when she sits grace down to first tell him that he's going to be part of the mission eva has already run through every. single. scenario.
she probably hasn't slept since the moment the research centre blew up, living off of caffeine and nothing else, knowing exactly what she has to do. and yet she refuses to accept it.
it's always been him. it can't be him.
so she looks at her list of possible replacements and carefully considers one after the other. none of them are even close to suitable. they're all self-sacrificial enough to volunteer, but it's never been about who does or doesn't want to die.
the question is, who, when flung out into space and travelling farther than any human ever has, can arrive at a planet to see what's up and then figure out how to save the sun?
eva never walked into that school expecting him to become her solution — useful, yes, sure, and he was. incredibly helpful.
and funny and anxious and someone who makes inappropriate jokes at the wrong time and talks more in a day than she does in a month. someone who wears silly shirts and has amazing ideas and once destroyed himself in front of dozens of people without backing down.
someone who calls her without considering the time, someone who knows her coffee order, someone who hates crowds and yet sticks to her side through every single meeting.
someone who let her drag him across the world with her, someone who never has to knock, someone who is always welcome. the only one who can make her smile, make her laugh, and gently pull the truth out of her without even trying.
he doesn't have immediate family.
he doesn't even have a dog.
he does have someone who cares about him, who wants to keep him right here on earth by her side while they watch the sun die in the sky; someone steady, someone selfish, someone lost and without a choice.
they're something undefinable, something colourful, something real.
the world needs him to go.
when she reaches the end of the list, she allows herself a single moment of humanity and buries her face in her arms before she screams.
she screams until all the air has left her lungs, until her throat hurts and her chest aches, until her voice breaks. no tears, not yet, not even in the privacy of what isn't really a home but a cage.
the mask of indifference is easier to put on in a crowded room, and she asks him despite knowing the answer. it's not question but a plea.
it all falls apart when they're alone, when she cannot look at him without tears in her eyes, when she knows she is no longer asking.
he is the solution for everything, for herself, for the sun, for the world, and by god does she wish he wasn't.
he is something real, something colourful, something soft, something she wishes she could keep. something beautiful you get to hold for a single suspended moment knowing it will inevitably fade.
a rainbow in the sky before everything eventually goes dark.
