has  to  be        but  she’s  so  different  …  more  confident  .      he  refuses  to  think  there’s  a  possibility  that  another  universe’s  andreja  and  sam  thought  up  something  like  that  .      that  can’t  be  the  case  .

˚ ✩ I throw wishes 𝐼𝒩𝒯𝒪 𝒯𝐻𝐸 𝒩𝐼𝒢𝐻𝒯 ━━━━━━━━━━━ and wait for the stars to 𝒞𝒜𝒯𝒞𝐻 𝑀𝐸 ✩ 。

it's her best defense, humor: she's coped with a lot using humor. she's learned through many experiences that sometimes humor isn't warranted, and abigail's SMARTASS remarks and unfiltered comments have landed her in hot water on more than one occasion — famously, no one in the crimson fleet, no one on the key could take a fucking JOKE, absolute fun suckers the lot of them. but sam? she can't figure out how sam hasn't throttled her yet. joking with sam is easy, he quips right alongside her, keeps her on her toes — there are even moments when she takes longer to respond because she can't think of anything witty. it's refreshing.

he leans against the rail as the elevator descends further, and she looks back at him. he calls himself OLD FASHIONED, and abigail steals a moment to fully take him in, eyes raking up and down his person. old fashioned: he's a regular space cowboy, like most of the akila men who traipsed through the astral lounge, but something strikes her as different. she supposes it's that COE lineage, but abigail knows the wild west; she grew up farming on new homestead, there were plenty of them who kept to the backcountry earthly ways, hell, she earned a lot of money leaning into the BUCKLE BUNNY aesthetic on neon. something about sam is different — something about sam is real. old fashioned, she hums silently, mind traveling to the old earth documentaries she used to watch: rock n' roll stars with girls who'd throw their bras on stage. “ i don't have a pen and magazine, but i do have a marker and my — actually, nope, uh . . . i'm not gonna say that one out loud. oh look, our floor. ”

a  marker  and  what  ?      a  marker  and  what  ???      sam’s  so  caught  up  trying  to  hear  what  she’s  about  to  say  that  he  can’t  help  the  massive  ,      heavy  disappointment  that  settles  across  his  back  and  shoulders  like  a  weighted  blanket  .    even  so  ,      he’s  still  grinning  ,      because  he’s  pretty  sure  he’s  just  pegged  what  it  is  she  was  going  to  say        jumping  to  conclusions  isn’t  a  thing  he  likes  to  do  often  ,      but  for  this  ,      he  feels  it’s  entirely  warranted  .    really  ,      maybe  even  required  !        and  it’s  a  funny  image  he’s  got  in  his  head  .    somewhere  on  her  body  ,      mayhaps  :      anywhere  is  good  enough  for  him  .

but  he’s  not  going  to  feign  disappontment  .    mostly  because  he’s  feeling  pretty  confident  about  himself  now  .    leave  it  to  abigail  to  fuel  his  ego  .    it’s  not  as  if  he’s  been  vying  for  her  attention  or  compliment  .    not  really  ,      anyways  .    it’s  not  a  goal  he’s  working  towards  …  or  anything  .    she’s  playful  with  everyone  ,      and  he’s  not  special  .    but  in  the  moment  ,      he  thinks  he  is  .    that’d  be  something  to  talk  about  ,      if  cora  or  the  rest  of  constellation  were  here  .    but  none  of  them  are  ,      and  he  surely  won’t  be  teased  to  shreds  over  the  fact  that  he’s  practically  strutting  out  of  the  elevator  and  onto  their  floor  ,      a  glint  in  his  eye  .

❝        yeah        yeah  ,      i  think  they’d  think  you’re  a  pretty  strange  woman  if  you  up  and  tell  them  somethin’  like  that  ,        ❞        he  says  with  a  lighthearted  laugh  in  his  voice  .        ❝        ain’t  gonna  lie  ,      but  knowin’  the  uc  ,      they  might  put  you  on  some  sort  of  watch  list  for  a  comment  like  that  .        ❞        he  pitches  his  voice  into  his  throat  ,      waggling  his  fingers  :      ❝        ‘famed  pilot  abigail  cormac  uses  friends  for  own  gain  only  .    treats  her  friends  like  a  spacer  in  an  airlock  .  ’  that  means  in  a  bad  thing  ,      by  the  way  .        ❞        he  pauses  for  a  second  to  think  ,      and  then  continues  .        ❝        ‘and  some  of  her  friends  know  that  and  let  her  do  it  anyways  to  them  ,      which  begs  the  question  ,      why  in  the  universe  would  someone  in  their  right  mind  let  her  do  that  ?’  well        ahem  ,      i  can  answer  that  .    it’s  ‘cause  they  want  to  .        ❞

the way his voice softens has dolores looking at him , the worry in his eyes was obvious , and a part of her felt terrible for turning up on his doorstep like she had , and scaring him with her appearance . but who else could she have possibly turned to ? seeing the way he was looking at her just gave her more reason to be thankful that cora was asleep in the other room — dolores would not want the young girl to see her in such a grisly state . . .

she watches him as he settles beside her , and pops open the med kit . she already knew how much it would sting , but she honestly didn't care . she had gone through worse just surviving long enough to turn up at sam's apartment , so a bad sting would feel almost like a relief to her .

at first , she nods . of course she would let him take care of her — he was the only person she could trust enough to let take care of her . the fact she would have strip herself of her clothes did cause slight hesitancy in her , but she still smiled at him . ❛ doctor coe has a nice ring to it . ❜ dolores jokes with a pain-filled chuckle . ❛ but yes , i'm okay with that . it has to be done , right ? ❜

with her bottom lip between her teeth , she slowly adjusted herself to sit up a bit more , her hands shaking slightly as the adrenaline continued to make its way out of her system . with a small pause , she avoided sam's eyes as she slowly lifted her tattered and torn t-shirt , it slowly revealing her bruises and cuts , and burns , like the old earth quiz shows showing off the grand prize to the contestants .

❛ looking pretty ugly , eh ? ❜ she can barely force the smile as she also sees the results for the first time . she knew it must have been bad , but it didn't half knock her self-esteem just by looking at it . . .

looking  pretty  ugly  .      if  he  could  say  anything  in  the  world  to  her  without  any  fear  at  all  that  she  would  take  it  then  wrong  way  or  lose  what  little  pride  she  must  be  feeling  ,      with  her  body  broken  and  bartered  and  bruised  and  bleeding  and  her  clothes  left  to  the  wayside  ,      he  would  say  ,      simply  ,      that  anyone  with  sense  could  see  that  she  was  dying  .      maybe  not  in  the  complete  way  that  most  people  consider  dying  to  be  ,      but  enough  that  lack  of  proper  care  might  leave  her  incapacitated  for  months  .      or  years  .      the  possible  death  of  whatever  physical  life  she’d  come  to  know  ,      then  .

of  course  ,      he’s  always  been  dramatic  .      a  storyteller  for  the  ages  :  he’d  learned  that  in  order  to  be  liked  on  akila  ,      he’d  have  to  become  a  great  storyteller  .      so  he  had  .      she’s  not  actually  dying  .

but  he  works  as  if  she  is  .      it  doesn’t  take  him  long  before  he’s  wetting  a  cloth  with  sterilising  alcohol  and  wiping  around  her  wounds  ,      washing  the  blood  and  sweat  from  the  skin  of  her  arms  and  shoulders  and  neck  .        ❝        when  i  was  workin’  for  the  trade  commission  ,        ❞        he  says  ,      as  he  moves  her  hair  out  of  the  way  ,      leaning  around  to  get  at  the  bruises  and  open  wounds  at  her  sides  ,        ❝        i  got  caught  in  a  firefight  so  bad  i  thought  for  sure  i  was  gonna  die  .      and  i  almost  did  die  .        ❞        he  folds  the  dirty  cloth  ,      tossing  it  to  the  floor  and  grabbing  a  tube  of  ointment  out  of  his  kit  .      he  squeezes  some  onto  his  fingers  ,      leans  over  again  ,      and  dabs  lightly  on  her  wounds  .        ❝        to  the  point  where  i  couldn’t  make  it  up  for  myself  .      the  rangers  were  the  ones  who  got  all  caught  up  in  it  ,      before  anyone  could  actually  finish  me  off  .      weeks  of  that  pain  only  made  me  wish  they  had  .      i  wouldn’t’ve  been  like  you  ,      wouldn’t’ve  looked  for  anyone  to  help  me  ,      i  don’t  think  .      so  .        ❞