[Insert Something Cool]

Dick:

Moving in with Dick Grayson has had its hiccups. 

He has the oddest sleep schedule known to man, for one, and every time he tries to cook anything beyond what a 13 year old can, it seems to end in smoke and sheepish apologies. 

Collectively, you now have more coffee mugs than you do forks, which speaks more to the amount of cutlery you’ve curated than it does to decorative mugs. 

Nothing however, in the two weeks you’ve been living together, could have prepared you for this. 

Nightwing stands in your bedroom, frozen in shock after having climbed through your window. You stand on the opposite side of your bedroom, the baseball bat Dick keeps by his bed clutched in your hands. 

“Woah, woah, I’m Nightwing, I’m one of the good—“

Nightwing is real?

“What the hell are you doing in my bedroom?”

And where the hell is Dick when you need him?

Nightwing raises his hands in surrender, a slightly-familiar sheepish grin on his face. “You’re not gonna hit me with that, are you?” He pulls out one of his own escrima sticks and tosses it on the bed, “at least use that, it’ll hurt more.”

You blink, unimpressed. “You’re not serious, are you?”

“Dead serious.”

Despite your trepidation, you lean forward and snatch the stick off the middle of the bed. You turn it over in your hands, examining it. 

Dick breathes a sigh of relief, happy his distraction worked. He’s dead tired, and he’d gotten sloppy on the way home when all he could think about was getting out of his suit and into bed with you. 

He didn’t even think about what he was doing until he’d slipped his second leg through the window only to be met with the sound of you shouting. He’d by lying if he said he wasn’t at least a little proud at how quick you were to get out of bed and start threatening the fully grown vigilante in your room. 

“If you’re done yelling,” he says cautiously, “I’ll just be going, I’m clearly in the wrong apartment.”

“The wrong—“ You laugh incredulously, “you don’t double check before breaking and entering?”

“Hey, you try doing this in the dark in the middle of the night.”

Your eyes roll. Dick’s never wished more that he could reach out and kiss you. 

“I’ll be taking that,” he says, reaching over the bed and grabbing his escrima stick from your hand. “Uh, maybe don’t tell anyone about this.”

“Embarrassed?”

“Something like that.”

And before you can say anything else, he’s maneuvering back through your window and disappearing into the night. You latch it tightly behind him before crawling back into bed, your heart still racing.  

Grabbing your phone, you start typing out a message to Dick. You’ll never believe what just happened to me. 

Jason:

You thought he was a myth. Some silly tale passed around from criminal to criminal like parents warning their children of the bogeyman. But if he’s a myth, then why is he standing in your living room?

 It was hard enough to come to terms with Batman being real, but seeing Red Hood in person is almost as absurd as if Santa Claus himself had broken into your house.

You hold your breath, pressed against the wall, the glass of water you’d snuck out of bed to grab clutched tightly in your hand. Your hands are shaking, your knees are shaking—fear wracks your whole body. And then the glass slips, shattering across the floor and spreading glass and water everywhere.

Any hope Jason had that you didn’t see him dies in his chest. Fuck.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” he says, and for once, he wishes his voice was just a little softer under the mask. 

“T-then why—“ You take a breath, trying to quell your fear. “Why are you in my boyfriend’s house?”

Jason wishes he had a better answer, something beyond ‘I’m a fucking idiot who didn’t think before I broke into my own house in full costume while you were there.’ He comes up empty.

“Jason is…” His own name sounds foreign on his tongue, “he left something here for me. He didn’t say anything about you being here.”

At the sound of your boyfriend’s name, you suddenly remember the glass of his you just broke and the water seeping into his nice floors. You drop to your knees, cupping your hands and trying to stop the spread of the water.

Red Hood is crossing the room in the instant, footsteps heavy so as not to startle you. “What the hell are you doing?” 

“Cleaning, I—I can’t believe I broke that.”

“You’re going to cut yourself,” he sighs, going to the kitchen and grabbing the roll of paper towel he keeps on the counter. He’s semi-grateful for your panicked state keeping you from questioning how he knew where that was. “Here, let me.”

And before you can argue against it, Red Hood starts soaking up the water with paper towel. When he’s satisfied the floors are dry, he gets to work on the glass, gloved hands carefully picking up every last shard and wrapping them in another piece of paper towel.

You can only stare in utter disbelief as Red Hood—the notorious anti-hero, this broad man who’d broken into Jason’s house—cleans up your mess as if it’s the must mundane thing in the world.

“T-thanks,” you stutter out, rising to your feet as the masked man discards the used paper towel in the trash. 

“Was my fault you dropped it anyways,” he mumbles out. “Tell Jason I’ll come back a different time.”

With that, he’s disappearing back into the shadows of the room, leaving back through the window he came from. You stand there, still shaking slightly, utterly shocked by what just happened.

You’re still standing there twenty minutes later when Jason runs through the door, having ditched his gear off with Bruce. He’s frazzled, a hand running through his messy hair. 

“Fuck, sweetheart, what are you still doing up?”

“Your—“ You swallow, looking at your boyfriend with equal amounts of excitement and fear. “Your friend stopped by.”

Tim: 

You’re watching Netflix when you hear the distinct scraping of your window opening. Illuminated by the light of your tv screen, you can just barely make out the face of Red Robin, sleepily sliding a leg through your window.

You blink, almost entirely unphased by the sudden appearance of the vigilante. “Um, are you here for me?”

His head snaps up, mouth falling open. Shit. Tim had been so tired, so out of it, he hadn’t even realized his brain was on auto-pilot to your apartment until you’d said that. Shit. 

He’s not sure whether he’s relieved or not by how unphased you are by a vigilante breaking into your house in the middle of the night. 

He scratches the back of his neck. “No..?”

You hum, your own tired brain working to interpret this information. “Okay,” you say simply.

“Okay?”

You nod, like it’s the simplest thing in the world. Tim fully commits, letting himself drop into your room and lean against your windowframe.

“You’re not gonna ask why I’m here, or..?”

“Are you here for something nefarious?”

“Well, no—“

You yawn, “then I don’t care. Do what you need to do.”

He mentally makes a note to talk to you tomorrow about stranger danger and what to do if someone breaks into your house in the middle of the night. For now, though, he’s slightly grateful for your nonchalance. He glances around your room, taking in the plushies you keep on your bed and the tv playing at half-volume, displaying a show a little too familiar to him.

“Shit, are you watching Voltron?”

“Rewatching,” you admit tiredly, finally sitting up in bed. “Are you a fan?”

And Tim suddenly wonders how this has never come up in all of your conversations with him. How is he just finding this out as Red Robin of all things?

“You could say that,” he laughs slightly.

Then you’re patting the bed, inviting him further into your room. Tim knows he shouldn’t, knows he has a dozen other things to look into tonight and yet, he finds himself settling in on the side of your bed he usually sleeps on to watch Voltron.

“What are you doing up so late, anyway?” 

You shrug, “was waiting for my boyfriend to text me but…”

Guilt pangs in his chest. He hadn’t realized he forgot to text you back until right now, his phone feeling heavy in the pocket he’d tucked it into. Tim kicks off his boots and fully leans against your bedframe.

He really shouldn’t be doing this. He knows it’ll only lead to more trouble for himself both as Robin and Tim Drake and yet, he can’t bring himself to leave.

“There’s snacks on my kitchen counter if you’re hungry. Soda in the fridge.”

“You’re feeding me after I broke into your house?” “Figured you work up an appetite running around the city,” you slide back down into bed, lazily splaying your limbs across the mattress. “Could probably use the extra fuel.”

Tim can only smile, “I guess I never thought of it like that.”

Wally:

Wally doesn’t realize his error until he’s skidding to a stop in his own living room only to be met with you, mid handful of popcorn, looking utterly shocked. Well, fuck.

He’s exhausted, lungs burning from all the running he’s done tonight, and the blood trickling down his side is definitely staining the carpet Iris and Barry had gifted in when he moved in. Double fuck.

“Are you—“ You tentatively rise to your feet, looking around as if you’re the one that’s in the wrong place. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” No.

Your eyes scan him, from the big logo on the middle of his suit to the hand he has clutched over the tear on his side that is definitely dripping blood all over Wally’s floors. You start towards him, equally concerned as you are flabbergasted. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’m—“ He takes a breath, a weak puff of air leaving his lips, “clearly in the wrong house.”

“You’re bleeding,” you repeat, and you’re so close now you can very visibly see the cut on his side. Nothing too deep or serious, but painful looking nonetheless. “Do you—I think my boyfriend has a first aid kit around here somewhere.”

Under the sink, Wally thinks. But he wouldn’t dare let you get too close to him right now, not when he’s sure you’ll be able to sniff out it’s him every moment. His heart pangs as he thinks of how awkward a conversation that’ll be.

Before he can say anything, you’re disappearing down the hall, coming back with the first aid kit lifted above your head like a trophy. Wally can’t help but smile a bit. You’re so damn cute.

You order him to sit on the couch, laying down a towel you’d stolen from his bathroom to keep him from making a mess. “I’ll try and be quick,” you promise. “But not all of us have super speed.”

“As long as it means you won’t maim me.”

You’re careful as you patch him up, gentle touches along his skin as you clean and disinfect the wound. Wally sits there, resisting the urge to pet your head and kiss your forehead. 

It’s a few minutes of oddly comfortable silence before you’re pulling away with a grin, gently patting the wound. “There,” you proclaim. “It’s not perfect, but it’ll feel a little better, at least until you can leave.”

“Thank you,” he says, rising to his feet and twisting his core. “It feels way better already.”

“Um, before you go,” you smile sheepishly. “Do you think—could I grab a picture with you?”

He raises a brow under his cowl.

“It’s just, my boyfriend is the Flash’s biggest fan, and I think he’d just really love to see proof of you in his apartment.” Your eyes widen slightly at the look on his face, “but if you’re too busy, I totally get that too. This is silly, actually, sorry for even—“

The Flash grabs your phone out of your hand, wrapping an arm around your shoulder and pulling you into his side. He’s quick to snap the picture, throwing up a peace sign before handing your phone back to you.

“Um, be careful out there.”

He laughs, “always am.”

He offers you a two fingered salute before he’s disappearing from your living room, leaving nothing but a trail of lightning in his wake. You smile at the picture on your phone, Wally is gonna freak.

dc masterlist | navigation

conner kent, superboy:

that girl is corrupt | could you raise her to love me, maybe? (34.6k, two-parter) — Conner Kent knows you're poison — the thing is, he can't just bring himself to stay away from you. (Or: your mother never bothered to teach you how to love someone, so Superboy takes the matters into his own hands.)

mark grayson, invincible:

fighting the hating the boyfriend final boss(es) (14.8k) — Meeting the parents is always stressing. It especially is so when your dad's Batman, and your mom is what many would consider a terrorist cult leader, while his dad is an alien come to conquer Earth and his mom is... weirdly normal. (Or: four times you meet each other's parents individually, and the one time they all meet.)

↳ batsis!reader in the variants' universes (hcs) — How's Batsis!Reader holding up in the other Invincible universes?

peter b. parker, spiderman:

the cure (tbd) — Why can't you come stitch me up? Why can't it ever be enough? It's not enough — all because my head is full of poison and my heart is full of doubt. (Or: five times you and Peter Parker try to make up your minds about each other, and the one time you actually do.)

benjamin "ben" tennyson, ben 10:

us against the world — just me and you! (tbd) — Everybody's saying that you're no good for me, your friends all swear that you've changed but I still keep it OG! (Or: Damian is the first one to guess that something's going on with you — but it's only with the help of the others that he finds out what, or better, who, you're hiding from them.)

al ghul!batsis tag

You're one of the most capable people he's ever met, strong, reliable, smart. Pretty, his mind so helpfully supplied.

You might not have been part of the Titans with him, preferring to work alone most of the time, but Wally trusted you wholeheartedly. He trusted you could look after yourself. If anyone could make it through an apocalyptic event, it was you.

Still, for every second that passed and Wally didn't catch a glance of you, his anxiety grew.

Where were you?

He sees Dick start to approach him, undoubtedly to check up on him, but Wally can't take it anymore. Mentally, he writes a note to apologise to his best friend later, but first, he needs to find you.

He tries your comms several times, the dread reaching a crescendo in his being with every failed attempt to contact you, every street he runs through that's bare of your person.

Wally's about five seconds from calling for a League-wide search party when he finally stumbles across you. He's by your side in an instant, heart hammering in his throat and tears threatening to well in his eyes and spill down over his cheeks.

You're slumped unconscious, eyes closed and sickeningly still as you lie on your side, cheek pressed against the grimy alley floor. He calls your name, nearly sobbing in relief when his fingers find the faint but steady thump of your pulse.

Dust, debris and blood cover your person until he can barely make out the colour of your suit, nor can he locate the source of the blood or even if it's yours.

He doesn't dare move you, wary of potential neck or spinal injuries, but his hands still frantically search for injuries. Distantly, Wally's aware that he's calling for help, but he can barely hear the sound of his own voice outside the blood thundering in his ears.

It's with panic threatening to swallow him whole and one shaky hand cupping your cheek that you come to, voice hoarse like you'd been chewing on gravel.

"Wall—" you break into a hacking cough that leaves you gasping for air, each pained sound striking Wally like a physical blow, "Wally?"

"Yeah, it's me, honey. Don't— don't try and speak, just stay still. Help's on the way, okay?" His voice is as shaky as he feels, but he tries his best to hold it together, for you.

"Honey? That's'new," You hummed quietly, eyes slipping closed again, body unintentionally relaxing with the knowledge that Wally was by your side.

"I'll call you whatever you want, just keep those pretty eyes open for me, yeah? Where are you hurt?" He tries to keep his voice level, professional, like he's done hundreds of times before. But this isn't one of those hundreds of times— this isn't some stranger in front of him now— it's you.

"Side. M'side." You whimpered, raising a shaky hand to your ribs, pulling your hand back to showcase the crimson blood staining your glove.

"That's— ok, just let me—" He pulls our hand away, replacing it with his own, pressing down on the wound even when you cry out in pain..

"I know, I know it hurts, I'm so sorry, baby."

"M'so tired, Wally." Your words come out closer to a whine, a half-aborted sob catching in your chest from the concoction of pain and fear swirling in your veins.

"I know, I know you are, just—" His chest rattles with a cry of his own as his thumb rubs soothing circles over your cheek, "just hold on, help's nearly here, just a few more seconds."

You're worryingly silent, prompting Wally's chest to start heaving in panic again, "hey, hey, hey, eyes on me, remember?"

"Wally?" you rasp, hazy eyes focused on him as best you can in your condition, "I really like you. M'sorry we didn't have more time."

"Don't you dare. Don't— don't give up." He pleads, tears sliding free from his waterline and soaking his mask.

"We—we have time, all the time in the world. Just please..." Wally trails off, words failing when he realises you can't hear him anymore.

"No, no, no, no. Please. Please don't do this to me." He hauls you into his arms, burying his face in your neck as he rocks back and forth.

"Flash!" Suddenly, there are hands gripping his arms, prying him away from you, even as he screams and thrashes.

"No, what are you doing? She needs me! Let me go!"

"Flash, Flash, calm down. Wally!" His vision clears enough to register that it's Dick standing in front of him, gripping his cheeks and forcing Wally to focus on him rather than you.

"Dick, I—she—" He stammered, unable to hold the sobs at bay any longer.

"I know, buddy, but she's going to be ok."

"Promise?"

Dick hesitates a little; he knows he shouldn't, but Wally sounds so small, looks one step away from shattering completely, "I promise. Look, they're taking her to the watchtower, let's get you cleaned up and then we'll go see her, ok?"

"ok."

The second Wally gets to the watchtower, he's speeding to the infirmary, settling into a chair at your bedside and refusing to leave. Even when Dick tries to get him to clean up, the best he can manage is a wet wipe over the speedster's face like he's cleaning up a messy toddler.

"Wally, seriously, she wouldn't want you to—"

Dick's attempt at an intervention goes out the window the second you let out a small groan and your eyes start to flicker open. Wally's on his feet instantly, chair scraping across the floor as he leans down to cup your face.

"Mm, Wally?"

"Yeah, honey, I'm here. I'm right here." He let out a relieved laugh, tears welling in his eyes again.

"I feel like shit, don't let me do that again." You groaned, and Wally's laughter turned somewhat hysterical.

You'd never get the chance to. You'd be lucky if he ever let you out of his sight again.

GARTH

He's exhausted. Beyond exhausted, really. His entire body is one big ball of pain, and all Garth wants to do is collapse face-first onto the nearest surface and sleep for a month, at least.

Roy claps him on the back, but Garth barely hears a word he says, too busy scanning his surroundings, hoping to catch even a glimpse of you.

Finally recognising Garth's not paying the slightest attention, Roy pulls back with a concerned look. "Hey man, you good?"

"He's looking for her." Donna wriggled her brows suggestively, letting out a giggle as Garth's cheeks flushed pink.

"Who?"

"You're so oblivious." Donna rolled her eyes, shoving Roy for his obliviousness and giving Garth the opportunity to escape.

Donna wasn't exactly wrong. Instantly, he's on the lookout for you, pushing through the crowd of heroes and rubble until he finds himself in a park of all places.

The space is somehow mostly untouched by the carnage, the soft, green grass tickling the soles of his feet that mindlessly carry him through the park. It's quiet, peaceful, the sort of place you'd gravitate towards, probably the reason he'd ended up there.

You were similar in that vein, outsiders. Even with the Titans who'd become his family, Garth still often felt just a twinge off kilter, like he didn't quite belong.

Yet you never made him feel like that. If anything, being in your presence was the most he'd ever felt at peace, like he was where he was supposed to be.

You were special, you were—

The sight of a familiar glove, lying across the ground in his peripheral vision, has Garth's heart stopping. Adjusting his trajectory, his panic crescendos as he rounds the tree blocking his view, only to find you curled up against the roots.

Dropping to his knees, he calls your name desperately, tears already welling in his eyes as his hands cradle your face.

"Mm, Garth?" You grumble hoarsely, blinking lethargically up at the hulking mass of panicked man suddenly in your sunlight.

"You're... You're ok?" He exhales, heart still pounding against his chest in panic, threatening to burst from his chest.

"Wha? 'Course I am."

"I thought—" Garth swallowed shakily, "I saw you lying here and I thought you were hurt, or—"

"M'fine." You reassured, bringing a hand up to hold his, "just tired. S'been a long day."

"So you decided to what? Take a nap on the ground here?"

"Exactly." You nodded sagely, like you couldn't see a single thing wrong with your decision.

"You couldn't make it to a bed anywhere?" He sighed exasperatedly even as his gaze turned fond.

You're already shaking your head, eyes sliding closed again as you relax against the grass. "Too far. Now shhh, it's sleepy time."

With a swiftness and strength belying your rampant exhaustion, you've managed to pull Garth down into the grass next to you, swinging a leg over his hip and snuggling into his chest.

His poor heart, already run ragged from the scare you'd unintentionally given him, starts hammering against his rib cage once more. Muscles rigid and tense, it takes Garth a few minutes to calm down, hesitance lacing his movements before he eventually wraps an arm around your waist and tugs you closer.

You don't speak again, but you let out a pleased-sounding hum at the gesture before your breathing evens out, and you fall asleep on his chest just like that.

He's a little envious of how simply and quickly you succumb to sleep, when, despite his own exhaustion, Garth doubts he could get a wink even if he wanted to.

Not that he's too upset with the prospect. For now, Garth's more than content to let himself enjoy the moment, memorising the feel of you in his arms and, for the first time, truly allowing himself to imagine a future full of moments like this.

KORIAND'R

The threat is neutralised, the fight long over, but Kori can't combat the nervous, frenetic energy buzzing beneath her skin.

She can't find you.

You always check in, even if you're dead tired and on the brink of death itself, you always manage to contact her, to let her know you're ok. But it's been hours since she heard from you, and even as she tries her best to quash the negative thoughts, Kori feels as if she's on the brink of a breakdown.

It wasn't like you were in separate parts of the globe either; you'd been fighting alongside the Titans in Bludhaven, slipping seamlessly into the team dynamic even if you weren't technically a member yourself.

Were you alone? Hurt? Scared?

She knows she shouldn't entertain such thoughts. You were probably fine, likely held up doing your part to help in the aftermath. You always were.

Still, that anxious, uneasy pit in her gut grew until it weighed on her like a physical burden. Kori's aware she's spiralling, that she needs to slow down and take a breath, but she just can't.

Not when you could be dead. You could be dead, and she'd have been none the wiser. You could have died, alone and in pain and —

"Starfire!" At the call of her name, Kori turns, "There's someone trapped under the rubble here!"

She's moving before Roy finishes speaking, forcing herself to push all thoughts of you to the side. Right now, someone needed her help, someone—

Kori's knees falter, causing her to stumble a little as Roy exclaims in shock.

When had she landed?

She'd been flying, that much she remembers, but then Kori had seen the arm poking out from beneath the slab of concrete wall. Even covered in dust and coloured a sickening grey, Kori could recognise the pattern of your suit.

A wail builds in her throat, and suddenly she's flinging slabs of cement like they weigh nothing.

When had she moved?

Her hands were tearing through the wreckage with a single-minded focus, an agonised sob wracking her frame as the debris cleared enough for her to see you.

"Oh shit," Roy whispered in the background, before he too was moving, sliding to his knees beside a hysterical Kori as the alien pulled your limp form into her arms.

"Oh shit," he hissed again, when the form of a small child you'd evidently been shielding with your own body was revealed.

Miraculously, the kid stirs seemingly completely unharmed, peering up at Arsenal as the archer swoops him up easily, scanning for injuries as he heads for the improvised medical tent.

"Raven, Kori needs you." He grimly calls, trying to put aside his own grief for the sake of the child you'd sacrificed yourself for.

That's how Raven finds Kori, wailing into your hair as she clutches your body like you'll evaporate if she relaxes her grip even a fraction.

"Kori, I'm..." Raven trails off, resting a consoling hand on her friend's shoulder, only to pause in surprise when she doesn't quite feel the nothingness she expected from you.

"Kori! Kori, she's alive!" Raven exclaimed, already conjuring her magic, kneeling opposite you and the distraught Tamaranean.

Kori's too far gone to hear a thing Raven says, her cries turning to soft sniffles when you suddenly lurch in her grasp, bursting into a fit of hacking coughs.

"What—What happened?" You wheezed, sluggishly attempting to orient yourself.

"You were squished." Kori half laughed, half sobbed. "Raven unsquished you."

You take a few moments to register her words, letting the oxygen flow into your aching lungs. "You know, if this is the reception I get after a life-threatening injury, maybe I should do it more often."

"Don't even joke about that!" Kori hissed, tears still marring her cheeks, before she leaned down to kiss you, pouring every ounce of love and desperation into the action as you melted against her.

So worth it.

DICK GRAYSON

Dick's pretty sure something in his arm is broken, if the dull ache that's steadily increasing and the limb's uncooperative nature is anything to go by.

He's never been more thankful for the adrenaline coursing through his veins, especially when he's still searching for you; he can't afford to be waylaid by something as meagre as a broken arm.

"Help!" A small voice catches his and every hero in the vicinity's attention, but Dick's the closest, and instinct has him moving to the little girl's side in a blink.

She’s hysterical, holding onto her baby brother as they both blubber out words Dick can hardly decipher. Taking her hand, Dick lets the girl lead him through the streets as fast as her little legs can take her.

"S’all my fault!" She hiccuped, "She got hurt saving us."

Before Dick can ask for my information he catches sight of what she means. It’s you. Slumped against a wall with a sickening amount of blood staining your side. He can’t tell if you’re breathing and you don’t even flinch when he frantically calls your name.

Scooping the girl and her brother up in his arms, Dick quickly closed the distance, setting them to the side as he checks your pulse.

It’s clinical, robotic movements that are second nature to him by now. Even then, there’s a minute tremble to his hands as Dick mentally prepares himself for the worst.

At the feel of gloved hands on your face and neck your eyes spring open, dazed but still alert enough to recognise the man crouched in front of you.

Dick nearly swears in relief before he remembers the little audience sniffling at his side.

"Nightwing? What… where are the kids? Are the kids ok?" You try to sit up, looking around in alarm as Dick firmly tried to keep you in place.

"They’re here, they’re both fine, not a scratch. Why don’t you worry about yourself for once?" He tries for casual but misses the mark so spectacularly that even in your near delirious state you can hear his concern.

"I look that bad huh?" You try to joke, only to wince at the stinging tug on your injuries.

"Never, you’re as gorgeous as always." The conviction in his voice takes you aback, leaving you speechless as your sluggish mind fails to articulate a response.

You’re suddenly very aware of how close he is, of the gentle way his hand cups your cheek, his thumb rubbing absentminded circles into your skin.

Leaning into his touch, your eyes slip closed without your permission, a wave of exhaustion consuming you, weighing down your leaden limbs.

"Hey, none of that now. Keep your eyes open, you hear me?" Dick snaps, shaking you slightly when you fail to comply with his demand.

"M’sorry birdie." You hum mournfully, unable to even open your eyelids that suddenly feel heavier then ever, "m’trying, m’just so…tired…"

"No! Don’t you dare give up on me. You’re ok, you’re gonna be ok, you’re —" His voice tapers off, as tears suddenly blind his vision and his chest constricts.

He’s vaguely aware that the little girl beside him has started to cry again, but Dick can’t even find it in himself to comfort her, not when he’s barely holding it together himself.

A firm hand clasping his shoulder brings him back from the brink of a complete panic attack and Dick turns to stare frenzied and wide eyed at Star Sapphire.

"Nightwing, I can heal her, but I need you to calm down."

"You can?" He doesn’t dare get his hopes up but already his breathings started to come easier as he stares at the heroines determined face.

"I can, but I need you to focus on your love for her."

Had she been anyone else Dick would’ve scoffed, but it’s easy enough to comply with the request.

Loving you comes as easily as breathing to him, if anything, he’d be unable to not focus on his complete and utter adoration.

Dick watches with bated breath as Carol’s hands hover over your side, a bright pink light caressing your form as she sets about healing the damage you’d sustained.

Your eyes flicker open, alert and confused as you crane your neck to stare at Star Sapphire and then him and Dick nearly sobs with relief, pulling you into a desperate hug that has you squeaking.

He holds you gently, unwilling to exacerbate and lingering injuries, but tightly nonetheless as he buries his face in your shoulder.

"I nearly lost you." He croaks, "You nearly —"

"Are you boyfriend and girlfriend?" A little voice suddenly interrupts him, and Dick pulls back swiftly, suddenly aware of their audience, cheeks flushed slightly.

"What?"

"The pink lady says you're in love. I think you should get married and have babies." The girl nodded knowingly.

Dick takes a few seconds to ponder her words before turning to you with a grin, "Well, you heard her."

You roll your eyes, but your face is unbearably fond as you place your hands on his neck. "Take me to dinner first"

"sure." he mumbled, a little stumped from the sudden affection. "you okay? need anything?"

"i'm good." you spoke quickly, in a high pitched, breathy voice, and let out a particularly sharp exhale, as you were still trying to regain your breath. "it's just that i still need to get used to this, you know?"

wally heard you laugh softly at your own words, but his heart skipped a beat at the implications behind them, and he was glad that you could not see his surprised expression, was it something you were actually willing to go through with? "what do you mean?"

"it's just that sex with superspeed can be a bit rough, you know?"

"right..." he trailed off, but decided not to press on the matter, he'd just have to wait some more to find out if you were actually planning on having sex with him often enough to end up getting used to his powers. "sorry about that."

"that's fine, i like it." you tightened your arms around his neck. "just need the support right now."

"sure." he was still feeling a bit awkward, but he wrapped his arms around your waist and held you close to his chest anyway, allowing you to relax into his arms and your breath to even out. he felt the soft rise and fall of your chest against his own, your warm skin against his, and heard your heartbeats slowing down to finally synchronise with his.

he was sure the moment felt a lot more intimate than anything you'd agreed on. still, wally decided to allow himself to take in your warmth rather than push you away, it'd been you who'd started it after all and he was not going to be the one to stop you. you felt tired, you wanted to be held, and he was the one responsible for it, so he shouldn't deny you of that, right?

one arm tightened around your waist while the other snaked up your back to tangle his fingers in your hair. he liked having you this close. even after the activities you'd been engaging in prior to this moment, he felt a lot closer to you like this. it felt nice, maybe he shouldn't be enjoying the softness of the moment as much as he was.

he stayed still for a few seconds, taking in your scent and listening to your soft breaths fanning against his neck. he wasn't sure if you were planning on falling asleep like that but he would let you if you needed to.

he pressed a kiss to your temple and hoped that it wasn't too much for you, hoped that you wouldn't be able to feel all the love he had for you, that he was sure practically radiated off him while he held you like this.

Mark let's out a snort of laughter, perching up and resting his weight in his elbows, the edge of his sweater raising the tiniest bit and you catch a peek of a neat, dark little happy trail that disappears beneath the fabric of his clothing.

"I can guarantee an orgasm." Mark boasts. "I'll bet anything."

"If I don't cum, I want you to grow a full bush and then, wear cycling shorts for a week."

Your wager has Mark's lips pursing, chocolate pools moving towards the ceiling as he weighs his options. "Oddly specific but okay." Mark shrugs. "And if you cum, anytime I learn a sex trick, I get to try it on you. Unless you get into a relationship but," he snorts, "let's be realistic."

The insult has you flinging the magazine across the bedroom, hitting Mark in the face with the spine and he winces, although, you know it's more out of habit than from actual feeling.

"It's so weird." He mumbles. "I don't feel your abuse anymore."

Mark's grin is cocky.

"Oh, Marky," you coo, lifting yourself from his desk chair and you cradle his face in your hands, an action that's so familiarly condescending but Mark can't help but lean into your warm palms, "you're only unaffected by the physical abuse. I can still hurt you self-esteem."

Mark's eyes narrow at you. "Try it." There's a challenge in his voice that you just can't ignore. Especially when he's looking at you like that. Brown eyes trained intensely on you, black strands tousled ever so slightly from the long day he's had.

"You have feminine hands." And you swear, the way his expression falls is an aphrodisiac in of itself before you straighten up.

"It's easy to hurt your ego, Marky." You hum. "Heroes get a lot of hate if they do something wrong. But lucky for you, you have years of experience."

"Yeah," Mark hums, "no one's a bigger dick than you."

𓈒⋆⑅˚₊୨💛💙୧₊˚⑅⋆𓈒

"It's so weird that you're losing your virginity on your parents' anniversary." You hum quietly, carefully traveling along the sides of Mark's bedroom, attaching the LED light strips along the cornish.

"Don't make it weird." Mark grumbles, stepping out of the bathroom, wrapped in a fuzzy robe as he towel dries his hair, messy strands poking in every direction and he watches you with amusement. "Their anniversary is like, the only time when they travel far enough that I can't hear them. So.... It's the only night I can do it."

"They probably don't want you to hear them fucking." You hum, almost absentmindedly and when Mark gags, you let out a laugh and your foot slips from the backrest of his desk chair, and you slip.

But instead of meeting the carpeted floor in an unceremonious crash, you instead crash into Mark's chest, his arms wrapped around your midsection and your knees tucked up. And he dips his head low, head tilted.

"You okay?"

And if your pussy didn't have a heartbeat before, it does now. The way he looks down at you, his expression so soft, brows creased in concern and his lips. So soft and inviting, the scent of mint lingering in the air and you nod your head.

"Mhm," you mutter quietly, "I'm okay."

Mark sets you on your feet, before examining where you had stuck the lights and he nods his head, a grin cocking at his lips.

"Yeah, this is a mood setter."

"Can I open my eyes now?" Mark grumbles, arms folded over his chest but his eyes are closed, lashes fluttering against his cheekbones and you let out a hum.

"Go ahead." You mumble and he allows his eyes to open and drink in the sight of you.

Freshly showered, steam still rising from your skin and in his T-shirt. The faded Batman shirt ends just below your crotch, your ankle socks aren't even matching and your hair's tied into a bun that looks so half-assed.

You look nervous. Eyes lowered to the carpet and Mark reaches forward, large hands bracketing your hips and his thumbs brush over the trimming of your panties. And he pulls you to stand between his thighs, his head tips back and his chin comes up to rest on your sternum as he stares up at you.

"We don't have—" "I want to." You interrupt him, your hands raising to rest on either side of his neck, thumbs brushing along his jawline. "I want to." You repeat quietly, looking down at Mark.

The plan is to lose your virginities before the gap year is over. Because you'd both much rather make a mistake with each other than with strangers.

"Move your hand."

Mark lets out a snicker of laughter, your thighs tossed over his and his tip notched at your entrance, and he can barely think.

Not when he knows how tightly you felt around his fingers, sucking him in with such a neediness, not when he saw the way your brows knitted into the prettiest little pinched expression when his tongue lapped against your clit just right.

"I looked at the logistics of it and it's not gonna fit."

You state, and those pretty brown eyes roll at your words, before Mark slaps your hand away, his hand wrapped around the base of his cock and he taps it against your clit. Just to watch the way your stomach caves in with an unsteady breath.

"It'll fit." Mark reassures. "Trust me, I'm a doctor."

And you let out a laugh, your body slumped against the mattress and you snort.

"No you're n—nahh..."

Mark watches the way your head tips back when he pushes his tip past the ring of muscle, and he watches the way your eyes shut, brows knitting into a pinch.

"You little... Fuck.."

You breathe out, your expression a little pouty frown and Mark moves a strand of hair out of your face, leaning forward and as he presses a kiss to your forehead, he pushes another inch inside.

And as you gasp, his lips press against yours, and Mark swallows each moan and groan of pain, his forearm supporting his weight while his other hand grips your hip, thumb brushing over the protruding bone of your hip and he tilts his head to deepen the kiss.

"You're so warm..." Mark murmurs into the kiss, but he keeps his hips still, slotted between your thighs and he feels your gummy walls pulsing around him, trying to get used to the intrusion. And Mark lifts his head, kissing the apples of your cheeks.

"So I'm big, huh?"

He teases and watching as your pained expression gives way to an annoyed expression, eyes bored and brows furrowed.

"Just fuck me already."

You grumble.

And Mark pulls out, until just the rosy tip of his cock is poked into your sopping cunt, before he slowly pushes back into you.

The stretch burns, and you can feel the way your nails dig into your palms and you take a deep breath. His hips are pressed against yours, and you can feel that painful pinch behind your navel.

"Are you inside yet?" You question, peeking up at Mark through your lashes, enough to watch the way that dorkish grin spread across his face as he readjusts his position, leaning forward and shifting himself to rest more comfortably.

"Ha-ha, very funny." He rolls his eyes, his voice just a tad breathy and his hands move, thumbs moving your pussy lips out of the way, spreading them so he can see the pinkish flesh that swallows him whole.

"Mark!" You hiss, swatting away his hands, and covering your folds from his view. "What are you doing?"

"They do it in porn!" He defends, moving his hands to rest on your hips instead as his hips slowly begin to roll against you, the soft strands of his happy trail tickles your neglected and swollen clit, and you take a shaky breath.

"Those people are ass naked." You deadpan. "You've never even seen my feet."

With one hand, Mark shifts the covers and lets out a bark of laughter at the sight of your socks, still on your feet. And he reaches back for your ankle, lifting your leg and he places a soft kiss on the inside of your foot, causing your walls to flutter around him.

His kiss is warm through the cotton, a lingering show of affection as his hips thrust, cock nudging your insides to his shape. And he lowers your foot.

"Put your foot on my chest. I wanna try something." Mark hums quietly, resting your sock covered foot on his chest. And you let out a snort.

"My pussy isn't a skate park. You can't try things you've never done." You huff, but you comply, keeping your foot against his brawny chest, even as Mark shifts you into position, straddling your one thigh and resting your foot on his chest.

And when he moves, your foot slides off his chest, instead, resting beside him. And a snicker slips past your lips at the frustrated expression on his face.

"Please participate." Mark grumbles, moving your foot, and resting your leg over his shoulder, ignoring the way a laugh ruptures from your lips.

Kiss-swollen and pouty lips curling into a wicked grin.

"Bro said 'please par—'... Shit..."

Your eyes roll back in your head when the divot of Mark's tip presses against your cervix, pressing a sloppy, slick kiss against the plug as he grinds into you, leaning forward and pressing his lips against the curve of your jaw.

Mark isn't even fucking you anymore.

He's slowly rutting into you, pressing adorning kisses to the side of your face, sucking marks into the supple skin of your neck while he slowly fucks an orgasm out of you.

Kissing you deeply, his hand grasping the fat of your hip while the other massages the plumpness of your thigh, pressing a warm kiss against your calf before going back to swallowing your honeyed moans.

"... shit, you're gonna make me come..." You breathe out, your nails dragging lines down the expanse of his muscular and slightly damp back, the pain and pleasure mixing into a delicious concoction that has Mark burying his face into your neck.

Inhaling the scent of you.

"Mhm.... 's okay, baby, come for me..."

His voice is husky, a low timbre that makes your stomach knot and you whine when you feel that wave of ecstasy crash over you, waves breaking on the jagged rocks of your being and you're lashes flutter, tears brimming on your lower lashline because you're just so... Full.

Mark perches up, wiping the teardrops from your cheeks and he looks down at your hazy and flushed expression. His gaze lingering on your lips, wet and rosy, and before he even registers, your hand is on his face.

"Stop making such heavy eye contact." You whine. "You're gonna make me catch feelings."

And a laugh tumbles from his lips.

"You know, I have your entire future in my hands right now." Mark states quietly and when you hum, quietly mumbling a 'how do you mean', he simply presses a kiss against your pulse.

"I could fuck a baby into you right now." Mark breathes out.

"And you'd thank me for it."

A week later, you are staring at the report in your hands, in a decidedly different location than your office.

It stares back at you.

You lose the staring contest, because right there, right at the top of the page, in the subtitle, it says ‘research conducted by Dr. Ryland Grace, United States,’ and you have to blink a few times to make sure that you’re reading it right. She did it, then. She read the paper, and she found him, and now he’s named astrophage and discovered how they reproduce. He is probably on his way to the aircraft carrier, right now, because when Stratt decides she needs someone on the project, they are scooped up and dumped here immediately.

This means two things: one, this will be the first time you’ve seen him in years; two, you are now wondering if he’s even thought about you in that time. He must have, because you do. Because you have the scar, and the pictures from the photobooth that have still managed to stick around in your purse, and the hole he left in your life.

--

science camp – between fifth and sixth grade

The university’s campus is so huge, you think, walking toward the welcome hall. Your mom had tried to come with you, but you had insisted that you could go by yourself, because you’re about to go into middle school and are therefore basically an adult. So you handle registration yourself, getting your nametag with a little blue dot on it, and you listen carefully as the front desk person tells you where you need to go.

Thankfully, it’s just across the open courtyard at the center of campus. You’re early, so there’s only a few other kids sitting at the color-coded tables, including one blond boy at the blue table. When you sit down next to him, you stick your arm out for a handshake—again, almost an adult, pretty much—and smile widely. “Hi. I think we’re on the same team.”

He turns to you and blinks at your hand before shaking it. Then he glances down at your nametag, looking at the blue dot, which matches the color of his eyes. “Cool! I’m Ryland.”

“I know. I can see your nametag.”

“Oh. Right.”

But you tell him your name, anyway, because he already looks a little embarrassed, and you think you heard your dad say once on a phone call that team chemistry was important for success. “What grade are you in?”

He puffs out his chest a little. “Sixth.”

“Wow. Do they really give you lockers when you get to middle school? I’ve been wondering about that, and if I should buy decorations and stuff.” You’d already drawn it all out: a cute little chandelier, a fluffy rug for the bottom, some magnets. But your mom said she wouldn’t take you to get any of that until you actually knew if you’d have a locker.

Ryland seems to deflate as you ramble. “…Well, I’m going into sixth grade, so I don’t really know.”

“Oh, that’s even better! It means we’re in the same year.” Your smile widens, and after a moment, his own returns, if a little shyly.

Some of your other teammates filter in, and you quickly decide that you like Ryland the best, so you stick to his side throughout the day, and each day after that. He’s crazy smart: he has the best ideas for the derby car, already knows stuff like air resistance and velocity, and he figures out pretty quickly that you’re the best kid on the team at art, so you get to paint the car. At lunch, in one of the college’s dining halls, he tests how high he can make his fro-yo—college is so awesome, and you can’t wait until you’re old enough to go—and he always shares it with you.

Your team wins the derby race at the end of the week of camp, which wasn’t really ever in question. Your mom makes the two of you pose for a photo as the other kids start leaving with their parents. At first, this is super embarrassing for you, but then Ryland gives you his mom’s email so he can have the photo, too. Science camp next year can’t come fast enough.

--

As you wheel the cart of lab equipment across the hangar bay, wincing every time one of the wheels catches on a divot in the floor, you wonder if Stratt is having you do this because she suspects that the two of you know each other. Well. Used to know each other, at least. Because why else would you have that paper, for what other reason would you send it to her in the first place? You can’t help but think this must be some kind of strategy or ploy. Or maybe she’s just trying to be nice, have him greeted with a familiar face—you don’t know, you don’t actually interact with her that much.

This is the last trip, anyway, and then you can go back to doing actual work, the kind that you are qualified for. Now that the astrophage could be reproduced, the issue of fuel was solved, and the engineering team could move forward with the design of the Hail Mary. You’d already drafted some preliminary sketches; these would probably be scrapped, because it was in such an early phase, but you liked having the visuals. Maybe you’d throw together some concept art of the living quarters, try to make it a little homey. It was the least you could do for the astronauts who would die there.

As you’re contemplating this, there’s two sets of footsteps that stop just outside the plywood and plexiglass room, and a familiar voice speaking. “Thanks. Er, right, Mandarin. Can’t say I ever picked that up. A thumbs up is universal, right?” It is not, but you don’t say so, because you are trying to busy yourself with the test tubes so you don’t have to turn around. “Oh. Hi. Wow, I see I have you to thank for the lab. It looks great.”

You clear your throat, because the anxiety simmering in your gut has started to crawl up your windpipe. “No problem. Let me know if there’s anything else you need.” You’re not sure why you even say this, because this really isn’t your job, and you don’t even know if you’ve set some of the equipment up correctly.

“Thanks. Uh—I’m Grace, by the way. Dr. Grace. Dr. Ryland Grace.” A thought pops into your head, then, reflexively: he still never landed on what he wants other people to call him.

It’s probably time to rip the band aid off, you think, get this over with and see if he even recognizes you, so you turn around. “I know.”

He just—freezes, then, staring at your face, and his mouth opens and closes a few times before he settles on, “What?”

“I might look a little different,” you say, as disappointment floods through you, “but—”

“No, that’s not. I recognize you, obviously I do, I just—I really was not expecting that it would be you, when you turned around.” His hand flexes by his leg, and he takes a step forward, and you think he might be about to hug you, but he stops at the look on your face. “It’s. Wow. This is just. Wow,” he repeats. “How are you? How have things been? Why are you—here?”

He falters on the last word. It’s as if he’s realizing that of all the questions he just asked, that is somehow the most obvious one, when it should be the other way around. “Well. I’ve sort of been involved in the design and construction of almost every NASA mission in the past decade. So. I kind of know how to build a spaceship. Which is the whole point of this project.”

“Right. That’s—yeah.” Ryland—because he will always be Ryland to you, because that’s how he introduced himself when you first met, all those years ago, at that blue table—looks immensely uncomfortable. There is a tiny, petty part of you that is glad for it.

“And I’ve been good. Just got promoted to associate professor last year.”

He nods and sticks his hands into the pockets of his cardigan. “I know. I saw that.”

Oh. He’s been keeping tabs on you, even after you gave up on doing the same for him. Then why didn’t he just call, or text, or email? Show up on your doorstep, like he did—“I see,” you finally reply, if only to stop your own train of thought. “Well, I’ll leave you to it. Welcome aboard, Dr. Grace.”

You start to walk away, and you make it out of the doorway when his voice stops you. “It’s still Ryland. You’ve never—I’m still Ryland.”

“Alright.” You don’t turn back around. “I’ll see you around, Ryland.”

--

science camp – between eighth and ninth grade

It’s the last day of science camp, ever, because it’s only for middle schoolers, but any sadness you might feel about that is washed away when Ryland tells you he’s going to Central starting next year, because you’re going to Central next year, too. And you have a phone, now, and he puts his number in so you can send him your class schedule when they come out.

Right now, you’re supposed to be at lunch. You are not.

Ryland takes his nametag off and stuffs it into his pocket. It says ‘Ryland’ this time, because for a couple years he decided to go by ‘Ry,’ but apparently he has now concluded that nicknames are a little too childish. You’re secretly glad about this, because you like his full name, to the point that you almost never called him Ry in the last two summers.

You’d like to point out to him that taking the nametag off isn’t really going to make the two of you any less obvious, because this is still a college campus, and you are very clearly soon-to-be high schoolers that are here for summer camp. You still take yours off, too.

“Score,” he says, smiling widely at you as the doorknob to the lab turns. “I knew they didn’t keep it locked.”

You have to tilt your face up a little to look at him. It’s weird, because you’re used to being taller than him, but a growth spurt must have hit over this past year. “I still really don’t think we should do this. We’re missing out on the fro-yo,” you whine.

Despite your hesitation, you still follow him into the room. “This is way more fun, though. I want to actually do stuff without everyone else crowded in here and getting in the way.” He hands you a pair of goggles and some gloves. He turns to you when he has his goggles on and gives you a gloved thumbs up. It looks a little funny, because his black, chunky glasses are kind of smushed underneath the plastic. It was a bit of a surprise to see him with those this year—he told you he had been getting headaches, and it turns out he badly needed glasses to look at things close-up. “And I can ask my mom to take us to get ice cream.”

“Sweet.” The two of you had hung out a little bit outside of camp, but nothing too crazy. Mostly it was meeting at the library or getting dinner with your moms after a day of camp. Ice cream, though—that felt special. The sort of thing that qualifies as a date. You can’t help the small smile that spreads on your face, the heat dusting your cheeks. “So—what do you want to do?”

Ryland takes a glass beaker out of the cabinet and then rustles around for some reagents, because evidently none of the people running this camp thought to lock anything up. “Actual science, not the kid stuff they’ve been showing us. I watched a video about titration the other day, I think I’d like to try that.” He sets up the beaker and the burette as he keeps talking. “Don’t worry, this is a super standard thing people do in labs. I won’t burn the building down. It’s just about using a titrant to figure out the exact concentration of the analyte. But I want to practice now, so I can get a headstart on being a world-famous scientist.”

You try your best to follow along and watch carefully as he pours two different liquids into the beaker, and then sucks up a third with the burette. “What’s that?”

“Hydrochloric acid.”

“Isn’t that a little—dangerous?” You ask nervously, though you don’t move away, still watching his hands carefully set up the titration.

He scoffs. “Hydrochloric acid is in household cleaners, I’m pretty sure. It’s used all the time for stuff like this in labs.”

You shift, a little anxious. “Just. Be careful, please.”

Ryland looks up at you then and smiles widely. It’s annoying how nice his teeth are, because you’re stuck with braces for at least the next two years. “I’m always careful.”

This is completely untrue, but you stay quiet and watch as he slowly lets the liquid drip in, and then gasp when the liquid in the beaker changes color. “Did you do it? Is that supposed to happen?”

“Yep. First try. I knew I could do it.” He goes to turn his body fully toward you, and then his arm hits a bottle, and neither of you realize that the bottle does not have a cap until there’s liquid on your arm.

Holy cow, it hurts, it hurts really bad, and you have to bite down on your cheek to keep from crying out as he drags you over to the sink and starts running water over it. “Oh my gosh, I am so sorry, it’s okay—I think I got it off in time—are you okay?”

You nod as tears start to spill down your cheeks. The skin is red and blistering, but the water is helping to dull the pain. “I’m alright.” Somehow you manage to laugh, and he looks at you, extremely confused, probably thinking that you are delirious from the pain, or something. “Of course I’m the one who gets burned.”

His face is red, and he almost looks like he’s about to start crying, too. “I am really, really sorry. I can’t believe I forgot to put the cap back on.”

“It’s okay. Maybe it will be a cool scar?”

He sniffles a little as he pulls your arm out from under the stream of water. You wince as the pain returns in full force. “I’m not sure. It doesn’t look super deep? I am so sorry.”

As he turns your arm carefully to inspect the burn, you notice that the pads of his fingers are also blistering. “Ryland, your fingers.”

He lets go of you to look at them. “Oh, yeah. I think I accidentally touched some when I pulled you over here.” Oh. Maybe that’s why he’s also been tearing up. When he looks back up at you, he smiles, his eyes a little glassy. “Maybe we’ll match.”

The two of you do not get ice cream later, because you both end up needing to go to urgent care, and your parents are pissed. The doctor tells you that it’s second-degree, and that you’re lucky, because it should heal on its own, but you’ll likely end up with a scar. Ryland fares a little better, he tells you over text: he’ll have some raised bumps, but they’ll eventually go away.

--

Dozens of schematics are scattered across your desk, and your fingers are starting to cramp from holding the pencil. Technically, you could just do this digitally, but you like the feeling of drawing it yourself, the tactile experience of bringing what will most likely be the pinnacle of human engineering into life on the page.

The main focus of the engineering team’s meetings so far has been the fuel tanks. This is rather boring, because you could probably design those in your sleep. But you’ve been dutifully sketching them out anyway, calculating how much material you would need, where the tanks would be connected to reduce stress on the ship and allow for the astrophage to be funneled to the engines. Apparently, they were bringing on a Russian scientist to make these, which meant there was only so much the team could do before that was figured out.

You’ve turned to your little side project in the meantime: designing gold plaques to go in the ship, akin to the Pioneer and Voyager plaques. The ship itself would be a message to any intelligent life that might stumble upon it, but it would be even better, in your mind, if there was some purposeful communication there. You’re looking over the sketch of human evolution when your stomach grumbles. You should really eat, but—you’ve been staying away from places where groups of people gathered. It feels childish, to avoid him like this, but you tell yourself that you’re just saving the two of you from the awkwardness of dealing with the fact that whatever place you used to have in his life is gone.

You settle for pulling a granola bar out of your bag and munch on it while you keep thinking. There should definitely be a plaque about the astrophage, but you would need to consult with some of the biologists on this to make sure the visual was accurate. Maybe you could—

A knock on the doorframe of your lab makes you jump. “Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?” You say, reflexively, and your lips pull into a small smile, despite the fact that it currently feels like you’re being punched in the chest at the exchange.

You swivel around to see Ryland standing there, balancing two trays on one arm. “Radon.”

“Radon, who?”

“Radon, man,” and he stretches out the word ‘man’ like a caricature of a stoner might, grinning widely. “I brought you lunch.”

“Why?”

He walks in and sets the trays down before dragging another chair over and sitting next to you. It reminds you of science camp, and high school, and getting dinner together after a quiz bowl tournament, and studying in the diner in college, and—and you force yourself to stop thinking about it. “I haven’t seen you in the mess hall at all. And then I asked around, and someone said you usually eat at your desk. So.”

You look at him for a few moments. His hair’s gotten a little darker since grad school, and he’s finally figured out how to grow a little bit of scruff out. It looks good, you think idly. Same wire frames, though. Once he figured out those looked the best—not that it was a very high bar, because the thick black ones he started with were pretty bad—he never changed the style. “Okay,” you finally say. “Thanks.”

“And.” His fingers drum on his thigh as he looks at his tray, then around your workspace, before finally settling his gaze on you, nervous and unsure. “I wanted to say sorry.”

“For?” This is not a real question. This is you letting that small petty thing inside of you win.

His mouth twists, just a little. You hate the expression on him. “For not calling. Or texting. Or—you know. Anything. I’m sorry.”

You don’t really know what to say. It makes something twinge in your chest, because it used to be that you never had to think about it, that you could say anything to him. And it feels ridiculous, too. Plenty of people fell out of touch with childhood friends. Sure, it felt like your friendship had been a little bit stronger than that, lasted longer, had been more, especially when. When. “It’s. I accept your apology.”

“And I know you’re—wait, what?” He blinks at you in surprise.

“It’s fine, Ryland.” You shrug and start unwrapping the plastic around the fork and knife. It is decidedly not fine, but you are trying to be the bigger person here. “You had a lot going on.”

He’s silent at that, just another thing that doesn’t fit into the picture you’ve kept of him in your mind. You’ve never known him to not have something at the ready, a witty response or a longwinded explanation, and it’s another reminder that you don’t really know him at all anymore. “I. That’s. Alright.” It seems he doesn’t know how to have this conversation, either. He looks at you for a little while before slowly grabbing his own utensils, and then his mind changes halfway through the motion, because then he’s picking up one of the schematics on your desk. “Wow.”

“What?”

The paper is slightly trembling as he holds it. Probably the adrenaline crash from coming in here, you think. “These look amazing.” He glances back up at you with a small smile. “You kept drawing.”

You try to return the expression as best as you can. “It comes in handy. I’m somewhat decent at it.”

“I know you are,” he says quietly. “I remember.”

--

tenth grade

God, Ryland is taking forever to come pick you up. At least it’s nice out, as you sit on your front porch. The autumn foliage has set in nicely. You pull your phone out to snap a quick picture—you had to beg your parents to buy you one with a halfway decent camera and a keyboard that doesn’t require hitting each number a billion times—since it looks like it would be good watercolor practice, you think, maybe a piece you could do for your art class. Because that was really the only time you had for art these days, what with robotics, and quiz bowl, and all of the studying you have to do for pre-calc on top of your other classes.

He finally pulls up in front of your house. You sling your backpack on your shoulders and bound down the steps, carefully opening the passenger door—if you pull too hard, the casing of the handle flies off—and slide in. “Took you long enough. I was afraid the thing had fallen apart on your way here.”

Ryland waits for you to buckle up your seatbelt before driving away. He gives a gentle pat to the dashboard. “Be nice to the old gal. She’s trying her best.”

You fiddle with the aux cord. It takes some adjusting, because it’s actually connected to a cassette tape, and the wiring has to be positioned just right to work. Finally, some music is playing from your MP3 player, although it kind of sounds like shit. Half of the speakers don’t work. “Have you come up with a name yet?”

“Not yet. But I’ve got some contenders. I’m thinking Leia. Or Daisy.” His fingers tap along to the music on the steering wheel, and some of his hair flutters around the glasses perched on his head. If he doesn’t keep them on his person, they will simply vanish.

“You are such a nerd. I’m assuming Daisy is because of Space Odyssey?”

He looks over at you and smiles while the car is stopped at a red light. “Bingo. Can’t do Hal, obviously.”

You roll your eyes and try to ignore the fluttering in your stomach. “It’s a car, it doesn’t have a gender. But also, you shouldn’t do Hal, because he famously tries to kill them all.” Then you glance over at the plastic casing rattling around the air vent. “Actually, maybe you should name it Hal.”

“Hey,” he whines, but he’s still smiling.

You stick your tongue out and then lean your head against the window, closing your eyes against the chilly October air that comes in through the cracked window. It sort of sucks that quiz bowl practices are always on a Saturday, because this would be a nice day to walk around, maybe go to a movie, but at least it was another chance to hang out with Ryland.

He turns down the music a little, and you’re about to chide him for it, but he speaks before you can. “So. Homecoming.”

This makes your stomach drop and every muscle fiber in your body freeze. “What about it?” You say carefully.

“Have you thought about who you might want to go with?”

You have. You have thought about it quite a bit. You are currently making a poster to ask him, because you’re fairly certain he won’t do it first. None of this comes out, obviously. Instead, you reply, “A little. What about you?”

Ryland nods, and it’s a little nervous. “I think I might ask Krista.”

“Oh.” Alright. Well. Maybe you’ll just burn the poster and your entire house down with it. You clear your throat. “Krista? That’s—she’s the girl you’re tutoring, right? On the volleyball team?”

“Yeah. I know you think she’s dumb as rocks—”

You snort, trying not to cry or possibly throw up in his car. “She does have an F in geometry, so.”

“But she’s really nice, actually. And I was wondering—would you help me make one of those posters? To ask her? Since you’re so good at drawing and stuff.”

This is, actually, the worst. You feel like the side character in a stupid romcom, the best friend who helps the guy get the girl, who is vaguely implied to be a lesbian at the end of the movie, just to make it clear to the audience that she was never a love interest the whole time. “Sure. I can do that.”

It comes out flat, and he notices immediately, because he always does. “Are you sure? You don’t have to, if you’re busy or something.”

“No, no,” you rush out. You could never refuse him, even if you wanted to. “Sorry, it just made me remember—there’s a robotics competition the same day, and I forgot to tell Mr. Samson that I couldn’t go. We were supposed to do that earlier this week.” This is a lie, through and through, because he wanted you all to tell him if you weren’t going to the tournament this coming week. “I can make the poster. When do you want it by?”

He exhales in relief. “Maybe by next weekend? You’re the best,” and then he reaches over to squeeze your hand, unthinkingly, still looking at the windshield because he’s driving.

Quiz bowl practice is fine. You make the poster when you get home. The one you had started making for him gets shoved in the back of your closet.

Krista says yes.

Your team gets first place at the robotics tournament. He sends you a shitty picture of his glasses tangled up in his hair, because he recently switched to ones with a wire frame but keeps putting them on top of his head anyway, and he looks really nice in his tie and boutonniere.

They start dating for a while.

--

Ryland starts bringing you lunch nearly every day. You almost want to ask him if he truly does not have anything better to do, but that hour is so nice that you can almost forget that he went radio silent on you for years. So you let him do it, and you let him look through all your drawings, give you some suggestions for the plaque about astrophage. Sometimes he shows you what he’s working on, and at least this one thing hasn’t changed: he is still brilliant, creative, willing to try things no one else would ever even think of.

Some days he stays after lunch, simply watching you work, and you don’t know why he does it, because he gets fidgety almost immediately without anything to do.

Like right now, for example. He’s been alternating between clicking his pen incessantly and tossing a little crocheted ball back and forth between his hands. When he switches back to the pen, your eye twitches. “Ryland. Please.”

“Sorry.” He sets the pen down. You return your attention to your screen, because you’re trying to look over some of the designs for fuel cell eleven, but you simply loathe any and all CAD software with a passion. You do not get very far. “Who do you think would win in a fight,” he says suddenly, “Godzilla, or the big space fetus at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey?”

His mind is truly an enigma. The corner of your mouth lifts up. “Well. I think it depends—which Godzilla are we talking about? Like, Final Wars Godzilla, or the 1998 American one?”

“See, you always have the best follow-up questions to these.” You can hear him lean back in the chair and spin around in it as he thinks over his response. “Let’s say it’s the one from Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla.”

You have to rack your brain for a second, because it has been almost two decades, at this point, since he sat you down and forced you to watch all of those movies with him. Oh, right—that’s the kind of very cute looking Godzilla. Who fights the robot, but that part was obvious. “Okay. And how are we interpreting the end of Space Odyssey?”

He stops spinning, suddenly, and you turn so you can see his expression without even realizing that you’re doing it. His eyebrows are raised, and he’s looking at you as if he’s saying, seriously? “There’s only one correct way to interpret it.”

“There’s really not.”

“But there is,” he insists. “Bowman experiences time all at once, and then he’s lifted to the next stage of evolution, which is the star child—”

You interrupt him, if only to be extremely pedantic. “Okay, but you’re not addressing whether the star child is actually him or only a copy of him.”

He waves a hand. “That’s in the book, that’s not relevant.”

The conversation is giving you an overwhelming sense of déjà vu, because you’re pretty sure you’ve had this exact argument with him several times, in what feels like another life. “Okay, fine. I’m going Godzilla.”

“I think I have to go with the space fetus,” he sighs, as if this is the obvious choice. It’s not. He definitely would have picked Godzilla if you hadn’t answered first.

You snort. “All it does is influence human events. Godzilla literally has atomic breath. He’s giving that little baby radiation sickness, if he doesn’t just totally blast it apart.”

The way Ryland is smiling in disbelief and shaking his head is what you imagine he must do to his students when they’ve given a particularly nonsense answer to a question. “The fetus is literally in space, if it hasn’t gotten radiation sickness yet, it probably can’t. Also, I think ‘he’s giving that little baby radiation sickness’ is probably the first time those words have ever been put in that order.” He scoots his chair forward and puts his hands on the armrests of yours, looking way more serious than the topic demands. “And the baby could influence humanity to kill him.”

“No, that’s not fair, that’s bringing in a third party,” you shoot back, rolling your eyes. “We’re talking fisticuffs here.”

There’s a lock of hair hanging in the middle of his forehead. You don’t know when you started looking at it. “Okay, and the fetus would still win, because it’s literally larger than the entire planet.”

“You know the whole saying, ‘How do you eat an elephant? You take one bite at a time’? That’s what Godzilla would do.”

“And how would he even get to space to do that.”

“That just makes the whole argument nil, if we’re assuming that they have to get to each other first. No, for this question to even make sense, they already have to be in fighting distance.”

Ryland smiles, then, in a way that makes your throat seize up. “I missed this. A lot.”

You look at him for a long moment, studying the piece of hair still curved toward his brow, the way his eyes have softened almost imperceptibly, the soft dip of his cupid’s bow. “Yeah. I did, too.” That petty part of you wants to point out that neither of you needed to be in a position where you’d miss it, because it could have stayed the whole time. You do not. Instead, you say, “And you’re deflecting, because you know I’m right.”

“I am not.”

--

eleventh grade

If he doesn’t stop throwing the bouncy ball at your wall, you’re going to hurl him out of the window.

You’re both supposed to be studying for AP Calc, because the exam is in a few weeks, and God knows Mrs. Murphy wasn’t really preparing any of you well enough for it. What is actually happening is that you are studying, while he gave up about ten minutes ago, not because it’s hard—it is genuinely annoying how easily this stuff comes to him—but because he’s bored.

The door to your bedroom is closed. Your parents have stopped being pedantic about it, because it has become clear that, while Ryland is a serial dater, he isn’t going to try anything with you. It is sort of depressing that even your own family doesn’t think you can get any.

“You can leave whenever you want, you know,” you mutter, still looking at your textbook. “I’m sure you have a date with Stephanie, or whatever.”

“Nope.” He doesn’t stop throwing the ball. “We broke up last month, remember? And then I got back with Krista.”

You jot something down in your notebook. “You’re kind of a slut.”

The ball doesn’t hit the wall again, because now it’s being lobbed at your shoulder. “Rude. Not very third-wave feminist of you.”

“Well, if you stopped being a man-whore, I wouldn’t call you that.” The ball kind of hurt, actually, and you have to rub your arm a little to soothe it. “Anyway. Whatever, then, I’m sure you have a date with Krista.”

He walks over and scoops the ball back up, and then he starts bouncing it on the top of your head. You sigh but don’t do anything about it. “We’re sort of. On a break, at the moment.” This makes you snort. “Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“But you thought it.”

You are thinking it, but you won’t say it. They’ve been on-again, off-again since they first started dating. You still don’t really get it, and it is genuinely not just because you have been crushing on Ryland since the seventh grade, which is a fact that you have resigned yourself to accepting and tucking away. No, they just have almost nothing in common, and she’s kind of mean to him. Maybe he’s just a masochist. Another thought occurs to you as you consider all of this. “Wait. Who are you going to prom with, then? Isn’t it in, like, two weeks?”

He sighs and lays on your bed, staring up at the ceiling. “Dunno. She made it sound like we weren’t going together, and everyone else already has a date.”

“Bummer.” You close your textbook and spin around in your chair to face him. He’s now tossing the ball up in the air and catching it, and at one point it hits him square in the face, which is pretty funny.

And then, like the ball falling on his face has struck him with an idea, he sits up so fast that you’re worried he’s going to snap his spine. “Wait. You don’t have a date.”

“Uh-huh. Because I’m not going.”

He leans forward to grab the arms of your chair and drags you to the edge of the bed, and then he pulls his glasses up onto his nose and looks at you, extremely serious. “You haven’t been to a single dance. This is, like, the quintessential teenage experience.”

Normal teenagers don’t really use the word ‘quintessential,’ but you refrain from pointing this out. “I doubt I’m missing out on much. Also, I’m getting my braces off that morning, remember?” You’d had to keep them on for an extra year, because. Well. It is possible that you weren’t as diligent with the rubber bands as you should have been. And you’d purposefully scheduled it that day, so you had an excuse to avoid suffering through a night of watching him with someone else.

“What time?”

You sigh. He has set his sights on this, and he will not let go of it. “Ten.” It was, unfortunately, the only time available when you scheduled it, because the orthodontist’s office closed early on Saturdays.

His face lights up. “You’ll definitely be done in time. We can go together.”

It is difficult for you to describe the emotions that spike through you in that moment. Have you been desperately hoping he would ask you to be his date to a dance for literal years? Yes. Is it, genuinely, the worst freaking thing ever that this is in the context of being his backup date? Also yes. Are you capable of saying no to him? “…I don’t have a dress.”

He knows that this is a yes, that he has won, even though you never actually agreed. “That’s fine. We can go this weekend, I’ll need to match the color of my tie anyway.”

Ryland keeps his promise and takes you to get a dress. You pick a blue one, to match his eyes, and then the next weekend he’s picking you up, and your parents make you do the incredibly cheesy thing where you walk down the stairs, all dressed up, as they take pictures. He slips the corsage on your wrist, and you give him a tentative, nervous smile, with teeth.

He stares, and stares, and stares, and then he finally says, “You look weird.” So you punch him on the shoulder, hard, and he holds your waist as your parents take more pictures, and then he drives you to prom. It’s fine. High school dances are pretty overrated, in your opinion, although there is a photo booth there, which is pretty cool. The two of you never manage to take pictures in it. You try to let yourself pretend, just for the night, that you had been his first choice, and he dances with you during the slow song, and he says your smile looks nice. Pretty, even.

--

Slowly, the shape of your routine changes, because suddenly you are being brought along on trips to meet with other scientists, engineers, whoever, outside of the Vat, and of course he’s there, too, as the preeminent researcher on astrophage. You have a sneaking suspicion that he has something to do with this.

This time it’s a conference room in Geneva. Ryland is tapping away on his laptop, looking frumpy and annoyed, because the real-life astrophage breeding isn’t matching his simulations. It reminds you of the weekends in college you would get together—because even though you went to different schools, you both were in the Bay Area—and study for exams in a decrepit diner with shitty coffee and slightly better pancakes.

You push the thought away as a severe Norwegian woman walks into the room. A rather silly argument follows about his paper, which really wasn’t that bad, in your opinion, certainly not a ‘slap in the face to the entire scientific community,’ but then they’re leaning towards each other, and you simply cannot put yourself through this again.

Then you’re getting even more pissed off, because Dr. Lokken says, “…this was the only way to tell you a critical design flaw in the Hail Mary.”

“Excuse me?” You interrupt. “We have the greatest engineers on the planet making this thing, and you think there’s a ‘critical design flaw’ in it? Are you even an engineer?”

Ryland looks at you, slightly surprised, because you used to never snipe at someone like this, certainly not in a professional setting. The only person you would get snarky with was him. You almost want to throw it in his face. He isn’t the only person who’s changed. You’ve been through the hell that is the job market, getting tenure, dealing with decrepit men in charge of robotics labs that still aren’t sure women should be around machinery.

Dr. Lokken sighs, a touch exasperated, and takes some papers out of her bag. “The most important part of the ship is the lab, yes? None of the equipment you’ve listed here will work in zero-g.”

“Which we’ve already thought of,” you swiftly interject.

Stratt takes over, because apparently she hadn’t realized she had brought two hotheads along. “We’re having several companies around the world design zero-gravity versions of all of this equipment.”

The other woman scoffs. “You won’t have enough time to test it all. You need gravity.”

As Stratt says something about artificial gravity, it hits you: Dr. Lokken is building up to suggesting exactly that, artificial gravity, but not the sci-fi kind.

“She means a centrifuge,” Ryland says, and then he looks over at you, because somehow he can still tell, even after all these years, when you’ve reached a similar conclusion at the same time he has.

You look over the hastily drawn up schematics as they discuss the particulars. The design she’s brought is simple, but it’s sound, even if you can already tell it will require some tweaking. You look back up when Stratt is telling Dr. Lokken she has an hour to pack a bag and meet the three of you at the airport. Awesome. The person who essentially personally insulted your work is now going to be on your team.

Stratt leaves, and then Dr. Lokken does, too, because now she has about thirty minutes to gather up her belongings before being dropped on a ship in the middle of the Pacific. “Well,” Ryland sighs, spinning around to face you. “What do you think?”

“I think you all pretty much covered it. It makes sense.” You pack up your bag and stand. “It’ll make the crew more comfortable, at least. Spending that long in zero-g and then dying doesn’t sound super fun.”

He chokes out a surprised laugh at that as he gets up. “Yeah, probably not.” The two of you walk out of the room, down the long hallway, and then outside. Stratt is standing by one of the cars on the phone. You’re about to head over when Ryland stops next to you and grabs your arm. “Are you hungry? I’m hungry.”

“…I guess? I thought we were on a pretty tight schedule, though.”

“We’ve got thirty minutes or so, it’s fine,” and then he’s jogging over to Stratt, saying something you can’t hear and gesturing over at you. She waves a hand in dismissal, which is basically her way of saying yes. He walks back over and stands in front of you. “There’s a little grocery store down the street. Not exactly authentic Swiss cuisine, but, come on, let’s go.”

He tugs you down the sidewalk. He must have looked at a map on the way here, because he always does that before going to a new place, trying to memorize it to see if he can get around without needing directions. It usually does not work. This time, though, the convenience store is close enough that the two of you don’t get lost. Soon you’re sitting out on the curb, splitting a two-pack of those Lil Debbie cupcakes, looking extremely and unabashedly American. It reminds you of quiz bowl, you think, watching as a family bikes down the street, when he would get so antsy at practice before a tournament out of town that you’d sneak out so he could test his memory of the map he looked at.

You take a bite of your cupcake. Sweet, tooth-rotting sugary goodness. “You know, this reminds me of—”

“Quiz bowl?” He finishes for you. “I was just thinking the same thing.” His cupcake is almost gone already, because he’s basically been cramming it into his mouth. “Sometimes I really don’t know why you were friends with me for so long. I was kind of a jerk.”

“Was?”

He elbows you. “Hey now.”

A grin settles on your lips. “I’m joking, obviously. Teaching’s really mellowed you out, you know. Well. At least a little bit,” you tack on, because he did kind of immediately start arguing with Dr. Lokken back in the conference room.

“And thank goodness for that. I’m surprised I didn’t give you an ulcer, back then.” He dusts his hands of crumbs and then wipes at his lap. There’s a spot of cream on the side of his mouth.

You pull your sleeve up. “You did give me a scar, to be fair.”

He grabs your wrist and brings your arm closer to look at it, fingers brushing over the raised and shiny skin. You hate what the touch is doing to you. “And I have taken lab safety extremely seriously since then.” When he lets go, you raise an eyebrow at him. “Okay. Mostly seriously.”

“Anyway,” you continue, taking the last bite of your cupcake, “you weren’t that bad. I think if we hadn’t been friends, I would have been so boring. Never leaving the house, just studying and going to robotics tournaments. Probably would have failed orgo at Stanford, too.”

“Nah, you would have been fine.” He stretches his legs out a little into the street and brings his glasses to hang beneath his chin before leaning back on his hands.

The sight makes your stomach twist. He still never picked a normal way to take his glasses off but still keep them close by, you realize, and for a moment it is like no time has passed at all. You mourn the years that you missed out on, that he missed out on, because he had always made you feel like a better version of yourself, braver and more exciting, and you find yourself wondering who you would be now if he had simply kept in touch.

You clear your throat a little. The sound makes him glance over at you curiously. “What?”

“Nothing. You have some cream by your mouth.”

“Here?” He wipes at the wrong side. You almost wonder if he’s doing it on purpose. You roll your eyes and wipe it off for him, and then you lick the cream off for good measure. “Hey,” he whines, watching you with wide eyes, “I might have been saving that.”

You dust your own hands off, then, and stand, offering him your arm to help him get up. “You snooze, you lose.”

He matches his stride with yours as you walk back to the car. “You know, you’ve changed, too.” There’s something to his voice that you can’t quite pin down. “Academia roughed you up a little bit.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Ryland holds the car door open for you. “I meant it as a compliment,” he says, almost as an afterthought, and then he closes the door.

--

college, sophomore year

“I just still do not understand pericyclic reactions,” you mumble, staring at the notes sprawled out on the table in front of you. Your drawings are perfect, they always are, but you feel like you’re simply regurgitating the figures without actually understanding them.

Ryland hums from the other side of the booth. He’s on his third cup of coffee, despite the fact that it’s almost one in the morning. “What don’t you get?”

You sigh and rest your head on your hand. “That’s the thing. I don’t even know how to word what I don’t understand. That’s how much I do not get it.”

He sets his pencil down and looks up at you. “Okay. Let’s start with the basics. What makes them different from ionic and free radical reactions?”

“Um…” You rack your brain sluggishly. “They aren’t affected by solvent changes, radical initiators, scavenging reagents, or electrophilic or nucleophilic catalysts. For the most part.”

“Good. That’s one,” he smiles. “There’s two more.”

You fight the urge to look down at your notes. “Okay. Second one…pericyclic reactions—they’re a simultaneous series of bond breaking and making within one kinetic step.” He nods and waits for you to continue. “And. Oh, the obvious one. There are no ionic or free radical intermediates on the reaction path.”

He gives you an enthusiastic thumbs up. “Exactly. Alright, give me the four principle classes.”

“That’s easy. Cycloaddition, electrocyclic, sigmatropic, and ene.”

“Perfect.” The praise makes you feel all tangled up inside. You watch as he tugs some of your notes free, then, and you try not to stare at his fingers for too long. “Point to a cycloaddition reaction.”

You tear your eyes away from his hands to skim the page. “This one.”

“And what’s happening here?”

“Uh. I don’t—I’m not sure,” you finally respond, embarrassed. “I don’t know. It’s fine, I’ll just try to go to office hours—”

Ryland shakes his head. “No. You know it. Just look at your diagrams. They’re really good, by the way.”

A tired smile tugs at your lips as you stare at your drawings a little longer. “I think. It’s…two pi-electron systems, and they combine…to form a new ring with two sigma bonds and two less pi bonds?”

“Yes! I told you that you knew it.” You have to duck your head to hide the warmth on your cheeks. “Now electrocyclic.”

This continues until you’ve gone through all of the different classes. Some of them take you a couple tries, but you eventually get it. “Thank you,” you whisper softly. “You know, you’d make a really great teacher.”

He rubs the back of his head sheepishly after setting your notes down. “I don’t know about that. I think I’d start arguing with a kid. Their parents too, probably. And I didn’t teach you anything, not really. Just helped you see that you already knew it.”

That’s kind of exactly the point you’re trying to make, but you let it go, because your phone lights up. You huff and roll your eyes when you read the text and quickly tap out a response. The reply makes you mutter, “Oh, my god.”

“What’s up?”

You set your phone back down. “Nothing. Just this guy I’ve been talking to. He texted me ‘you up’ and then asked me to come over with a winky face. Super subtle.”

He looks at you, measured and careful. When he speaks, his voice is a little strained. “And are you? Going to go over?”

“Probably not. I don’t know. He’s fine, I guess. A little. Well. He’s in a frat,” you admit.

“Oh. So he’s stupid.”

You laugh and start packing your notes up, because you’re not sure your brain can handle any more organic chemistry for the night. “He’s not that dumb. He’s in finance.”

Ryland snorts at that and starts putting away his own things in his bag. “So he’s really stupid. How’d you meet this guy, anyway?”

“A party,” you shrug. “I went with my roommate. His name’s Drew. The frat guy, not my roommate. But you knew that, you’ve met my roommate. I really need sleep.”

The two of you step out into the night air after paying your bill, and he walks you to the bus stop. He always stands there with you, just in case some creep comes up to you while you’re waiting for the bus to show up. “I don’t think you should go over there,” he blurts.

“Well, yeah, I wasn’t going to. It’s, like, two in the morning, and I have class at nine.”

“I don’t just mean tonight. I mean ever.”

You glance over at him curiously to find that he’s very purposefully looking away. “And why’s that?”

“You deserve someone who can hold a conversation with you. Who doesn’t just text you after midnight to come over. And who can count past ten.”

“I see. Anyone specific come to mind that fits those requirements?”

You’re goading him, and you know it, and you want to see if he knows it, too. The only sounds for a few moments are crickets, the odd car driving by, your footsteps against the pavement. After a while, he mutters, “I don’t know. Just—I don’t know.”

The two of you have arrived at the bus stop, and you just look at him for a second as the bus pulls up, surprisingly on time. “Alright. I’ll text you tomorrow. Thanks again for the help. With the pericyclic reactions.”

“Any time.” He does a little mock salute and then stays standing there while you get on the bus, as it pulls away.

In a fit of frustration, you tell Drew you’ll come over. He kind of is an idiot, but he is surprisingly attentive in bed, and you have to concentrate so your mind doesn’t wander to a different pair of hands, the color blue, the smell of coffee and sour candy.

--

Dr. Lokken isn’t so bad, the more you get to know her. There’s a bit of a cultural divide: she is extremely blunt, always saying the thing that she means even if it’s a little rude, but you find that you don’t mind it much anymore. She has good input on the design for the centrifuge, and she agrees with your opinion that the living quarters should be, well, actually livable for the crew.

At every turn, she makes her disdain for Ryland known. It is immediately obvious to you that she likes him, because you have dealt with the same condition for years.

Her plans to use the astrophage as a radiation shield are inspired, once she gets the advanced copy of the CERN paper confirming the microbe’s super cross-sectionality, and it’s easy enough to add a millimeter-wide layer of it to the ship’s design.

But Stratt insists that it needs to be run by Ryland first.

“So,” he says, looking over the schematics, “you want to add a layer of astrophage to the ship. Okay. So. One problem that comes to mind: they can be killed with a stick. An extremely small stick, to be fair, but a stick nonetheless.”

Dr. Lokken pulls out another stack of paper. “I had my friends at CERN run some tests. Even at near lightspeed, nothing gets past it. We won’t have to worry about physical trauma.”

He keeps looking over it all, and his hesitancy morphs into something akin to an impressed expression. “It wouldn’t take any extra mass,” he mumbles, almost to himself, “since it’s using the fuel itself. Hidden from anything that would make it explode, probably. Hopefully.”

She watches him take this all in until he looks up again. You stay silent, because you know it will work, because you’ve worked through all of this with her yourself, and this is merely a formality. “So? What do you think?”

“I think it’s genius,” he finally replies. She smiles and looks away. You are so tired of this, you think. But then he looks at you, instead of at her, and gives you a small thumbs up. It makes you think of blue gloves, and the scar on your arm, and the photos that still live in your purse, and the yellow lighting of a crappy diner.

--

college, senior year

The basement is positively dingy. Maybe three years ago, this would have been fine, but now it’s just kind of gross. Ryland seems to hold the same opinion. This was supposed to be your victory tour, after the both of you had gotten into grad school, after so many weekends of studying together in that crappy little diner, of keeping your promise to stay friends after going off to college. But the unfinished cement walls are just kind of sad, at this point.

“Proposal,” he murmurs into your ear, dipping his head down so you can hear him, “we take a shot and then we leave.”

“Deal.”

The only thing left is UV Blue. This used to be delicious. Now, you are pretty sure it will just make you throw up, but you down it anyway, shuddering at the way it slides down your throat. Ryland tugs you up the stairs and into the cool night air, and the two of you stumble all over each other on the way to the bar.

Another shot. “To us,” he says triumphantly, “to getting into the PhD.”

It goes down smoother than the last, and you lean against his arm once you’ve set the glass down. “I don’t know what I’ll do without you around,” you slur.

“You’ll be fine.” His arm comes around you, then, and you fight the shiver that rolls down your spin. “We should—let’s go sit down.”

As you slide into the booth across from him, you find yourself staring, at his hair, his glasses, the patchy scruff that’s coming in on his jaw. He’s wearing the periodic table shirt you got him for his birthday last year. When he catches you looking, you smile, wide and sweet and extremely drunk, and then your mouth suddenly twists. “I mean it. I—I just. I don’t know who I am without you.”

“You’re you,” he says simply. “And we’ll stay in touch. We have so far.”

It’s so assured, so definite, the way he says it, that it might as well be a law of the universe. You rest your elbow on the table and stick your pinky up anyway. “Promise?”

His finger curls around yours. “Promise.” You take a long sip of water, then, and glance at the side of the bar, where the photo booth sits. It’s usually out of order, but tonight, apparently, it’s working. He follows your gaze and then smiles. “Let’s do it. I think I owe it to you, anyway.”

You lean your cheek on your hand. You do not bother to hide the love and infatuation that shines out of your eyes. He’s never noticed it so far, anyway. “You remember?”

He snorts. “Of course I do. I think you asked to take pictures at prom, like, every hour.”

You let him tug you out of the booth and across the bar, behind the curtain of the photo booth, your hip pressed into his on the tiny bench. For the first photo, you both make absolutely ridiculous faces, and he gives the camera a thumbs up. The second, the two of you are holding up finger guns to each other. After a moment of consideration, you wrap your arm around his neck and smush your cheek into his for the third, smiling right into the lens. Finally, for the last one you stay smiling, pulling your face away a little, letting him pose however he wants to. You hope that he’s smiling nicely and not making a totally stupid face.

It takes a second for the photos to print once you step out. The first strip is in full color, and the second is in black-and-white. You stare at the fourth frame for a while, because while you’re looking into the camera, he’s staring at you, lips pulled into a wide grin, and you let yourself believe, just for a second, that it means what you want it to mean.

He takes the black-and-white version. “More vintage,” he explains, carefully tucking it into his pocket.

The booth is still open, so the two of you slide back in after getting another round, which will later result in you throwing up into your toilet. “I want a cig,” you mumble after a little while, mouth around the straw of your tequila sunrise.

“Absolutely not.”

You blow a raspberry at him. “No fun. Drew always lets me bum off him.”

His hand tightens around his glass. “Are you still seeing him, then?”

A pssh leaves your lips as you wave a hand. You are very drunk. “Nah. But the sex was great.” This is, most definitely, just to see what his reaction is, and you are extremely pleased when he rolls his eyes as he takes another sip.

“Yeah, I bet.”

The way he says it makes you pause and narrow your eyes at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Your words are sliding into each other.

“The guy was a dick,” he says, as if it is the most obvious thing in the world. He looks at you flatly. You are too busy staring into the blue of his eyes behind his glasses to care. “I doubt he was that concerned with making it good for you.”

“Like you care,” you mutter, swirling the orange liquid in your glass around with the straw.

His brows furrow. “I do. You’re my best friend. You deserve nice things. And that includes. Well.” He has to take a moment to think about what he wants to say next. “You know.”

You look up at him from half-lidded eyes. “I don’t, apparently.”

The next moment is extremely fragile, as you look at each other, as your chest feels like it is about to burst, until he downs the last bit of his drink. “We should head back.”

“…Alright.” So you leave, and he guides you down the uneven sidewalk, all the way to your apartment, and he holds your hair while you puke, and then you tuck him in on the couch before passing out in your bed, holding the photo strip.

--

The Russian scientist, Dmitri, arrives on the Vat. He’s a delight. Very enthusiastic, extremely intelligent, deeply excited to potentially blow things up. You consult on his spin drive design, and it’s ingenious, really. You tag along for the demonstration when it’s finalized. Ryland is incredibly reluctant to hand over some of the astrophage he’s been reproducing.

“You know,” he pouts, clutching the container to his chest, “that giving this much away is like losing out on double the amount next month.”

Stratt plucks it out of his hands and gives it to Dmitri, who happily replies, “This is a good day. Dr. Grace, now I show you my spin drive!” And then he smiles at you and nudges your arm. “Our spin drive. Your engineer, very smart.” Then you’re all bounding up the stairs, filing into the vacuum chamber. Ryland stands right next to you, his arm pressing into yours, as you look at the little spin drive.

Dmitri explains the design and confirms that the ship is far enough from land before ushering all of you out. The chamber is sealed, and then it fires, just for a second, and then it’s done. He has to stop Ryland from trying to go back into the chamber, because the little spin drive just fired off sixty thousand Newtons of force, which means the chamber is very, very hot. You’re glad it worked and that the entire ship hadn’t just been vaporized.

“Good,” Stratt finally comments. “This is the prototype, I assume? When will the real thing be ready?”

The Russian scientist points to the screen, where the video feed of the drive is displayed. “Is the real thing. We put one thousand and nine on the ship, for redundancy. Your engineer,” he says, clapping you on the shoulder, “calculate how many we need, the size that fit into ship but maintain functionality. Very good. I buy her a drink later.”

You almost try to tell him that the alcohol is pretty much free here, but he walks away to join the rest of his team before you can. Stratt leaves shortly after, and then it’s just you and Ryland, staring at a hunk of melted metal on the screen. “So that’s what you’ve been doing,” he finally mumbles. “Helping with this. For Dmitri.”

“It’s pretty cool, right?” You’re still looking at the spin drive, at this little marvel of engineering and pure energy. “He’s kind of a genius.”

He’s quiet for a few moments. “…Sure. A genius who could have caused a tsunami and killed everyone on board. I still want my astrophage back.”

You smile and pat him on the arm. “Our astrophage, you mean.” It’s meant as a stupid reference to that communism meme, but he huffs, because he’s been spending most of his time painstakingly breeding the little microbes. “Lighten up. That was pretty cool. And he needs the rest of it to test the spin drives.”

When you glance over at him, you find that he’s not looking at the screen anymore. “Let’s go get a drink,” he blurts. “To celebrate not being annihilated just now.”

“Sure.”

You follow him as he leads you to the lounge, and he orders you a tequila sunrise without asking. “Sorry. I don’t even know if you still drink these.” You don’t, really, but you take it anyway. “I imagine they don’t have UV Blue on here.”

Even the name of that alcohol makes you gag. “I hope not. I’d probably throw up just at the smell.”

He smiles and takes a sip of his beer. “What is your shot of choice, now?”

“I don’t really do shots at this point. Now that I’m not in school anymore.” He raises an eyebrow, peering at you over the tops of his glasses. “Okay, fine, um…” You glance over the shelves of liquor bottles behind the bar. “If I was forced to do one, maybe a green tea shot.”

Ryland gives you a mischievous smile and then waves the bartender over. The two of you down the shot, and you laugh as his nose wrinkles. “That,” he chokes out, “does not taste like green tea. At all.”

You giggle as you wipe your mouth. You can’t even remember the last time you giggled like that. “No, it doesn’t. But it’s still tasty.”

He looks at you flatly. “It really isn’t.”

“Sorry.” You lay a hand on his arm without really thinking about it. “I forgot I was talking to the guy who brewed mead in his basement once.”

“For science,” he clarifies. “Always for science.”

A couple more rounds are ordered. He tells you about his classroom, back in San Francisco, his students; and you detail your publications, working at JPL; and you can almost, almost forgive him for disappearing.

At one point, he’s staring at your left hand, holding his third beer. “I thought—weren’t you engaged?”

“I was,” you admit. The realization that he stalked your socials, just like you had with his for a while, gets pushed away. “That didn’t work out. Obviously. He didn’t want to relocate, when I landed the job.”

He searches your face for a moment. “His loss,” he murmurs.

You bring your drink to your lips, if only to have something to do. “What about you? Did you ever get back with—Linda, that was her name, right?”

The hand holding his bottle tightens, just barely. “No. We. No,” he repeats. “We did not. And I haven’t—it’s been a while.”

“Wow. Impressive.”

He scoffs. “What’s that supposed to mean.”

A playful smile dances on your lips as you mess with the rim of your glass. “Nothing, nothing. Just—you dated around a lot, for a while. I’m pretty sure I called you a slut for it.”

“And a man-whore,” he points out. “Which was—probably fair.”

The two of you are quiet for a little while, then, for the first time that evening. You hadn’t known that he’d never gotten back with Linda, because that had been after—well. It was around the time that he had stopped responding to your texts and calls. And he’d never been very good at updating his social media accounts. You’re fairly certain that the last time you’d checked his Facebook, it said they were still together. To be fair, that had been years ago. But. Still.

You desperately want to ask him the question that has been tormenting you this whole time.

You do not. “I should probably head back to my room. Not as young as I used to be,” you joke. “I’m already tired.”

He nods after a moment. “I’ll walk you back.”

And he does, all the way to your tiny shoebox of a room. He asks if you need to throw up. You do not, but you still laugh anyway, and then he closes the door behind him as he leaves.

The photo strip is still in your purse. You do not take it out.

--

grad school – ABD

God, there are so many things you need to do before this weekend—clean, grocery shop, plan activities, the list goes on—and he still hasn’t given you his ETA for Friday. It’s supposed to be the belated celebration for both of you passing your quals, and you want to make sure that it’s fun, particularly because you hardly get to see him anymore.

You decide you’ll start with cleaning. Maybe you’ll take him to the bar your cohort likes to go to every month, although it’s a little pretentious. Perhaps a weekend in would be better, rent some movies, pick up a bottle of wine (or two).

When you shut the vacuum off, you pull your phone out to see a notification from him. Perfect, hopefully this is him finally letting you know when he plans to start driving—

You stare at the text for a while. ‘Please don’t hate me, I got my dates mixed up and Linda wants me to meet her parents…’

This is fine. It is not, actually, but it’s fine. He does this a lot. He’s become much more scatterbrained since starting the PhD. It makes sense. It’s a lot of stress, and deadlines, and papers, and conferences, and. And.

After a little while, you slowly tap out, ‘no worries, I can check my calendar and see when another good weekend is.’

--

Ryland misses lunch. And then you find that he’s not in his lab, when you go to check on him later. No one’s seen him when you ask around, and you know that he’s not on a trip with Stratt, because you just saw her an hour ago.

You make your way to his room. He might just be sick, or catching up on sleep, because he hasn’t been getting a lot of that recently. When you get there, you rap on his door, three quick knocks, followed by two, then one, so he knows that it’s you.

After a few seconds, he calls out, “It’s open.”

He’s lying on his little bunk, in jeans and t-shirt, the one with the cat and the Golden Gate bridge that he’d bought from a tourist shop when you’d gone on college visits. It’s like he had gotten dressed and ready for the day, and then just. Laid back down to stare at the ceiling. “Everything alright? You missed lunch, and no one’s seen you, so I just—are you sick, or something?”

“No,” he exhales. “No. I’m fine.”

He is most definitely not. You cross the room, closing the door behind you, and sit on the edge of the bed to look him over. His eye bags are a deep purple. You’re not sure the last time he washed his hair. It’s taking a toll on him, you think, the comas and the planned suicides and Antarctica and paving the Sahara, because Stratt consults him on each and every one of these decisions. You haven’t had very strong feelings about her, really—she’s in a difficult position, and this was all about saving humanity—but in this moment, you kind of hate her.

You don’t tell him any of this. Instead, you run a comforting hand over his arm, and his eyes slip shut, causing a tear to slide down the side of his cheek. Something inside you urges you to wipe it away. You do not.

“You want to talk about it?” You ask, gently.

“Not particularly, no.”

“Alright.”

You keep rubbing his arm, because you don’t really know what else to do. After a while, he sits up, hunched over to keep his head from hitting the top of the bunk, and you scooch in a little so you can sit next to him. “Sorry. I’m okay. Really.” He wipes at his eyes with the heel of his palm.

“It’s okay if you’re not.” Your arm settles around his shoulder, then, and he leans his head against it gratefully.

The two of you sit there like that, until suddenly he laughs a little. “Sorry, I’m just—sometimes I still can’t believe that you’re here.”

The way he says it makes you think that he might be working up to finally explain why he vanished from your life. You don’t know how you know this, but you do, with complete certainty, and it makes you realize that you’re not even sure you want to hear it anymore. You were so angry, and sad, and frustrated, for so long, and you are simply tired, and you don’t want to be mad at him again, not when you’ve gotten him back. So you squeeze your arm and murmur, “Well. I am.”

He lifts his head, slow, so slow, and tilts it to look at you. The look—you know this look. And you cannot do this again. You cannot be the thing he settles for, the thing he goes to for comfort, because you still have only ever been able to say no to him once in your entire life.

“You should eat. Let’s go get you some food.”

You help him out of his bunk and walk with him to the mess, sitting with him while he eats, filling the air with nonsense chatter as the color slowly returns to his face. He goes back to his room after to sleep, and you go to yours, perched on the edge of your bed, staring at your purse.

--

postdoc

It is absolutely pouring outside, which means the gutter is probably flooding again, because the landlord still hasn’t fixed it. You cannot wait until you can find a new place for next year, one a little farther from campus, quieter and somewhat livable.

You close your laptop with a sigh. There are simply too many things to do: lab reports to look over, assignments to grade—because the postdoc came with a 1-1 load, and the teaching experience is nice, you suppose, but it’s a bit much—but it’s close to midnight, and you want to get up early tomorrow to prep for your meeting with the department head in the afternoon.

You’re standing in your crappy little kitchen, drinking a glass of water, when there’s a knock on your door. Probably some drunk undergrads, you think, so you decide to ignore it.

And then there’s three quick knocks, then two, then one.

You set the glass down with a shaking hand and slowly walk over to the door.

“Surprise?” Ryland says weakly. He is soaked to the bone and shivering, so you usher him inside and then run to the bathroom to grab some towels, all before you even say anything. “Thanks,” he mumbles as you wrap the cotton around him. “Sorry for. Well. Kind of. Showing up here without saying anything.”

You guide him to your thrifted couch and have him sit. For a split second, you think about laying another towel down, but it’s really not that great of a couch, so you decide not to bother. “It’s fine. What’s going on?”

He sighs and takes his glasses off, trying to dry them off with the edge of the towel. “Just wanted to see you,” he finally responds.

“…Okay?” You know that this isn’t the full reason, because even if he’s been pretty shit at responding to your texts recently, you know him, probably better than you’ve ever known yourself. But you don’t push for it, simply waiting for him to tell you.

Another sigh. “They want me to take an extra year. To ‘shore up’ my dissertation.” Oh. You knew he’d been starting to have problems, butting heads with some of the faculty, but you didn’t realize it was this bad. “Linda broke up with me, also.”

You carefully sit next to him and hesitate, just for a moment, before wrapping an arm around him, even though he’s already starting to soak through the towel. “I’m sorry. Did she give you a reason?”

He shrugs. The movement is utterly defeated. “Said I had my head in the clouds. Always thinking about something else, never really there. Which is true, probably.”

This was the one girlfriend of his that you’d never met, so you don’t actually know the full context, but it seems like an unfair thing to say to someone who’s trying to finish their dissertation. “Sorry,” you repeat. There’s not really much else to say. “Do you want to take a shower, or something? At least change? I think I still have one of your old shirts.”

“Yeah,” he nods. “That would be. Yeah.” When he looks at you, his eyes are bloodshot and puffy, and his lips are still a little blue from being out in the rain. It hurts, it’s always hurt to see him like this, so you stand and dig through your closet to find his old t-shirt that you stole back in undergrad, plus a pair of sweatpants that don’t fit you, and then you direct him to your bathroom.

While he rinses off, you dig out two wine glasses and grab a bottle from the back of your fridge. You give him a hefty pour, and then you shrug and give yourself one, too. There’s not really any snacks that would ‘pair’ well with it, so you settle for a bag of chips.

When he comes out, his hair is still wet because you’d only had one clean, dry towel left, and it drips onto his glasses and his shoulders. He plops down next to you and then downs the glass in one go before pouring himself another. “I hate to ask this after showing up here unannounced. But. Could I, possibly—”

“Yeah,” you answer, before he even finishes the question. “You can crash on the couch. How’d you get here, by the way?”

“Flew. Then took an Uber from the airport.” He starts to munch on the chips, washing them down with wine every few bites. Yikes. He is not doing great. Also, if he got an Uber, then why was he…? He must have stood outside of your door for a while, you realize, working up the guts to knock.

Well. This is an unexpected turn of events, and it feels awful to see him doing so poorly, but you are also, secretly, extremely happy to see him, so you take a long swig of your wine. “Want to watch a movie? Or play a game, or something?”

He leans back on the couch, evidently done with the chips. “You can put on whatever.”

You decide to pull up a show that you know he likes making fun of, but he barely ends up watching it, because he forces you to update him on everything that’s happened since you last saw each other. This takes a while—which makes something clench in your chest, because it means it has simply been that long—and between the two of you, the bottle is finished by the time you catch him up to speed, and a few mixed drinks on top of that, too.

Ryland’s smiling, and his cheeks are dusted red from the alcohol, and you have missed him so much. “Look at you, little miss JPL,” he grins. “Moving up in the world.”

“Like I said, it was just a good conversation at a conference. But. Yeah. I feel pretty good about it. Would be nice to be back in California.”

His grin turns into a sly little thing. There’s a flip in your stomach. “Yeah? How come?”

“Oh, you know. The weather’s pretty good out there.”

He starts tapping his fingers against his thumb on each hand, like he’s a crab. Oh, no, not this, you think with a smile. “There’s no other reason? None at all?”

You start to inch away from him on the couch as he moves closer, still holding his hands up. “The food is pretty good, too—no, not that, Ryland,” you giggle, because now he’s tickling you, and he knows all the exact spots that make you squirm and shriek with laughter.

“I’ll stop when you say the real—reason—”

“Never,” you gasp, and he intensifies his efforts. “Okay, okay! It would be nice to live in the same state again. There, happy?”

“Mm-hm,” he hums, hovering above you—you’re not even sure when that happened—and his hands are still on your sides. Blue eyes search yours as his glasses start to slip down the bridge of his nose. You think you could pick out the hex code of his eyes without even trying. “I missed you,” Ryland murmurs. “A lot.”

It’s. You think you understand what is happening right now. And you want it, so, so badly, because you have wanted it for over a decade, at this point.

But it’s—not like this. You don’t want it like this, when he is drunk, and sad, and freshly single. You cannot let down the young girl inside of you like that, who pined over him for years, who imagined some giant, romantic gesture, who only ever wanted to feel truly loved.

“You should sleep,” you finally say. Something breaks in his gaze, just before he closes his eyes and nods, sitting back on the couch. You grab an extra blanket and a pillow and tuck him in, just like you would when he would crash at your place in college, and you set a glass of water and an ibuprofen pill on the table for him to have in the morning. “Good night, Ryland.”

He’s already asleep, because he had definitely drunk much more of the wine than you had. You gently slide his glasses off and fold them up, putting them next to the water. Then you just—look at him, for a little while, at the way his lashes rest on his flushed cheeks, the slight parting of his lips, the way his chest rises and falls. An unknown amount of time passes like this before you head to bed.

It is the last time you see him.

--

You head to Baikonur ahead of everyone else, because someone needs to oversee the final phase of construction, make sure the safety checks go smoothly, coordinate with the engineers on the ground.

It is insanely boring.

Ryland emails you, at first, and then you think he must get Stratt to give him a satellite phone, because then he calls you almost every day. Most of the time it’s not really about anything at all, just talking about your days, random anecdotes from the time the two of you didn’t speak, reminiscing about high school or college.

You send him a picture of the finished gold plaques. It’s beautiful, he replies. Everything you make is always so beautiful.

Then, finally, the people that have stayed on the project arrive in Kazakhstan, and it is like he is a clingy cat that you’ve left at home over a vacation, because he is practically glued to your side. He comes with you for safety checks, and you hang out in his trailer to do paperwork, and sometimes he falls asleep on your couch.

Construction screeches to a halt during a particularly bad week of storms during the rainy season—it’s record precipitation, probably a consequence of both the astrophage as well as the methane the project released into the atmosphere when they nuked Antarctica—and the two of you are holed up in your trailer. On the first day of rain, all you could think about was your shitty postdoc apartment, an empty bottle of wine, a shirt and sweatpants neatly folded up in a pile on your couch. Now, after a few days, you can simply allow it to be rain and nothing else.

“What do you think you’ll do? After the launch,” you ask idly, because you have been staring at paperwork for so long that the words are starting to swim off the page. You toss the stack onto the table and kick your feet up.

He shrugs next to you on the couch, still looking at the paper in his lap and periodically writing something down. “Probably go back to my kids, keep teaching. You?”

You sigh thoughtfully and look out the window. It’s difficult to see anything further than five feet from the trailer. “JPL, I guess. But. I don’t know—I think I might have had enough of rockets and spaceships for a lifetime.”

“That’s…understandable.” He does one last signature before putting the stack on the table, shifting on the couch so he can face you, resting his elbow against the back cushions and laying his temple against his knuckles. “What would you do? Instead of that.”

“Might be nice to just do some art, for a while. Try to relax. I don’t know.”

You’re about to lightly comment that the Bay Area has a pretty good art scene, because you are not letting him leave your life again, but then he suddenly says, “I stopped because I’m a mess.”

“Um. Okay?”

He takes his glasses off and rubs his face. “Sorry, that didn’t. I meant to have a build up to that, which happened in my head instead of out loud, so that didn’t make any sense. Okay.” He takes a deep breath and looks at you, so earnest and open, that you can’t find it in you to say anything to that even if you wanted to. “I was a mess, then. Objectively speaking. And you—I was—when I—gosh, this is going terribly.”

You lean forward, taking your feet off the table, to put a soothing hand on his elbow. “You don’t have to—”

“But I do, though,” he interrupts, sharply, and your eyes widen a fraction. “Sorry, I’m just. You were doing so well. The dissertation award, and the postdoc, and JPL, and I was—I was being me, doing things before I was ready, and.” He has to clear his throat to keep speaking. “And I didn’t want to drag you down with me. Because that’s what I do to you.”

A few moments pass, while you wait to see if there’s anything else, before you speak slowly. “Alright. And it never occurred to you to ask what I wanted?”

He blinks at that and shifts uncomfortably. “Well. That’s not. I didn’t want to—you—no. I guess not.”

“Okay. It’s my turn to talk now, then.” Ryland nods, looking a little ashamed of himself. “I was devastated. Genuinely devastated. I almost got fired from my job, because I couldn’t sleep, and I stopped showing up to meetings, and—”

“I’m sorry,” he tries to interrupt, but you hold a hand up.

“Not done. I spent the whole time wondering what I did wrong, if it was because I didn’t let you kiss me that night, even though I would have hated myself for it, because—because—I have loved you, I have been in love with you, probably since middle school, and I could not let myself be the thing that you settled for, and that’s fine.” God, you’re starting to cry, and it is embarrassing and annoying. “I made peace with that, a long time ago, because I literally could not picture my life without you in it. And then you left.”

You would like to keep going, but sobs are starting to heave out of your chest, and he wraps you up in his arms as you shake. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he whispers, over and over again, into your hair. “You—you love me?”

“Ryland,” you sniffle. You wipe your snot on his shirt, because at this point he deserves it. “It is, quite literally, the most obvious thing about me.”

He gently grabs your shoulders, then, and pushes you back, just a little, so he can see you. His hands are shaking as he wipes off your tears, as he reverently holds your face, even as he brings you forward and kisses you, and it tastes like salt and coffee and sour candy.

There is a single moment where you let it happen, where you kiss him back, where you sigh into his mouth as his thumb smooths over your cheekbone, and then you pull away. “I’m not—I’m not doing this, if it’s not—”

“It is,” he rushes out. “It is.” Ryland breathes out your name, then, and it sends a shiver skittering down your spine. “It always has been. You. It’s just been you.”

“Then why? Why now, why not before, why—”

His hands start to smooth over your hair, your neck, your shoulders, as if they cannot stop touching you now that they have started, and it is both exactly how you imagined and entirely new. “Because I am an idiot. The world’s biggest idiot. If I could—I would do everything so different, if I just—I,” and then, apparently, he decides that words are simply not working for him, because he tugs you toward him again.

You let it happen, this time, kissing him as if everything inside of you is finally pouring out, and you don’t know how you’ve been keeping it all there this whole time. His fingers grasp at your shirt, and you bring your own hands up to slide them through his hair as you lick into his mouth. The sounds, the sounds he is making, you think you could live off of them alone and simultaneously never have enough of them.

It is not the most comfortable thing, when you clamber onto his lap, and you simply do not care. You need to be close, as close as possible, right now, because you have been waiting and waiting and waiting for this for two decades, and you cannot go a single second longer without it.

You whine into his lips as you grind down onto him. The groan he lets out sears itself into your mind, so you keep doing it, keep dragging yourself against him as his hands squeeze your sides, still kissing him, still crying a little, until he leans back. “I want—” He sucks a breath in through his teeth, then, because you’ve dropped your head down to bite and suck mark after mark onto his neck. “Bed, please, I would really like to do this on a real bed.”

Frankly, you would probably be willing to do this outside in the pouring rain if it meant that it would happen right this second, but you nod—after another mark—and he shifts around so he can plant his feet on the ground, grabbing your hips, and then he stands and carries you all the way to your bedroom.

When he lays you down, it is so gentle, so kind, so loving, that you think you might start crying all over again, but he climbs over you before you can, tracing his hands fervently over your body and sighing into your mouth. You tug at his shirt impatiently. There are still entirely too many clothes in this equation. He pulls it off, and then he tugs down your pants, and then he’s back to kissing you. It is messy and awkward: your teeth clack against each other, and his glasses are digging into your nose, and it is all so perfect.

One of his hands slowly slides underneath the hem of your shirt. It is like he is mentally mapping every curve and line of your body, but finally his fingers slip beneath your bra, pushing it up with the back of his hand. “Oh,” you gasp, as his thumb starts to gently circle over the bud of your nipple. “Please, I want to—just—please, Ryland.”

You never actually said what it is that you wanted, but he knows, of course, and he shakes his head as he starts to slide down, pressing his mouth against your jaw, your neck, your collarbone, lifting your shirt and bra up all the way. “No. I have been—for so long—I’m going to take my time.”

And he does, and it is infuriating and intoxicating, the way he slowly kisses and nips and licks your stomach, your ribs, your chest. By the time he’s laving his tongue over the peak of your breast, you are about ready to burst, but he still maintains this torturously slow pace. One of his hands dances down until it rests at the apex of your thighs so you can grind against it, a kind of peace offering for his unhurried movements.

It’s possible, you manage to string together in your mind, that you could come just like this, rutting against his hand and arching into his mouth. It is unclear—though it probably shouldn’t be—how he senses this, because then he starts moving down again until he’s resting in between your legs, pushing up his glasses so he can see the soft expanse of your body, even in the low light. “I’m ready, I swear I’m ready,” you beg, squirming against the sheets, “you don’t have to do this, we can just. Please.”

Ryland looks up at you as he pulls your underwear down, lifting your leg so he can slide it off on the one side, not even bothering with the other. His hands wrap around your thighs. “I told you, back then. You deserve nice things. Including this.” His head rests against your leg, and he stares at you pleadingly. “Please let me give this to you.”

You finally nod. You can’t say no to him. At least, in this, he is granting you some amount of mercy, because when he brings his mouth to your cunt, it is not slow or teasing. Your eyes squeeze shut as he utterly devours you, filling the room with the sounds of your moans and the obscene wetness of him sucking at your clit. It is—he is very good at this, and a thought momentarily flashes in your brain, that he’s done this, practiced this, with people that are not you. It does not take much effort to push that thought away.

One of his fingers slides inside of you, then a second, and you feel every inch, every centimeter of it, of the hands and fingers that you spent years staring at and fantasizing about. You clench around them, and he genuinely whines at the feeling. It makes you open your eyes and thread your fingers into his hair, grasping tightly, so you can grind against his tongue. “Just like that,” you gasp. His eyes flick up to yours, and you can still see the blue of them, even with the lights off. “I’m so—I’m already—wanted this for so long, it’s not my fault.” You’re babbling, at this point, but neither of you really care.

So he keeps going, and going, and going, licking and teething and sucking at your clit, never faltering in his rhythm, letting you guide his face against your wetness. He wants you to come, so badly, not just to give you this nice thing that you deserve, but also because he wants to know what it feels like to be buried inside of you. This is it, this is the thought that does it for you; your fingers tighten in his hair, and your thighs squeeze around him, and your head tips back against the pillow as you whine and cry out, and he keeps going through all of it.

In fact, he doesn’t stop, even after you start to come down from it. You twitch from the overstimulation. “Ryland—”

“I think you could come again,” he mumbles into your cunt, “just like this. Want to taste it.”

Jesus Christ. “Probab-ly, fuck, yes, I probably could, but it’s not. If you aren’t inside me in the next thirty seconds, I am going to lose it.”

The speed with which he moves and kicks off his pants and underwear could probably break the sound barrier. You sit up quickly to take off your shirt and bra, both because it is a little uncomfortable and because you’d like to feel every inch of your skin against his.

When he settles between your legs again, brushing his cock through your slickness, his eyes look like they’re watery again. “Sorry, it’s just—it’s a lot,” he huffs, wiping at his tears before bracing his hand against the bed by your hip again.

You grab his hand. “I know. I know.”

Ryland keeps looking at you, roaming over your body, blinking like he still can’t quite believe that this is happening. He brings his eyes back up to yours, and then, finally, finally, he is pushing himself inside of you, and you force yourself to keep your eyes open, to hold his gaze as his hips meet yours.

It is—it is—there is nothing, there are no words that can effectively communicate the feeling. It is just you, and him, and the rain pattering against the windows, his hand underneath yours against the sheets.

“Love you, so—so much, for so long,” he stutters and groans out, dragging against your walls, “since—I don’t even know when, that’s how long—please touch yourself, I can’t, I’m the same, not going to be able to—”

You bring your other hand to your clit, fingers trying to match the stilting rhythm with which he drives into you, over and over and over again. “Please, just like that, it’s so good, you are—I love you,” and you can feel him twitch inside of you at the words, can see the way his abdominal muscles ripple and tighten.

He leans down to kiss you—it’s barely a kiss, really, more just the two of you breathing and whispering and babbling into each other’s mouths—and you keep circling at that little bundle of nerves, and when he shifts your leg, just a little, a moan catches in your throat, strangled, because suddenly the angle is just right.

You come again, just like this, letting yourself get lost in the stretch of him, crying out into his mouth, and he swallows up every sound, telling you that you’re perfect, so beautiful, that you feel so good around him. “Come—here—” You choke out, even as your orgasm is still cascading through you, grabbing at his shoulders and tugging him down.

He wraps his arms around your torso and buries his face into your neck. His hips start to move again, and you slide one hand down his back and the other into his hair, mumbling and cooing and begging in his ear, telling him that you love him, that you need to feel him come inside you, just like this. “Oh, god,” he groans at that, and he does, he spills inside you just like that, with a broken cry muffled into your skin.

The two of you lay there for a moment, breathing in the other, slowly, reverently. He shifts after a while to lay on his side and pulls you with him, and he strokes your hair and kisses you, again and again and again.

“Not going anywhere,” Ryland murmurs into you. “I’m right here.”

He’s not. You will not let that happen again. So you nod, and then you roll him onto his back, because you have no plans to let him sleep tonight. It is the least he can do, after all the shit he’s put you through.

--

epilogue

Periodic table shirt, the one you got him for his birthday. Golden Gate Bridge shirt from the tourist shop. His canvas shoes that look like they haven’t been cleaned, ever. Skittles. Some pants. His little crocheted Earth.

All of it and more is put into the soft-sided container methodically, robotically, even as salty tears pour and pour and pour.

He is leaving. He has already left, really, and once again he’s done it without saying goodbye.

You carry it outside once it’s full. Your feet do not take you to the little makeshift headquarters. Instead, you go to your trailer, and you open your purse, and you take out the strip of photos, because his black-and-white version is hung up in his apartment.

At first you don't notice it; a shuffle, a near silent shift of kevlar at the edge of the roof. It's easily drowned out by honking cars, the chattering night-owls in the street below, and the faint whistle of a cool Gotham breeze. It was so quiet the sound registered just under your own uneven breathing. You don't notice the noise, but you notice the movement; a large, dark silhouette inching forwards in your periphery.

Your head snaps in it's direction, eyes wide and watery. What you see is something you couldn't really describe, the sight so strange you questioned your own sanity. It was tall, rigid, cloaked in shadow with two glowing white eyes facing your direction, watching you. Atop it's head was pointed horns, or was it ears..? The figure is wide, broad, more than enough to block out the light of the moon as it steps a bit closer, slowly, cautiously. Then, the sides of it shift, and out come clawed hands, palms facing towards you. "It's dangerous to be on rooftops at night," It rumbles, it's deep, rough voice forcibly gentled at the edges. You struggle to get your voice under control, shocked into silent stupidity by the sight. "What are you? Who are you?" "A friend." It murmurs, stepping just close enough for you to tense, then lowering onto it's knees. You watch it for a moment, then slowly relax in increments. "A friend." You parrot warily, setting your bowl of pie aside with a click of the fork on the bowl. Sniffling, you wipe your hand down your face, trying to compose yourself. The shadowy figure watches you without moving, eerily still and eerily focused. You didn't have many friends. Maybe if you did, you wouldn't be crying on a rooftop in a shitty apartment thinking about your equally shitty boyfriend. Maybe instead, you'd be talking to them instead of what seemed to be some sort of shadow demon you weren't really sure was even real.

"Why are you on the rooftop? Are you hurt?" The creature asks, what you think is its head shifting to scan you over. You feel it's attention on you, assumedly checking for injuries.

"No, no, it's just.." you sniffle, voice cracking at the edges as you're brought back to the situation that got you up here in the first place. "It's embarrassing."

"I won't tell."

You observe it for a moment, trying to judge the truth of it's statement. It's not exactly easy to discern truth from a silhouette of pure shadow with horns (ears?) and glowing white eyes, but you decide to take a risk. You had no-one else to talk to, anyway.

You look down to your apple pie, barely touched, and slide it in it's direction. "I'll give you my apple pie if you let me talk about my shitty boyfriend."

Slowly, it's clawed fingers grab the edge of the bowl and bring it into its lap. It doesn't eat, but accepts the offering, which prompted you to talk.

And then you spoke. You ranted about the last few months you spent with your boyfriend, about his jokes that felt more like insults, about the way he wanted to spend time with anyone but you. You ranted and the creature listened, silent and unnaturally still. Only once did you feel it's attention leave you, and it was only to look at the offering you slid its way. It eyed it like it was scanning it, judging it, then, slowly, it took a spoonful and raised it to what you assumed was it's head.

It hummed quietly and looked back at you. After that moment, it would slowly pick at the offered pie as you spoke.

You told it, laughing bitterly with a wavering tone, that you've now got a fridge full of sweets that both you and every neighbor in your apartment couldn't eat within a week. When you had nothing more to say, the creature slid the bowl back to you, partially eaten. It was silent for a few moments, then in a low, considerate tone it offered it's advice.

As you were considering it's words, it briefly raised up a clawed hand to it's head, where it pressed against pure shadow. Then, it slowly stood.

"I have to go."

You wilted but nodded. Hopefully, you asked "Do you have a name?"

"Batman," it said as it leapt from the side of your roof. Then, it was gone.

Three days pass, and you follow the creature, Batman's, advice. The argument that ensued with your boyfriend was vicious, filled with insults, and ended in you two going your separate ways. Now alone, you ended back up at the rooftop, staring sullenly at a bowl of ice cream you had yet to touch.

This time you hear it; a shuffle, a shift, and the faint crack of debris under a foot. You turn your head and see a man in a black and blue suit, a blue mask on his face and the same white eyes the creature from a few nights ago had.

"Are you one of the creatures friends?" You ask before you can stop yourself. The man laughs softly and sits in the same spot the creature did.

"I am, yeah. I heard you're offering sweets for advice? I've been going all over Gotham and I'm reaallll hungry." He boyishly grins, his black hair masking one side of his face as he tilts his head.

Immediately, you offer the ice cream. He takes it, eyes it for a moment in the same scanning way the creature did, then plants a spoonful into his mouth. He hums immediately, murmuring a compliment.

Then you complain about the breakup, the rude things your boyfriend said, ranting about how dare he and why would he, your hands moving as you spoke.

The man nods along, shamelessly mauling your ice-cream and offering choice words of agreement and shock at the proper times. Just like with Batman, he waits until you're finished to offer his opinion. Where Batman's advice was detached, rational, and kept short and effective, the man seemed to treat it more like a gossip session at girls night. He licked ice-cream from his lips as he described possible reasons for your boyfriend's behavior, empathizing with your plight, and appealing to your emotions while reminding you to stay rational. Conversation with him came much easier than conversation with Batman, who preferred to study you more often than not, and you spent a considerable amount of time chatting even after he finished his ice cream.

But, same as Batman he eventually raised his finger to his ear, listened, then made for the edge of the roof. He left, but not before introducing himself. Nightwing.

The third time you went to your roof with sweets in hand, you didn't really have a reason. Your boyfriend problems were thoroughly sorted by Batman, your messy breakup processed and validated by Nightwing, and now you were just.. lonely. So, you went to the roof with a plate of cream filled doughnuts, eating some yourself while you waited to possibly share conversation with the strange creatures that showed up for sweets and to listen to your life drama.

A thud behind you drew your attention to a figure that was around the same size as Batman, but wearing a red mask with the same glowing white eyes as the others. He cut an intimidating figure, and you found yourself hesitating for a moment.

"I could use a break. You're that person with the sweets, right?" His rough voice growled, his head turning just enough for you to be able to guess that he was looking from you to the doughnuts half hidden behind you.

"You're one of the creatures? Er - - Batman's?" You question, beginning to relax.

The man snorted at your description as he shook his head. "Not one of his. Heard some talk about snacks 'for a price'. I'm hungry, I'm tired, and those -" he points to the doughnuts. "smell really fucking good. Whats the price?"

"Gotta listen to my problems," you reply, grabbing ahold of a doughnut and holding it out in his direction.

"So I have to deal with you whining for some food?" He huffs, but from the way his posture shifts he was intrigued by the offer.

You wiggle the doughnut temptingly.

It doesn't take long for him to lose his resolve. "God damn it, fine," he huffs, stepping forwards and snatching it out of your hands. His mask hisses and clicks as he pulls it off, revealing a similar mask on his face that Nightwing had the other night. He sinks his teeth into the doughnut and groans quietly. "Real fuckin' good. Alright, lay it on me," he says a bit too eagerly.

With the offered permission you launch into gossiping about anything and everything you could think of. The workplace drama that was going on, the way Samantha a few blocks down tripped and lost her wig (which is gifted a stifled chuckle by the man), the way the gas station on the end of the block sold the worst hotdogs you've ever put in your mouth. The man gets more and more enraptured as you go on, going from silent listening to offering grunts of agreement, then beginning to offer comments and quiet laughs. Conversation isn't as easy as it was with Nightwing, but the man was pleasant enough to speak to and ate through your doughnuts like a buff trash compactor.

After a while there's a lull in the conversation, and you find yourself standing up. "Wait a second, I have some more for you,"

"Good god, I can't eat anymore, I'm about to puke," he groans, but doesn't stop you as you make your way to the fire escape.

"Just wait there! I have a fridge full of this shit!" You call over your shoulder with a laugh.

Thats how you send the man off with a bag of sweets. Strawberry shortcake, brownies, cookies... all which he takes with a sigh and much less complaints than what you both felt like he should be doing. He introduces himself as he leaves, tying your bag to his belt and jumping off the edge. Red Hood.

Two days later you come home just as a white-eyed man enters through your window. When his face turns in your direction, he freezes like a kid caught in the cookie-jar, what you assume is his eyes meeting yours.

"You Batman's?" You say after a long, awkward moment.

"Yeah." He replies.

"Name?"

"Red Robin."

Another pause.

"You have sweets still? Red Hood gave me some a day ago and I've been craving more since." You smile, and with a playful flourish gesture towards your kitchen. He comes through your window with just enough grace that said he'd done it many times before.

A few minutes later you're sitting on your couch, sharing cinnamon rolls with Red Robin who proceeds to ruthlessly psychoanalyze anyone you talk about for more than two minutes with disturbing accuracy. The first three times you pause, stunned, then confirm or deny his analysis with what knowledge you had on the situation. With each analysis you confirm to be correct he seems to grow more and more smug.

Red Robin eats a total of nine cinnamon rolls and apparently feels safe enough to take a nap on your couch, his head hanging off the arm as he quietly snores. You gently cover him with a soft throw blanket and sit beside him to watch a TV show on low volume. The company is nice, you feel the most content than you have in a long, long time.

Two hours pass of Red Robin sleeping on your couch when you see movement out of the corner of your eye. You look just in time to see a small figure emerge from the shadows near your kitchen, looking from you to Red Robin, where his lip curls up into a sneer.

"A disgusting display of laziness." He huffs, his voice high pitched and boyish. He walks forwards and grabs Red Robin by the hair, yanking him onto the floor with an impressive and yet mildly disturbing display of strength.

Both you and Red Robin shout your protests, but it's too late, the boy is already tugging Red Robin towards the window. Red Robin scrambles to his feet and escapes the boys grip but pitches out the window while murmuring about sleeping too long. He doesn't even give you a goodbye as he leaves you alone with the boy, who turns a boiling glare in your direction.

"You are distracting. You are ruining their diet with sweets."

You're quiet for a moment, shocked into stunned stupidity once more, and slowly tilt your head to the side. "I .. uh.. I'm sorry."

The boy's quiet for a moment, then runs a hand down his masked face with the exhaustion of a man twice his age. "I'd say 'don't let it happen again', but I'm more than aware that if you didn't feed into their bad habits, they'd find someone else."

You're not quite sure what to say to that.

Nothing, except.. "Are you.. hungry?"

He scoffs in response, turning his nose up as if you were dirt beneath his feet. "I have no desire for your sweets."

Mentally you run through the contents of your fridge and pantry. He didn't want sweets, but what about fruits? "I have some yogurt and strawberries?" You offer.

The boy considers your statement, looking at you with the same disturbing, unflinching focus that Batman did. After a long pause, long enough that you began to squirm and second guess yourself, the boy murmurs "That would be satisfactory."

You nod and lead him to the kitchen, pulling out a chair at your dining table, which he sits in, as you make him some yogurt and cut up strawberries. He watches you make it without looking away once and takes it into his hands once you offer it, the yogurt and fruit put in a sealed container with an attached spoon for him to take with him.

His lips purse as he opens the container, scooping it and a cut up strawberry onto the spoon. He takes a small bite, then huffs. "It is edible."

You fight a smile. "You're probably busy, right? You can take it with you," you offer, gesturing towards the window both he and Red Robin crawled through. He hums in agreement and makes for the exit, not stopping until he's half hanging out of it.

"I am told that it is good manners to thank you. So, thank you." He grumbles, then leaps from the window before you can respond.

Only then do you realize that your overstocked fridge was almost empty, and your lonely heart felt rather full.

The rapidity with which your thoughts are slipping in and out of your mind is only adding to the fear that crests over and over and over again as you forget and realize each moment where you are and that you don’t know where that is.

Amnesia. Post-traumatic amnesia. You remember reading about this one night on the Vat while smoking a cigarette that you’d bummed off of one of the Chinese navy officers, because, well, you had been having a lot of stressful evenings lately and would likely continue to have them for a while. The four-year coma you were going to be in would kick the habit (again) for you, anyway, so you only felt a little bit bad about it. After a brain injury or a coma—its own kind of brain injury, really—patients could experience amnesia, forgetting the events just before the stress occurred to the brain and/or leaving them unable to form new memories upon waking.

Post-traumatic amnesia. Amnesia. Amnesia. Amnesia. Amnesia. Amnesia. You keep repeating the word in your mind, holding on to it like a lifeline, because you have no idea if you’ll be able to find that information again if it slips away.

The ceiling is still there. Still! This is progress. The white surface had been there a moment ago, and it’s still there now, and you remember both of these things. This is a good sign, surely.

You try hard to remember anything else about post-traumatic amnesia. Patients could be irritable or scared because their surroundings were constantly new and unfamiliar. Okay, yeah, you can go ahead and check that one off the list. It could last anywhere from minutes, to hours, to days, weeks, even months…

The panic returns (returns! You remember being panicked just a moment ago—more progress!), and you fight to squash it down before you can throw up into the tube in your throat, which would probably be bad. Oh, god, there’s a tube in your throat.

This realization sends you flailing—wait, no, it doesn’t, and strangely this second observation calms you down a little as you focus on it. Your body would very much like to flail around but apparently cannot. Right, coma; you would probably be weak for a while after years of little to no movement. Your body feels sturdy, though, definitely much sturdier than you remember it being (you note this with pride; not the fact that clearly you did not used to work out much but rather that your mind was starting to function a little more smoothy, with things sticking around rather than flitting away). Instead, it seems like it all feels a bit heavier, strangely so, and not just because you’re carrying around more muscle mass than you’ve historically had.

Okay, you decide, let’s start with some basics. You remember your name, and this comes with a feeling of satisfaction. It’s not technically that impressive, because you’ve known your name for pretty much your entire life, so it’s not the sort of information that you were more likely to lose in this state. But, still. It’s the little victories. You’re a software engineer, a really good one, which might explain the lack of muscle up until now. (Okay, that’s not super fair to your field, you can admit; there were plenty who would get up at ungodly hours to go to the gym. You simply did not have the time in the day on top of your already grueling schedule for all of that.)

Your next decision is to try and figure out if your surroundings are relatively safe before you spend any more time seeing what you can and can’t recall. Clearly, you were not supposed to be stuck in this shaft in the wall, so that seems like an immediate issue to resolve before doing anything else. Right, okay, this will require some movement. And probably removing the tube in your throat—and the…other tubes, which you are slowly beginning to notice—but: movement. That seems like the best place to start.

Out of all of your appendages, your legs seem to be the least restricted, relatively speaking, so you concentrate on moving your feet side-to-side. Success! You can feel them twitch, and with a little more effort you can curl your toes and swivel your feet a little farther.

“She’s alive! You’re alive! Oh, thank god, okay—arm…thing—Armando, sure, it’s time to slide her platform out now, if your tiny machine brain can handle that much.”

The sudden exclamation from beyond your feet sends a shot of panic through you followed by an enormous flood of relief. People, there are other people here! Right, of course there are, you’re part of a crew. They’ll help you get out, Lesya and Yao and…the third person? Okay, that was probably a piece of information from shortly before you went under, but you mentally wave that away. You’ll find out soon enough, you suppose. His comment toward the NannyBot is also a little funny; this is not the kind of thing you should really be dwelling on at this moment in time, but you find yourself agreeing. The NannyBot was stupid, because it was one of the few programs you hadn’t been allowed to fully tinker around with, just look at it enough with the rest of your team to incorporate it with the ship’s functions. It had been an absolute nightmare integrating its voice-recognition software with that of the Mary.

The platform underneath you stutters forward and then stops, jostling you and all of the tubes around, which is extremely uncomfortable, by the way, and you cry out from around the one in your throat. “Sorry, sorry, I think I can see what’s wrong, just let me—” You can just barely hear him moving around the room, rustling through piles of stuff and dumping things on the floor. He returns after a little while, apparently having found whatever it was that he was looking for, and says, “Okay. One of the metal guidance arms is stuck in the track. But I’m going to place this here, and if I hit it with enough force in just the right spot, it should detach from the platform. It might come out tilted downward, but one step at a time.”

Talk about showing your work. You would like to scream at him to shut up and whack the damn thing already, but—tube. Thankfully, there is not much else to explain about his plan, and you hear him take a deep breath before—

With a loud clang, the arm comes off of the platform, and you’re sliding forward. The lights are absolutely blinding after the dimness of the shaft. You have never been so happy to be blinded in your entire life. This happiness is short-lived, because then you can feel the platform start to pitch forward, and the other metal arm is creaking like it’s about to snap. “Woah, no—”

He rushes to hold the platform up before you go crashing to the ground. This is very clearly taking a lot of effort; you’re glad you’re not the only one who’s feeling how weirdly heavy everything is. His forehead starts to turn red as he fumbles for something beside him that you can’t see; he finally grasps it and swings it upward, wedging it between your platform and the one just beneath you.

“Eye movement detected.”

“Thank you, Armando, very observant of you,” he huffs. You try to peer at him to figure out who your mystery savior is, because his voice sounds very familiar, but attempting to crane your head forward to see more of his face causes the tube in your throat to shift painfully. Then the NannyBot swivels and moves toward you to remove it, and, actually, maybe you’re okay with having the tube in for a little longer, because now you’re imagining what it’s going to feel like while sliding out, and, no, thank you. “No, no! Put her back under before you take it out!”

You’ve changed your mind. The tube can come out now, right now, please, because what if you forget everything all over again and you’re stuck in the wall and—

He can apparently see your panic from his vantage point. “I know, I’m sorry, but it’s really best if the NG tube is removed while you’re asleep. You’re going to wake up again, I swear.”

Your eyes are wide and you’re trying to shake your head back and forth, but an intense tiredness starts to wash over you, and all you can hang onto is his promise, which had sounded like he was making it to himself as much as he was making it to you: you’re going to wake up again.

--

The next time you return to consciousness, the ceiling is, thankfully, where it’s supposed to be, which is to say that it’s not right in front of your face.

You blink at the bright lights glaring above you. The tube in your throat is gone, but outside of a little soreness, you feel okay. The two other tubes are still there. Baby steps.

“Eye movement detected. Cognition assessment: what is two plus two?” You clear your throat to respond, which is apparently enough of a sound for it to register. “Incorrect. What is two plus two?”

“Jeez, if you at least let her try to answer—”

“Incorrect—”

“Oh, come on—”

“—what is two plus two?”

“Four,” you croak out.

“Correct. What is the cubed root of eight?”

“Listen, don’t try to be smart with it, because it turns out this thing is very stupid.”

“Incorrect. What is the cubed root of eight?”

“Two!” You rush before he can make any other comments that keep this annoying loop going.

“Correct. What is your name?”

You rattle it off, again before he can say anything to interrupt, and with that the NannyBot is satisfied and returns to the center of the ceiling to idle. It occurs to you that it might try to put you under again, so without thinking you reach over and pull the IV out. The man heaves himself up the wall and hurriedly puts a little pressure on your arm. Oh! It’s Dr. Grace. Right, that makes sense, because—

Before your train of thought can continue, Dr. Grace speaks. “You did a lot better on that pop quiz than I did, I have to say.”

You huff out a laugh, which is immediately a mistake with how sore your throat is. “I…had a little more time…to prepare for it.”

“Right. Sorry about that, by the way.”

Shaking your head, you heave yourself up into a sitting position, clutching the blanket he must have draped over you sometime after you were put under again. The room spins a little. You brace yourself with one arm beside you—the movement is a little awkward, because he’s still putting pressure where the IV needle was—while mentally checking yourself over: your recent memories are still sticking with you, and nothing else seems to be out of place as far as you can tell, so you turn toward checking over your body for any abnormalities. It all appears to check out, despite the fact that it all still feels heavier than it should. You tentatively wiggle your fingers; yep, those are working, too, which is good, because those are pretty important.

Dr. Grace takes a deep breath beside you. “Okay, so this is going to be a lot, but. Well, there’s really no easy way to say this—we’re on a spaceship. In space.”

“I…know?”

He looks a little stunned at this. “Wow, okay, you figured that out a lot quicker than I did.”

“We’re on the Hail Mary to try and find a solution to the Petrova problem at Tau Ceti.” You peer at him curiously and clear your throat to continue. Talking feels like rubbing sandpaper on your vocal chords. “How long did it take you to remember that?”

“Uh…a while. But not as long as my name! Hah.”

Either you’re not getting the joke, or it’s just not that funny. “That’s not…what do you remember?”

His hand leaves your arm, then, to run his palm over the back of his head self-consciously. “I remember that I was a teacher. Some things about the Petrova taskforce. Looking at the astrophage.” The arm that’s holding onto a strap on the wall stiffens involuntarily at the word. “That’s…about where I’m at right now. I can’t remember things on command, but it’s starting to come a little easier.”

You’re no doctor—well, you are, just not that kind of doctor—but this does not sound normal. Normal under the current circumstances, that is. The name thing is possible, you suppose, but from what you remember from your admittedly brief research, that had more to do with the panic resulting from one’s unfamiliar surroundings than loss of the memory itself. You open your mouth to tell him as much, but you cough instead from the soreness of your throat.

“Right—water.” Dr. Grace calls the second word out to the ceiling, and after a beat the arm hands you a cup. After carefully ensuring you won’t fall over if you lift your arm up, you take it gratefully and sip on the water slowly out of an abundance of caution. He drops down to the floor while you do so and returns to hand you some clothes, carefully folded up. “These are yours, I think.”

You look at the orange jumpsuit in your lap. The patch catches your eye, particularly the names of the crew embroidered around its border. Right! The crew! “Where’s Lesya—Ilyukhina? Yao?” You look around the room as if they’re going to pop out from hiding somewhere. Dr. Grace is quiet at that. “They—” He clears his throat. There are tears in his eyes. “They didn’t make it.”

It is difficult to put into words how your body reacts to this information. Everything seems to seize up all at once, and your hands start to shake, causing some of the water in the paper cup to spill down your front.

That cannot be right. You were there when you all went under. You had gone first, and Lesya had smiled and given you a thumbs up to ease your nerves. Yao had put himself under last, making sure nothing went wrong, ever the watchful and dedicated captain. The four of you were supposed to wake up together. You were supposed to help Lesya dress, and then she was going to pour celebratory shots while you all waited for the ship to come into Tau Ceti’s orbit.

You squeeze your eyes shut while Dr. Grace continues. “I’m sorry. I…I gave them both a funeral. I didn’t know that you were still alive, I thought, I had just assumed—I didn’t realize until after, when I was trying to get your platform out to…” He doesn’t finish, but you can fill in the blanks. He was going to give you a funeral, too, having inferred from the other two bodies that he was all alone out here, that you had died just like your other two crewmates.

Slowly exhaling, you open your eyes and nod. “It’s okay. I don’t…I’m not sure I would have wanted to see them like that.” Your final memory of Lesya would be her smile, and you try to hold onto that fact, ignoring the overwhelming pain that comes when you think about how you always seem to be gone when those closest to you die. “What happened?”

“I don’t know.” He wipes at his eyes with the heel of his free hand. “Whatever it was, it happened a long time ago. They were…it had been a while. I think something went wrong, and whatever software they had monitoring us couldn’t fix it.” It made sense—you remember Stratt asking if the NannyBot was a kind of artificial intelligence, but that technology was simply too new, too prone to hallucinations to put the lives of the potential saviors of the planet into its hands. It ran on a series of algorithms instead, designed to care for its coma-induced patients, feed them, stimulate their muscles, give them food on scheduled intervals once they were awake; but it could only do so much. Could only respond to pre-programmed scenarios.

Several thoughts run through your head, then. If you had just been allowed to work with the NannyBot’s software, maybe you could have caught this. You’d have seen some blind spot, insisted that they program it to respond to a wider variety of medical events. Or maybe you could have elected to stay awake, monitor your crewmates, write the damn algorithms yourself while shooting through space alone. Then your friends wouldn’t be dead.

Your mind continues to obsessively catalogue all the different things you could have done. This is easier than letting yourself feel the full force of your grief, because you already knew what that kind of grief did to you. It would swallow you whole for months and months, and just when you thought you were coming out the other side, it would claw up your throat again and you would choke and drown.

“Hey,” Dr. Grace says gently. “You should try to eat something.” Eating is quite possibly the furthest thing from your mind, but your stomach grumbles anyway at his suggestion. Traitor. “It won’t give it to you until you’re moving around, though.”

You nod numbly and start to shift before two tubes make their presence known again. “The, uh, the tubes.”

He chuckles, and the sound is still a little wet with tears. “Right. Pro tip: don’t throw yourself off the bed while those are still in. Learned that the hard way.” You try to appreciate his attempt at humor, but nothing within you responds, so you just lay back down and turn to your side while he clambers down and faces the opposite wall. He hesitates and turns his head a little toward you. “I can—do you want the IV back in? So you don’t have to be awake for this.”

“No.” He doesn’t respond to that, simply turning his head back to face the wall. If your mind was still in your body, you would feel grateful that he wasn’t pushing the issue any further.

All things being equal, the butt tube isn’t that bad. The catheter is…worse, a slight stinging pain in your urethra, but it dulls somewhat quickly. At least you can feel it. Can feel something.

With that out of the way, you gingerly sit up and peer down at the floor. You’re only on the second platform up, but with the ship still moving so fast you might simply crumple if you try to drop down. (Numbly, you note that you’ve finally recalled why everything feels so strangely weighty—it’s the higher gravity. Your earlier panic had kept you from registering that. Apparently the grief wasn’t currently serving that same function.)

“I don’t think I can get down by myself,” you finally say. Dr. Grace turns around and looks between you and the floor a few times.”

“Armando, can you help her—”

“No." You interrupt forcefully, before the arm can come near you again. You could accept its help when it came to the tubes, but this is where you draw the line. That thing let your friends die. It could rot in hell, for all you cared. “Please, just…just help me down.”

“Okay, I can do that,” he responds gently. He climbs partway up the wall again and then stops. “Um, do you want to try and get dressed up there first?”

You give him a look. “I think we have more pressing issues than my modesty.”

“Yeah, fair enough.”

You let the blanket drop from over your chest and then roll the pile of clothes into a wad. Once it’s secured under your arm, you pull the rest of the blanket off and let it drop to the floor. Dr. Grace reaches forward to gingerly wrap an arm around your torso. You lean forward to grip one of the straps on the wall.

“Here, I’ve got you, I’ve got you.” He helps you transfer your weight to the wall. Your arms and legs are already shaking from the effort of holding yourself up, and perhaps in any other situation you would be embarrassed about the fact that you are now almost entirely leaning against him while starkly nude (and freshly de-cathetered), but suicide missions in space have a way of reorganizing your priorities.

Once you’re safely on the ground, you prop yourself up against the wall to take a few breaths before pulling the clothes out from underneath your arm. Dr. Grace has stepped away and turned around again, as if your entire naked body hadn’t just been pressed up against him with very little left to the imagination. A piece of your normal self that’s still floating around in your skull registers this as very sweet. You slowly put your underwear on, then throw the white tank top over your head and pull it down over your torso. The socks are a little trickier; you have to lean more fully against the wall, because you think if you tried to just stand on one leg you would simply fall over. The jumpsuit is last, and by the time you’ve pulled it on and zipped it up, you’re exhausted.

Apparently you’ve satisfied the requirement to move around before food, because the arm moves in front of you with a tube clutched in its metal hand. You press yourself flat against the wall without really meaning to. “Eat,” it commands, and after a beat you snatch the tube from it like a feral cat. The tube does remind you of those little liquid cat treats, which should shut your appetite off but the smell of the watery sludge that wafts toward you once you tear the top off prevents that from happening.

You give it a tentative lick. An involuntary moan leaves your mouth. Definitely not a cat treat. It tastes like beef stew, the kind that cooks all day in a crock pot, roasted in herbs and vegetables. Dr. Grace has turned back around to face you and is suppressing a smile at the way you’re rolling the packet up like a tube of toothpaste to get every molecule of this delicious paste into your mouth. Again, you register that you should probably feel a little self-conscious.

“What?” You say around the plastic; you’ve changed tactics and stuck the entire thing between your teeth so you can slowly slide it out and get at the last bits of paste.

“Sorry, it’s just—it’s weirdly good, right?” There’s a hint of something else in his comment, something akin to awe. He’s still processing the fact that he’s not stranded all by himself in space, you realize. You try to imagine yourself in his place: waking up alone, with no memories, to find the long-dead bodies of your crewmates. You are suddenly very appreciative of how well he seems to be taking it all. (Later, you would learn that there was a period where he was very much not taking it well.)

You hum as you pull the plastic out of your mouth and confirm that there’s nothing left. There’s no trash can, and you don’t really feel like finding one, so you let it drop to the ground—the room is already a mess, anyway—and look up at the NannyBot. “More.”

He steps forward. “Yeah, it’s pretty strict about that, unfortunately. Your stomach probably can’t handle anymore, anyway, and you should really try to get some more sleep.”

You would like to fight him on this, but you’re still exhausted from climbing out of bed and putting your clothes on. That combined with the food now sitting in your stomach—he’s right, you’re already starting to feel full—means that you’re about ready to just close your eyes and sleep standing against the wall. So you nod and then look back up at your platform, which you can now see he had propped up with a metal shelf wedged between it and his own. Your eyes travel upward to the other two shafts. “I can’t…I don’t think I can climb up again. And I’m not—I can’t—I won’t—” You are not going to sleep in the beds where your friends died.

So you take a deep breath and slowly move to the blanket you had dropped onto the floor to grab it and wrap it around yourself. Admittedly, the floor does not look very comfortable, but…it beats the alternative. Dr. Grace watches you for a beat before calling to the ship to open up the storage hatch. He disappears into the floor and returns a moment later with a soft-sided container full of extra blankets, which you take gratefully.

After rearranging the extra blankets and wadding one of them up into a makeshift pillow, the floor is looking much more inviting, so you lay down in the nest. Before drifting off, you murmur, “Just…wake me up…after a few hours. Okay?”

“Yeah, I can do that.”

You close your eyes, and just before you succumb to the tiredness seeping into the marrow of your bones, you hope desperately that you will not dream. (Technically, everyone dreams when they sleep, your brain unhelpfully supplies, so you settle for the hope that you will not remember them when you wake up.)

whether you were 6 or 16, you and wally were always hugging, throwing arms around shoulders, play-fighting, you name it. perhaps it was just an excuse to be close to each other and still play it off as "friends."

wally west who stays up late at night, sending you hundreds—if not thousands—of tiktok videos. you, of course, don't see them until the morning, but he likes to remind you that he's thinking of you.

wally west who has gotten into more fights with dick than he can count. the classic "she's my sister, you're not good for her" argument.

wally west who is yearning final boss, especially when he's in high school with you.

he'd stare at you from across classrooms, eyes so big and puppy-ish as you laugh with your friends.

he'd text you "walk" halfway through class, and before long you two would circle the halls a few times together, talking about everything and nothing. anything to get a moment with you away from your brothers.

wally west who would always sit in the grass and eat lunch with you when you were little. when he was at the manor, despite orders from alfred for you two to eat in the dining area, you two would always sneak off to the sprawling fields and lay down together, sharing your PBJ.

wally west who almost never earned jason's approval. even before he'd died, he was over skeptical of his sister being with a speedster.

his disapproval only doubled once he came back as the red hood. every interaction with wally ended in the worst. "oh, and back off my sister."

wally west who doesn't realize just how deeply reader longs for him in the same way, so he never acts on his love for her.

reader who each year snuck into dick's room the evening of february 14th, snatching back the valentine wally had given her.

while everyone usually got the same universal "happy valentines day" with a cheesy pun, reader always got a heartfelt, handwritten note from her favorite speedster.

dear reader, you are so pretty. i hope one day i'll be able to travel the world with you (without dick or jason or tim around) - wally

she kept every single one for years.

reader who sometimes had an extra drink at the parties, just so wally would carry her outside, speed her home, and take care of her. she always puts up a fight first, but she doesn't mean it.

reader who cried at 6 years old when wally had to tell her they couldn't get married. she didn't talk to dick for a week because she was so sad.

reader who loved wally's hugs more than anyone's, even bruce's, and she was a total daddy's girl.

wally's arms were always so secure and grounding, making her feel safe and loved.

sometimes she'd pick a physical fight with wally just to have a little play-fight with him. she'd giggle and kick her feet the whole time.

reader who was always up to see and watch every video wally sent her. he never realized it, but she watched every new notification pop up at the top of her screen.

she'd laugh in the privacy of her bedroom at how stupid her favorite boy was. she wouldn't reply until the morning just so wally could wake up to an onslaught of texts from her.

reader who always felt wally's eyes on her from across the room at school and always felt butterflies flutter in her stomach.

sometimes if she was feeling extra bold, she'd meet his gaze. she loved the way he'd blush, smile, and duck his head.

every time she got the "walk" text, her entire day instantly got better. away from the prying eyes of her brothers, she could spend time with wally and just be.

reader who loved feeding wally bites of PBJ while they lay starfished in the grass. she'd giggle if his little teeth grazed her fingertips when he took a big bite.

more than anything, though, she loved the little kiddish thrill that came with disobeying alfred's orders to eat indoors. she would only listen and come back inside if bruce got involved.

reader who would corner jason when he was just trying to read, demanding answers as to why he was so mean to wally.

"it's not nice, jay. he's my friend!"

"you two ain't just friends and you know it, sweetheart."

you'd huff. "what's your problem with him anyway?" you'd demand.

he'd shut his book. "i want what's best for my sister, okay? and it's not him, cupcake. he's reckless, immature—"

"—ugh, you're so annoying jason!"

reader who will never tell wally how she feels, but only pray that he feels the same way.

a/n: tbh i love this. reader and wally are just yearning idiots who won't admit feelings :( so cute

Stratt grants him clearance, which surprises you; she must see something in him that you currently can’t. You positively hate the graphic she’s still using to explain the spread of the interstellar microbe—astrophage, which you’re fairly certain Dr. Grace had coined—because it’s not actually every star that’s been infected, just stars with planets, and now this criteria had become more specific since his discovery that they required carbon dioxide to reproduce.

Your impression is slightly revised when he looks around the room after being told that the current plan was to hurl three astronauts at ninety-two percent the speed of light. A little bit of color has returned to his complexion. “Any other plans you’ve thought of? Anything else you’re kicking around?”

Yes, you think. That’s closer to what you expected. He seems fun. You decide you’d like to actually meet him at some point.

--

It takes you a week to finally introduce yourself to him.

Stratt keeps him busy, breeding astrophage and giving presentations on its biology, and you’ve had your own projects to take care of. But you currently have a sliver of free time, which means that you are now standing outside of his makeshift lab, knocking on the frame of the doorway.

He jumps in his chair and then swivels around. “Uh, hello?”

You smile and walk into the room. “I just wanted to stop by and introduce myself.” You give him your name, and then you’re about to say your affiliation, but then you remember that he’s kind of an exiled academic whose institution is now a middle school—you’d done some Googling—so you refrain. “I lead the team studying the Tau Ceti system.”

The face he makes is impressed and a touch surprised. “Wow. I didn’t expect that. Uh, that’s not. I’m not saying that because you’re a woman. Love women. Very capable people.” You try and fail to suppress a wide smile. “You’re just—you seem young, is what I mean, to be in charge of something like that.”

“I’m not that young.”

“How old are you, then?”

The smile is now a shit-eating grin. “First you fumble through explaining that you like women, and now you’re asking me my age? Very smooth, Dr. Grace.”

His face is already starting to turn a delightful shade of red, and the color looks much better on him than the pallor he wore when you first saw him. “You know, at first I thought you were nice, because no one else has come and introduced themselves like this, and now I’m realizing that you are actually very mean.”

“Really? You’re kind of. Well. A little famous, in these circles. I’m surprised people aren’t walking by to watch you like you’re a zoo animal.” Everyone’s been gossiping about him, and you’re fairly certain someone printed a few (dozen) copies of the paper to pass around. You didn’t take one, because you’ve already read it, obviously.

He closes his eyes, briefly, in embarrassment. “Awesome.”

“You’ll be fine. And hey, once this is all over, you could probably get a job anywhere you wanted. Granted, you know, that the higher education system survives.”

“Yeah, right,” he scoffs. “I think I’m good.”

Hm. Your impression of him is still being revised. You thought he’d be a little bit more…spiteful, maybe, or at least rearing to prove himself, but it almost seems like he’s more or less resigned himself to being here. You decide to stop tormenting him, at least for a while. “What are you working on?”

Dr. Grace wheels his chair to the side so you can see his desk. It’s. Kind of a mess. “Refining the design for their breeding containers. Also brainstorming some stuff to research. I’d really love to know how they’re able to keep themselves so opaque, their super cross-sectionality, you know, but I haven’t been able to make a lot of progress on that.”

You hum thoughtfully as you look it all over. Your earlier thought, that he didn’t really want to be here, is carefully crossed out in your mind. The notes look a little like a mad scientist’s, complete with little doodles and overlapping circles when he’s realized he’s had a particularly good idea. “I’ll leave you to it, then. It was nice to officially meet you, Dr. Grace.”

The look he gives you is a little difficult to discern. You think it’s possible that it’s been a while since someone said that to him. “You, too. Have fun with the…Tau Ceti. Stuff.”

“Oh, I will. These exoplanets aren’t going to study themselves.”

He smiles, then, and it’s a real one, not one that’s embarrassed or nervous. It’s a good look on him.

--

The ship is almost quiet at three in the morning. There are still people milling around—there’s always more work to do—but it’s a muted version of its normal daytime landscape. Your eyes are starting to hurt from how long you’ve been looking at a computer screen, but you really need to finish this up, despite the fact that you feel about ready to fall asleep in your chair.

Alright. Coffee break, and then you’ll get back to work.

There’s a few people in the mess when you get there and make a beeline for the coffee carafes. The stuff is—it’s not great, but it does the trick, so you just pour a hefty amount of sugar and creamer into your cup and try not to grimace when you take the first sip.

Someone calls your name behind you, and you turn around, the cup still at your lips. “We meet again,” Dr. Grace says. “Night owl? Or can’t sleep?”

You hold up the coffee. “Kind of the opposite. I would love to go to sleep right now. But my team’s presenting on our research in a couple of days, so. Lots of data to double check, a slide deck to finish. All the super fun stuff about research.”

He nods in understanding and then just. Stands there, looking at you, and you’re looking right back, because he’s kind of the one that came up to you in the first place. He seems to remember this fact after blinking a few times. “Sorry. Um. What’s the presentation on? I mean. Outside of being about Tau Ceti.”

“Exoplanets, mostly. Tau Ceti’s a tricky system—surrounded by a ton of dust—”

“Right. It’s got a dust cloud that’s, like, ten times denser than the Oort cloud, right?”

You give him a small smile and nod. “That’s exactly right. So, historically, it’s been pretty difficult to get a good look, particularly because if it does have planets, they don’t seem to cross in front of the star from our perspective. We have to look for a little wobble in Tau Ceti caused by a planet’s own gravitational pull. But, you know, when you can use every telescope on Earth—and the ones outside of it, for that matter—it gets a little easier. Not much, but a little. Means there’s a lot of data to sort through.”

He hums and starts making himself his own cup of coffee. “Have you always studied them? Exoplanets, that is?”

“Mm-hm. I think it’s the most exciting frontier of astrophysics, personally, although there are a lot of people who think it’s too inexact.”

“Boo. Everyone knows that the inexact science is the most fun.”

You watch as he practically chugs the entire cup. That can’t be good for his heart. “Why are you up this late?”

He sighs contentedly when he finishes the drink and then pours himself more coffee. Good lord, are you about to watch this man have a heart attack? “Jetlag, mostly.” You refrain from pointing out that he’s been here long enough that the jetlag shouldn’t really be an issue. “And I don’t—it’s been a long time since I’ve been surrounded by people like this. Academics. And adults, to boot. Puts me a little on edge, I guess.”

Right. Middle school teacher. “Do you miss your students?”

“Of course. They’re—wait. How did you know that?” He give you a side-long glance, then, and the corner of his mouth lifts. “I see you’ve been in on the gossip.”

“Nah, I don’t listen to that crap. I looked you up like a normal person would.”

He laughs into his coffee. “Of course. Very normal. Yeah, I miss them a lot. But this is all—” He gestures around vaguely, and a little bit of liquid spills over and runs down the side of the paper cup. “—for them. So.”

“It’s pretty admirable of you. To leave them and come here to try and save the world for them.” Because, really, not everyone was here for that reason, at least not as their top priority. This project was an opportunity of a lifetime: unlimited funding, recognition, peer review essentially thrown out of the window.

It seems as if Dr. Grace doesn’t quite know how to respond to this. The tips of his ears turn pink. He must have a very active circulatory system, you think idly. Maybe all the caffeine. “Uh. Thanks.”

You pour yourself a little more coffee and sigh, rubbing at your eyes lightly. “Well. Back to the grind, I guess. Thanks for saying hi.” You find that you mean it, too. You’re pretty sure it’s been several hours since you last spoke to a human being, and he’s kind of…refreshing, to talk to. Clearly incredibly intelligent, but not completely full of himself. You’re a little glad that your initial expectations have been, thus far, proven wrong.

“Sure. Actually—could I see what you’re working on?” You look at him curiously, and he smiles sheepishly in return, rubbing the back of his head. “What can I say, I’m nosy. The dust cloud stuff got me excited.”

“You really know how to make a girl swoon.” He coughs in surprise, and the sudden motion makes even more coffee spill out. “I’m just messing with you.” It is surprisingly easy to do. “Come on, follow me.”

You lead him through the narrow, maze-like hallways of the carrier with ease, because you’ve been here for a while, now; after all, it was pretty important to gather as much information as possible about Tau Ceti, seeing as three people were going to be launched there in order to save humanity. He chatters the entire time, commenting on the walk or the tiny doorways or anything else that pops into his mind, really, perhaps overcorrecting for his earlier awkward silence after he had first walked over to you.

It only takes you a few minutes to get to your workspace. You look on with a little bit of pride as he takes it all in, because it is much neater than his lab. Not that that’s a very high bar. “I feel like a slob,” he finally comments.

You shrug, but you’re smiling a little smugly. “We all have our own methods. I just know if my space is a mess, my head’s a mess, too.”

“I think my head’s a mess no matter what,” he mumbles, and he must have thought you wouldn’t be able to hear it, because he whips his head toward you when you giggle. “Anyway. Dust cloud. Lay it on me.”

You sit down in front of your computer and pull up some of the cleaned-up data, although you’re beginning to suspect that he would be able to understand the raw version. “I don’t think you’d want a dust cloud on you,” you say idly. “Especially if you’re going super fast.”

“It would be fine. They’re spread out enough that it’s a non-issue.” He’s hovering over your shoulder, pushing up his glasses so he can see your screen.

“Again, depends on how fast you are.” You’re kind of ignoring the real reason he asked to come along with you, but whatever, this conversation is more fun. “Even just a handful of particles can be dangerous.”

He snorts. “It’s a bit of a bell-curve, isn’t it? Once you start going fast enough, the stuff’s just going to bounce right off. Ninety-two percent the speed of light should do the trick.”

“That’s correct, Dr. Grace. One point for you.” He looks at you again and clears his throat. Wow, he’s really unsocialized, isn’t he? “Well, here it is. What I’ve been staring at for the last few weeks.”

“Wow.” He leans in a little closer. There’s another chair, so it’s a little unclear why he’s still standing. “And is that…?”

You follow where his finger is pointing. “The wobble. Yep. Caused by Tau Ceti-e, most likely, though we’re working on trying to confirm the existence of a second planet.”

“I thought. Don’t we already know that it has multiple?”

“Well, that’s where the inexactness comes in.” You pull up a few different windows, then, before continuing. “People have been looking at Tau Ceti for a long time, because it’s a lot like our sun, but no one’s been able to definitely prove it has planets. For some people, a wobble is not enough.”

Dr. Grace nods, and you turn a little to face him, to watch his eyes dart around the screen. “But it is for you?”

“I’ve been looking at stuff like this for a pretty long time. Just shy of a decade, if you want to try and do the math to figure out my age. So it’s—it’s sort of hard to explain, but I just have…”

“A feeling?” He finishes for you. “That makes sense. Basic pattern recognition. Brains are pretty good at that.”

You huff out a laugh. “Yeah, well, ‘basic pattern recognition’ doesn’t go over super well in peer review.”

“Well, it should. Can I…?” His hand hovers over the computer mouse, and you gesture for him to go ahead. You watch as he clicks around, skimming through different sets of data, sometimes muttering something under his breath. It’s a little incredible, how sharp he’s managed to stay despite leaving academia behind and only teaching at the middle school level. “I’m not an expert, but I believe you.”

You smile softly. “Thanks. I’ll put it on my CV.”

He finally drags the other chair over and sits down, taking a swig of his coffee. The face he makes is pretty funny; it must have gone cold already. “That’s another massive perk of leaving. I haven’t looked at a CV in years. It’s great.”

“You really like teaching, huh?”

It’s quiet for a few moments as he takes another sip. “Yeah, I do,” he finally says, quietly. “The kids are really great. So smart, insanely curious, and really not so bad once you figure out how to manage them.” The coffee cup is set down on the table, half full. It must be pretty awful. “What about you? Teaching?”

“I don’t get to do it as often as I like. Definitely not anymore, now.” You close a few of the tabs open on your computer. Despite the caffeine, you’re fairly certain that you’re done for the night. “I don’t think I could go lower than the college level, though. I get a little. Overzealous. And I imagine that wouldn’t go over well with children.”

He grins at that. “You’d be surprised. Kids like it when you treat them like people, and when you don’t hide what you really mean. And, I don’t know—I only just met you, obviously, but I think you’d be good at it.”

“Thanks.” Your face feels a little warm. “You might want to revisit that statement if you sit in on the presentation.”

“Oh?”

You wave a hand, and then you have to cover your mouth with the other as you let out a yawn. “You’ll see. There are some people here. That I do not particularly care for. And they will most definitely have something to say.”

“Looking forward to it, then.” There’s another genuine smile waiting for you when you look at him again.

--

The presentation is tomorrow. You cannot remember the last time you slept. The food in your mouth is only barely registering as food, because in your mind you’re still reviewing your notes, thinking about a slide you need to tweak, some numbers you want to go over again.

You glance up to see Dr. Grace standing in the middle of the mess hall. It seems like he’s considering whether to pick a table to sit at or to just scurry off back to his lab with his food. You raise a hand once he looks your way, and then you wave him over. He shifts his tray so he’s only holding it with one arm and points at himself, mouthing, me? You smile and nod. He takes a step, and then he hesitates, before he finally keeps walking forward and sits across from you.

“It’s not good to spend all your time in the lab,” you say around a yawn. “Work-life balance, and all that.”

He chuckles and takes a bite of his lunch. “Never had much of that. Also, pot, kettle? You look like crap.”

“Thanks,” you deadpan. “Your ability to compliment women continues to amaze.”

This makes him choke a little on his food. You would almost feel bad, because he seems to be clearly lacking in the social life department, but it is simply really funny to mess with him like this. “Why’d you wave me over?”

You shrug and pick at your tray. “I just said. Work-life balance is important. And you kind of looked like a new kid in a cafeteria, trying to figure out what cliques to avoid.”

“That about sums it up, yeah.”

“Surely you’ve made some friends by this point.”

He takes a moment to think about this while slowly chewing. He swallows. “Sort of? I don’t know, I’ve been busy. And historically I haven’t had a lot of friends.”

Oh. That’s kind of sad. “Seriously? You don’t have a single friend. Historically speaking.”

“Well, alright, it was a bit of an exaggeration. I had a friend that I got dinner with every week. From grad school. I haven’t…I don’t know what she’s up to, right now, with all of this going on. But. That’s one, at least.”

You wait for him to continue, to bring up some other examples, but he doesn’t. Yikes. “Well, alright. I think you can say that you have two now.”

His mouth is full when he says, “Who’s the—oh, you?”

“Yeah, why not? I mean, you got excited about a dust cloud and told me I was right about an exoplanet. We’re basically best buds already.”

He chokes on his food again, but this time it’s because he’s laughing. You pass him your water, because apparently he didn’t grab any, and he takes it gratefully. “Alright. Sure. I don’t, uh, I don’t know what my responsibilities are now.”

“Dr. Grace. We’re friends, we’re not in a relationship. You don’t need to, like, start planning dates or something.” The redness is back. You still do not feel that bad about teasing him, especially not now, because this is what friends do, but you say the next thing anyway. “Sorry, sorry, I should really stop. It’s just—it’s so easy, it’s almost like you haven’t even been on a date in years.” He’s silent. In fact, he is now flushing even more. He should probably get that checked out. “Are you—oh, my god.”

“I take it back. I don’t want to be friends anymore.”

You look at him, utterly flabbergasted. “How long—when was the last time you went on a date?”

“I don’t know—stop looking at me like that—I had a girlfriend in grad school.” He had a girlfriend. In grad school. That is the last example he can come up with. From about a decade ago, if your math is right, and it usually is. “We’re talking about something else now. How’s the presentation going?”

You would really like to keep talking about it, actually, and you definitely do not want to talk about the presentation, but fine. You’ll drop it. For now. “It’s going. I plan to sleep for two days straight when it’s over.”

“Why’s it so important? It seems like people are doing presentations, like, all the time, and half of them are pretty boring.”

You rub your face with your hands, meaning that your next words are a little muffled. “We kind of need to prove that there’s a planet there that the astrophage might be breeding on to justify sending an interstellar spacecraft almost twelve lightyears away.”

“Ah. That. Makes sense.” You move your hands off your face. Dr. Grace looks like he’s trying to figure out a way to reassure you, or comfort you, or something, but it seems like he’s not coming up with much. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“Here’s hoping. I should head back, probably. Thanks for sitting with me, Dr. Grace.”

You start to gather up your things and stand when he speaks again. “You can. I guess if. Ryland is fine. Since we’re friends now, apparently.”

“Okay. See you around then, Ryland.”

While you walk back to your workspace, you’re mostly thinking about all of the things you still need to do before the presentation tomorrow. But there is a tiny, little piece of your mind that is turning over whether the flush on his face was a remnant of your teasing, or if it was because you said his name.

--

The presentation is going fine, you tell yourself. This is fine. Half of the room looks bored, because you are describing the data in excruciating detail, but at least Ryland is nodding along and taking notes.

The question portion arrives. You are already steeling yourself for what is about to happen. It’s going to be bad, because you are still running on very little sleep, and it is also so lame that people aren’t more excited about all of this, because exoplanets are fascinating, and you’ve just presented the most detailed information ever gathered on one.

The asshole in the back left of the room raises his hand. You do not give him the respect of calling him by his name in your mind, because he is an asshole and has always been an asshole. “I’m not convinced,” he says, not even waiting for you to call on him, “that you’ve taken the dust into account.”

You grit your teeth and try to keep your response measured. “Well, as I spent the first twenty minutes explaining, we have. If you compare the data with—”

“No, I heard that part, but I think the variations in Tau Ceti’s luminosity are better explained by the dust passing in front of it.”

You are going to explode. It is going to happen. It is just a matter of when. “You see, here’s the thing. You said you heard that part, where I explained why, actually, those variations are not the result of dust, but then you said the second thing, which leads me to believe that you weren’t actually listening.”

The room is so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. Everyone is looking back and forth between the two of you like they’re watching a tennis match. It is so annoying that this is suddenly much more interesting to everyone than your research. “If you go back to slide twenty-three—”

“Oh, this slide?” You click back vigorously. “Right. The slide that is clearly labeled as ‘historic data,’ which was taken from a single night using a telescope in Arizona, which led the authors to conclude that they could not definitively rule out the dust. What’s crazy, and maybe you were going to ask about this next—” You click to another slide. “—is that we have been looking at Tau Ceti for months, using almost every telescope that is currently in operation, we’ve run simulation after simulation, and even looked at comparable stars with confirmed exoplanets, and everything. Everything. Points to Tau Ceti having at least one planet, if not two.”

Everyone looks back to the asshole in the back left. “There’s clearly a gap in your literature review. My article—”

Here it is. “Your article from 2016, yes. They really let anybody publish now, don’t they?” Someone coughs at that, but you can’t really tell who it is. You’re sort of focused on something else at the moment. “We read your article, and we didn’t cite it, because it’s sloppy work done by one of your graduate students that you passed off as your own. Figure four is mislabeled, by the way, and isn’t it funny how you neglect to mention that your data was recorded over two separate nights, four months apart? Sort of puts a damper on anyone trying to replicate your results when you don’t specify that.” You look around the room, then, a little wildly. “Now. Are there any other questions.” The asshole puts his hand back up. “Put your hand down.”

He scoffs and then looks over at Stratt. “This is what I was telling you. She shouldn’t have been the lead on this. She can barely keep track of her team, and now she’s letting her feelings get in the way, just because I got a grant over her a few years ago—”

The explosion has an aftershock, apparently. “You sexist, chauvinistic pig—”

“That’s enough,” Stratt finally says. She turns to you. “Good work. Send me a typed-up report of your findings. A few teams on the ground will take a look, and then we’ll send it off.”

The relief that washes over you is enough to almost make you collapse to the floor. Everyone starts filtering out, and you’re pretty sure the asshole is starting to make his way to the front of the room, which is really great, because you have a few more choice words that you’d like to share with him. The grant, really? Everyone knew he got that because he had been college roommates with the head of the committee, who then didn’t recuse himself from the vote.

Ryland gets to you before he can. “So. I think I understand what you meant now.”

“Yeah. I wasn’t kidding. I fucking hate that guy.”

“I might have picked up on that.” He glances over his shoulder and then looks back at you. “For what it’s worth, that was kind of amazing to watch.”

You smile, but it’s a little shaky. The adrenaline is starting to wear off, and you think you might just pass out within the next five minutes. “That’s high praise. What was the line you used again, in Denmark? ‘Staggering waste of carbon’? I should have quoted it.”

“Jeez. Everyone actually knows about that, don’t they?”

“We do. We really, really do.”

--

“What about,” you say around the candy in your mouth, “Dr. Lokken?”

Your life has been so, so much easier now that the presentation was done and the report had been sent off. You were still collecting data on Tau Ceti, of course—there’s always more data—but the work was moving at a much more leisurely pace now, relatively speaking, at least. It left you with a lot more time to pop into Ryland’s lab and start bothering him. Which you are currently doing. If he’s surprised at how casual you’ve started being around him, he doesn’t show it.

He doesn’t even look up from the microscope, gloved hands carefully adjusting the dials. “Absolutely not. We hate each other.”

You scoff. “She gives you ‘fuck me’ eyes every time you’re in the same room together.”

“Someone really needs to wash your mouth out with soap,” he comments idly.

You smile as you unwrap another piece of candy. It’s—you really like being his friend, you have come to realize, because he’s sharp and bumbling at the same time, insightful, patient (sometimes), he can hold his own in a conversation, he refuses to swear even though he hasn’t been around a child in weeks, the list could go on. “I’m just trying to help. Oh, how about Stratt?”

His head finally whips toward you. “No. That’s not—no. That’s terrifying, actually, to think about.”

“There’s seriously no one?”

“Well—well—what about you?” He gives up on looking at the sample, at least for now, and sits down in his chair.

Really great deflection there, Ryland. “What about me?”

He gestures at you in frustration. “You haven’t been. You know.” You raise an eyebrow. “Unless. Have you?”

You let him sit in suspense for a minute before you finally shake your head. “No. But I could, and that’s sort of the whole point.”

“Is it?”

“It is now.” He simply sighs and wheels over to his desk to write something down. “You’re no fun.”

“I’m loads of fun.”

You slowly roll over to him to look at what he’s writing, and then you offer him a piece of candy. He goes to take it after a beat, but then you jerk it away. “Wait. Your gloves.”

Ryland waves you off and tries to grab the piece again. “It’s fine. I’ve already touched the table, I’ll just put on new ones.”

You tut and then start unwrapping the candy yourself. “All lab safety goes out the window when Ryland Grace is hungry, apparently. Open.”

“Uh, what?”

“Your mouth. Open your mouth. For the candy?” You hold it up like he’s forgotten it was there in the last half of a second.

He rolls his eyes but still opens his mouth, and you carefully pop the piece of candy in. “You’re impossible,” he says around it, looking back down at his notes.

You are not looking at him or his notes. You are staring at your hand. The tip of your index finger is wet. This is a fact that is suddenly consuming you.

“You good?”

Your head snaps back up, and you wipe your finger on your pants. “I’m fine. I—I’ll stop bothering you, I need to go check on something.”

Ryland looks at you curiously. “…Okay?”

“I’ll see you later.” You walk back to your workspace, turning over this new development in your mind.

--

All things considered, everything is fine.

You’re an adult, not a teenager, and you have a decent amount of experience with being attracted to coworkers at this point. So you keep popping into his lab, and sometimes he drops by your workspace, and you show him the latest readings that you’ve been combing through, and most days you eat lunch together. And, sure, the attraction is there, but you like being his friend more than you want to potentially jeopardize that.

One of your assistants comes over and drops a stack of papers on your desk. “Here are the reports you asked for from 2011. Also, Dr. Grace was here earlier, I assume he was looking for you.”

You take the stack and start flipping through it. “Did he say what it was about?”

She shrugs. “No. It was kind of weird, though, because after I said you weren’t here, he still stuck around, just sort of standing there awkwardly, and then asked me what I knew about flirting.”

Your finger slides against the edge of one of the sheets or paper. There’s a drop of blood, now, on the page detailing the spectroscopy of Tau Ceti back in 2009—publishing takes a while sometimes—and you have to bring your finger to your mouth because of the sting. “Sorry, papercut. That’s sort of an insane thing to ask. Do you think he was flirting with you?”

“Oh, god no,” she scoffs. “He asked it like he was collecting data, or something.”

“Well, what did you tell him?” You start rummaging around in one of your drawers. There should be a bandage around here somewhere.

Your assistant opens a different drawer and hands you one. Having an assistant is so great. “That it just depends on the person and the context.”

You snort. “I bet he hated that answer.”

“He didn’t seem pleased, no.”

The bandage is successfully wrapped around the cut, so you return to leafing through the report and try to ignore the bloodstain. “I wonder why he’s asking. And why he’s not asking me. I bet he’s doing it to piss me off.”

She stands there beside you for a second. “…Yeah. It’s a real stumper,” she finally says before she walks away.

--

The deck of the carrier is a little cold at night, but you still love coming up here when you can, because it’s quiet—except for when a jet lands, then it is decidedly not quiet—and the view of the sky, out here in the middle of the Pacific, is simply gorgeous.

Ryland’s been gone for a little while. Some trip with Stratt, you think. It’s odd: you remember not being sure what she saw in him, that very first day he was here, and now when you think back on it you simply do not understand how you came to that conclusion.

“Permission to come aboard, captain?” You look over your shoulder to see him standing behind you. He’s still in a jet harness.

You salute. “Permission granted. At ease, soldier, or whatever it is they say.” He sits down next to you, then, and starts pulling off the harness. “I didn’t know you were coming back today. Fun trip?”

“Well. I guess we’re going to pave the Sahara to breed astrophage. So. Sure?”

“Um.” You look at him incredulously. “That’s. A lot.”

“Yeah. I don’t really want to talk about it.” He sighs and leans back on his hands once the harness is completely off. You look him over for a second, studying the bags underneath his eyes, the absolute mess of his hair, and you’re pretty sure one of the hinges on his glasses is broken. “What are you doing out here?”

You gesture toward the night sky, lit up with endless stars. “Taking in the view. It’s a good night for it.”

He hums and looks up, and then the two of you are quiet for a little while, listening to the sounds of the sea water against the hull of the ship, tracing the arc of the Milky Way across the sky. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “This is pretty nice.”

“I used to do this all the time, as a kid. And then when I was old enough to drive, I would go way out into the middle of nowhere just to get less light pollution.” You don’t look over at him while you speak, instead tilting your face up, as if you were talking to the stars. “Didn’t have as much time in grad school, or when I was on the tenure track. One of the many conveniences,” you joke, “about living on a boat now, I guess.”

“Don’t forget the food,” he chimes in. “Real five-star dining experience on this thing.”

You still don’t turn to face him. You simply cannot tear your gaze away from the sky. “What’s your favorite constellation?”

Ryland shifts a little beside you and thinks on this for a few moments. “Is it too on the nose if I say Cetus?”

“Maybe,” you laugh. “It has Messier 77 in it, though, which is pretty cool, so I won’t judge you too much if that’s your final answer.”

“I don’t know if I’ll lock that in just yet. I need some time to think about it. What about you?”

The wind picks up a little bit, and you hold back a shiver. You don’t really want to go inside yet. “I know this is such a lame thing to say, because I was the one who brought this up in the first place, but it is so hard for me to pick just one. I’ve always been partial to Orion, though. It’s one of the first ones I learned.”

You think he’s smiling. “He is pretty classic.”

“Yeah. And I like that he’s kind of standing by a river. Eridanus, that is. It seems fitting. Since he’s a hunter, and all.” You finally manage to stop staring upwards for a moment to look at him, and you find that he isn’t looking at the sky at all. A small smile grows on your lips to match his own. “So. I think he’s my final answer. Even if it might be basic.”

“It’s not basic. I don’t think so, at least.” The wind brushes through his hair, tussling some of the strands awry, and you watch it for a moment before dipping your eyes back down to his face. He’s backlit by all of the lights on the surface of the carrier, and it’s difficult to tell what expression he’s currently wearing. “I think I’ll stick with Cetus. He was a sea monster or something, right?”

You nod. Part of you wants to look back up. The other part of you simply can’t. “Mm-hm. I’m not a myth expert, or anything, but I think he was the one that Perseus killed to save Andromeda. And then Perseus got to live happily ever after, which I’m pretty sure was decently rare for people in those sorts of stories back then.”

“Right. The monster got turned to stone. And then…put in space, I guess?”

“Sounds right to me. Like I said, not an expert.”

The two of you just stare at each other, for a little while, until finally you turn and look up again. It’s just—you can never get tired of this, of the sheer magnitude of it, the depths of the universe wide open above you. It makes your chest clench, just a bit, thinking about it, how infinite and sprawling and beautiful it all is.

There’s another gust, and this time you can’t hold back the shiver. You sigh. “I should probably head back in.”

“Cold?”

“Unfortunately. I think the water makes it feel colder, I don’t know.” You don’t move yet, though, taking one last lingering look as Ryland shifts next to you, probably to stand and go inside himself.

Something soft brushes against your arm. “Here.”

You glance down. It’s his sweater, a blue knitted quarter zip, and he’s holding it out to you. Your eyes flick up to his face, then, and his hair is somehow even messier than before, and he hasn’t bothered to fix his glasses from however they got knocked around when he took it off. “It’s—I’m alright, really, I can just go inside.”

“Right. Even though you did the thing where you said you should go and then you looked at the sky like it was your husband going off to war. Take the dang sweater.” He presses the sweater into your arm further, and after a second you take it and slip it on.

It’s warm, and it smells like him, and the evening is starting to slant dangerously toward a place that it probably should not go, but you stay there anyway, stargazing, periodically pointing something out; and Ryland sits with you the whole time.

--

You’re on your way to his lab, with nothing really in particular to say or do. You’ve just been staring at page after page of articles for hours, and the walk sounded nice, and you drop in half the time anyway. It’s just around the corner, and then—

“Stratt, hi. It’s—right, caller ID, I know.”

You stop walking. He is so loud on the phone for some reason. Also, why doesn’t he just go to her office?

“Listen, I have a question, it’s a little bit out of the blue. So. You’re a woman. Which means—” He’s silent for a second, which is annoying, because it was just getting to the good part. “She hung up on me,” he says, a little more quietly, almost in disbelief.

A small grin spreads on your face. He really just cannot catch a break with women, can he. You decide to tuck this away to pull out at a later time, just to really screw with him.

--

You sort of hate having to eat lunch in your workspace, but there are simply too many readings that you need to sort through today, and Ryland wasn’t in the cafeteria when you picked up your food. So you fiddle with the door, trying not to spill your food everywhere, before walking in setting your tray down carefully. There’s a folded-up piece of paper sitting on your keyboard. Maybe a note from one of your assistants?

It is not.

Trip with Stratt, gone for a few days. Movie night when I get back? Interstellar? ⬛⬛⬛

-Ryland ⬛ :)

That’s nice. You wonder, briefly, what the scribbles are covering, after the movie title and between his name and the smiley-face, before tucking the note into your drawer and getting to work.

--

The movie doesn’t happen, because when he gets back, it turns out that the project might be nuking Antarctica, and this is really taking a toll on him. You hold him for a little while as he cries in frustration.

--

It’s one of the rare nights where people on the ship have decided to actually have some fun, rather than be snippy academics—which, to be fair, you sometimes contribute to that, if your presentation is anything to go off of—so some of Earth’s brightest minds are gathered in the crew lounge, getting drunk on free alcohol.

You take a sip of your beer, and then you clink Ryland’s bottle for good measure. It had taken a little bit of pleading to get him to agree to come; it’s actually turning out that he might be ahead of you in the friend department, and if he didn’t show up, you wouldn’t have anyone to talk to.

He sighs and grabs his drink. There’s a book open in front of him. You have already teased him about this. “I’m just saying. This is a great night to, you know, scope out who’s available.” It is possible that the two of you are not on your first drinks.

“Not doing that.”

This seems like the right time to use up some of the ammo you’ve been storing. “Are you sure? Because my assistant told me this really interesting story. Something about you asking her what she knew about flirting?”

This makes him sputter and finally look up from his damn book. “She told you about that?”

“Um, obviously? She’s my assistant.” You sidle a little closer, which means you’re half off the bar stool. “So. Who’s the lucky lady?”

He closes the book and leans his face on his palm. “Who said it’s a lady?”

“You did.”

“I did not.”

“Yes, you did. When you were on the phone with Stratt.”

He closes his eyes and rubs his face underneath his glasses. When he’s done, he doesn’t push them back up. “Were you eavesdropping? That could have been a private conversation. About. Classified things.”

You smile and pat his arm. You’re feeling a little bit bolder, what with the alcohol. “I have the same level of clearance that you do. Come on. Tell me. Tell me, please,” and you draw out the please, not stopping until he sighs again. “At least tell me whatever it was you were going to ask Stratt. I have been dying to know. And then I’ll stop, I swear.”

He looks at you over his wire frames, raising his eyebrows. “And I’m supposed to believe that?”

You raise a hand, sticking up three fingers and crossing your thumb over your pinkie. “Scout’s honor.”

“It’s the other hand.”

“Whatever. It’s the thought that counts. So…?”

Ryland just looks at you for a while, and then he sighs, again, and you know that you’ve won. “Seems like the cat’s already out of the bag. I. Was going to ask her. About what women like.”

It’s a little anticlimactic, because it’s precisely what you were expecting, but you’re still riding the high of getting him to tell you anyway. “Okay, one more question, and then I’m done. What is it, exactly, that you were expecting her to say?”

“I don’t know,” he responds, a little petulant, “it’s why I was asking her in the first place.”

You hum knowingly, and the smile on your face is growing into a wide, cheshire grin. “Last request, and then I am actually, seriously done. How were you going to phrase all of this to her.”

“This is how I can tell you were never a scout. You are sullying their honor.” Oh, gosh, was he a little Boy Scout once? There has to be pictures. You need to see the pictures. But that’s less important than staying silent right now until he caves. “Fine, fine. Well, apparently you heard the opening.”

“Yes, but I would like to hear it again. Pretend I’m her.”

“I really don’t want to do that.”

You try to flatten out your expression. She’s so serious, at least all the times you’ve seen her. A thought pops into your head, then, that Ryland actually knows her a lot better than you do, seeing as they spend so much time together. You don’t like the way that lands, so you push that away and focus. “Stratt,” you say, as if you were answering the phone.

He rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “Hi, person who is definitely Stratt. I had a question. You’re a woman. Which means you know what women like. So. What do women like?” He doesn’t say anything else, then, even though you’re still waiting for him to continue. “That was about what I had planned.”

“Wow.”

“Are we done now?”

You take another sip of your beer and nod. It’s empty, so you turn to the bartender and ask for another, which might not be the most amazing idea you’ve ever had—and you’ve had a lot of good ones, which is why you’re even here on this ship—but whatever. This is fun. “I think what gets me about all of this—”

The book is closed again, because apparently he had opened it back up while you were ordering. “Not done. Got it.”

The ball’s already rolling on this, so you keep going. “—is that you could have just asked me.”

He is, quite possibly, the most still you have ever seen him. And that’s saying a lot. You can almost hear the cogs turning in his head. Finally, he says, “Okay. You are a woman.”

“Aw, you remembered.”

This remark is ignored. “How would I. Hypothetically. Go about doing something that a woman would like.” It almost seems like he is in physical pain, having this conversation.

You decide that you’ll actually take this seriously, even if there is a very small part of you that is shriveling and dying up at the thought of giving him advice about this, about wooing someone. “Alright. First step: maybe don’t point out her female-ness.”

He clicks his tongue. His cheeks are a little red, probably from a combination of the alcohol and the topic at hand. “That’s—probably a good point.”

A hand is on his forearm now. It’s your hand. The movement happened before you could fully think about it. “This is going to sound incredibly cheesy, and probably not very helpful, but you should just be yourself.”

“Right. The person who confirms with a woman that she is, in fact, a woman.”

You squeeze his arm. “It’s a part of the charm, Ryland.”

His eyes flick down to your hand, and then back up to you, searching your face for a few moments. “…Alright.”

“Great. Go get ‘em, tiger.” You move your hand away, using your beer as an excuse, and you take a long swig. “I’m assuming this person is here?”

“It’s…possible.”

Your fingers tighten around the bottle. “Then let’s put this amazing advice I just gave you into practice.”

He doesn’t move, instead opening the book back up. You just stare at him for a while, expectantly, until he glances at you again. The edge of his mouth is lifting up into a smile. “What? You said be myself. This is what I would do.”

“You’re impossible.”

“I know. It’s an image that I try very hard to cultivate.”

--

You peer into the microscope. “You know, if these microbes weren’t actively killing the planet, I would think they’re pretty cool. I wonder which system they originated in.”

“My money’s on Tau Ceti,” Ryland says beside you. He taps your shoulder, signaling you to move, so you step aside and watch as he takes your place.

“That would be an insane coincidence. But not impossible, I suppose.” Wait. This gives you an idea. The data’s spotty, since so much of it was collected from amateur astronomers, but if you combed through it all, you might be able to trace their exact pattern. It was easier to tell the most recent path of infection—so, for example, you knew the last few stars they had jumped around to before reaching Earth—but maybe if you looked long enough, went back far enough, you could actually figure this out.

His voice interrupts your train of thought. “Here, look at this.” He scoots over so you can gaze into the microscope again.

“What am I meant to be looking at?”

“Do you see—there’s two of them, kind of sticking together—”

You look for a little while longer until you see what he’s talking about: there’s two little astrophage cells, darting around from place to place together as the two of you exhale, searching for the carbon dioxide. “Oh! I wonder why they’re doing that.”

It’s quiet, then, as you keep watching them, until Ryland blurts out, “That’s us.”

You stand up straight and smile. “Aw, that’s sweet. Two astrophage buddies.”

After a beat, he nods. “Yep. Two little buddies. Just. Buddying around.”

--

As it turns out, trying to figure out the astrophage’s original system is much, much harder than you thought it would be.

The main issue is the time scale: even though the microbes were incredibly fast, as far as living things go, it still took them years to travel from star to star. And while humans have been looking at the stars for pretty much as long as humans have been a thing, telescopes advanced enough to give you the kind of data you need have only existed for less than a century, and the most powerful ones have been turned toward objects much father away for quite a large chunk of that time.

Another online forum stares at you, a site for amateur astronomers to share pictures and general observations. In another tab is an archive with letters between members of the RAS in the 80s. There’s another tab—look, you have a lot of tabs open. You’ve at least managed to stretch the timeline back by a handful of systems, but that was about it.

You don’t even notice that someone else is in the room with you until there’s a to-go cup of coffee set down on your desk. The suddenness of it makes you jump. “Jeez, what the—oh, hey.” You’re not even sure who else you were expecting, because he’s the only person who drops in like this.

“Sorry. Still working on figuring out where the little guys came from?” Ryland pulls a chair up and sits next to you, except he’s sitting on it the opposite way, and it’s sort of fascinating to you sometimes how he comes up with new ways to use such a simple piece of furniture.

A little sigh leaves your lips as you lean back, trying to give your eyes a break from the screen. “Sure am. Not a ton to show for it.” He scoots in a little and starts clicking around to look at what you have so far; the two of you have reached a point where you don’t really need to ask before skimming through the other’s research. “We just don’t have reliable enough data, at least not anything that goes back far enough.”

He keeps glancing over it all for a while before nodding. “There’s a silver lining here, at least. The stars that have dimmed and then stayed that way definitely have exoplanets. So—your job is a little easier. Your other job, that is.”

You smile and finally pick up the coffee that he brought you. “This is true.” Hm. The coffee actually isn’t half bad today. Maybe the ship got a new shipment of better beans, or something.

Ryland is watching you drink it. His eyes dart between the cup and your face. “Good?”

“What, the coffee? Yeah, actually.”

“That’s good. Great, even.”

You set it down on the table. That might be a new project, you think, at least something to do on the side while you continue to observe Tau Ceti. Record some data on some of the other infected stars; maybe it would be a good article after all of this was over. You go to lean forward to open up a new document, at least to write up some preliminary thoughts, and you glance at the coffee while you do. Oh—there’s some kind of marking on the cup. “Did Stratt put a Starbucks, or something, on the boat? That would explain why it doesn’t taste like creek water today.”

When you rotate the cup to look at the black ink, you discover that it is not, in fact, a strange misspelling of your name, but a whole sentence. It says, in all capital letters, ARE YOU HYDROGEN? BECAUSE YOU’RE MY NUMBER ONE.

You stare at it for a little while before turning to look at Ryland, who is watching you take this all in. “Did you write this?”

His fingers are fidgeting with the back of his chair, picking at seam of its lining. “Well, I can tell you that Stratt did not build a coffee shop in the last few hours, so. Your conclusion is sound.”

Something clenches in your chest. He needs to stop doing stuff like this, because it is giving you a lot of false hope. “That’s really sweet, Ry. Thank you.” You run a finger over the letters, and then your smile turns a little mischievous. “I think I’d rather be thulium, though.”

His brows furrow. “Thulium, why…” You can tell that he’s picturing the periodic table in his head, because then he finally gets the joke, grinning and shaking his head in disbelief. “You’re a child, actually. My students would make that joke. And you said you wouldn’t be a good middle school teacher.”

“I still wouldn’t. Somehow I don’t think the school’s administration would appreciate me making a sixty-nine reference.”

You take another sip of the coffee and then start typing up your initial plans for taking a look at the exoplanets around astrophage-infected stars. Ryland is drumming his fingers against the chair. After a minute or so, he sighs.

--

Ryland isn’t at his lab. He must be on another trip somewhere with Stratt. Sometimes he gets whisked away so suddenly that he doesn’t get the chance to tell you before he leaves. It looks like he was in the middle of something, if the half-finished notes on the whiteboard tell you anything.

You decide to snoop around a little. It’s not malicious, or anything—though if you find something embarrassing you won’t be mad about it—you’re just curious about what he was working on before he left. It looks like he’s still brainstorming the cell’s super cross-sectionality, which no one has been able to figure out so far, even though it’s been months. You flip the whiteboard around. It’s a little difficult, because the swivels that allow the large board to be spun around really need some WD-40.

The other side of the board is not about astrophage. The longer you look, the more you realize that it’s not about any kind of science at all. It’s a list, with some items crossed out, others with little addendums made below them or to the side.

-SCIENCE LINES?

COPPER AND TITANIUM?

(doesn’t have an e—might get made fun of for misspelling)

….I forgot about tellurium

HYDROGEN #1           thulium? really?

BONDED LIKE O2

SO HOT PROTEINS DENATURE   ew, probably not

MITOCHONDRIA….SOMETHING?

-GESTURES

COFFEE

order beans

creamer

cane sugar?

KEEP SWEATER

have to wait for her to ask if I want it back

MOVIE? (romance too on the nose – Interstellar? she says it’s really about love, not astrophysics)

STARGAZING

blankets

handwarmers?

thermos

There’s more to the list, some things that have been crossed out, like the candy he hid in your desk, the email he forwarded to you about blue light glasses that were being ordered for the scientists on the ship, the book that he lent you. At the very bottom, ‘BE MYSELF’ is written in larger letters and underlined a few times for emphasis.

Oh. This is. You are the world’s leading expert on the Tau Ceti system, and probably exoplanets in general, at this point, and this thing has been staring at you in the face for weeks, and now you are feeling a little bit like an idiot.

You look at it all for a little while longer before slowly turning the whiteboard back around.

--

The ceiling of your bunk has not changed in the last thirty minutes that you have been staring at it.

The past few days of waiting for him to get back have been positively excruciating. Your work has been sloppy, because you spend half the time in your own head without realizing it, trying to figure out what you’ll say. And it has also been boring, because it has become glaringly obvious that he is the only person you really hang out with.

The main thing you keep turning over is whether or not to tell him that you saw his list. On the one hand, it feels like the easiest way to apologize for being the blindest person on Earth, but on the other, you’ve been feeling guilty about breaching his privacy like that, even though you really hadn’t meant to snoop on something that personal. You genuinely thought it would be more research. It technically was, you suppose, just not the kind you were expecting.

You’re contemplating a list of your own, maybe something to make up for just how oblivious you’ve been, when there’s a knock on your door. It’s a little late, but not late enough that it wouldn’t be someone on your team dropping something off for you.

You need to stop expecting that. It has been Ryland every single time. He’s standing in the hallway, holding a couple blankets and a thermos, which means that you know exactly what item on his list he is about to suggest. “Hey.”

“Hi.” The two of you just look at each other, for a second, and you’re considering blurting it out right then and there, but then you notice that he’s wearing his cardigan, the one with the foxes that you told him you really liked on him once, and you’re pretty sure he’s combed his hair. Maybe—maybe you can let yourself enjoy this, at least for a little bit, before you bring it up. “Did you just get back?”

“Mm-hm. About an hour ago. I thought I’d—that we could hang out on the deck, and I’d tell you about it.” He holds up the thermos. “I have hot chocolate.”

You are in your late thirties, and your stomach is buzzing like you’re a teen girl on prom night. “That sounds nice. Let me just throw a sweatshirt on.” He nods and waits for you while you dig through your bin of clothes, and then you glance over at your tiny desk, at the chair in front of it, draped upon which is the sweater he gave you the last time you stargazed together. That will work, you think.

He’s smiling softly when you walk back to the door. It is possible that you are more nervous for this than the presentation you gave in front of some of the world’s most intelligent—and annoying—scientists. “It’s a good color on you,” he says, glancing down at the sweater. “You should keep it.”

That’s another item crossed off. He’s really speedrunning his list tonight, isn’t he? “Are you sure?” You ask, because you’re still pretending like you didn’t see the whiteboard.

“Yeah. I have other sweaters.”

As you make your way to the top deck, Ryland tells you about the trip, even though he had just said the whole point of going up top together was to tell you about it there. It was something about the Hail Mary’s design, you think, but you’re having trouble genuinely registering his words.

He fiddles with the blankets for a while when you finally get outside, smoothing them out repeatedly before gesturing for you to sit down. You take the thermos from him so he can sit next to you. It’s really, really good hot chocolate.

It’s not exactly the best night for this: the moon is bright, and there are patches of clouds drifting across the sky and obscuring your view of the stars. But it’s still nice, and the two of you look up anyway, passing the thermos back and forth.

After some time passes like that, he finally speaks again. “What have you been up to? While I was gone?”

There are a few different responses in your head, ranging from not much, because it is really boring without you here to thinking about how much of an idiot I am. What comes out instead is, “I saw the whiteboard.”

“The white—oh.” He clears his throat, then, but doesn’t say anything else. His fingers start tapping nervously on the thermos.

You keep your face tilted upwards, because you’re not really sure if you can look at him just yet. “I’m—sorry, really, I wasn’t trying to—I thought it was more astrophage research. I’m sorry,” you repeat.

He clears his throat again. And then one more time for good measure. “It’s. Fine. I guess I shouldn’t have left it there.” There’s something in his voice, and it takes you a second to realize that it’s a hint of deflation, possibly disappointment.

“Don’t—I’m not—I liked it,” you rush out.

“Oh. Oh?” Apparently, words aren’t really working for either of you at the moment.

You nod and then finally look over at him. It’s still hard to read his expression out here, with all of the ship’s lights behind him, but his eyes are wide, brows a little raised, lips just barely parted. He’s clutching the thermos like it’s a lifeline. You put your hand down, then, in the space between your bodies, just letting it rest there, palm pressed into the blanket. He looks down at it, then back up at you, before setting the thermos aside. It falls over. This is ignored. His hand slides over yours until his fingers are slotted in the spaces between yours. “The science lines were pretty good,” you murmur.

He smiles and exhales, a little shakily, curling his fingers so he can squeeze your hand. “Yeah?”

“Mm-hm. What was the mitochondria one going to be?”

“Something about powering my house. I don’t know, I’ve been workshopping that one.”

You grab your phone, your emergency kit from the trunk — thank god for your mother’s paranoia — and run toward the smoking vehicle. The smell hits you first: gasoline, burnt rubber, something metallic that might be blood.

“Hello?” Your voice comes out steadier than you feel. “Can anyone hear me?”

A groan from the driver’s side. You circle around, your boots crunching on broken glass and scattered debris. The driver’s door hangs open at an odd angle. A man in his fifties sits slumped against the steering wheel, a gash above his eyebrow bleeding sluggishly.

“Sir? Sir, can you hear me?”

His eyes flutter open. Blue eyes. Dazed but focusing. “I—what happened? Where’s-” His head jerks toward the passenger side, and pure terror floods his face. “Beau! BEAU!”

He tries to unbuckle his seatbelt, but you put a hand on his shoulder. “Sir, please don’t move. You might be injured-”

“My son!” He shoves your hand away, stronger than he looks. “My son is in the passenger seat!”

Ice floods your veins. You circle to the other side of the vehicle, and that’s when you see him.

The passenger door is crumpled inward, the metal twisted like paper. The window is completely gone. And in the seat, surrounded by a spider web of cracks in what’s left of the windshield, is a young man about your age.

There’s so much blood.

“Oh god,” you whisper. Then louder, forcing yourself into action: “I’m calling 911 right now!”

Your fingers shake as you dial, but your voice comes out clear when the operator answers.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“Motor vehicle collision, Route 2 westbound, approximately two miles past the Lexington exit. Two victims. Driver appears stable with minor head trauma, but passenger has severe injuries-” You’re moving as you talk, assessing with your eyes what you can’t yet touch. “Possible cervical spine injury, significant hemorrhaging from upper extremity, penetrating chest trauma. We need paramedics and ALS immediately.”

“Ma’am, are you a medical professional?”

“Second-year medical student. I have BLS and Stop the Bleed certification.”

“Paramedics are en route. ETA eight minutes. Can you provide care until they arrive?”

“Yes.” You set the phone down, speaker on, and force yourself to breathe. Eight minutes. You can do eight minutes.

You turn back to the passenger. The father is now standing beside you, swaying slightly.

“Sir, I need you to sit down-”

“That’s my son.” His voice breaks. “Please, you have to help him. Please.”

“I will. But I need you to sit down before you fall down. Can you do that for me?”

He nods shakily and lowers himself to the ground, never taking his eyes off his son.

You lean into the destroyed passenger compartment, and your medical training wars with your human instinct to panic. The young man — Beau, his father called him — is unconscious. His head lolls at an angle that makes your stomach drop. Not a natural angle. Not even close.

“Okay,” you mutter to yourself. “Okay, think. C-spine precautions. Don’t move him unless he’s in immediate danger.”

But he is in immediate danger. You can see it in the way his neck bends, the way his head threatens to fall further forward. If his cervical spine isn’t already severed, any more movement could do it.

You look around frantically. The car is stable. No fire. But you need to stabilize his neck now.

Your emergency kit. You dump it on the ground, hands moving fast, grabbing the rolled-up fleece blanket your mom insisted you carry. You carefully roll it into a tight cylinder and maneuver it around Beau’s neck, trying to provide support without moving him any more than absolutely necessary.

“Talk to me,” you call to the father. “What’s his name? Full name?”

“Beau. Beau Maxwell.” The man’s voice is thin with shock. “He’s twenty-two. He’s healthy, no medical conditions, no allergies. He’s—god, he’s the quarterback. He has a game next week. He has-”

“Okay, Mr. Maxwell, that’s good, that’s helpful.” You’re assessing as he talks. The makeshift cervical collar is in place. Now the bleeding. “I need you to keep talking to me. Tell me what happened.”

“A deer. There was a deer in the road, and I swerved, and-” His voice cracks again. “I felt the ice. I felt us sliding. I couldn’t stop it.”

You’re barely listening now, all your attention on Beau’s arm. There’s a shard of glass — thick, wickedly sharp — embedded in his right bicep. Blood pulses around it in rhythmic spurts. Arterial. Brachial artery, most likely.

“Fuck,” you breathe. “Dispatch, update — patient has arterial hemorrhage from upper extremity. I’m applying a tourniquet now.”

Your coat. You’re already shaking from the cold, but you strip off your heavy winter coat without hesitation. You need fabric, need pressure, need to stop the bleeding before he loses any more blood.

The glass shard is still embedded. Leave it or take it out? You run through your training in microseconds. In the field, with no surgical backup, no way to clamp the artery — leave it. But you need pressure above and below.

You wrap your coat around his upper arm, using the sleeves to tie it as tight as you can manage. Your fingers are already going numb, but you pull harder, watching the rhythmic spurting slow to a steady seep. Not perfect, but better.

You’re about to check his other injuries when you see it: a thick branch, maybe three inches in diameter, has punched through the windshield and embedded itself in Beau’s chest. Just left of center. Through the sternum, or maybe just missing it. Either way, it’s deep.

Your hands hover over it, trembling. Every instinct screams at you to pull it out, but you know that branch is the only thing preventing him from bleeding out right now. If it’s hit any major vessels, removing it without a surgical team standing by would kill him.

“Please,” Mr. Maxwell says from behind you. “Please tell me he’s going to be okay.”

You don’t answer. You can’t. Instead, you lean back slightly, taking in Beau’s face for the first time.

Even like this — pale, covered in blood, unconscious — he’s striking. Dark hair matted against his forehead, strong jaw, features that would be more at home on a movie screen than a car wreck. There’s a cut above his eyebrow, minor compared to everything else, and his lips are slightly parted, each breath shallow and labored.

You find yourself reaching out, your fingers — cold and blood-stained — brushing against his cheek.

“Hey,” you whisper. “Beau. I know you can’t hear me, but I need you to hold on, okay? Help is coming. Just hold on.”

His skin is cooling rapidly in the February air. You grab the emergency blanket from your kit with your free hand and drape it over as much of him as you can without disturbing the branch or the makeshift collar.

“Six minutes out,” the dispatcher says through your phone speaker.

Six minutes. Six minutes for his brain to be without adequate oxygen if his breathing gets any worse. Six minutes for that branch to shift. Six minutes for his neck to-

No. You push the thoughts away.

“Mr. Maxwell, is anyone else hurt? Was anyone else in the car?”

“No. Just us. We were coming back from dinner. In the city. His grandmother’s birthday.” The man is crying now, quietly. “I told him I’d drive so he could relax. Have a few drinks. I told him-”

“This wasn’t your fault,” you say firmly. “The deer, the ice — this wasn’t your fault.”

You check Beau’s pulse again. Thready. Too fast. Shock, almost certainly. Blood loss, head trauma, possible internal injuries — the list spirals in your mind.

“His pupils,” Mr. Maxwell says suddenly. “Shouldn’t you check his pupils?”

You should. You know you should. But part of you is terrified of what you’ll find. Unequal pupils would mean increased intracranial pressure, brain herniation, things you cannot fix on the side of a dark highway.

Still, you pull out your phone flashlight and gently lift one of Beau’s eyelids.

Blue. His eyes are the same startling blue as his father’s, even closed like this. You shine the light across. The pupil constricts. Sluggish, but it constricts. You check the other side. The same.

“Equal and reactive,” you report to dispatch, relief flooding through you. “Sluggish but responsive.”

“Paramedics are three minutes out,” the dispatcher responds.

Three minutes. You can see lights in the distance now, hear the wail of sirens cutting through the night.

You check the tourniquet again — still holding. Check his breathing — still shallow but present. Your hand finds its way back to his face, and you realize you’re talking to him, a steady stream of words you’ll never remember later.

“They’re almost here. You’re doing great. Just keep breathing, okay? Keep breathing.”

Behind you, Mr. Maxwell is on his own phone now, his voice breaking as he talks to someone. His wife, probably. Telling her something no parent should ever have to say.

The ambulance screams to a stop, and suddenly there are people everywhere. Paramedics in dark blue, moving with practiced efficiency.

“We’ve got him, ma’am. We’ve got him.”

But you don’t move. Not until one of them — a woman with kind eyes and gray-streaked hair — gently touches your shoulder.

“You did good,” she says. “Really good. But we need you to step back now so we can work.”

You stumble backward, and Mr. Maxwell is there, catching your elbow.

“What do we have?” the lead paramedic asks.

Your voice comes out steadier than you feel. “Twenty-two-year-old male, restrained passenger in head-on collision with tree. Patient found unconscious, significant cervical spine angulation — I’ve placed a soft collar for support. Penetrating trauma to chest, large foreign object still in situ. Arterial hemorrhage from right upper extremity, tourniquet applied. Pupils equal and reactive but sluggish. Respirations shallow, approximately 20 per minute. Pulse thready at approximately 120. Obvious signs of shock.”

The paramedic’s eyebrows raise slightly. “You a doctor?”

“Med student. Second year.”

“Well, med student, you probably saved his life.” She’s already moving, her team swarming around Beau with practiced precision. C-collar. Backboard. IV access. They work with a choreography born of countless traumas.

You watch as they carefully extract him from the vehicle, maintaining spinal precautions, keeping the branch stable. Watch as they load him onto the stretcher. Watch as they cut away his blood-soaked shirt, revealing more of the damage underneath.

“We’re taking him to Mass General,” one of the paramedics calls out. “Trauma one.”

“I’m riding with him,” Mr. Maxwell says, but he’s swaying again, and now that the adrenaline is fading, you can see he’s not as okay as he first appeared.

“Sir, you need to be evaluated too,” another paramedic says, approaching with a second gurney. “We’ll take you both.”

“But-”

“We’ve got him, sir. We’ve got your son.”

You watch as they load Mr. Maxwell into a second ambulance. Watch as both vehicles pull away, sirens wailing, lights painting the dark road in red and blue.

Then it’s just you, standing on the side of Route 2 in just your scrubs and thin long-sleeve shirt, shivering violently as the adrenaline finally crashes. A police officer is talking to you — when did the police arrive? — asking questions you answer automatically.

Your coat is gone. Still wrapped around Beau Maxwell’s arm, probably being cut off by the trauma team right now. Your emergency kit is scattered across the asphalt. Your hands are stained rusty brown with blood.

“Miss?” The officer touches your shoulder. “Miss, are you okay? Do you need medical attention?”

“I’m fine,” you hear yourself say. “I’m fine.”

But you’re not fine. You’re shaking so hard your teeth chatter. Your mind keeps replaying the angle of Beau’s neck, the branch in his chest, the feel of his cooling skin under your fingers.

The officer wraps a shock blanket around your shoulders and guides you to sit in your car, heater blasting. He’s still asking questions — your name, your address, what you saw. You answer them all, but part of you is still on that roadside, watching Beau’s chest rise and fall in shallow, struggling breaths.

“You’re a hero, you know,” the officer says after he’s finished taking your statement. “That young man — you probably saved his life.”

You nod numbly. All you can think is but what if it wasn’t enough?

The officer helps you collect your scattered supplies, guides you through the process of leaving the scene. Your car is fine. You’re fine. Everything is fine.

Except it’s not.

As you drive home, your hands won’t stop shaking on the wheel. You keep seeing Beau’s face, keep feeling the cold of his skin, keep hearing Mr. Maxwell’s broken voice. That’s my son. Please, you have to help him.

You make it to your apartment building, into your unit, into your bathroom before you finally break down. You sit on the cold tile floor, still in your blood-stained scrubs, and sob.

Because you’ve spent two years studying medicine, learning about trauma and emergency care, practicing on mannequins and in simulations. But nothing prepared you for the reality of holding someone’s life in your hands while their blood soaks into your coat and their father begs you to save them.

Nothing prepared you for looking into the face of a dying stranger and desperately, irrationally, needing him to survive.

You cry until you have no tears left, until the shaking finally subsides, until you can breathe without feeling like your chest is caving in. You peel off your ruined scrubs, scrub the blood from your hands, and sit on your couch in the dark.

Then you pull up Google on your phone, your hands steadier now, and type in a name. Beau Maxwell.

The results flood your screen. Articles about football, highlight reels, statistics. Briar University’s star quarterback. Twenty-two years old. Junior year. Dark hair, blue eyes, a smile that could sell toothpaste. Projected first-round NFL draft pick.

You scroll through image after image of him — in uniform, in interviews, at press conferences. Healthy. Whole. So full of life it seems impossible that just an hour ago you were watching him bleed out on a dark highway.

You close your phone and lean your head back against the couch, staring at your ceiling in the darkness.

“Please,” you whisper to no one, to everyone, to whatever forces govern life and death. “Please let him be okay.”

Outside your window, Boston sleeps on, unaware. Somewhere across the city, in Mass General’s trauma bay, a team of surgeons fights to save the life of a quarterback you’ve never met but will never forget.

All you can do is wait.

And hope.

And pray that your desperate, fumbling first aid was enough to give him a chance.

***

The weight room smells like sweat and rubber, the familiar clang of metal on metal providing a rhythm Dean has known since he was twelve. It’s barely seven in the morning, but he’s already on his third set of deadlifts, Garrett spotting him while Logan and Tucker argue about last night’s game on the bench press across the room.

“I’m just saying,” Tucker calls over, “if you’d passed to me in the third period instead of trying to be a hero-”

“If I’d passed to you, you would’ve whiffed it like you did in the second,” Logan fires back.

“Fuck off, I was screened-”

“You were too busy checking out that blonde in the third row-”

Dean tunes them out, focusing on his form. Up. Hold. Down. Controlled. His phone sits on the bench beside his water bottle, face down. It buzzes once — probably his mom checking if he’s coming home this weekend — but he ignores it.

He’s pulling the bar up for his fourth rep when the phone starts ringing. Properly ringing, not just buzzing. The specific ringtone that means it’s someone from his favorites list.

“Dude, your phone,” Garrett says.

Dean sets the bar down carefully and picks up the phone, expecting to see his mom’s contact photo. Instead, it’s Coach Jensen.

At seven in the morning.

On a Saturday.

“That’s weird,” Dean mutters, answering. “Coach? Everything okay?”

There’s a pause. Too long. Dean’s stomach does something uncomfortable.

“Di Laurentis.” Coach Jensen’s voice is careful in a way Dean has never heard before. Careful like he’s handling glass. “Where are you right now?”

“Weight room. With the guys. What’s going on?”

Another pause. Dean can hear something in the background — voices, maybe a TV.

“Is Garrett there? Logan? Tucker?”

“Yeah, they’re all here. Coach, what-”

“I need you to sit down, son.”

The weight room goes very quiet. Dean realizes his teammates have stopped talking and are now watching him. He doesn’t sit down.

“What happened?”

Coach Jensen takes a breath. Dean can hear it through the phone. “I got a call this morning from Coach Deluca. He called because he knows a lot of our guys are friends with players on his team.”

Dean’s hand tightens on the phone. “Okay?”

“It’s about Beau Maxwell.”

The world tilts slightly. “What about him?”

“There was an accident last night. A car accident. Dean, he’s-” Coach Jensen’s voice catches. “He’s in critical condition at Mass General. His father was driving them back from dinner in the city, and they hit ice, crashed into a tree. His dad’s okay, but Beau-”

Dean doesn’t hear the rest. The phone slips from his hand, clattering against the concrete floor. The sound echoes, distant and wrong, like it’s coming from underwater.

Beau.

Critical condition.

The words don’t make sense. They can’t make sense. Because Dean just saw Beau yesterday. They grabbed lunch between classes, argued about whether the Packers or the Patriots were going to make it to the playoffs, made plans to hit up a party tonight. Beau was fine. Beau was fine.

“Dean?” Garrett’s hand is on his shoulder. “Dean, what’s wrong?”

Dean opens his mouth but nothing comes out. His knees feel strange, like they might not hold him. The weight room spins slightly, or maybe he’s spinning, he can’t tell.

“Shit, he’s going down-” That’s Logan, suddenly on his other side, propping him up.

Tucker grabs the phone from the floor. Dean watches him lift it to his ear, watches his face go pale as he listens to whatever Coach Jensen is saying.

“Oh fuck,” Tucker whispers. “Oh fuck, oh fuck-”

“What?” Garrett demands. “What happened?”

“It’s Beau.” Tucker’s voice sounds hollow. “He’s—there was a car accident. He’s in critical condition.”

The words hit the room like a physical force. Garrett’s hand tightens on Dean’s shoulder. Logan makes a sound like he’s been punched.

Dean still can’t breathe right. Can’t think right. Critical condition. That means bad. That means really bad. That means-

No. No, he’s not going there.

“We need to go,” Dean hears himself say. His voice sounds far away. “We need to go to the hospital.”

“Dean, maybe we should-” Garrett starts.

“Now.” Dean pulls away from his friends, stumbling slightly. His legs feel like water. “We’re going now.”

“Okay,” Logan says quickly. “Okay, yeah. My car’s out front. Let’s go.”

Dean doesn’t remember the walk to the parking lot. Doesn’t remember climbing into Logan’s beat-up pickup. One minute he’s in the weight room, and the next he’s in the back seat, Tucker beside him, watching the familiar streets of Boston blur past the window.

Garrett is in the passenger seat, on his phone. “Yeah, Wellsy, it’s—yeah, it’s really bad. We’re going to Mass General now. Can you—yeah. Thanks, baby.”

The city passes in a haze. Dean stares out the window without seeing anything. His mind keeps trying to process the information and failing. Beau. Car accident. Critical condition.

They’re brothers. Not by blood, but by choice, which Dean has always thought means more. 

Beau is the guy who stayed up with Dean all night when his grandfather died, never saying much, just being there. The guy who taught Dean how to throw a spiral when some girl Dean was into invited him to throw a football around. The guy who knows Dean’s coffee order and brings him one without being asked when he’s had a rough day.

Beau is his brother.

And Dean doesn’t know what he’ll do if-

No. Stop. Don’t think it.

“We’re here,” Logan announces, pulling into the hospital parking garage with slightly too much speed.

They practically fall out of the truck, running for the entrance. The hospital is massive, gleaming glass and steel, and Dean has no idea where to go.

“Trauma wing,” Tucker pants, pulling out his phone. “Coach sent me directions. This way.”

They follow him through automatic doors, past a reception desk, down a hallway that smells like antiseptic and fear. Dean’s heart is pounding so hard he can hear it in his ears. His workout clothes are still damp with sweat. He should have changed. Why didn’t he change?

They round a corner, and Dean sees them.

The waiting room is full of Maxwells.

Beau’s mom, Debbie, sits in one of those uncomfortable plastic chairs, her face buried in her hands. Beau’s dad is standing by the window, a white bandage visible above his eyebrow. Beau’s grandmother is there too, being comforted by what looks like Beau’s aunt. There are others Dean recognizes from family gatherings and football games, all wearing the same expression of shock and grief.

They all look up as four hockey players in workout gear burst into the waiting room.

His moml’s eyes land on Dean, and her face crumbles.

“Dean,” she chokes out, and then she’s standing, crossing the room in three steps, pulling him into her arms.

She’s shaking. Or maybe he’s shaking. He can’t tell anymore.

“I’m so sorry,” she’s saying into his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, honey, I know you two—I know-”

That’s what breaks him.

Dean Di Laurentis, who prides himself on being smooth, charming, always in control, shatters. His knees give out, and if Beau’s mom wasn’t holding him up, he’d be on the floor. A sob tears out of his throat, raw and ugly and completely beyond his control.

“I’ve got you,” she whispers, even though she’s the one who should be comforted, even though it’s her son in critical condition. “I’ve got you, sweetheart.”

Dean can feel his teammates behind him — Logan’s hand on his back, Garrett’s voice saying something he can’t make out. But mostly he feels the weight of grief trying to crush him, the terror of possibly losing the person who knows him better than anyone.

“What happened?” He manages to gasp out. “Coach said—but he didn’t—what happened?”

Debbie pulls back, her hands still on his shoulders. Her eyes are red-rimmed and swollen. “You should tell them.”

Beau’s dad turns from the window. He looks like he’s aged ten years overnight. The bandage above his eyebrow is stark white against his pale skin.

“We were driving back from dinner,” he says, his voice rough. “In the city. For my mother’s birthday. It was late, almost midnight. I was driving because Beau had a few drinks. We were just—we were talking about the game next week. About his classes. Normal stuff.”

He stops, his jaw working. Beau’s grandmother reaches over and takes his hand.

“There was a deer,” Beau’s dad continues. “It came out of nowhere. I swerved, and the road—there was black ice. I felt the car start to slide, and I couldn’t—I tried to correct, but we just kept sliding. We hit a tree. Driver’s side hit first, then passenger side slammed into it.”

Dean’s stomach churns. He can picture it too clearly.

“I woke up a few seconds later. I was okay, just disoriented. But Beau-” Beau’s father takes a moment to gather himself. “He wasn’t moving. There was blood everywhere. And then this young woman appeared. Out of nowhere. She’d seen the crash and stopped.”

“She called 911,” Beau’s mom picks up the story, her voice steadier than her husband’s. “She was a medical student. She—god, the paramedics said she saved his life. She stabilized his neck, stopped the worst of the bleeding, kept him alive until they could get there.”

“What are his injuries?” Garrett asks quietly. He’s moved to stand beside Dean, solid and steady.

Beau’s dad closes his eyes. “Cervical spine trauma. The paramedics said his neck was bent at an angle that should have killed him. Should have severed his spinal cord. But this girl, she somehow stabilized it. Kept it from snapping completely.”

Dean tastes bile. He swallows hard.

“He also had a penetrating chest wound,” Beau’s dqd continues. “A tree branch went through the windshield and-” He makes a gesture toward his own sternum. “She knew not to pull it out. Knew it was the only thing keeping him from bleeding out.”

“And his arm,” Beau’s mom adds, wiping her eyes. “Severe laceration from broken glass. She used her own coat as a tourniquet.”

The waiting room is silent except for the buzz of fluorescent lights and the distant beep of monitors.

“Is he going to be okay?” Tucker asks. His voice is small, younger than Dean has ever heard it.

“They’ve been in surgery for four hours,” Beau’s mom says. “We don’t know yet. They said-” Her voice wavers. “They said the next few days are critical. That even if he survives the surgery, there could be complications. Infection. Brain damage from oxygen deprivation. Paralysis.”

“No.” The word comes out sharp, definitive. Dean doesn’t realize he’s the one who said it until everyone looks at him. “No, that’s not—Beau’s going to be fine. He has to be fine. He’s-”

He can’t finish the sentence. Can’t articulate what Beau means, what a world without him would look like. Can’t.

“We’re praying, honey,” Beau’s mom says softly. “That’s all we can do right now.”

Dean wants to scream that prayer isn’t enough. That there has to be something, anything, they can do. But he just nods, swallowing against the lump in his throat.

More people arrive over the next hour. Beau’s teammates, guys from the football team who Dean knows from parties and the occasional shared class. They fill the waiting room with whispered conversations and shell-shocked expressions. A few of them break down crying. Most just sit in stunned silence.

Dean ends up in one of the plastic chairs, his head in his hands. Logan sits on one side, Garrett on the other. Tucker paces by the window, unable to sit still.

“He’s going to make it,” Logan says quietly. “You know Beau. Stubborn as hell. He’s not going anywhere.”

Dean wants to believe that. Wants to believe that sheer force of will can overcome arterial bleeding and spinal trauma. But he’s seen enough hockey injuries to know that sometimes will isn’t enough.

“Did you know,” Dean says suddenly, his voice hoarse, “that his first word was ‘ball’? He told me that freshman year. Not ‘mama’ or ‘dada.’ ‘Ball.’ His parents said he was obsessed with any kind of ball from the time he could sit up. They knew he’d be an athlete before he could walk.”

“Yeah?” Garrett’s voice is soft, encouraging.

“And he-” Dean’s throat closes up. He forces himself to continue. “He wants to go pro. Obviously. But after that, he wants to coach. High school kids, specifically. He says college and pro players already have all the resources. He wants to work with kids who might not have anyone believing in them.”

“That sounds like Beau,” Logan says.

“He’s going to do it, too,” Dean insists, looking up. “He’s going to play in the NFL and then coach high school ball and probably turn some underfunded program into a state championship team because that’s what he does. He sees potential in people and brings it out of them.”

“Dean-” Garrett starts.

“I mean it.” Dean’s voice cracks. “That’s who he is. So he can’t—he has to-”

The doors to the surgical wing swing open.

The waiting room falls silent immediately. Every head turns. A surgeon walks out, still in his scrubs, pulling off his surgical cap. He looks tired. So tired.

Beau’s parents are on their feet instantly, crossing to meet him. Dean stands too, his teammates flanking him. His heart pounds so hard he thinks it might break through his ribs.

“Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell,” the surgeon says. His voice is neutral, professional, impossible to read.

“How is he?” Beau’s mom asks in barely a whisper. “How’s my son?”

The surgeon takes a breath. Dean holds his own, feeling like the entire world is balanced on whatever words come next.

“The surgery was successful,” the surgeon says, and the relief that floods the room is almost tangible. “We’ve stabilized the spinal trauma, repaired the vascular damage to his arm, and removed the foreign object from his chest. The object missed his heart by less than two centimeters. Any further to the right, and-”

He doesn’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t have to.

“But he’s alive?” Beau’s dad asks. “He’s going to live?”

“He’s alive,” the surgeon confirms. “He’s in critical condition, and the next seventy-two hours will be crucial. There’s still risk of infection, of complications from the spinal trauma. But he made it through surgery, which given the extent of his injuries, is remarkable.”

“Can we see him?” Beau’s mom asks.

“He’s being moved to the ICU now. You can see him once he’s settled, but he’ll be sedated. We need to keep him as still as possible to let the spinal repair begin to heal.”

“His spine,” Beau’s dad says. “Will he—is there paralysis?”

The surgeon’s expression is carefully neutral. “We won’t know the full extent of any nerve damage until he wakes up and we can do a thorough neurological assessment. The spinal cord itself wasn’t severed, which is extraordinarily fortunate. Whoever stabilized his neck at the scene saved his life and likely saved him from permanent paralysis.”

“The girl,” Beau’s mom says. “The medical student. Do you know her name? We want to thank her.”

The surgeon shakes his head. “The paramedics didn’t get her information. Just that she was a Good Samaritan who stopped to help.”

“We have to find her,” Beau’s mom says, turning to her husband. “We have to-”

“We will,” Beau’s dad promises. “We will.”

The surgeon continues, “I need to be clear with you. Your son’s injuries were catastrophic. The fact that he’s alive is nothing short of miraculous. But the road ahead is going to be long. Months of recovery, likely. Multiple surgeries. Intensive physical therapy. And there are still no guarantees.”

“But he’s alive,” Beau’s mom repeats, like it’s a prayer. “He’s alive.”

“He’s alive,” the surgeon confirms. “You should be very proud of him. He’s a fighter.”

After the surgeon leaves, the waiting room erupts. Quiet at first — no one wants to celebrate when Beau is still critical — but there’s a shift. From hopeless to hopeful. From grief to cautious relief.

Dean sits down hard, his legs finally giving out completely. He drops his head into his hands, and this time when he cries, it’s different. Still scared, still shaken, but there’s something else mixed in.

Gratitude.

“He made it,” Logan says, his own voice thick. “Holy shit, he actually made it.”

“Seventy-two hours,” Tucker says. “That’s what the doctor said. Three days. He just has to make it three days.”

“He will,” Garrett says firmly. “You heard the doc. Beau’s a fighter.”

Dean lifts his head, scrubbing at his face. His eyes feel swollen, his throat raw. He probably looks like hell. He doesn’t care.

“I need to see him,” he says. “I need to see him.”

“Family only in the ICU, probably,” Logan says gently. “At least at first.”

“I don’t care. I need-” Dean’s voice breaks again. “I need to see him.”

Beau’s mom appears in front of him, crouching down so they’re at eye level. She takes his hands in hers.

“As soon as they let us bring visitors, you’ll be the first,” she promises. “I swear. But right now, I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything.”

“I need you to take care of yourself. Go home, shower, eat something. Because when Beau wakes up — and he will wake up — he’s going to need you strong. Can you do that?”

Dean wants to argue. Wants to plant himself in this waiting room and refuse to move until he can see his brother. But her eyes are pleading, and she’s asking so little when she’s going through so much.

“Okay,” he whispers. “Okay, but you’ll call me? The second anything changes?”

“The absolute second,” she promises. “You’re family, Dean. You know that.”

Family. The word cracks something open in his chest. He pulls Beau’s mom into another hug, holding on tight.

“Thank you,” he says. “For calling me. For letting me know.”

“Oh honey,” she says, pulling back to look at him. “There was never a question. You’re his brother.”

Dean nods, not trusting himself to speak.

His teammates drive him back to campus in silence. The shock is starting to wear off, leaving exhaustion in its wake. Dean’s muscles ache from his workout, which feels like it happened years ago instead of hours.

They end up on the couch, the four of them, not talking. Just being there. At some point, Tucker orders pizza. At another point, Hannah and Allie show up with half the football team, bringing food and offering quiet support.

Dean’s phone buzzes constantly. Texts from teammates, from friends, from people he hasn’t talked to in months, all asking about Beau. He doesn’t answer any of them.

Instead, he pulls up his photos. Finds the album labeled “Best Bro.” Hundreds of pictures spanning three years. Beau throwing a touchdown. Beau at a party, arm slung around Dean’s shoulders. Beau asleep in the library during finals week, drooling on his American History textbook. Beau grinning at the camera, blue eyes bright, completely alive.

“He’s going to be okay,” Dean whispers to the photo. “You’re going to be okay.”

He has to believe it. Because the alternative — a world without Beau’s terrible jokes and unwavering loyalty and ability to light up any room he walks into — is unthinkable.

His phone buzzes again. They’ve settled him in the ICU. He looks peaceful. Still sedated. Doctors say next 12 hours are critical. Will update you in the morning. Try to get some sleep, honey. He needs you rested.

Dean stares at the message for a long time. Tell him I’m here. Tell him his brother is here and waiting for him to wake up.

Dean sets his phone down and leans back against the couch. Around him, his friends have settled into quiet conversation. Someone turned on a movie at some point, something mindless playing on low volume.

But Dean isn’t watching. He’s thinking about a girl he’s never met. A medical student who stopped on a dark highway and saved his brother’s life. Who thought quickly enough to stabilize Beau’s neck, to stop the bleeding, to give him a fighting chance.

Whoever she is, wherever she is, Dean owes her everything.

“We have to find her,” he says suddenly.

Garrett looks over. “Who?”

“The girl. The medical student. She saved him, and she just disappeared. Didn’t even leave her name.”

“Dude, Boston has like five medical schools,” Logan points out. “That’s thousands of students.”

“I don’t care,” Dean says. His voice is stronger now, steadier. “We’ll check every single one if we have to. But we’re going to find her.”

Because whoever she is, she gave Beau a second chance at life.

And Dean is going to make damn sure she knows how much that means.

***

The world comes back in pieces.

First, there’s sound — a steady beeping, rhythmic and insistent. Then sensation — something soft beneath him, something constricting around his neck. Then smell — antiseptic, that particular hospital smell that’s somehow both sterile and cloying at once.

Beau tries to open his eyes, but his eyelids feel like they weigh a thousand pounds.

“-vitals are stable, Mrs. Maxwell. We’re going to start decreasing the sedation now-”

That’s a voice he doesn’t recognize. Professional. Clinical.

“How long until he wakes up?” That voice he knows. Mom. She sounds exhausted.

“It varies. Could be a few hours. His body’s been through significant trauma, so we’re taking it slow.”

Beau wants to tell them he’s right here, that he can hear them, but his mouth won’t cooperate. The darkness pulls him back under.

***

The next time consciousness surfaces, it stays a little longer.

The beeping is still there. But now there are other sounds too — quiet conversation, the rustle of fabric, footsteps in the hallway.

“-told you, you can’t give him solid food yet-” Mom again, but this time she sounds amused.

“I’m not giving it to him. I’m just … having it ready. For when he can.” Dean. That’s definitely Dean.

“You brought Dunkin’ Donuts to a hospital ICU?”

“Munchkins. They’re small. It doesn’t count.”

Despite everything — the pain starting to register in various parts of his body, the confusion, the way his neck feels completely immobilized — Beau almost smiles.

“Beau?” A different voice. Dad. “Beau, can you hear me?”

He tries to respond. Manages something between a grunt and a groan.

“Oh my god.” Mom’s voice cracks. “Oh my god, he’s—get the nurse. Get the nurse!”

Footsteps. Fast.

Beau forces his eyes open. The light is too bright, everything blurry. He blinks, and slowly the world comes into focus.

White ceiling. Fluorescent lights. The edge of what looks like a massive amount of medical equipment.

“Beau?” Mom’s face appears above him, and she’s crying. “Oh, baby. You’re awake. You’re really awake.”

“Hey, Mom.” His voice comes out as barely a rasp, his throat raw and painful.

“Don’t try to move, sweetheart. Your neck—they had to stabilize your neck. You’re in a brace.”

That explains the constricting feeling. Beau tries to turn his head instinctively and immediately regrets it as pain shoots through him.

“Easy, easy.” That’s a new voice — a nurse, he realizes, as a woman in scrubs appears on his other side. “Welcome back, Mr. Maxwell. I’m Theresa. Can you tell me your name?”

“Beau Maxwell.” It hurts to talk, but he manages.

“Good. Do you know where you are?”

“Hospital.” Duh.

“Do you remember what happened?”

Beau tries to think. His memory is … foggy. Disjointed. “Car. We were in a car. Dad was driving.” He looks around, spotting his father standing near the foot of the bed, bandage still visible on his forehead. “Dad. You okay?”

His dad laughs, the sound wet and relieved. “I’m fine, son. I’m fine. You’re the one who-” His voice breaks. “You scared the hell out of us.”

“Language,” Mom chides, but she’s smiling through her tears.

The nurse runs through more questions — what year it is, who the president is, can he feel his fingers and toes. Everything checks out, apparently, because she smiles and says, “Looking good, Mr. Maxwell. The doctor will be by soon to do a full assessment.”

After she leaves, Beau takes stock. He can see Mom and Dad, both looking exhausted and relieved. And there, slouched in a chair by the window, is Dean, holding a Dunkin’ Donuts bag and grinning like an idiot.

“You look like shit,” Beau rasps.

Dean laughs, and it sounds a little hysterical. “Says the guy in the ICU. Welcome back, man.”

“How long was I out?”

“Two and a half days,” Mom says, stroking his hand gently. “They had you heavily sedated while you healed.”

Two and a half days. Beau processes this slowly. “What … what are my injuries?”

His parents exchange a look.

“Son,” Dad starts, “you had—it was pretty bad. Cervical spine trauma. They had to operate. And there was a branch, through your chest-”

“A branch?”

“Missed your heart by less than two inches,” Mom says quietly. “And your arm—there was a lot of glass. They had to repair the artery.”

Beau stares at the ceiling, trying to reconcile this information with the fact that he’s alive and apparently mostly functional. “How am I not dead?”

“Because someone saved you,” Dad says. “There was a woman, a medical student. She saw the crash happen and stopped to help. She stabilized your neck, stopped the bleeding, kept you alive until the paramedics arrived.”

A medical student. Random Good Samaritan. Beau tries to remember, but there’s nothing. Just darkness and then waking up here.

“The surgeon said if she hadn’t stabilized your neck, one more wrong movement and-” Mom can’t finish the sentence.

“We’ve been trying to find her,” Dean interjects, standing up and moving closer to the bed. “To thank her. But she didn’t leave her name, and the hospital doesn’t have her information. Just that she was a medical student who stopped to help.”

“I want to thank her too,” Beau says. His throat is killing him, but this seems important.

“The police have her contact information from the accident report,” Dad says. “We’re working on tracking her down. But for now, you need to focus on healing.”

A doctor arrives shortly after, running through a battery of neurological tests. Can Beau move his fingers? Yes. Toes? Yes. Feel pressure on his arms? Legs? Yes, yes. The doctor looks cautiously optimistic.

“The fact that you have full sensation and motor function is excellent news,” the doctor says. “But you’re not out of the woods yet. The next few weeks are critical. Any wrong movement could jeopardize the spinal repair.”

“So I’m stuck in this neck brace?”

“For at least eight weeks. And then extensive physical therapy.”

Eight weeks. Beau’s season is over. His entire junior year, gone. He closes his eyes against the wave of disappointment.

“Hey.” Dean’s hand lands on his shoulder. “One step at a time, yeah? You’re alive. That’s what matters.”

Beau nods minutely, the brace making even that small movement awkward.

The rest of the day passes in a blur of doctors, nurses, medications, and family. His grandmother comes by and cries all over him. His aunt brings flowers that the nurses say aren’t allowed in ICU but no one has the heart to remove. His uncle brings an embarrassing amount of Packers gear “for morale.”

Dean never leaves. He’s a permanent fixture in the chair by the window, occasionally trying to sneak Beau a munchkin when the nurses aren’t looking, even though Beau still can’t eat solid food.

“Dude, stop,” Beau finally says. “You’re going to get kicked out.”

“Worth it,” Dean says, but he puts the bag away.

It’s late afternoon on the third day post-accident — technically only a few hours since Beau woke up — when there’s a knock on the door.

“If that’s another neurologist, I swear to god-” Beau starts.

“Language,” Mom says automatically, but she’s already turning toward the door. “Come in!”

The door opens, and everyone looks up expecting another doctor or nurse.

Instead, a young woman steps in.

She’s around Beau’s age, maybe a year or two older, wearing jeans and a Harvard hoodie, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. She looks nervous, clutching a worn messenger bag and hesitating in the doorway like she might bolt at any second.

“I’m sorry,” she says quickly. “I know you probably weren’t expecting visitors, but I—the reception desk said that—I asked how the patient from the accident was doing, and they said the medical student who helped at the scene was on the approved visitor list, so I thought-” She’s rambling, talking faster with each word. “I can leave. I should probably leave. I just wanted to check-”

“Oh my god.” Dad is on his feet. “You’re her. You’re the medical student.”

She nods, looking even more uncertain. “I’m—yes. I was the one who—I saw the accident, and I-”

She doesn’t get any further because Dad crosses the room in three strides and wraps her in a hug.

“Thank you,” he says, his voice thick. “Thank you for saving my son. Thank you, thank you-”

You stand frozen for a second, clearly startled, before awkwardly patting his back. “I—you’re welcome. I just did what anyone would-”

“No.” Mom is there now too, and as soon as Dad releases you, she pulls you into an equally tight embrace. “No, what you did — the surgeon said you saved his life. That if you hadn’t stabilized his neck, he wouldn’t have made it. You saved our boy.”

Beau watches from the bed, unable to turn his head much but able to see enough. The woman — the medical student who saved him — looks completely overwhelmed, her eyes suspiciously bright.

“I’m just glad he’s okay,” you manage. “I’ve been checking the news, looking for updates, but I couldn’t find anything, and I was worried-”

“He’s going to be okay,” Mom assures you, finally releasing you. “Thanks to you.”

Then Dean is there, and he pulls you into a hug that actually lifts you off your feet slightly.

“I don’t know who you are yet,” Dean says, “but you saved my brother’s life, so you’re stuck with me now. Fair warning, I’m a hugger.”

You laugh, the sound slightly watery. “I can tell.”

“What’s your name?” Mom asks, steering you gently toward the bed.

“Y/N Y/L/N,” you say. “I’m a second-year at Harvard Med.”

“Y/N,” Dad repeats. “That’s a beautiful name.”

You smile, still looking nervous, and then your eyes land on Beau.

Beau, who has been staring at you since you walked in.

Because holy shit.

You’re beautiful. Like, devastatingly beautiful. Even in casual clothes with no makeup and looking slightly anxious, you’re the most stunning person Beau has ever seen. There’s something about your eyes, warm and genuine, and the way you move, and-

Is this heaven? Did he actually die and this is some kind of afterlife? Because that would explain a lot.

“Hi,” you say softly, moving to his bedside. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I got hit by a tree,” Beau rasps, then immediately winces. “Sorry. That was—I’m apparently still working on the whole talking thing.”

You laugh, and the sound does something strange to his chest. “The tree definitely won that round. But I’m so glad to see you awake. When I left the scene, I-” You pause, taking a shaky breath. “I wasn’t sure you’d make it. Your injuries were severe.”

“Apparently you’re the reason I did make it,” Beau says. He wishes he could sit up properly, look at you without the weird angle the neck brace forces. “Thank you. I mean it. Thank you for stopping. For helping.”

“Of course.” You look genuinely confused by the gratitude. “I couldn’t just drive past.”

“Most people would have,” Dean interjects. He’s back in his chair but watching you with open fascination. “Most people would’ve called 911 and kept going.”

“I had training,” you say simply. “And someone needed help. It wasn’t—I mean, I just did what needed to be done.”

“You did a lot more than that,” Dad says. “The surgeon told us you stabilized his neck. That you thought quickly enough to prevent further damage. That you used your own coat to stop the bleeding.”

You duck your head, embarrassed. “I had an emergency kit in my car. My mom’s paranoid about me driving alone at night. The coat was just the closest thing I had.”

“Did you get it back?” Beau asks. “Your coat?”

“Oh.” You blink at him. “No, I—I assume they had to cut it off you. It’s fine, though. It was just a coat.”

“Just a coat that saved my life,” Beau says. “Along with you. So, not really just a coat.”

You smile at him, and Beau’s heart does something complicated in his chest. The monitors beside his bed beep slightly faster, and he desperately hopes no one notices.

“How are you really feeling?” You ask. “Pain levels? Range of motion? Are you experiencing any numbness or tingling?”

“Did you just go into doctor mode?” Dean asks, amused.

“Sorry.” You look sheepish. “Occupational hazard. I’ve been worried about—I mean, cervical spine injuries are serious, and I was so scared I’d made the wrong call at the scene-”

“You made exactly the right call,” Mom assures you. “Every doctor we’ve talked to has said so.”

You nod, but you still look anxious. Beau recognizes the expression — it’s the same one he wears after a bad game, replaying every mistake.

“Hey,” he says, waiting until you look at him. “I’m alive. I can move everything. The doctors say I’m going to make a full recovery. You did good. Better than good. You were amazing.”

You hold his gaze for a moment, and something passes between them. Something Beau can’t name but can definitely feel.

“I’m really glad you’re okay,” you finally say, your voice soft.

“Me too,” Beau replies. “Though I’m pretty sure I have the worst concussion in history because there’s no way someone as beautiful as you is real.”

There’s a beat of silence.

Then Dean bursts out laughing. “Oh my god, did you just use a pickup line while in a neck brace in the ICU?”

“It’s not a pickup line if it’s true,” Beau says, not breaking eye contact with you.

You’re blushing now, a pink tinge spreading across your cheeks. “I think your brain is working just fine,” you manage.

“That’s what I said!” Dean crows. “The boy’s got game even half-dead.”

“Dean,” Mom says warningly, but she’s smiling.

You laugh again, shaking your head. “I should probably go. Let you rest. I just wanted to check—to make sure you were okay.”

“Wait,” Beau says quickly. Too quickly. The movement makes pain shoot through his neck, and he grimaces.

You step closer instinctively, your hand hovering near his shoulder. “Are you okay? Should I get a nurse?”

“No, I’m fine. I just-” Beau takes as deep a breath as the chest wound allows. “Can I get your number? To, uh, keep you updated on my recovery. Since you saved my life and all.”

Dean makes a noise that’s probably supposed to be a cough but sounds suspiciously like a laugh.

You’re definitely blushing now, but you’re smiling too. “Sure. That—yeah. Let me write it down.”

Mom, bless her, immediately produces a pen and paper.

You write quickly, your handwriting surprisingly neat, and hand the paper to Beau. “Text me anytime. I mean it. I want to know how you’re doing.”

“I will,” Beau promises. He wishes he could take the paper himself, but his arm is still heavily bandaged and moving it is a production. Dean takes it for him, setting it on the bedside table with a knowing smirk.

You linger for another moment, looking like you want to say something else. Finally, you speak. “You know, I have to tell you something.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m a Harvard fan,” you say, and there’s a hint of mischief in your eyes now. “Which means I’m technically rooting against Briar. So you need to make a full recovery so we can beat you fair and square next season.”

Beau stares at you. Then he laughs, the sound rough and painful but genuine. “You save my life and then threaten to destroy me on the field?”

“Not a threat,” you say cheerfully. “A promise. We’re coming for that championship.”

“I love her,” Dean announces. “Beau, I love her. Can we keep her?”

“I’m working on it,” Beau mutters, which makes you laugh again.

“Okay, I really do need to go,” you say, backing toward the door. “But it was wonderful to meet you all. And Beau, heal up fast, okay? The rivalry isn’t fun if you’re not playing.”

“Yes ma’am,” Beau says, giving you a slight salute that his injuries allow.

You wave and slip out the door, closing it softly behind you.

The room is silent for exactly three seconds.

“Dude,” Dean says.

“Not now,” Beau replies.

“You just flirted with your guardian angel.”

“Dean-”

“In the ICU. While in a neck brace. While your parents were standing right there.”

“I was perfectly respectful-”

“You told her she was too beautiful to be real!” Dean is grinning like the Cheshire cat. “Your game is unreal, man. I’m actually impressed.”

“You asked for her number,” Mom says, and she sounds amused too. “That was certainly … forward of you, sweetheart.”

“I need to thank her properly,” Beau says defensively. “It’s only right.”

“Uh-huh,” Dean says. “Is that what we’re calling it?”

“She’s a Harvard fan,” Beau continues, ignoring him. “Which means she’s smart but has terrible taste in football teams. Someone needs to educate her.”

“Someone being you?” Dad asks, his lips twitching.

“I mean, I feel like I owe her that much.”

Dean is full-on cackling now. “You’re going to date the girl who saved your life. That’s some romance novel shit right there.”

“I’m not—we just met. I’m just going to text her. To say thank you.”

“Sure,” Dean says, not even trying to hide his grin. “Just thank you. Nothing else.”

“Dean, I swear-”

“Boys,” Mom interrupts, but she’s smiling. “Beau needs to rest.”

“I’m fine,” Beau insists, even though he’s exhausted just from the conversation.

“You nearly died three days ago,” Mom says firmly. “You need rest. Dean, stop riling him up.”

“Yes, Mrs. Maxwell,” Dean says dutifully.

After his parents leave to grab dinner, it’s just Beau and Dean in the room. Dean is back in his chair, finally eating the munchkins he’s been carrying around.

“She was amazing,” Beau says quietly. “Not just—I mean, yeah, she’s gorgeous. But she saved my life, Dean. She stopped on a highway in the middle of the night and saved my life.”

“I know,” Dean says, and all the teasing is gone from his voice now. “I know, man. We owe her everything.”

“I was so close,” Beau continues. His throat is tight. “Dad said my neck … one more movement and that would’ve been it. And she fixed it. Some random medical student who happened to be driving by.”

“Not random,” Dean says. “Right place, right time. Some people would call that fate.”

“You believe in fate?”

“I believe in you,” Dean says simply. “And I believe you’re here for a reason. So yeah, maybe fate had something to do with putting her on that road at that exact moment.”

Beau thinks about you — your nervous smile, the way you brushed off the gratitude like it was nothing, the competitive spark in your eyes when you mentioned Harvard football.

“I think I was saved by an angel,” he says.

“Probably,” Dean agrees.

“And I think I’m in love.”

Dean nearly chokes on his munchkin. “What?”

“I’m in love,” Beau repeats. It sounds insane. It is insane. He just met you twenty minutes ago. But there’s something — a pull, a connection, something he can’t explain.

“Beau, buddy, I say this with love — you’re high as hell on pain meds right now.”

“I’m serious.”

“You just woke up from a medically induced coma like six hours ago.”

“I know what I feel.”

Dean studies him for a long moment. Then he sighs. “Well, shit. You really mean it.”

“I really mean it.”

“You’re going to marry the girl who saved your life, aren’t you?”

“If she’ll have me,” Beau says, completely serious.

Dean shakes his head, but he’s smiling. “This is either the most romantic thing I’ve ever witnessed or the pain meds talking. I’m not sure which.”

“Maybe both,” Beau admits. “But I don’t care. I’m going to thank her properly. And then I’m going to get to know her. And then-”

“Then you’re going to sweep her off her feet and ride off into the sunset?”

“Something like that.”

“She’s a Harvard fan,” Dean points out. “You know that’s going to be a problem.”

“I’ll convert her.”

“She literally told you she is waiting for Harvard to beat you.”

“She’s competitive. I like that.”

Dean laughs, shaking his head. “You’re insane. But okay. I’m here for it. Team Beau and his angel.”

“Her name is Y/N.”

“That doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

Beau doesn’t care. He’s already thinking about what to text you. How to thank you properly. How to convince you that stopping on that highway was the beginning of something, not just an isolated act of heroism.

His body is broken. His season is over. His recovery is going to be long and painful.

But for the first time since waking up, Beau feels hopeful.

Because somewhere out there is a girl who saved his life.

And he’s going to spend his recovery figuring out how to deserve her.

“Dean?” He says.

“Yeah?”

“Help me figure out what to text her.”

Dean grins. “Now we’re talking.”

They spend the next hour crafting the perfect message, with Dean offering increasingly ridiculous suggestions that Beau keeps vetoing. By the time visiting hours end and Dean is forced to leave, they’ve settled on something simple and genuine.

After Dean leaves, Beau stares at the piece of paper with your number, at your neat handwriting, and allows himself to smile.

Three days ago, his life nearly ended on a dark highway.

Today, looking at your number, it feels like it’s just beginning.

***

The physical therapy room smells like sweat and determination, which Beau has decided is just a nicer way of saying it smells like pain.

“Five more, Maxwell,” his PT says in that annoyingly cheerful voice that all physical therapists seem to possess. “You’ve got this.”

Beau grits his teeth and pulls himself up on the bar, his neck muscles screaming in protest. Four months ago, he couldn’t lift his head off the pillow. Three months ago, he couldn’t walk without assistance. Two months ago, he couldn’t turn his head more than thirty degrees.

Now, he’s doing pull-ups.

“One,” he grunts.

“Good. Keep that form.”

“Two.”

“Breathe through it.”

“Three.”

“Two more. You’ve got it.”

“Four.” His arms are shaking.

“Last one. Make it count.”

Beau pulls himself up one final time, holding at the top for a three-count before lowering himself down. His muscles feel like jelly, but he’s grinning.

“Hell yeah!” His PT claps him on the shoulder. “That’s what I’m talking about. Four months ago, you were in a neck brace wondering if you’d ever play again. Look at you now.”

“So I can play?” Beau asks hopefully.

“Nice try. That’s a question for your surgeon and your coach, not me. But I will say, physically you’re progressing faster than anyone expected.”

It’s not a yes, but Beau will take it.

After the session, he checks his phone. Seventeen texts in the group chat with the guys, mostly Dean sending increasingly absurd memes. Three texts from his mom checking in. One from Coach Deluca asking about his PT progress.

And one from you.

Y/N: How was PT? Did he make you cry today?

Beau smiles, typing back quickly.

Beau: Only a little. Mostly manly tears of triumph though.

Y/N: Sure. I believe you. Completely.

Beau: I did five pull-ups.

Y/N: FIVE? Beau, that’s amazing! I’m so proud of you!

Beau: Thanks. Couldn’t have done it without my guardian angel believing in me.

Y/N: Stop calling me that. I’m just a person who happened to be in the right place.

Beau: A person with a hero complex and really good instincts under pressure. AKA an angel.

Y/N: You’re impossible.

Beau: You love it.

There’s a pause.

Y/N: Maybe a little.

Beau’s grin widens. Over the past four months, texting you has become his favorite part of recovery. You check in daily, asking about his PT sessions, his pain levels, his progress. You send him terrible medical jokes. You quiz him on anatomy when you’re studying, claiming he’s helping you prepare for exams when really he’s just learning more about the exact ways his body almost failed him.

You’re funny and smart and competitive and kind, and Beau is more convinced every day that he’s in love with you.

The only problem? You’re still treating him like a patient. A friend, yes, but a friend you saved, which apparently puts him in some kind of off-limits category in your mind.

He’s been trying to change that. Slowly. Carefully.

Not carefully enough, according to Dean, who keeps telling him to “just ask her out already, you coward.”

But Beau wants to do this right. You saved his life. You deserve more than some half-assed attempt at romance from a guy who still can’t turn his head all the way without wincing.

His phone buzzes again.

Dean: Emergency. Get to the house ASAP.

Beau: What’s wrong?

Dean: Just get here. It’s important.

Beau’s heart kicks up. Dean doesn’t do “emergency” unless something is actually wrong. He grabs his bag and heads out, making the drive back to campus in record time.

He bursts through the door of the house he shares with Dean and half the hockey team, expecting — he doesn’t know what. Fire? Flood? Someone dying?

Instead, he finds Dean standing in the living room surrounded by streamers, balloons, and a banner that reads I LIVED, BITCH.

“Surprise!” Dean spreads his arms wide, grinning. “We’re throwing you a party.”

Beau stares. “You said it was an emergency.”

“It is an emergency. You’ve been back on campus for a week and we haven’t properly celebrated your return from the dead.”

“I wasn’t dead.”

“You were close enough that it counts.” Dean starts hanging more streamers. “Party’s tonight. Eight PM. Everyone’s invited.”

“Everyone?”

“The team. The guys. Some of the football players. Allie and her friends. That kid from your econ class who kept asking about you-”

“Dean-”

“And Y/N.”

Beau freezes. “What?”

Dean’s grin turns shit-eating. “I invited Y/N. She said yes, by the way. She’ll be here around nine.”

“You invited—without asking me-”

“You’ve been texting her for months and haven’t made a move. I’m helping.”

“By ambushing me?”

“By creating the perfect opportunity.” Dean hangs the last streamer and steps back to admire his work. “Come on, man. Party atmosphere, some drinks, you finally see her in person again — it’s romantic.”

“It’s manipulative.”

“It’s efficient.” Dean throws an arm around Beau’s shoulders. “Trust me. This is going to be great.”

***

The party is, objectively, insane.

By nine PM, the house is packed. Music thumps through the speakers. Someone has set up a beer pong table. Tucker is already three drinks in and teaching a group of freshmen the rules of some drinking game that definitely doesn’t have any rules.

Beau is nursing a beer and trying not to look at the door every five seconds.

“Dude, relax,” Logan says, appearing at his elbow. “She’ll be here.”

“I’m relaxed.”

“You look like you’re about to throw up.”

“That’s just my face.”

“That’s not your face. I know your face. This is your ’I’m freaking out’ face.”

Garrett joins them, holding two beers. “Is he doing the thing where he stares at the door?”

“He’s doing the thing,” Logan confirms.

“I hate both of you,” Beau mutters.

“You love us,” Garrett says cheerfully. “And you love Y/N, which is why you’re doing the door-staring thing.”

“I don’t—we’re friends.”

“Right,” Logan says. “Friends who text every day.”

“Friends who have inside jokes,” Garrett adds.

“Friends who he calls his guardian angel-”

“Okay, yes, fine, I like her.” Beau takes a long pull from his beer. “Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” Dean says, materializing out of nowhere. “And you’re going to tell her tonight.”

“I’m not-”

“You are. Because life is short, Beau. You nearly died. You got a second chance. Are you really going to waste it being chicken about asking out the girl who saved you?”

Beau opens his mouth to argue. Then closes it. Because damn it, Dean has a point.

“What if she says no?” He asks quietly.

“Then she says no,” Dean says. “But what if she says yes?”

Before Beau can respond, the front door opens.

And there you are.

You’re wearing jeans and a simple black top, your hair down instead of in the ponytail you usually wear, and Beau forgets how to breathe.

“She’s here,” Logan whispers unnecessarily.

“I can see that,” Beau hisses back.

You spot them and wave, smiling as you make your way through the crowd. Allie intercepts you halfway, pulling you into a hug and saying something that makes you laugh.

“Go talk to her,” Dean says, giving Beau a shove.

“I am talking to her.”

“You’re standing here like a statue. Go.”

Beau takes a breath and crosses the room. You look up as he approaches, and your smile gets wider.

“Hey!” You say, and then you’re hugging him. It’s brief, casual, but Beau’s heart still does something stupid in his chest. “I can’t believe Dean threw you an I Lived, Bitch party.”

“I can,” Beau says. “Subtlety isn’t really his thing.”

“I brought you something.” You dig in your bag and pull out a small wrapped package. “I was going to give it to you later, but here.”

Beau takes it, curious. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”

“Just open it.”

He unwraps it carefully. Inside is a keychain — a small football with the Briar University logo engraved on it and proof that miracles happen on the other side.

Beau stares at it, his throat tight. “Y/N-”

“I know it’s cheesy,” you say quickly. “But I saw it at this little shop near campus and thought of you. Because you are a miracle. You know that, right? The odds of you surviving what you survived, of recovering the way you have-”

“Hey.” Beau sets the keychain carefully on the nearest table and takes your hand. “Thank you. Really. This is—it’s perfect.”

You squeeze his hand, and for a moment, it’s just the two of you in the crowded room.

Then Dean’s voice booms over the music. “EVERYONE! CAN I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION?”

The music cuts off. Everyone turns to look at Dean, who’s standing on the coffee table with a beer raised.

“Oh no,” Beau mutters.

“Oh no,” you echo, but you’re smiling.

“Three months ago,” Dean announces, “my best friend nearly died. Car crash, black ice, the whole dramatic scene. And while I was sitting in a hospital waiting room having a complete breakdown, there was someone else on a dark highway saving his life.”

The crowd is silent, watching.

“Y/N Y/L/N,” Dean continues, finding you in the crowd. “Stand up. Come on, don’t be shy.”

You look mortified. “Dean-”

“Stand up!”

Reluctantly, you stand. The crowd turns to look at you.

“This woman,” Dean says, “stopped on the side of the road in the middle of the night. Could’ve driven past. Could’ve just called 911 and left. But she didn’t. She stopped. She used her medical training to stabilize Beau’s neck, to stop the bleeding, to keep him alive until the paramedics arrived. The surgeon told us that if she hadn’t done what she did, Beau would have died at the scene.”

Beau can see your eyes are shiny. His are probably the same.

“So this party isn’t just about Beau living, though that’s obviously the main event,” Dean continues. “It’s about Y/N. About the fact that there are still people in the world who stop to help strangers. Who run toward danger instead of away from it. Who save lives because it’s the right thing to do.”

He raises his beer higher. “To Y/N. Beau’s guardian angel. The reason we still have our quarterback. The reason I still have my brother.”

“TO Y/N!” The crowd roars.

You’re definitely crying now, wiping at your eyes with your free hand. Beau pulls you into a hug, and you bury your face in his shoulder.

“I hate your best friend,” you mumble into his shirt.

“I know,” Beau says, grinning. “Me too.”

Dean, having successfully made everyone emotional, declares that the situation requires shots. Multiple shots. A truly irresponsible number of shots.

“I don’t think this is medically advisable,” you protest as Dean lines up shot glasses on the kitchen counter.

“You’re not on duty,” Dean says. “And we’re celebrating. Celebrating requires shots.”

“That’s not-”

“Shots! Shots! Shots!” Tucker starts chanting. The crowd joins in.

You look at Beau helplessly. He shrugs. “When in Rome?”

“Rome didn’t have vodka.”

“Rome would’ve had vodka if they’d survived a near-death experience.”

You laugh and grab a shot glass. “Fine. But I’m blaming you when I regret this tomorrow.”

Dean passes out shots to everyone in the kitchen. “To Beau!” He shouts.

“To Beau!” Everyone echoes, and the shots go down.

One shot turns into two. Two turns into three. By shot four, you’re leaning against the counter, cheeks flushed, giggling at something Tucker is saying about his disastrous history midterm.

Beau stays close, not drinking as much because his tolerance is shot after months of not drinking, but enough that he feels warm and loose and brave.

“Having fun?” He asks, appearing at your side.

You beam up at him. “The most fun. Dean is insane. I love him.”

“Don’t tell him that. His ego can’t take it.”

“Too late!” Dean calls from across the room. “I heard! She loves me, Beau!”

“You’re the worst!” Beau calls back.

“You love me too!”

“Debatable!”

You laugh, the sound bright and unrestrained, and Beau wants to bottle it. Wants to keep it forever.

“Come on,” he says, taking your hand. “Let’s get some air.”

He leads you through the crowd, out the back door to the porch. The April night is cool but not cold, the first real hint of spring in the air. The noise from the party is muffled out here, just the bass line thumping through the walls.

“This is nice,” you say, leaning against the railing. “Quieter.”

“Yeah.” Beau stands beside you, close enough that your shoulders brush. “You okay? Dean didn’t overwhelm you too much?”

“Are you kidding? That toast was-” Your voice catches. “That was one of the nicest things anyone’s ever done for me.”

“You saved my life. You deserve a lot more than a toast.”

“I was just doing what anyone would do.”

“No,” Beau says firmly. “You weren’t. You did something extraordinary. And I will spend the rest of my life being grateful for it.”

You turn to face him, leaning your hip against the railing. “The rest of your life, huh? That’s a long time.”

“Not long enough,” Beau says. His heart is pounding, but whether it’s from the alcohol or your proximity, he can’t tell. Probably both. “Y/N, I-”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been wanting to tell you something. For months, actually.”

You tilt your head, curious. “What is it?”

“I-” He stops. Starts again. “Do you remember what you said to me in the hospital? About Harvard beating Briar fair and square?”

“Of course. And I meant it. You guys are going down next season.”

“See, that’s the thing.” Beau takes a small step closer. “I’ve been thinking about that. About you being a Harvard fan and me playing for Briar. And I realized I don’t care.”

“You don’t care about football?” You sound skeptical.

“I don’t care that we’re rivals. I don’t care that you’re rooting against my team. I don’t care about any of it because-” He takes a breath. “Because I like you. A lot. Like, an embarrassing amount for someone who’s supposed to be playing it cool.”

Your eyes widen slightly. “Beau-”

“I know we’ve been friends,” he continues quickly. “And if that’s all you want, I’ll take it. I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give me. But I need you to know that I think about you constantly. I look forward to your texts more than anything else in my day. When I was in PT, struggling through the worst pain I’ve ever experienced, the thought of texting you after kept me going.”

“Really?” Your voice is soft.

“Really.” He reaches up, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. The gesture is gentle, tentative. “You saved my life, Y/N. And then you kept saving it, every day, just by being you. By making me laugh when I wanted to give up. By believing I could recover when I wasn’t sure I could.”

“I always believed in you,” you whisper.

“I know. I felt it. Every text, every terrible medical joke, every time you called me out for pushing too hard or not hard enough — I felt it.”

You’re staring at him now, your eyes bright in the porch light. “I like you too,” you say. “I have for months. But I didn’t—you were recovering, and I didn’t want to take advantage-”

“Take advantage?” Beau laughs. “Y/N, I’ve been trying to figure out how to ask you out since I woke up in that hospital bed and saw you for the first time.”

“You were on a lot of pain meds.”

“Doesn’t make it less true.”

You bite your lip, and Beau tracks the movement. “So what now?”

“Now,” Beau says, stepping even closer, “I’m going to ask you something.”

“Okay.”

“Can I kiss you?”

Your breath catches. For a moment, you just stare at him. Then you smile — that brilliant, beautiful smile that he’s dreamed about for months.

“Yes,” you breathe. “God, yes.”

Beau cups your face in his hands, thumbs brushing against your cheeks, and leans in.

The first touch of your lips is electric. Soft and sweet and perfect. You make a small sound and melt into him, your hands coming up to grip his shirt.

Beau kisses you like he’s been wanting to for months, which he has. Kisses you like you’re precious, which you are. Kisses you like he’s afraid you might disappear, which part of him is.

You kiss him back just as intensely, your fingers curling into his hair, pulling him closer.

Someone starts whooping from inside. “YES! FINALLY! GET IT, MAXWELL!”

Beau flips him off behind your back without breaking the kiss, which makes you laugh against his mouth.

“Your friends are watching,” you mumble.

“Don’t care,” Beau says, kissing you again.

“They’re cat-calling.”

“Still don’t care.”

You pull back slightly, just enough to meet his eyes. Your lips are kiss-swollen, your cheeks flushed, and Beau has never seen anything more beautiful.

“This is really happening?” You ask. “We’re really doing this?”

“If you want to,” Beau says. “I mean, I know it’s complicated. The rivalry thing-”

“Is football,” you finish. “Just football. This is more important.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” You smile. “Besides, it’ll make beating you next season even sweeter.”

Beau laughs and kisses you again. “You’re impossible.”

“You love it,” you say, echoing your earlier text.

“I do,” Beau agrees. “I really, really do.”

From inside, Dean is now leading a chant of “KISS! KISS! KISS!” that’s quickly spreading through the party.

“We should probably go back in,” you say, not moving.

“Probably,” Beau agrees, also not moving.

You stay like that for another moment, just looking at each other, before you finally step back and take his hand.

“Come on,” you say. “Before your best friend has an aneurysm.”

You walk back into the party together, hands linked, and the entire room erupts into cheers.

Dean tackles Beau in a hug, nearly knocking you both over. “FINALLY! Do you know how hard it’s been watching you pine for four months?”

“Get off me,” Beau laughs, shoving him away.

“I’m the best wingman ever. Admit it.”

“You’re the worst.”

“But I’m your worst,” Dean says, grinning. Then he turns to you. “Welcome to the family, Y/N. You’re stuck with us now.”

“I can think of worse fates,” you say, smiling.

Logan and Tucker appear, both looking entirely too pleased with themselves.

“So,” Logan says. “Are you guys like, official? Is this a thing?”

Beau looks at you. You look back.

“It’s a thing,” you say.

“It’s definitely a thing,” Beau confirms.

“Well fuck,” Garrett says, joining the group with Hannah. “Because Hannah bet me twenty bucks you’d get together before summer, and I bet after. So thanks for costing me money, Beau.”

“My pleasure,” Beau says dryly.

The party continues late into the night. Beau stays by your side, your fingers laced with his, and for the first time since the accident, everything feels right.

Better than right.

Perfect.

Later, when the crowd has thinned and it’s just the core group sitting around the living room, Dean raises his beer one more time.

“To second chances,” he says.

“To guardian angels,” Tucker adds.

“To love,” Hannah says, making everyone groan.

“To football rivalries,” you contribute, which makes everyone laugh.

“To all of it,” Beau says, looking at you. “To whatever brought you to that highway at that exact moment. To whatever made you stop. To whatever led us here.”

You lean your head on his shoulder. “To fate,” you say softly.

“To fate,” Beau agrees.

And as he sits there, surrounded by his friends, his arm around the girl who saved his life in more ways than one, Beau can’t help but think that Dean was right.

Life is short. Second chances are rare.

And he’s not going to waste a single moment of his.

***

The Briar University athletics facility smells like sweat and ambition at seven AM on a Saturday, which is exactly why Dean loves it. That, and the fact that most people are still asleep, leaving the weight room gloriously empty.

Well, mostly empty.

“Come on, Maxwell, one more set!” Dean calls from his spot on the bench press. “Or are you going to let your girlfriend out-lift you?”

Beau, currently doing bicep curls while watching you on the treadmill, flips him off without looking away from you. “She’s not trying to out-lift me. She’s doing cardio.”

“I can hear you both,” you call from the treadmill, your ponytail swinging as you run. “And I absolutely could out-lift Beau if I wanted to.”

“Oh, fighting words!” Dean sits up, grinning. “Beau, you gonna take that?”

“Yes,” Beau says immediately. “Have you seen her deadlift? It’s terrifying and hot.”

“It’s medical student grip strength,” you explain, not breaking stride. “Years of studying have given me callouses of steel.”

“And here I thought it was just natural perfection,” Beau says.

Dean makes gagging noises. “You two are disgusting. It’s been five months. The honeymoon phase should be over by now.”

“Never,” Beau says cheerfully, setting down his weights and grabbing his water bottle.

Dean watches as Beau wanders over to your treadmill, leans against it, and says something that makes you laugh mid-stride. You nearly trip, smacking his arm, but you’re grinning.

Five months. Nearly half a year since that party. Half a year of watching his best friend fall more in love every single day.

It’s been an adjustment, Dean will admit. Suddenly having to share Beau with someone else, having to accept that he’s no longer the most important person in Beau’s life. But watching Beau now — healthy, happy, whole — Dean can’t begrudge it.

Especially because you’re pretty fucking cool.

You finish your run and hop off the treadmill, breathing hard but not winded. “Okay, what’s next? Weights? Core? Please say core. I need to work off the stress of this week.”

“Rough rotation?” Beau asks, immediately concerned.

“Just long,” you say, stretching your arms over your head. “Twenty-hour shifts don’t leave a lot of time for self-care. Hence why I’m here at seven AM on my one day off instead of sleeping like a normal person.”

“It’s the endorphins,” Dean says knowingly. “You’re chasing that dopamine high.”

“Exactly,” you agree quickly. “Purely scientific. Nothing to do with-”

“With wanting to see Beau shirtless and sweaty?” Dean finishes, smirking.

You turn red. “I—that’s not—I mean-”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Beau says, already pulling his shirt over his head. “I am pretty great to look at.”

“Your ego is showing,” you mutter, but you’re definitely staring.

Dean laughs. “Okay, lovebirds, let’s actually work out. Beau, you’ve got full medical clearance now, right?”

“As of last week,” Beau confirms, and there’s an edge of excitement in his voice that Dean recognizes. It’s the same excitement that’s been building since the doctors finally, finally said he could return to full contact practice. “Coach wants me back in peak condition before the season starts.”

“Which is three weeks,” Dean adds. “So we’ve got to get you whipped into shape.”

The effect is immediate and bizarre.

Beau and you lock eyes across the weight room. Something passes between you — some kind of silent communication that Dean has seen before but never understood. It’s like you share a brain sometimes, which is both impressive and deeply unsettling.

Then, in perfect unison, you both gasp dramatically.

“Did you just say-” you start.

“Whipped into shape?” Beau finishes.

“Oh no,” Dean says, recognizing the gleam in both your eyes. “No. Whatever you’re thinking-”

But it’s too late.

You sprint to the corner of the gym where someone has left a pile of equipment. You emerge triumphantly holding two jump ropes.

“Where did you even—when did you-” Dean sputters.

“Shhh,” you say, tossing one rope to Beau, who catches it with a grin that can only be described as maniacal. “Let us have this.”

“Have what?” Dean asks, genuinely concerned now.

You and Beau exchange another look. Then you hold up one finger and suddenly you’re both jumping rope and singing.

“I WANT YOU WHIPPED INTO SHAPE!” You belt out, your voice surprisingly strong for someone who just ran three miles.

“WHEN I SAY JUMP, SAY ‘HOW HIGH?’” Beau joins in, jumping rope with enough enthusiasm to be concerning given that he had spinal surgery less than a year ago.

Dean stares. Just stares.

“YOU KNOW YOU’RE DOING IT RIGHT,” you continue, now doing some kind of complicated jump rope move that involves crossing your arms.

“WHEN YOU START TO CRY!” Beau adds, attempting the same move and nearly tripping over the rope.

“IF YOU DON’T LOOK LIKE YOU SHOULD,” you both sing together now, jumping in sync, “YOU’VE GOT TO-”

“WHIP IT, WHIP IT, WHIP IT GOOD!”

You finish with a flourish, both of you breathing hard, jump ropes held high like you’ve just won Olympic gold.

There’s a moment of silence.

Then you and Beau collapse into laughter, dropping the ropes and leaning on each other for support.

“What,” Dean says slowly, “the actual fuck was that?”

“Legally Blonde: The Musical,” you gasp out between giggles. “Brooke Wyndham is an icon.”

“And when you said whipped into shape-”

“We just had to,” you finish together.

Dean continues to stare. “You two are insane.”

“Probably,” Beau agrees, still grinning.

“Definitely,” you add, not looking remotely apologetic.

Dean shakes his head, but he’s smiling now. “I don’t know whether to be impressed or concerned that you both knew all the words.”

“Be impressed,” Beau says. “We also know the choreography to ‘Omigod You Guys.’”

“We do NOT need to see that,” Dean says quickly.

“Your loss,” you say cheerfully. “It’s iconic.”

Beau wraps an arm around your shoulders, pulling you close and pressing a kiss to your temple. You lean into him naturally, like it’s the most normal thing in the world. Like you’ve been doing it for years instead of months.

And Dean …

Dean has a moment.

He’s been Beau’s best friend for years. Has seen him date casually, has seen him hook up at parties, has seen him in relationships that lasted a few months before fizzling out. But this thing with you … it’s different.

It’s in the way Beau looks at you, like you hung the moon and stars. It’s in the way you know what he’s thinking before he says it. It’s in the stupid inside jokes and the synchronized musical numbers and the fact that Beau drove to your apartment in Cambridge just to bring you coffee before a tough rotation.

It’s in the way you saved his life, yes, but also in the way you keep saving it, every day, just by existing.

And Dean realizes, standing in a weight room at seven AM on a Saturday, watching his best friend and his girlfriend be ridiculous together, that you’re soulmates.

The thought hits him with unexpected force. He’s never believed in soulmates before — always thought it was romantic nonsense, something people made up to explain compatibility. But looking at you and Beau now, he can’t think of another word for it.

Whatever happened that night last February — the deer, the ice, the crash, the fact that you were on that exact stretch of highway at that exact moment — it wasn’t just coincidence.

It was fate.

It had to be.

Because the odds of everything aligning the way it did? Of you having the exact training needed to save him? Of you stopping when most people wouldn’t? Of Beau surviving injuries that should have killed him?

The odds were astronomical.

And yet here you both are.

“Dean?” Your voice pulls him from his thoughts. “You okay? You look weird.”

“I’m fine,” Dean says. His voice comes out rougher than intended. “Just thinking.”

“Dangerous,” Beau jokes, but he’s looking at Dean with concern now. “Seriously, man, what’s up?”

Dean opens his mouth. Closes it. How does he even put this into words?

“I just-” He stops. Tries again. “You two are it for each other, aren’t you?”

The question hangs in the air.

You and Beau look at each other. Something passes between you again — that silent communication that Dean’s starting to understand is just how you two operate.

“Yeah,” Beau says finally, turning back to Dean. “Yeah, we are.”

“I love him,” you add simply. “Like, scary amount. Forever amount.”

“I’m going to marry her,” Beau says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Probably not today, because I think she’d kill me if I proposed in a gym-”

“I absolutely would,” you confirm.

“-but someday. Definitely someday.”

Dean feels his throat get tight. “Good,” he manages. “That’s good.”

“Are you crying?” You ask, peering at him.

“No,” Dean says. He’s definitely about to cry. “Shut up.”

“Oh my god, you are!” Beau looks delighted. “Dean Di Laurentis, notorious womanizer and emotionally unavailable hockey player, is crying over our relationship!”

“I’m not crying. It’s allergies.”

“That’s not-”

Dean crosses the gym and pulls both of you into a hug, one arm around each of them. “I’m really glad you didn’t die,” he tells Beau.

“Me too, man,” Beau says, returning the hug. “Me too.”

“And I’m really glad you stopped,” Dean says to you. “That night. I’m really glad you stopped and saved him. Because I don’t know what I would’ve done if-” His voice cracks.

You squeeze him tighter. “I’m glad I stopped too.”

“You’re stuck with us now,” Dean continues. “You know that, right?”

“I can live with that,” you say softly.

You stand there for a moment, the three of you, holding onto each other in an empty weight room while early morning sunlight streams through the high windows.

Finally, Beau pulls back, wiping at his eyes. “Okay, enough emotions. We’re supposed to be working out.”

“Right,” you agree, also suspiciously misty-eyed. “Working out. Building strength. Whipping into shape.”

“Don’t,” Dean warns.

“We’ve got to-”

“No-”

“WHIP IT, WHIP IT, WHIP IT GOOD!” You and Beau shout together, dissolving into laughter again.

“I hate you both,” Dean says, but he’s grinning.

“No you don’t,” Beau says, slinging an arm around Dean’s shoulders.

“You love us,” you add, linking your arm through Dean’s other arm.

“Unfortunately,” Dean admits. “Now come on. If you two are done with your Broadway moment, Beau actually does need to get whipped into shape before camp starts.”

“I’m in great shape,” Beau protests.

“You’re in good shape,” you correct. “Great shape requires more work. Doctor’s orders.”

“You’re not my doctor.”

“I could be. Want me to check your reflexes?”

“That sounds like innuendo.”

“It wasn’t, but I like where your head’s at.”

Dean makes a strangled sound. “I did NOT need that mental image.”

“Then stop listening to our conversations,” Beau says reasonably.

“You’re having them three feet away from me!”

“Sounds like a you problem,” you say cheerfully.

The workout continues, but the energy has shifted. There’s something lighter about it now, something that feels like the future rather than the past.

Dean watches as Beau spots you during squats, his hands hovering near your waist, ready to catch you if needed. Watches as you correct Beau’s form on shoulder presses with the clinical precision of someone who knows exactly how bodies work. Watches as you both take a water break and Beau pulls you in for a kiss that’s probably too long for a public gym but that no one’s around to complain about.

And someday — maybe years from now, maybe at that wedding Dean is already planning in his head — he’s going to tell this story.

He’s going to tell everyone about the night Beau almost died. About the medical student who stopped to save him. About the months of recovery and the I Lived, Bitch party and the first kiss and the musical numbers in the gym.

He’s going to tell them about soulmates, about fate, about second chances.

And he’s going to tell them that he knew.

He knew from that moment in the weight room, watching them be ridiculous together, that you were forever.

And Dean allows himself to feel grateful. Grateful for black ice and bad timing and good Samaritans. Grateful for medical training and quick thinking and jump ropes in gyms. Grateful for musicals and inside jokes and the way love can find you in the darkest moments.

Grateful for second chances.