#mydolls

The worst part of the work comes from the single obvious fact that there is absolutely no overlap between English and Eridian. Their languages are isolated from each other in a way that languages on Earth never truly are. No borrowed words or distant roots or even shared secondary language traits that they both took from a mutual third party. 

Nada. Zip. Zilch. Which means that they have to build everything from scratch.

Which means nouns.

So many nouns. 

A stupid number of nouns. 

And verbs and conjunctions and adjectives and a thousand other little linguistic puzzle pieces that actually make communication possible. But they started with nouns. It’s hard to beat the convenience of point and define.

“[Home planet around what star, question?]” Mel trills from her seat next to the wall, words punctuated by a seemingly instinctive buzz of her wings.

Frank rubs a hand over his neck, legs stretched out in front of him from his own seat on the floor a few feet away. He always seems to get sore around hour four of playing ‘what’s that noun’ with an alien life form.

God, he sounds spoiled.

And like he has bad posture.

Mel’s words populate on the computer in Frank’s lap as it references each set of chords with the words they’ve already defined. It lets Mel speak naturally instead of waiting for Frank to hunt and peck through an excel sheet (his inability to focus would have been world-ending). This way Frank can capture the audio and literal values without skipping a beat.

Frank smirks at her incomplete question, knowing she has more clarifying terms than that. “Someone sounds impatient.”

“[You know.]” Mel tapping her hand on the ground impatiently, gesturing at Frank like that will make him stop teasing her. “[Answer.]”

Frank snorts, nodding. The absurdity of what they’re doing has disappeared piece by piece with each hour that they sit here and there’s a growing ease to their interactions. Mel is always so excited to see him, to talk, to chase the conversation wherever it seems to swerve and Frank can’t help being infected by her excitement. His daily logs look more like a diary about Mel than a scientific document, but Frank can’t find it in him to care.

Mel is far and away the most interesting part of Tau Ceti, he can’t help talking about her.

“We live on the third planet in our system. We call our planet Earth and our sun Sol.” Frank explains. They’ve made great progress on physical nouns - they’re the best (and only) way to define more abstract things like proper nouns. Frank is from Earth, he doesn’t call planets ‘Earths’. 

That's his planet’s special name. 

No sharing.

“[Understand! Eridian name your star 🎶🎵🎵 and world 🎶🎵🎶🎶.]” Mel nods as she messes with the small device in her lap. Frank’s not sure if she’s repairing it or just fidgeting with it, but there are wires running in and out of a thin rectangle that she’s adjusting with purpose as they speak.

Mel always seems to have something in her hands when they talk. Frank supposes he would too if he was an alien with an incredible aural memory talking to a species that needs two laptops tapped together to keep up.

She’s remarkably patient with him in that case.

“[Eridian name for Eridian star 🎵🎵🎶🎵.]” Mel tells him with a warmth suffusing her words and a small smile tugging at her mouth at the thought of home. “[Eridian name for Eridian planet 🎶🎶🎵.]” 

“Humans call your star Eridani.” Frank says, quietly dropping the forty. That’s Mel’s home. It feels rude to tell her that humanity threw a number onto the name of her star to keep track of which one it was again. “And we call your planet Erid.” 

Again, not really. Frank’s not sure if anyone has even registered all of the exoplanets in that system, but Frank’s already naming everything else he can think of like he’s got any right to do so - what’s one more planet? When in space and all that. They need a word to refer to her home and Frank’s already gone hard on the eponyms. Eridani, Eridians, Erid - they have good vibes, very chic. None of this Sol, Humans, Earth nonsense (absolutely no flow to it at all).

Hopefully Mel picked something nice to represent them in Eridian.

Frank logs the new terms in the software. “Four words down, a couple hundred more to go. We’re making good progress.”

“Good.” Mel chirps, bobbing her head. It populates on the computer, but Frank doesn’t bother to look down at it. Little words like good or bad have come up so often that Frank is starting to get better at picking them up without help. 

Say what he will about humanity, it’s got pattern recognition for days. 

“[What next, question?]” Mel asks. She lets him lead where they’re going most of the time, happy to play call and response wherever his mind takes them. They need so many terms, nothing is off the table.

“I’m thinking.” Frank says, drumming his fingers absently on the computer.

Mel buzzes impatiently. “[Think fast. Fast fast fast.]” 

Frank laughs as she lifts her head to face him. They both know she doesn’t need to, but she's picked up how much Frank seems to like it and started using it when she wants to emphasize something. It’s one of the little Mel-isms that have appeared the more that they talk.

Mel does lots of things to make sure Frank is paying attention. Oops. It’s not Frank's fault his mind likes to wander. Or that he’ll get distracted thinking so hard about new things he wants to know about her that Frank forgets to listen to what they’re already talking about. Still Mel finds her own ways to make sure he’s listening. Gesturing and repeating words are the most common systems, and there’s a very simple key to it.

Repeated two times means minor emphasis. 

Repeated three times means major emphasis. 

Repeated four or more times means it’s either very important or Mel is laughing at Frank for not getting it yet. It’s versatile like that.

“I’m thinking! I’m trying to decide if it’s better to go for measurements or weights next. Do you like distance or mass, scope or scale?” Frank asks, talking around the concepts like he’s painting them in negative. It helps Mel understand things they don’t have the proper language for yet. Who would have thought running his mouth would be such a benefit?

“[Mass. Want know what humans think heavy is.]” Mel says as mischievous chirping laughter creeps into her voice.

Frank straightens up indignantly even as a smile stretches across his face. “The floor is rocky! It’s hard to carry things out here without taking breaks.”

Mel coos, nodding her head seriously. “[Sad sad sad.]”

Getting bullied by a bumblebee in space over having weak arms. Who knew first contact would be like a high school locker room? Frank groans, scrubbing a hand over his face to disguise his grin. “Rude rude rude.”

Mel laughs at his impression, lowering her device to the floor to turn and give him her full attention. “[Very smart. Teach now. Listen.]”

Frank shoves his ego (and pride and dignity-) down as he pivots to teacher mode. Onto the next subject. Laptop at the ready, Frank moves into his latest impromptu lecture. “Mass is the measure of something's resistance to change or movement-”

- - -

Frank feels bad that the only language he’s qualified to teach Mel is English. 

With a hodge-podge of terms collected from Latin, French, and old German (not to mention any of its hundreds of borrowed terms) there are no easy rules Frank can give Mel about how to predict what he’s saying. 

A word is plural when there’s an ‘s’ at the end, or sometimes words just end like that. And also that doesn’t apply to all words, because they come from different languages so they'll pluralize differently. No, he can’t explain the proper order to use adjectives. Yes, there is a proper order. Now let's talk about how many vowels English admits to having and actually has-

Not easy.

Still Mel keeps up as well as can be expected.

(They’d gotten stuck in a loop for ten minutes as Frank tried to figure out if Mel saying yes after defining the word ‘no’ meant that it was actually another word for yes or not. They muddled their way through it.)

Frank should have guessed that Mel would pick things up so quickly from the tonal inflections in Eridian speech. Languages with an importance on tone train their users to have more precise aural memory. Mel communicates through musical notes - of course she’d be better at remembering them than Frank. 

It doesn’t mean she always believes what he's saying though.

“[You have three word for help because old humans like other languages and took.]” Mel repeats, frowning at him like she’s trying to figure out if he’s lying.

Frank nods, leaning up against the xenonite wall itself to feel the low steady heat leaking through it on the knot in his back. Mel sits just far enough to his right that Frank can see her when he turns his head, closer than she was when they first started working together. “Yeah, pretty much. We call words like that triplets because we got each of them through a different linguistic base.”

“[Humans strange.]” Mel tuts, tilting her head at him in confusion. “[Have a language. Use that language. Be happy with your language. No need for stealing…]”

“You hit the nail on the head.” Frank snorts at her offense, shifting to look at her a little better. Her reactions to nuances of human language or culture whenever they come up are some of Frank’s favorite parts of their translation work. “Can’t control what slang the kids pick up, someone always adds something new.”

Doesn’t Frank know it.

His students named the stubby space heater at the front of his classroom Robert one year and constantly asked Frank why he wasn’t letting Robert answer any of the lightning round questions. Accusations of discrimination ran rampant. Kids asked if Robert could sit next to them for the lesson. A small bow-tie was crafted for him. The bit went on for two months before the weather finally called for him to be put away.

They were a long two months.

Mel frowns at Frank. “[What], question? [Words do not make sense.] Repeat.”

The terms print out on the screen in Frank’s lap smoothly, but he can make out certain terms from Mel’s voice alone. His practice with the recordings of her when they separate to eat and sleep look like they’re starting to pay off. Frank tries to remember what he said- “Oh, humans call it an idiom. It’s a phrase that we all agree means something else. Saying you hit the nail on the head is an idiom because you didn’t actually hit anything.”

Mel’s wings buzz questioningly as she leans in, antennae focused on him intently. “[Explain. What does it mean], question?”

“It means that what you said was exactly right.” Frank says with a smile. 

Mel grins, nodding as she leans back. Frank almost wants to lean in and follow her through the wall, but he manages to restrain himself. “Yes. [This is true.]” Her chords come out in a higher octave, happy and bright. “[Everything I say is correct. True.] Good.”

Frank laughs at her happiness. “Exactly.”

- - -

Frank rubs the towel over his head roughly, trying to catch the final stray droplets still clinging to his hair.

His makeshift showers have become a particularly beloved habit lately. With the Hail Mary in constant gravity now, Frank doesn’t have to worry about the headache of keeping any droplets from entering important vents. No breaking his ship for a little indulgence. It’s important. And incredibly expensive to build. Still his ‘showers’ help him reset and feel like himself.

No one does good work when they have greasy hair.

That's the Newton's fourth law. No one ever mentions it, but it's definitely in there.

He's up to a few hundred words with Mel at this point and things are starting to make a little more sense. Concepts that weren’t accessible before (no one understands how important adjectives are until they try to speak without them) have slowly but surely entered the conversation. 

The chair is tall but it’s also wide. It has legs but also a back. A chair is for sitting but it can also be used for standing, throwing, and jumping depending on the situation. 

Demonstrating throwing had been particularly fun. 

Mel had gestured at him to repeat the action three times before Frank caught onto the giggle in her demand to do it again (he still threw it, just to watch her break down into bright teasing laughter).

She's- there just aren’t words for what working with Mel feels like. It was a few cold lingering weeks between waking up on the Hail Mary and arriving at Tau Ceti. Just Frank and the space he took up with his own body. To fill a ship intended for three people. And then in a wave of confusion and delight, suddenly Frank wasn’t alone anymore.

Now he has Mel. 

An alien. A person who understands him - past any language barrier or translator confusion, Mel understands Frank. Every time Frank gets lost in his own excitement, chasing his thoughts down endlessly, Mel is right there next to him with a smile and an excitement of her own. She fills the tunnel with bright chirps and buzzing hums that rattle through his bones, resonating with comforting warmth.

“Mary, how long do I have?” Frank asks as he drapes the towel over his dorm bed and scoops up the closest t-shirt, a Penguins jersey. It’s good to know he packed the necessities for this trip. Sports merch, yes. Personal memories, no.

There are two minutes until your alarm goes off. Mary says in a near perfect impersonation of Siri. And like Siri, Frank intends to forget what she just said and get jump-scared by that alarm all the same in two minutes.

It's the little things.

Dragging his shirt over his head, Frank does stew on the other questions still lingering between Mel and him even after working together for weeks to build their current language base.

Mel is still the only Eridian Frank has seen. There's been no hint of anyone else from her massive ship - not even a curious antennae poked around the corner. It doesn’t really make sense. If Ellis and Shen were still here, the three of them would absolutely trade shifts lingering in the tunnel, just in case they could get some extra time with real life aliens. Why would the Eridians only want one of them to meet him?

Frank knows that Mel is Mel.

She’s impactful like that. Stare at anyone hard enough and it’s impossible to swap them out without the other person noticing. The stripes running down her forearms onto her fingers feel like one of those things that must be unique, like human fingerprints. A Mel barcode. So she’s the only one to brave meeting him each time? No one else is interested?

Frank is a little offended.

He’s a cool alien. He’s fun to hang out with. He doesn’t have enough of his memories to guarantee that, but he has a good feeling.

Blip. Blip. Blip. 

Frank jolts. Ah, the alarm that he set. The alarm that he remembered that he set. Frank’s well-communicated alarm that he set. Of course.

Pulling on his flightsuit and tying it around his waist (if his Penguins jersey was important enough to pack for a suicide mission, it’s only right that Frank wears it for one of these ‘first contact’ sessions), Frank heads for the dorm ladder. 

It’s time to get back to work.

- - -

They’ve moved past needing props to define things for the past few days as their shared words have started to be enough that they can define things conversationally. Frank doesn’t want there to be any confusion about this one though so he grabs a sample from the lab.

“We call this Astrophage.” Frank tells Mel as he holds up the test tube filled with a featureless black blob. “It means star eater.”

That impenetrable mass represents billions of sun-eating microorganisms, created through hundreds of hours in doubling times and carefully crafted breeding conditions. Frank found it in a storage cabinet next to half a dozen other samples, as unceremoniously stocked as the aluminum and iron. 

The scale of the Hail Mary project is never going to stop being a little…shocking. 

Mel nods and hums quietly, voice tilting down sharply. Fear. “[🎵🎶🎵🎵🎵.]” 

“Yeah, we’re scared of it too.” Frank agrees quietly, giving Mel a commiserating nod as he tucks the tube into a box by his feet with other one-off props. Goodbye tape measure, goodbye Astrophage. He made a list of other terms to work through today, but Frank finds himself drifting off track with a new thought. It’s always hard to define what Eridians know versus what Mel knows. “Did you study this?”

“[I work with the mechanical equipment, the engines.]” Mel says, not looking up as she shakes her head. “[Smarter Eridians studied the Astrophage.]” 

Frank blinks as the little discovery washes over him.

Mel is an engineer. 

Frank is at home with science, his instincts guide him where direct memories fall short. What he’s not comfortable with is engineering. That was always intended to be Ellis’s job, along with backing up Shen in the cockpit. With just Frank here, there is a massive hole in his mission readiness. 

Or was. 

If there’s anyone Frank needs out here, it’s Mel. 

Frank frowns as he processes the rest of Mel’s words though. Smarter Eridians? He has some thoughts on that, but it opens up a dangerous question about what she’s doing with him. On  a ship that large, why would they send one of the engineers to talk to him? Frank's voice is low, like he’s not even sure he wants to know the answer, as he asks his next question. “Why did your crew pick you to represent them?” 

Mel falters as her hands slowly begin to twist together in front of her. Something tense enters the air between them, suffocating as it slowly builds. When she speaks, her voice is almost a full octave deeper than before. “[My crew did not pick me…I do not…there are no crew left.]”

Frank swallows thickly. “None?”

“[There were twenty-three Eridians when we left home].” Mel’s shoulders shudder, wings tucked low and tight as her antennae follow suit. “[…Now just me.]”

Frank’s throat closes as a familiar grief clogs his throat. Mel lost twenty-two crew mates in her planet’s fight to find what makes Tau Ceti so different from every other star. Frank lost two, because Earth had to conserve their travel weight. A shudder runs down Frank’s spine at the thought of waking up to so many bodies. He feels strangely helpless, trapped on his side of the wall, as Mel seem to fall into herself. “Mel, I’m so- I’m so sorry.”

“[I do not know what happened. Only that I could not fix.]” Mel whispers, head dropping to obscure her face like she doesn’t want to see how he reacts. She looks small, isolated in a way that’s too big for words. 

Frank’s hand presses into the xenonite, begging for the ability to slip through it. “I'm…Earth sent three of us, and-and two died on the way here…it’s just me too...I understand.” Frank whispers, watching Mel carefully.

He does even if at times he wishes he didn't.

Mel lifts her head to look at him for a beat before she slowly lifts her hand to lay over his. “Understand.” 

The tension in the air cracks quietly, dripping away into a shared grief. It doesn’t fix anything, but there is a gossamer thread of understanding woven between them that goes deeper than words. It’s just them out here, but there’s two of them now. There’s an ‘us’ again.

It helps.

Mel slowly straightens up, tucking the grief away in her chest again. Frank follows suit with a steadying breath, tucking Shen and Ellis back where they belong. Mel scoots up to the wall, resting her shoulder against it comfortably like Frank does so often. “[Astrophage is on Eridani and Erid is in trouble. It’s why we came here to Tau Ceti, we need a solution.]”

“Us too.” Frank nods, pulling himself back to the small sample that started this whole conversation. “Sol is infected and it’s making Earth cool. Humanity can’t afford for the temperature to drop or we won’t be able to survive.”

“Bad bad bad.” Mel trills as she nods, watching him carefully. “[Then we work together. Save Earth, save Erid.]”

Her words are somewhere between a statement and a question, but Frank nods firmly. They’ll save their worlds together, full stop. 

“Deal.” Frank promises, nodding as he pictures the metallic xenon around them that Mel works with so easily and the stupid-expensive scientific equipment sitting in the Hail Mary. Between them they have a rather intimidating scientific and mechanical reach.

These microscopic organisms aren’t gonna know what hit them.

- - -

Frank’s face cracks open in a wide yawn. 

Saving two words from extinction is exhausting. 

Days continue to slip by as they work, disappearing into hours of conversation. They’re currently hours deep into trying to define standard units of distance. It’s taking everything in Frank’s brain to keep the centimeters, meters, Eridian equivalents, his own American brain screaming imperial units, and the laptop translation system straight. 

Somehow the imperial units are the most intrusive part of the entire process. 

“I think I need to pause here.” Frank says, scrubbing a hand over his face. He gets up from his chair, stretching out his shoulders, as he fights another yawn. No one ever talks about the exhaustion of running his mouth all day. Frank really is the victim in all of this. 

“Where [are] you [going], question?” Mel asks, frowning deeply. Her words are splattered between the computer and his own brain. “[Still more work to do.]”

“I need to sleep.” Frank says, gesturing in the air vaguely. He’s…not actually sure they’ve talked about that directly yet. Frank pivots towards the nearest table (that he dragged out here for one example and never bothered to carry back out), dropping his head against the surface and closing his eyes. “Like this.”

Mel follows him on her side of the wall, trilling nervously. “What- what [is this], question?”

Frank lifts his head back up. “Sleep. I lay here for twenty-nine thousand seconds, and then-” Frank stretches performatively, “Get up again.”

“Oh!” Mel coos, calming swiftly at the explanation. “Eridians call [this] 🎶🎵🎶.”

Frank logs the new word into the computer system, very grateful at her continued skill with his charades. He’s not sure how explaining ‘I need to lay motionless and hallucinate for hours or I’ll go insane and die’ would come across to someone who doesn’t do it too. It’s nice to side step that little cultural hiccup all together. 

Then Mel throws him for a loop.

“[Sleep out here. I will watch.]” Mel nods, pointing at the smoother floor next to the wall.

“Uh.” Frank blinks. He thought bedtime was going to be simple, he hadn’t prepared an analytical argument for the pros and cons of letting him do it. Frank points at the entrance to his ship with more than a little confusion. “I sleep in there.”

“[Sleep out here and I will watch.] Keep safe.” Mel says, wings thrumming quietly as she nods like Frank seeing her saying yes will make him agree. Her body is pressed close to the wall so she can see him better.

Frank feels stuck, caught between a need for sleep and the social obligation of not just walking away on her. “Mel, I’ll be back in a few hours-”

“Please.” Mel begs quietly. Frank’s chest aches at the shift in tone as Mel shifts her weight between her two feet like she needs to move and the wall is holding her back. “[I…I watched my crew go to sleep. M-Many days. Not wake up.]” Mel’s chords drop lower and lower with every syllable. “[I have to watch.] Please.”

Frank opens and closes his mouth for a long moment as words desert him.

There is a kind of gift to how the Hail Mary traveled out here. The comas were crude, and clearly dangerous, but they didn’t have to spend four years stewing on their fate. On any threats that they might be passing. Mel’s crew were awake for their trip. Mel was awake for her trip, watching everyone else die. There aren’t words for what it must have been like.

Frank opens his mouth and somehow the right words manage to fall out. “Let me go get my bed.”

He can’t- won’t leave her out here alone. Certainly not like this. 

Mel straightens immediately, antennae lifting as she smiles hopefully. “What is [bed], question!” 

Oh man.

Twenty minutes of unexpected manual labor later, Frank and his mattress (and blanket and pillow) are back in the tunnel to arrange the bed according to Mel’s standards. Most of them amount to ‘put it closer to the wall’. An oldie but a goodie. Mel coos happily whenever Frank does it though so he finds himself complying until he presses it right up against the xenonite where she can see him best. Finally Mel gives it her seal of approval and Frank drops onto the mattress with a soft thump.

His back aches as he finally straightens properly for the first time in an hour. It’s not his fault he was built with higher than average shrimp DNA. A curved spine just calls to him.

Mel settles down less than a foot away on her side of the xenonite, staring at him like a kid with their very first art farm. Frank hopes he’s a little more entertaining than the typical ant at least.

It feels strangely intimate to look up at her from his back like this. Mel still takes his breath away when he looks at her too long, watching her antennae make small instinctive adjustments or hearing the quiet buzzing from her wings. It’s beautiful. She’s-

Frank refocuses on the task of trying to get comfortable.

“The [bed makes you sleep], question?” Mel asks studiously as she watches him fluff his pillow.

“It helps.” Frank says, sidestepping the fact that he’s never fluffed his pillow before in his life. It feels like something that normal people might do and Frank is trying to be a normal human subject. He wants a good grade in being observed, sue him. So the pillow is appropriately fluffed for his audience’s enjoyment and his blanket is pulled up in his best approximation of cozy. Look at him now, Earth. Frank sure looks like a normal guy who isn’t overthinking this thing at all.

Mel watches him settle in, nodding along as he gets comfortable like she’s taking note of it all. 

Eventually Frank can’t play with his pillow anymore, laying back to stare up at Mel who’s still sitting there with a patient expression. “Are you going to stay…there?”

He can’t think of a better way to phrase it, face warming slightly as he takes in the curve of her cheek. It looks soft. His hands itch to reach out and touch. 

“[Should be closer.]” Mel says quietly, fidgeting with her hands in her lap. She’s strangely easy to read, even when she doesn’t look at him directly. Her gestures give her away as clearly as any speech. Her head tilts, watching him carefully like she’s waiting for him to react poorly. “[But this is okay], question?”

Frank’s chest squeezes at the little signs of Mel readying herself for rejection. How could anyone say no to Mel? Frank certainly doesn’t have it in him. He’d pull her through the wall if he could. “Of course it’s okay, Mel.” 

Her shoulders loosen and she settles in comfortably, seemingly just waiting for him to ‘become asleep’.

Frank closes his eyes, feeling the weight of Mel’s attention on him as he smooths out his face and takes deeper and deeper breaths. The picture of relaxation. He hasn’t had to fake sleep at any point in his returned memories so he’s hoping he looks good.

Thankfully he’s trying to trick someone with no reference for human behavior.

Mel hums a quiet pleased noise after a few quiet minutes as she seems to accept his sleep play-acting. Frank can hear her moving beyond his eyelids, presence disappearing for a moment before she settles down again a few feet away. There is a quiet metallic sound, familiar from hours of watching her work that signals her attention is elsewhere.

Ninety-two percent sure he isn’t about to get caught, Frank cracks his eyes open to peek.

Mel sits nearby, spooling out a thready form of xenonite to make…something. It looks more like play than something serious. She’s just filling time, watching over him and keeping herself entertained. Even just sitting there, Mel is a fountain of quiet noises, buzzing and trilling instinctively to take in the room. The rolling sounds she lets out fill the tunnel around both of them. Something about it is comforting, almost informal. It’s different hearing those rumbling chords from Mel herself instead of Frank’s practice recordings, but he finds himself getting tired in the same way.

It’s nice to hear something that isn’t from a computer.

Something real that reminds him that he isn’t alone anymore. He's part of an 'us'.

Frank lets his eyes fall closed for real this time, the sounds of Mel working quietly lulling him to sleep.

- - -

Frank pulls the full story out of Mel when he wakes up about why sleeping near each other is so important. 

It’s not just a sign of friendship - when Eridians fall asleep they can’t wake up. They’re completely paralyzed until their body is done resting. It’s cultural, and almost instinctive, to stick together for safety while sleeping. Back on Erid, there’s always someone around who could watch. Family, friends, neighbors, a partner. Out in space, it was just Mel and her crew. 

Then it was just Mel.

Falling asleep in her ship almost unwillingly with no one to watch over her. 

The darkness of Mel’s empty ship echoes behind her as she quietly asks if Frank would be willing to do the same for her. Eridians run on a seventy-two hour schedule so she has to sleep less often than Frank. The only downside is that it’s non-negotiable when she does and her internal cut-off is quickly approaching.

Frank settles in on his side of the wall with his laptop and a soft smile. “Of course, Mel. Go get your bed.”

Someone has to keep her safe while she sleeps. Frank will fill the gap.

Mel isn’t alone anymore either.

- - -

“Any interest in reading the paper that CERN’s waiting for the greenlight to publish?” Santos asks, leaning towards Frank slightly to muffle her voice. She shouldn't have bothered. With the nonstop chaos of the flight deck preparing for imminent landing, no one is paying attention to two of Robby’s scientists lingering in the shade of the bridge.

“What are we talking about?” Frank asks, turning to glance at her.

“Astrophage’s energy storage process.”

“Fuck, that’s a sexy topic.”

“Keep it in your pants.” Santos snorts even as she passes him a printed off copy.

Frank thinks he’s getting strangely used to reading confidential documents like they’re as important as a takeout menu.

“Long story short,” Santos says almost immediately, unable to wait for him to get to it himself. “Astrophage fuck with neutrinos, that’s how they maintain their internal temperature no matter what. Get too cold, stored energy heats it back up with neutrino collisions. Get too hot, internal collisions stop and the heat levels out.”

“Shit.” Frank mumbles to himself as he skims through the article. Something catches his eye. “And the Petrova line IR light-”

“Is the light created by these internal collisions, fueled by energy they collect from the sun.” Santos nods, oozing scientific satisfaction.

“God, microbiology is fucking best.” Frank grins. Who would have thought he’d be on a Chinese aircraft carrier in the middle of the Pacific ocean reading unreleased research about practically impossible neutrino collisions in alien microorganisms? Or, more shockingly, that he’d be agreeing with his greatest academic rival while he did?

“Good smiles or bad smiles?” Robby asks, coming up behind them to look over the chaos running over the deck in an organized pattern. Eyes drift towards them more now that Robby’s joined them, but he seems immune to the attention.

“Good. Did you know Astrophage are even crazier than we originally thought?” Frank says, holding up the paper Santos gave him. He knows his audience well enough to not bother actually offering it to him.

“Ah.” Robby nods, clearly uninterested. 

The low thrum of two helicopters approaching slowly consumes the deck, giving Robby the perfect out. Looks like the guests of honor are here - the primary and backup crews for the Hail Mary.

The application process was a fierce fight between the one way nature of the trip, the glory of being part of the team to save Earth, and various political angles of different countries all wanting to be the one with a claim to saving the world. Add to that dozens of incredibly difficult interviews and practical tests, these crews have been the talk of the whole world for months.

And now they’re finally ready to join hands-on training.

With six months until launch, everyone has been growing impatient to get them in for project familiarization, but applications couldn’t be rushed. There are only going to be three of them out there, humanity can’t afford to send any duds.

Two black helicopters spot the sky, slowly growing closer as the deck makes room for them. Either of the helicopters could have carried the two three-man crews, but Robby had been incredibly specific about crew members and backups not sharing transportation. The applicant pool was small and the people who qualified within that were even smaller. Nothing could be left to chance.

“You ready to train the science officers?” Robby asks as the helicopters begin their final landings, voice raising to be heard over the sound.

“What? I don’t know how to train astronauts.” Frank says, blinking at him in disbelief. 

Robby snorts, shaking his head. “And no one wants to see what you’d do in space. You’re teaching them Astrophage, everything you know about it.”

Frank isn’t sure how he feels about being an expert in world-ending aliens. He supposes if he had to pick a microorganism…

The rotors get too loud to speak over as they finally touch down on the deck, one after the other, and the crews make their way to Robby with mild (major) fanfare (dozens of distracted ship crew members). The six astronauts assemble in front of Robby smoothly like they practiced it. Maybe they did. Frank has no idea what goes into the hiring of astronaut crews.

Robby greets each of them personally for a moment, leaving Frank and Santos alone a few feet away as he does his whole thing.

“Got your game face on?” Frank asks with a smirk shadowing his lips.

“Don’t talk to me.” Santos groans. Frank likes meeting new people with her. Something about her utter disdain for the whole song-and-dance just makes him feel seen. “One of them is half-French, I have to prepare.”

Frank snorts as Robby brings the astronauts over.

“Introductions.” Robby says with a loud clap like anyone is capable of ignoring him in work mode. If there is, Frank hasn’t met them yet. “These are two of our head scientists on the project: Dr. Frank Langdon and Dr. Trinity Santos.”

Frank fights the urge to wrinkle his nose at Santos’s first name. Who the hell is calling her that?

“For the primary crew we have: John Shen, our flight commander, Parker Ellis, our engineer, and Cassie McKay, our science specialist.”

Frank and Santos nod at each of the crew members as they’re introduced. It feels a little like being introduced to someone at an office Christmas party and just waiting for the thumbs-up that everyone can stop acting like professional robot people. The introductions of the secondary crew are equally sharp with the only other name sticking out to Frank being Mateo Diaz as the secondary science officer. Looks like he’s about to get very close with McKay and Diaz. He hopes they’re cool. It would suck if they weren’t cool.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Shen says smoothly, smiling at them with a shockingly carefree expression like he finds himself in situations like this all the time.

“Yeah, we’re super excited to die for the planet.” Ellis echoes next to him with a grin, nudging him pointedly like she’s referencing some hilarious joke. Maybe astronaut humor is different from normal people humor.

“Hear, hear!” McKay joins in. “It’s time to make graduate school worth it. And get a clean bill of health on those student loans.”

Something about their excitement is more confusing than if it had been a somber greeting. Frank isn’t quite sure what to do with himself, giving an awkward thumbs-up. Santos doesn’t do much better, waving at them with something like a grimace. God, they need to get off this boat. Their social skills have clearly atrophied with only each other for company.

Still the crew’s attention shifts back to Robby soon enough as he guides them inside for a welcome party (gotta let the ship crew ogle the global heroes somehow).

Frank leans over to Santos as they walk, hovering near the back of the pack. Ellis’s words keep bouncing around his head. He’s met more than a few world leaders in the past few months and that combination French-Arabic accent is impossible to forget. “Does Algerian-French make it better or worse?”

“Worse.” Santos groans with the knowledge of a woman who has seen (and most likely dated) far too much.

Frank laughs at her pain. Exes are always fair game.

The welcome party, hosted down in the hangar, is more of a mixer than a formal event as waves of researchers, project managers, and ship crew members take the chance to meet the soon-to-be global saviors. The decor is lacking (an industrial storage space is an industrial storage space no matter how many streamers someone hangs), but there is a robust snack and drinks table that offsets the aircraft carrier vibe. 

Frank lingers along the wall to watch the room, enjoying the mess from the sidelines. He’s not the party animal he used to be - he’ll settle for ‘sober party associate’ at this function. 

Regardless of what stories Yoyo might think she has.

The flight crews are the heart of the party, crowds trailing after them wherever they move. It’s a strangely bright addition to the project. Things haven’t been bleak, but they’ve been professional. Ramping up into an almost insurmountable mountain of work. The crew being selected and making it here is a sign of progress. They’re doing it, the work is going somewhere. It’s a breath of fresh air after months of working.

Frank finds his way over to the drinks which are as cross-cultural as the project itself. Debating between Orangina, Asia Sarsae, and Amul Lassi (an incredibly difficult set of decisions), Frank runs into a newly famous face coming off the equally in-depth snack table.

“Dr. Langdon, right?” Shen asks with an offered hand.

Frank takes it, not sure how much he should introduce himself. The woes of not having a reasonable social script when working in a top secret government project. “Yeah, I work in Astrophage production.”

Shen gets a strange smile at that, tilting his head slightly. “A little more than ‘work in’ from what I hear.”

Frank isn’t sure how to respond to that. His position doesn’t have a strict title, but he has a more…supervisory role than he’d expected. It’s certainly less hands-on with all of the work he has to delegate while he sits through meetings with Robby and various world leaders. Something nice about the project is that there aren’t formal titles so Frank has been able to sidestep figuring out exactly what he’s become through work osmosis.

He settles for answering Shen with an awkward shrug. He planned on shrugging, the awkwardness came without his permission.

“Some party.” Shen pivots kindly, letting him drop it, as he turns to look over the room filled with the rolling murmur of conversation and smiling people.

“It’s a big day. People have been in rare form waiting to meet you guys.” Frank says. 

Shen absorbs the compliment with an easy laugh. “They seem excitable.”

Frank can only imagine how many times he’s already had the same conversation about it today. “That’s one word for it.”

Shen is surprisingly easy to talk to. Frank’s not sure what he had anticipated, but Shen seems much more grounded than Frank expected from a man who volunteered to be launched into space.

“Were you one of the people who volunteered?” Shen asks, gesturing in the air to encapsulate everything. Frank isn't sure how many people already on the project threw their hats in the ring to be considered, but he certainly doesn't count himself among their number. 

“Oh no, I don’t have the bravery gene that you guys have.” Frank side-steps, scooping up a can of something from the table just to fill his hands. He's not sure how to politely say 'fuck no, not in a million years' to the man who volunteered to actually do it. That’s not very ‘please don’t get cold feet’ of him.

Luckily Shen doesn’t seem to take offense at his best attempt at neutral. 

“It’s not a gene.” He tells Frank conversationally. His eyes are anything but, betraying a buried steel that must have gotten him selected in the first place. “You just need someone to be brave for.”

Who Shen is being brave for, or the impact of those words on Frank, is set aside as Shen catches someone’s eye over Frank’s shoulder and excuses himself to go speak with them, giving him a friendly pat on the shoulder as he steps away.

Frank swipes his thumb over the condensation building on the drink in his hands as he turns to watch him go, chewing on his words. 

He’s not sure there’s anyone that he could be that person for.

- - -

Sleeping in the tunnel is as comfortable as anywhere else, but his body likes to complain when things are good so Frank has made a point to start stretching when he wakes up. He doesn’t really know what he’s doing, but he’s pretty sure he’s making it up as he goes rather convincingly.

“You look like a child.”

Or not.

“I- what?” Frank laughs, falling out of his attempt to touch his toes as he twists to look at her.

“You look like a child.” Mel says as she watches him lazily from the wall, grinning at his awkwardly stretchy posture. “Eridian children do the same thing to get used to the [weight] of their [wings properly].”

“Humans call these motions yoga. It’s a human exercise.” Frank says, fighting a flush as he straightens up. “It’s a very old, serious human exercise.”

“Serious serious serious.” Mel laughs as Frank walks over to his spot against the wall with a pout. “No, keep going! I want to see your human culture.”

Frank snorts as he gets comfortable in his seat. The wall isn’t perfectly flat and this portion is set back into the Eridian side slightly like a bay seat. It lets Frank sit down next to Mel like they’re side by side. “The show's over, come back tomorrow.”

“Sad. I am sad now.” Mel says as she shifts to settle into her seat next to him, shaking her head. “If I can not see what I want, what are we working on?”

“How about anatomy since you seem so interested in my stretching?” Frank offers as he adjusts his laptop. They’ve cleared a thousand words and are steadily pushing it a little further every day. Being able to talk about themselves physically won't hurt. And Frank can't deny that he's curious.

“Need word.” 

“It means I want to talk about how Eridian bodies function, internally and externally.” Frank says, vaguely gesturing over his own body for an example.

“Oh, 🎶🎵🎵🎵.” Mel nods, leaving her tools to the side to give him her attention. “What do you want to know, question?”

There are plenty of places to start, but Frank goes for the big one.

“You use echolocation to navigate, but you also have eyes?” Frank asks, frowning slightly. It’s been an annoyingly persistent question in the back of his mind since he first realized that she was echolocating. What’s the point of an organ like eyes for a species that doesn’t need them?

“Erid is a dark planet.” Mel explains as she calls back to their last conversation about their home planets. Erid has a thick atmosphere, trapping heat through a practically impenetrable ceiling of clouds. It insulates the heat onto the surface of the planet and is the reason that her species has echolocation in the first place; almost no sunlight actually makes it down to the ground. “There are storms [though]. Very loud sudden storms in the cloud layer with lots of [wind] and [rain].”

“We call those thunder storms. There’s a flash of light and a loud boom.” Frank explains, pulling a leg up underneath him comfortably. For as bad as Earth weather gets, it’s got nothing on what other planets in the galaxy whip up. Frank decides to skip the stories of humans surviving being struck by lightning. They do not represent the species average. "They can be dangerous."

“Yes!” Mel chirps, nodding eagerly at his recognition. “We can’t move in these storms with [echolocation]. The world is too loud, it makes everything…blurry. Our eyes help us find [shelter] and [family] when we can’t use normal senses.”

Ingenious.

Mel, and other Eridians, work almost like beluga whales. Two sets of sensory organs used for completely different purposes. Mel would be blind in a thunderstorm without her echolocation, trapped wherever she was, just hoping nothing dangerous found her in the meantime. With a secondary navigation organ, Eridians wouldn’t be isolated at the first sign of bad weather which sounds like a pretty typical occurrence. They could simply switch to their ‘back-up’.

No wonder Mel hasn’t used them since Frank has known her.

“So you could see me?” Frank asks, perking up slightly. Something jumps in his chest at the idea of her looking at him.

Mel gives him a confused look, frowning at the non-sequitur. “I see you all the time.”

“I mean with your eyes.” Frank clarifies. “If I was moving around and things were loud, you could just switch?”

“They don’t see far. It is better up close.” Mel hedges, wobbling her head indecisively. A nearsighted alien, who would have thought? “It’s an…older…[organ] from when Eridians didn’t have buildings for [shelter].”

“We call those organs vestigial. They aren’t technically required for survival anymore, but our bodies still grow them.” Frank explains, falling right into one of his favorite fun facts. “Humans actually have a vestigial eyelid. It used to cross our eyes horizontally to keep them moisturized while swimming, but we evolved not to need it anymore. Now it just sits in the corner of our eyes to help direct tears.”

Frank winces as soon as he closes his mouth. 

That was too much talk about eyelids. 

Most talk about eyelids is too much, but that was really too much. Frank tenses slightly, prepared for the polite disengagement he’s gotten every time he’s fallen into a less than polite rabbit hole back home.

Mel does what she does best though, ignoring his expectations, as she lets out a trilling laugh. “Good good good! We match.”

“Yeah. We do.” Frank nods as a confusing wave of relief washes through him. He’s not sure how to feel about how easily Mel absorbs his rambling or the sudden brightness that fills his chest when she does. He decides not to look at it directly. Like an adult. “Some humans have worse vision than others and we made a tool for them to see better called glasses.” 

Mel’s wings thrum quietly in interest. “Like second eyes?”

“Kind of! People who use them can see the whole time, it just makes it better.” Frank explains as he imagines trying to tinker together some glasses for Mel to play with. The lab has god-knows how many tools and gadgets, he’s pretty sure a 3D printer is one of them. He can’t imagine whatever glasses he came up with would look good, or would like the atmospheric differences between their environments very much, but Frank is ninety percent sure that Mel would wear them anyway and that almost makes it worth it.

The mission plan doesn’t account for Frank spending his time building an alien glasses though. Unfortunately.

“What is this?” Frank asks, physically dragging himself back on track as he gestures to his own neck. The thick fur that sits around Mel’s throat has to be important social interaction or navigation, but Frank hasn’t been able to puzzle it out.

“🎶🎶. It helps [block] some of the noise when the environment is loud.” Mel explains, combing her fingers through it instinctively.

“Like when it’s storming?” Frank asks as he logs the word.

“Yes. My 🎵🎶,” Mel says, pointing to her antenna. “Are sensitive. I use my [ruff] to help simplify the [vibrations] so I don’t get stuck so often.”

Mel says it like getting stuck is almost inevitable, even with all the comments she’s made about modern advancements on Erid keeping life functional when the weather turns. It’s hard to tell sometimes what’s Mel and what’s typical for Eridians as a whole, but this feels specific. Mel’s stories tend to involve comments about her senses getting overwhelmed far more easily than the average Eridian. 

Frank can’t imagine how violently overstimulating it must be when her whole system is built to take in noise as efficiently as possible and her planet is a hub of irregular bouts of crackling thunder.

“What about you, question?” Mel asks Frank curiously.

“What about me?” Frank frowns. He’s been good at thunderstorms since he was seven. Maybe eight. Ten out of ten brave in bad weather.

“How are you [navigating], I do not see a good [antennae].” Mel says, something trailing in her tone. If Frank was a betting man, he’d guess that it’s concerned judgement. A real ‘what kind of species wouldn’t have antennae?’ situation. He almost laughs at the thought that they’ve both been silently judging how the other could possibly get around.

“I use my eyes all the time, it’s the primary way that I navigate." Frank explains, trying to smother a smile at the growing shock on Mel’s face. “Sound is a secondary sense for me.” 

Mel coos quietly like she can’t believe it. “You see like that all the time…even when you’re just sitting here?”

She sounds particularly surprised at that. Frank supposes that makes sense coming from someone in a species that only uses their eyes in dire situations. It must sound like hearing a friend works out with knives for the adrenaline response in order to get better gains.

“I mean it’s no three hundred sixty degree echolocation, but I get by.” Frank laughs as Mel leans in to look him over in fascination. “I’d miss the colors too much anyway.”

Mel tilts her head. “What is this, question?”

“Colors?” That’s what we call the names we’ve given to individual waves of light within our visible spectrum.” Frank explains as he finds his teacher mode awakening. How rude would it be to interrogate Mel about her species range of light sensitivity? It’s probably a chill thing for friends to interrogate each other about.

“Oh, like [light] and [dark].” Mel nods easily. “We have those too.”

Something itches in the back of Frank’s brain. “Not quite…like the difference between your skin and your hair, words for small variations in light wavelength that help us communicate different shades of what we call yellow.”

Mel frowns at him, confusion drifting off of her in waves. “My [skin] and my [hair] are the same.”

Frank blinks at that blatant inaccuracy. They’re not. Mel’s skin is a paler yellow, almost pastel, while her hair is blonde with a golden sheen. There’s no way to confuse the two with a full range of color vision…

Oh.

Mel is colorblind. 

Well, more accurately, she’s a monochromat. 

Mel can only see in black and white, that’s why her first instinct with colors is to talk about light contrast. It makes sense for a secondary navigation organ not to be as developed as the primary, but something about that sends a swoop through Frank’s stomach. 

If anyone should be able to see how pretty different shades of yellow are, it’s Mel.

“We have different ranges of sight.” Frank explains slowly, surprisingly upset by the fact. “You see light and shadow for contrast and motion detection. I have structures in my eyes called cones that let me take in colors which are a different kind of visual information. They give me a special variation in contrast that Eridians don’t have.”

His words fall short, but he’s not sure how to explain what colors are to someone with no concept of them. He’s doing his best.

“So you see me in these special [wavelengths]?” Mel asks as she looks him over like she’ll be able to find the special light detection somewhere on him.

“Yeah.” Frank nods, offering her a smile. “Your ship is really beautiful, the color is amazing.” 

He swallows the urge to say anything else. About anyone else.

“Woah.” Mel breathes quietly. “Amaze amaze amaze.”

Mel sure knows how to make a guy feel special for having completely average human components. Something still intrudes persistently in Frank’s mind. “Do you know what I look like?”

“It is approximate in some ways, but I know who you are.” Mel says as she pauses for a beat before continuing, a sly smile curving her lips. “There is not much [competition] out here.”

Frank snorts at the joke, she’s getting better at them. “You said that your eyes are good up close, it’s- I mean, do you want to look at me?”

Mel blinks at him slowly. “...You would let me look at you.”

It’s something between a statement and a question as Mel watches him carefully for any sign of him taking it back.

“Of course.” Frank repeats like his stomach isn’t turning over dangerously. 

“It is…personal for Eridians, to look at each other like this. Something for [family] and- the closest of friends.” Mel says, voice wavering slightly as she picks her words carefully, even as she leans closer. Her wings thrum in interest behind her, instinctive and uncontrolled.

“I’d be honored, Mel.” Frank tells her quietly. He would be. Being so highly thought of by Mel is one of the greatest achievements of his life and Frank’s pretty sure that’s true even without being able to remember many others. “I’m assuming you need me here?”

“Right against the wall.” Mel hums, wings buzzing faster behind her. 

This arrangement, side by side, is as close as they can get so Frank leans his shoulder against the wall and waits. 

Mel steadies herself with a short sharp breath, clearly working herself up to it. Frank almost wants to tell her that they don’t have to, he won’t force her, but he can’t stop the selfish desire to know that she knows him.

And then Mel’s eyes open.

There was a thin semi-translucent eyelid covering Mel’s eyes Frank hadn’t even noticed before it opened, leaving Mel squinting as she adjusts to the tunnel’s light for the first time. 

Frank is too busy processing what he's seeing as he's suddenly struck with another discovery.

Mel has brown eyes. 

Deep rich brown, honey bright where the lights catch them and consumingly dark in the shadow. They’re captivating, pulling the air out of his lungs. Then they focus on Frank for the first time and he’s not sure how to take another breath.

Mel stares at Frank with wide eyes, taking in every inch of him. She follows the curve of his face from his wild hair down to his cheekbones, before falling lower to his lips. Frank fights the urge to fidget harder than he ever has in his life as Mel peruses him silently. Something catches Mel’s attention and her head tilts, hand coming up to tap her own face. “What is this, question?”

“My jaw. It’s how humans eat.” Frank answers quietly, scared to pop the intimate bubble between them. Mel is built similarly to Frank, he’s not sure why his jaw would be of interest-

“And all of them are so sharp?” Mel asks, so caught up in staring at him that she forgets to label her question like normal.

Oh.

Frank fights a very pleased blush. “Uh, humans vary. A lot. This is just how I look.”

Mel hums in what Frank might call a pleased way, hand still resting on her own face as her attention drifts down over his chest. 

Frank doesn’t know what she’s thinking, but he hopes it’s good. He really, really hopes it’s good. He finds his hand drifting up to the wall between them almost instinctively, pressing his palm flat against the surface. Frank isn’t sure what he’s doing, but he can’t help it. It feels like something about Mel just pulls him in, a unique gravity that’s all hers.

Mel lowers her eyes to look at his hand for a beat, long enough to make Frank’s neck prickle, before slowly raising her own to match it. His hand dwarfs hers, covering it completely from his side of the wall. Frank fights the impossible urge to relax his fingers through the xenonite and slot them between hers. Their eyes find each other again and she holds his gaze as a thin trembling connection seems to weave its way between them, soft and curious. Frank has never been this intimate with someone before, not truly. A piece of him is always tucked to the side, withheld just enough to stay safe.

This doesn’t feel safe.

This feels dangerous, like Mel can reach forward and scoop something precious out of his chest forever if she wants to.

The moment holds until Mel shakes herself loose, dragging herself back down to solid ground as she breaks eye contact almost hurriedly. Like she’s worried she might do something if they don’t stop. Frank does the same, shaking himself loose, and packing whatever emotion had been winding through his chest back down where it belongs. 

By the time Frank looks up Mel’s protective lids are closed again, covering her bambi eyes.

“Now I know you.” Mel says after collecting herself for a beat as she finally lets her hand drop. There’s a hesitance to her words that Frank suspects means that this was more important than just an anatomy lesson.

He’s not feeling particularly unaffected himself. 

Frank slowly lets his hand fall from the xenonite too, palm still warm from the heat leaking through the material. It almost feels like it’s from her skin. “I know you too, Mel.” 

He does. 

- - -

It’s hard to track the names of all of the experts coming through the project. 

Frank is meeting more than his share to be fair though. Something of this scale and importance requires dozens of teams with thousands of personnel spread across the planet all working simultaneously. Which makes it really really hard to remember names between all of those non-local crews.

The crew on the Shandong-17 stays relatively stable with new experts getting flown in (and out) according to Robby’s schedule when he needs an answer to something. Some of the people brought in stick around on the project, joining one of the remote teams to handle some specific minutia. Others fulfill their role and disappear back into the outside world to keep living their lives.

Robby seems to always have the who, what, when of the experts passing through the ship and that’s good enough for Frank. It’s become a bit of a game in the meantime to guess who he thinks will stick around in some capacity.

Dr. Samira Mohan, PhD in Climatology, feels like someone who’s not going anywhere. 

The onboard conference room Robby handles everyone in is strangely beige for a military vessel, but Frank supposes that’s the benefit of being in charge of the world. Redecorating a room to business bland chic takes less than a snap of his fingers. It gives things a surreal feeling as Frank settles into his seat on Robby’s right to see the latest numbers. He's on a boat, not an office park at the end of a strip mall. Sometimes he needs a reminder.

“Your work speaks for itself, Dr. Mohan.” Robby says as he shuffles through a small stack of papers displaying her previous work. “Every prediction you’ve had over the last eleven years - irregular temperature fluctuations, off-season natural disasters - is incredibly accurate. Far and above your peer’s rate of success.”

“Climate science is a young field.” Samira side-steps smoothly, hands crossed calmly in her lap. “Approach, variation, volatility - they’re all weighted by the individual building the model. Differences in perceived importance are natural.”

“You’re selling yourself short. Your record is no small feat.” Robby says with a performer's smile.

Samira nods in appreciation, but doesn’t take the bait to fawn about her accomplishments. She carries herself with an internal confidence that most people sitting down with Robby can’t maintain. She’s already received a mountain of climate data and been asked to turn it into a coherent narrative looking at the world that’s coming. 

No one is confused about what this meeting is about.

Santos, a couple seats down, stifles a smile as she catches Frank’s eye. It's always fun to see someone get Robby off his rhythm.

Robby catches onto her refusal to chatter and gives up the ghost at small talk. “I’ve been given every possible prediction on how the climate will change over the next thirty years. Complete ecological collapse all the way down to just some minor crop disruptions. I need numbers I can rely on. I need someone who can give me those.” Robby pauses to nod at her. “So, looking at the data, what do you think is coming?”

Samira straightens up, sliding bound copies of a thick multi-page report across the table to various waiting hands. “It’s not good. Mass biome loss across the globe, thousands of species going extinct. Off-season shifts in the weather patterns-”

“Human numbers.” Robby cuts in, not opening the report as he stares at her directly. “I only care about people.”

Samira’s face flattens immediately at his interjection, voice low and unnaturally smooth. “Humans aren’t separate from animals. When local ecosystems die, the food we eat and the air we breathe - that goes with it.”

“I want numbers. Real numbers.” Robby repeats himself, riled for the first time in…a while at her refusal to adjust immediately to his new criteria. The air in the conference room is thick, heavy with expectation and more than a little uncertainty as they face off, like a storm about to hit land that no one is quite sure they’re ready for.

“You want a concrete number? Fine.” Samira says, gesturing at her report. “Nineteen years.”

“Nineteen years until what?” Frank can’t help himself from interjecting, fingers drumming nervously on the arm of his chair. 

Samira doesn’t bother to look at him as she speaks, eyes still locked on Robby’s. “That’s how long I estimate before half the population currently alive will be dead.”

The silence that follows her words is…indescribable. 

Everyone on the project knows the stakes. They can’t forget, even when things are good. Every day, every hour, every minute they put into this is a fight against the worst case scenario becoming the only future for humanity. And Samira is telling them that what’s coming is even worse than they thought.

“That’s- that’s three and a half billion people.” Robby echoes back to her like he didn’t hear it properly.

God, Frank wishes he didn't. 

Samira nods simply, not fighting the absurdity of the number. Why would she? She’s just the messenger. “Do you know that there are tornadoes in Europe right now?”

Frank’s throat squeezes tight at the condemnation in her voice even as he knows none of them are to blame for it.

“European languages didn’t even have a word for them before they colonized the Americas and now there have been three in the last month. It snowed in Vietnam last week. And monsoon season started months early.” Mohan’s voice is almost prophetic as she relays a trailing list of horrifying facts. “Decades of climate change have been reversed in a matter of months with the light reduction we're already experiencing.”

Goosebumps run over Frank’s skin. The scale of what she’s talking about is almost incomprehensible.

“Humanity isn’t separate from the rest of the world and we’re already seeing the effects on our environment from this fraction of a change.” Samira says, leaning back in her seat as a hand rests over a copy of her report. She looks at it heavily. “I’m confident in my numbers. I predict that it will take nineteen years for what we’re already seeing to spin completely off its axis.”

Robby scrubs a hand over his mouth, swallowing like he’s trying to force the facts down his throat. He frowns at the papers in front of him like he’s split between arguing with Dr. Mohan and the report itself. Frank’s not sure what to say after a speech like that. The room settles into a pregnant pause, barely breathing until finally Robby opens his mouth- “Nineteen years isn’t enough. It’s thirteen years to Tau Ceti and thirteen back. That’s twenty-six years that we need to survive. Twenty-seven would be preferable.”

“What are you talking about?” Samira asks as she stares at Robby like he’s lost his mind. “This isn’t a debate. These are the facts of what’s happening.”

Frank blinks at Robby in confusion, seconding her. 

Robby isn’t looking at any of them though, locked onto the documents in front of him. “Of course it’s a debate. You just said that climate change and accidental greenhouse gas emissions slowed it down.” His eyes lift to pin Samira down where she sits. “Imagine how many emissions we could release if we put our minds to it?”

Samira stares at him, eyes wide. “Are you crazy?”

“No, Dr. Mohan. I’m desperate. Now tell me where I can get enough greenhouse gas to buy us time to succeed.”

- - -

Frank has never been to Antarctica before. It’s nice to check this off his bucket list, considering the way the world is headed. 

Sharp air whips off the western coast of the continent, cutting over the deck of the ship. There’s a somber tone in the silence that greets it. There are no take-offs to monitor, no reason for any of the deck crew to leave the warm belly of the ship. They aren’t here for any sort of celebration and the only ones who will face the music of what they’re doing here today are the ones orchestrating it.

Robby watches the ice shelf in the distance with steady eyes as his walkie-talkie sounds off with Navy destroyer locations around Antarctica, holding up one of the largest naval exclusion zones ever created. 

Santos stands a few feet back, hovering by the door back inside, bundled up in a thick puffer jacket. Frank gives her a commiserating look from Robby’s side by the railing as she shivers from a particularly sharp gust. She flips him off and he echos it, happy to have some form of release from the suffocating atmosphere.

Samira looks like she’s being led to the gallows as she stands next to him. She’s grimacing, jaw clenched tight, shaking her head almost instinctively as she stares out across the water.

“Mohan, are we ready?” Robby asks.

“Yes. Three minutes.” Samira swallows, pulling out a tablet to look over the countdowns. Her gloves squeeze tight around the edges of it, posture rigid.

Robby pulls out his walkie, opening the channel. “Submarine One, we are green. Repeat: Submarine One, status is green.”

A quiet affirmation echoes back to him before Robby calls the next channel and continues to relay the message down the chain of military vessels. Even the military seems to have an unavoidable amount of bureaucracy.

Frank glances at Samira in Robby’s distraction, unable to keep the disbelief out of his voice. “I still can’t believe this.” 

Samira nods quietly with a hopeless kind of grief. There’s nothing for either of them to do to change it. Still. No one can quite believe that this is really…real. 

“I grew up as green as they come.” Samira says, voice crackling dangerously as she forces the words out. “Eco club at school, rallies with my dad. I became a climate scientist to try to save the world. To protect the environment.” She stops speaking, eyes trained on the horizon as she steadies herself. “I know why we need this, I understand the purpose of necessary evils. I just…”

Frank knows what she’s getting at. “Didn’t think it would be you?”

“I keep waiting for someone to tell me there’s going to be another way.” Samira whispers as she turns back to meet his eyes.

Frank lets out a humorless laugh. He’s been waiting for an adultier adult for months now. 

This plan had been pulled together from every environmental activist’s worst nightmares. Two hundred and forty three nuclear warheads have been sunk into the ice of the Antarctic shelf, just waiting to be detonated. At the end of the countdown, they’ll blow a massive chunk of ice off of the continent where it will sink into the ocean and melt.

It’s the only way to release the methane gases trapped deep in the shelf from the plant matter lived there millions of years ago. Methane is a more powerful insulator than carbon dioxide. It will cover the planet and help retain every scrap of heat they have within the atmosphere, buying humanity more time. Every couple years they can crack off some more and hopefully slow the rate of decline long enough for the mission to have a chance to send them back something useful.

Samira had desperately poured through every man-made option first, but it took decades of mismanagement to realize that they could even impact the climate. Humans simply can’t work at the scale needed. 

So here they are, blowing up a piece of the Antarctic shelf. 

The sea level rise and temperature impact in the ocean will be problems of their own, but the methane released is about to be their best friend.

Samira pulls away from the desolate coast to look at her screen. “Sixty seconds.” 

Robby nods. There’s nothing left for them to say. The mundantity of what something like this looks like will never stop sucking the air from Frank’s lungs. Who could possibly be ready for this?

“Three…two…one.” Samira counts down. “Detonation.”

There’s no noise or rush of air. Just a quiet confirmation blinking on the screen. 

“The shockwave will take in ten minutes or so.” Samira narrates quietly from the information filling the screen. By the time it reaches them, it will just sound like distant thunder, a pale echo of what they’ve just done.

“Understood.” Robby says with a solemn acknowledgement before he turns and heads back into the bridge, walkie-talkie already raised to his mouth to give new orders. Santos follows him inside quietly, giving Frank a long look as she leaves.

Frank’s feet feel glued to the deck as he turns back to Samira still standing in the same spot, thick emotion cracking the edges of her professional mask. 

Words feel small, insufficient, but Frank swallows and reaches for something to say anyway. “You’re doing what you have to, it’s…we understand.”

Samira leans over the edge of the railing and sobs.

- - -

“-nk. Frank. Frank-!”

Frank blinks himself back into his body. “Wha- what?” 

Mel is plastered against the wall as she stares at him with worried eyes. She’d been working on something from Blip-A’s cooling system the last time Frank checked. He’s not entirely sure when she got up to watch him so carefully.

“Where did you go, question?” Mel asks, voice tight. Her wings buzz behind her pointedly.

“I didn’t go anywhere-” Frank frowns, trying to catch up with what she’s saying.

“You stopped. Didn’t move, didn’t [react].” Mel interrupts, stomping her foot on the ground and shifting her antennae impatiently like she’s trying to get a better look at him. “What happened, question?” 

Didn’t move, didn’t react-

Oh. 

Frank’s memories appear when they feel like it, washing over him whenever something happens to come loose. He’ll slip away for a few seconds as he remembers a presentation he gave in third grade or what he liked to order at the greasy burger joint by his college dorm, or even blowing up part of Antarctica. 

Just little things. 

He just forgot that he’s not the only person around anymore. 

It’s become so mundane for Frank that he forgot that Mel doesn’t know about his missing memories. Or that he isn’t going home at the end of this. Life outside of his memories has become so fascinating that he doesn’t try to linger in them like he used to. Frank’s stomach swoops dangerously. He doesn't know how to answer her questions, he doesn’t want to scare her.

Besides, it’s kind of nice to pretend when Mel asks him about home. Sometimes Frank imagines he’ll see it again.

“I zoned out, uh, I get distracted sometimes.” Frank says, ignoring the voice that sounds like an old teacher saying ‘often’ in the back of his head. Not now Ms. Gustanis, not now. “I didn’t mean to scare you, my bad.”

“Ah.” Mel nods slowly, like she’s not quite sure she believes him. “[Zone] in.”

Frank snorts, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Will do.”

They settle back down with Mel still glancing at him regularly as she pretends that she isn’t. Frank doesn’t say anything. God knows if she suddenly went still on her side of the wall, he would be hammering on it until she woke up again or he cracked the fucking thing. Frank waits patiently, messing with his laptop, even as Mel stops and starts on her work.

Finally her attempt at patience runs out and Mel drops the device back in her lap, looking up at Frank with a thoughtful frown. 

“Mel, I swear I’m okay.” Frank promises, dipping his head to try to catch her ‘eyes’ properly. 

“I know.” Mel nods as she lifts to face him properly, worrying her lower lip. “I trust you.”

“I trust you too.” He does. Frank isn’t sure how many people he can say that he trusts like her. And not just because he spent his time on Earth predominately with thirteen year olds. Mel is special. One of a kind.

“Promise you would tell if you weren't?” Mel asks, watching him carefully.

“Of course, Mel. I promise.” Frank swears, watching her finally settle as her shoulders lose their tension. The anxious tension in the air releases as she turns back to her work, something thoughtful stewing in her expression. Frank leaves her to it, shaking off the last hold of his new memories. He's back on solid ground, in the here and now.

- - -

Frank’s eyes are still closed, thick with sleep, as he rolls over for a few more minutes of rest. Waking up is more of a state of mind than a to-do and Frank doesn't intend to play along just yet.

The heavy weight on his right, pinning the corner of his blanket, doesn't seem to agree with that though.

Something about that fact tickles the back of Frank's mind. Eyes still closed, he gently tugs on the blanket.

Still stuck.

Hmm. Rude. Frank almost groans at the ordeal of needing to open his eyes to solve this mystery. Then the confusion echoing around the back of his head finally solidifies into something much clearer.

Their wall is on his left. And Frank didn't leave anything out on his right.

His eyes fly open, adrenaline jolting through his system, to find Mel leaning over him in a strange xenonite suit. “Good morning!”

Frank's attention drifts to the left. Yup, the wall is still there. With all of Mel’s stuff sitting scattered around the floor on the other side. That seems to rule out sleep-walking. For either of them. Frank turns back to Mel, sitting on his side of the tunnel with a beaming grin. “...Good morning.”

“You sleep so irregularly, I came over an hour ago to wait.” Mel says almost accusatorily, sitting back on her heels to let Frank sit up instead of hovering over him. She always has that same tone when Frank tries to go back to sleep, like it's absolutely ridiculous.

Something about it jumps Frank’s brain back into normal gear, making him snort. How could he have been so rude for this surprise she didn’t mention to him whatsoever?

Frank sits up as he takes in the modified spacesuit she’s wearing. He’s never seen any sort of hull gear for her before (why would she need it with Richard outside?) and it looks remarkably similar to his EVA suit with hundreds of small hexagonal panels joined together to create a flexible suit mesh. It’s a low-weight high-mobility marvel of a design. Peak engineering talent from head to toe, literally.

It’s also adorable.

Frank should use more scientific terms, but that’s what it is. 

Mel is bundled up inside of her suit, flight-suit zipped high on her neck like she’s ready for the cold. Her antennae are tucked low against her head in order to fit inside of the helmet, awkward and precious in the same motion.

Frank is pretty sure he's learning what cuteness aggression is, right now, in this very moment.

He's also learning how hard it is to ignore. Somehow he resists.

“You built a suit.” Frank finally gets out as a smile creeps across his face. His mind still feels like it’s coming online, shaking off the last of its grogginess. The time for a lazy morning is firmly over. Up and at 'em.

“Yes. I had an idea.” Mel says, before clarifying- “A big one.”

“I can see that.” Frank laughs, staring at Mel’s suited up hands. The hexagonal pattern is a little clumsy in such a fine-motor zone, but it’s completely inspired for how quickly she must have built it. Earth engineers would cry if they had to compare first drafts with her.

Mel clears her throat carefully. “We both need to solve why Astrophage doesn't dim Tau Ceti. I haven’t figured it out on my own, but you’re a scientist.” Mel says ‘scientist’ like it’s special, treasured. Like her engineering, that designed an EVA suit based on seeing his a handful of times, is nothing. “I- I want to come to your [ship] so we can solve the Astrophage problem. Together.”

Frank could have never seen things playing out like this when he first entered the Tau Ceti system, but what did that version of him know? He didn’t even remember blowing up Antarctica at that point. Mel is an engineer. She has the practical knowledge to match Frank’s hypotheticals and the mission preparation to cover things Frank just can't remember. Regardless of what she might think of her own talents, Frank knows he couldn't do what she does in a hundred years.

Neither of them can do this alone.

Luckily they don't have to.

“You can’t survive in my atmosphere.” Frank says, trying to think of anything that could stop this before they get too excited (Frank is already excited).

“I’ll build a new habitat!” Mel says enthusiastically at Frank’s lack of immediate refusal, shuffling closer. “Inside your [ship]. Xenonite walls like the wall, but for a mini Erid inside your mini Earth.”

Something excited and vibrating settles under Frank’s skin, leg bouncing excitedly. “Are you sure?” 

Mel nods, wings buzzing behind her in the suit. “Together…right?”

“Together.” Frank grins.

- - -

So Frank gets a roommate.

Not something he saw happening when he was shot into the lonely expanse of space, but that just goes to show what he knows about interstellar collaborations.

- - -

Mel needs Eridian safe spaces inside of the Hail Mary. 

A temporary measure like the suit makes sense if Mel is visiting, but long-term cooperation means long-term solutions. So she needs to build a habitat inside of his ship that will let her leave the suit safely. Which means it's time for them to build.

She returns to her side of the wall to start pouring mold after mold of glassy xenonite, mixing up whatever liquids create an impossible metal. Things go smoother when Frank doesn't stop and quiz her about every scientific marvel he sees so he forces his questions about the process down. For now. The panels slowly harden into sturdy sheets strong enough to hold back their different atmospheres. Frank picks them up from the airlock that he’s not quite sure how he missed for so long (at least it clarified a crucial confusion with the whole ‘teleporting alien’ question he woke up with).

Then it’s up to him to carry them over to his ship for construction later.

Words Frank would use to describe the process are: time efficient, totally graceful, definitely not humbling, and something he would do again (as long as he was being properly bribed). Mel is, admittedly, a pretty unbeatable bribe.

“Don’t slip.” Mel calls after him, something teasing curling around her words.

“The floor is uneven!” Frank protests as he regains his footing. “It’s hard to carry things.”

“Ohhh, it's so hard to be human. You are so brave.” Mel coos. 

Frank shakes his head, heading for the ship with his panels. Hopefully Mel’s echolocation isn’t strong enough that she can see the smile he’s trying to hide from her. He doesn’t want to encourage her too much.

So Mel prints panel after panel and Frank moves all of them - along with the tools, meal containers, and everything else Mel needs to live - into the Hail Mary. Everything on Frank's side of the tunnel gets dragged back into the Hail Mary too, which includes all of the tables and chairs that he's barely used since he got comfortable sitting up against the wall itself. That work is a much less exciting affair. Still he does it, getting everything moved back inside piece by piece.

And then, slowly but surely, the only thing left is Mel.

She slips through the airlock like she must have the first time, climbing out on his side in her suit. Frank is fighting the urge to scoop Mel up into a hug now that she’s finally close enough for it and he’s (actually) conscious. She just looks huggable. 

Frank might be projecting a little, but still.

“Feel good?” Frank asks, stepping closer to check on her. She’s already been on his side safely once before, but Frank is ready to shove her back through the airlock if there’s even a hint of a sealing problem.

Mel coos proudly, spreading her arms so Frank can look at the suit fully. Her wings are carefully wrapped in fabric at the top joint where the suit shifts, shielding them from getting pinched on what is sure to be a sensitive zone. Overall her motions look smooth and unhindered though. “It works!” 

“It does.” Frank grins, looking her over. “Can you see okay?”

Mel’s hand comes up to hover over her tucked antennae. “It’s fine, just duller. The uneven floors are a little more…difficult.”

“Oh, so the floor is hard. Someone didn’t think so when I was moving things around.” Frank says, watching Mel tilt her head back pout at him.

“Mean to me.” Mel frowns. "Bad human, rude human."

Frank laughs even as his mind stews on a solution. There's a fair distance between the wall and the entrance of the Hail Mary so if she really does need help... 

“Here, I have an idea. To make up for my traitorous human manners.” Frank teases, taking one of Mel’s hands in his. The xenonite glove design is smooth, just a centimeter or two thick, which lets out a low lingering heat from Mel’s atmosphere. “Now I can lead you and you just have to watch me.” 

Mel looks down at their hands in surprise even as she slowly intertwines their fingers. “Oh. Good good good.”

Her voice is careful, full of something Frank can't identify, but her fingers flex around his in a small testing motion. Frank squeezes back just as carefully, feeling his heart pound in his chest. Be still you self-incriminating organ.

Frank glances at Mel, catching the edges of her cheeks where they're flushed pink. "Ready?"

"Ready." Mel nods, following his lead as he starts picking their way back down the tunnel.

He leads their little procession carefully, glancing back at her every few steps. He’s not sure if it’s to make sure she’s still there or to catch her reactions as they approach his ship and he knows she's getting her first view inside his home away from home. Frank feels weirdly anxious about it. He wants her to like it.

They climb inside and even with both of them on the smooth solid flooring of his ship, Mel's hand doesn't slip free. Frank doesn't mention it, happy to take as much as she'll give him.

It’s her first time inside so Frank lets Mel lead, narrating everything that they pass.

“Up there is the cockpit, that’s where I fly and control the ship.” Frank says, pointing up the ladder. Flying the ship is a bold claim for Frank’s very pointed lack of practice, but hypothetically that’s an action he could do up there.

“Ah, good.” Mel nods, glancing up into the ceiling with an expression like she’s squinting to see it better. Maybe she is. “It’s very…flat?”

“The controls are on screens, like my computer.” Frank clarifies.

“Ah. Humanity loves its portable thinking devices.” Mel agrees, bumping into his shoulder. “Some humans like it so much they forget how to [divide] by six without help.”

Frank groans, chest warming at the physical contact even as Mel makes fun of him. “We were hours into distances at that point-”

“Excuses.”

“-and the waveform software was acting up every time I opened the calculator-”

“Doesn’t know his numbers.”

“-I can’t be blamed for that.” Frank says, dropping his head in faux-defeat.

“Can.” Mel shrugs, looking up at him with a grin as she pulls him down the hallway. “What’s over here, question?”

“Down there is the dormitory, that’s where I used to sleep before someone made me drag my mattress outside.” Frank says, giving her a look.

Mel is happily impervious to such things, squeezing Frank’s hand. “Exercise is important, you’re welcome.”

Frank squeezes back as he shakes his head at her. Bullying him. Rude. He gestures at one of the last big rooms. “Over here is the lab, that's where we keep the science equipment.”

"Show me." Mel demands as she tugs him over immediately, poking around the room with careful hands. She looks over tables and cabinets and priceless machines with the same barely restrained fascination.

Frank has to give it to her, he wouldn’t be any better on her ship. 

Scratch that.

Frank is positive he would be worse. Still the lab feels like his domain. It’s why Frank is on the project, it's the reason that he’s all the way out here puttering around a brand new solar system. It feels vulnerable in a way to show it to her, he wants Mel to like it.

“Good good good.” Mel coos, pleased with what she's seeing as she surveys the space. Well, mostly pleased. “Why is this room so [messy]?” 

“Messy? That’s not- It’s not bad.” Frank says, looking around at the half-remembered old meal pouches and discarded clothes. It’s not great either. Living alone for so long has left his sense of ‘cleaning up’ as more of a loose concept than a to-do. Still it’s not awful.

“Hmm. Bad bad bad.” Mel shakes her head at Frank so he knows exactly what she thinks of those new cleaning standards. “Your ship is good. We will need much more room for me and much less space for you.” 

Frank snorts, watching Mel straighten up proudly at making him laugh. She always gets excited when she manages to make him smile on purpose. Still, for as funny as her words are, Mel isn’t wrong. She needs to be able to access all of the parts of the Hail Mary that Frank can. Wherever Frank goes Mel needs to be able to come with him, so they can talk through whatever the Astrophage throw at them. 

It’s for science, not just because Frank is lonely. 

Science. 

Mel has a simple solution when Frank tries to explain the issue. “Cut holes!”

“Cut?” Frank repeats, blinking up at her from the dorm hatch that isn’t large enough for them to split into two different atmospheric entrances. “This is my ship, I like it in one piece.”

“And I need [access].” Mel says simply like that’s the end of conversation. And it kind of is.

So Frank cuts holes in his ship. 

Just inside the crew compartments in order to thread her access tunnels between floors. Internally decorated with hand holds and wide enough for Mel to boost herself with her wings in certain areas, the tunnels let Mel move between each of the habitat rooms stationed in main floor spaces. It cuts Frank’s space in the ship in half, but it’s surprisingly painless all things considered. Now they can talk wherever Frank goes without having to pause for him to come back around.

The more difficult part of the process is keeping the walls where he put them.

Frank wanders back into the lab with a box of Mel's food from the airlock when a stray piece of xenonite, poking out at head height, suddenly fills his vision. He ducks at the last minute, blinking at the newly sprouted hazard like it might have appeared on its own. And then Frank remembers a more likely culprit.

“Melissa!” Frank groans, dropping her food on the floor to face her where she’s suited up to glue her panels to the floor. “Did you expand your room again?”

“Yes, I need it.” Mel admits immediately, not bothering to pretend like she hadn’t. Why would she? She did.“What is this new word, question? It [sounds] like me.”

Frank blinks at her for a beat before he squeezes his eyes closed in embarrassment. So much for the argumentative high-ground. He just tried to full name Mel. Oh god, that’s so dumb. She’s not one of his students, she’s a fully grown alien bumblebee with the equivalent of a doctorate in engineering. It’s never something cool when muscle memory takes over for a second. It’s always the equivalent of calling the teacher ‘mom’ in front of the whole class and then needing to spend the rest of the period debating how best to kill himself.

And even worse, now Frank has to try to explain himself. 

“On Earth, humans have lots of names.” Frank says, fumbling for the right way to put it. “The name I gave you is Melissa, but when humans are close we call each other by shortened versions of our names. It’s a sign of closeness. So I call you Mel.”

“I have a special name because we’re close.” Mel repeats back to him, straightening up.

“If you want it.” Frank offers, cheek warm with embarrassment and something a little too tender he never expected to share. He hadn't even consciously thought of the full name he invented for her in weeks? Maybe a couple months? They've been working so nonstop, Frank hasn't been tracking the time closely. Nevertheless his mind held onto it long enough to use it at the stupidest of times.

“I want it.” Mel nods seriously, wings buzzing happily behind her in the suit. “Use my special name forever. I’ll make one for you too.”

“I already gave you my nickname.” Frank admits, scratching the back of his neck as the flush builds. In for a penny and all that. It's best if he just gets all of out now. “Technically my full name is Francis.”

"Good. Good good good.” Mel buzzes louder, almost shaking with it. Frank smiles at Mel’s genuine delight, chest warming brightly at her energy starts to rub off on him. "You're important to me too. Very, very important." 

"Thanks, Mel." Frank says, heart skipping a beat. He lingers where he is, airlock of supplies forgotten, as a honey-bright warmth radiates all the way down to his fingertips. Mel always seems to know how to surprise him best.

(He forgets about the extension when Mel pulls him down to the floor to help attaching the adhesive. It’s fine. He’ll learn to duck.)

- - -

When Mel’s habitat is finally set up, circulating a Eridian atmosphere without melting any of Frank's important human ship components, they quickly turn to the next step.

They need a sample of the Astrophage here at Tau Ceti. 

All of their conversations have been theoretical so far and without a real specimen to example, they won't be able to make any more progress. There's only so many times they can strategize that maybe it's a different shape or not as hungry or actually hates the taste of Boron before they have to just go check. And the best place to get some is on the non-plasma-based side of the Petrova line, the planet currently known as Tau Ceti-E. 

Frank's naming urge is already looking at a potential target with something that bland.

Over the last two days, they've loaded more than enough food, equipment, personal belongings, and xenonite forming pre-fluids for Mel to handle whatever Tau Ceti-E throws at them. Still, Frank feels the need to check in one last time.

Frank straps into the cockpit seat, looking over at Mel. “Are you sure?”

They’ve already had this conversation but he just wants to be sure. Leaving Blip-A behind is a big move, but one that both of them have agreed is necessary. Mel’s ship doesn’t have intact equipment that can scan for Astrophage. She had been circling the system just trying to figure out how to get a sample before Frank arrived. The Hail Mary, with its new and carefully maintained collectors, is the best option.

“I'm ready.” Mel nods from her new cockpit habitat a few feet away. She’s far braver about the vulnerability of leaving her home behind while they go do research than Frank would be in the inverse. Equipment loaded, ship tunnel severed (an awkward maneuver with Richard and a blowtorch), and astronauts ready to go. All that’s left is to get this show on the road.

Frank plots their course and locks in the directional acceleration, hitting the spaceship equivalent of enter as he watches Mary take over.

Arrival at Tau Ceti exoplanet-E in 11 days, six hours. Mary announces smoothly.

“Thank you, Mary.” Frank says, leaning back in the pilot's seat comfortably. This feels big, even for how small this first step was. They're doing it, they're actually getting underway to solve this thing.

You’re welcome, Dr. Langdon.

Frank almost wants to laugh at her politeness. Where was that energy when she was being the least helpful computer in the world entering the system? What a binary kiss-ass.

“Thank you Mary.” Mel hums along, looking up at the ceiling as she speaks like she’s still looking for where Mary is hiding.

You’re welcome, Mel.

- - -

With the ship on a steady course, handled by Mary much like Frank's original system entry, there’s not much to do onboard. Nothing productive at least. Mel and Frank find themselves wandering after each other from room to room, finding new things to fill the time. 

“Tell me about these sports of yours.” Mel says, waving her hand at him from where she’s laying on the floor of her habitat.

“They’re not mine-” Frank laughs, watching Mel from his seat lounging at one of the lab desks with his feet kicked up on the table. It’s less comfortable than it looks to maintain his balance, but dozens of tiny crunches to look laid-back is entertaining in its own way.

“Untruthful. False. Telling me lies.”

Frank laughs. “Fine, you’re right. I own all sports and they’re mine.”

“Did you play a lot?” Mel asks from the floor. She's making it look surprisingly comfortable.

“I was an energetic kid. My parents signed me up for all sorts of things to tire me out.” Frank says, gently pressing on the corners of his memories to see what else is in there. What he would give for that kind of energy now. Past the age of thirty, joints are no longer a friend. “I played a lot of soccer, it’s a game where you and your team have to kick a ball into a box while other people try to stop you.”

“You were good, question?” Mel asks, lifting her head to look at him directly.

“I got four participation trophies.” Frank says proudly, reveling in his incredible sports successes. 

“Woah!” Mel cheers, making a great play at pretending to understand what that means. “So humans run after balls for entertainment.”

“We do lots of things. Some people play sports and other people like to create stuff like art or go exploring in nature. We’re a diverse bunch.”

“Amaze amaze amaze.”

- - -

“This,” Frank says dramatically, “is my favorite place onboard: the screening room.”

The screen room was the only space that they couldn’t cut into for Mel’s habitat, requiring her to re-suit up to see it. Frank feels bad seeing what a hassle it is for her, but it can't be helped. This place is worth it.

“This is boring.” Mel says, looking around in her suit. 

“Wha- It’s not, This is not boring.” Frank says incredulously, shaking his head. “It’s not even on right now. This room has a light display that shows me recordings of life on Earth. You'll love it, let me get it pulled up-”

“What is this word?” Mel asks, tilting her head.

No one ever talks about how hard it is to define words without using the word itself. A recording? Oh, that's a record of something - not helpful. Damn words for defining what they mean so successfully Frank wants to use them to explain them.

“They're a copy of a moment that happened so that it can be seen or watched again later.” Frank explains awkwardly. 

“🎶🎵🎶🎶🎵.” Mel echoes back to him, looking more interested in the room at the knowledge that it's not currently doing it's thing.

Frank groans at the sight of the new term on the laptop as he logs it dutifully. “Shit, we were on a good streak.”

They’ve started tracking how long they can go without needing to define a new word. Nine and a half hours has been their longest streak so far. It’s not Frank's fault that his ship has so many Earth artifacts that they can’t help running into concepts they haven't touched on yet.

“It’s still good progress.” Mel says consolingly. “And you’re picking up words faster now, without needing the thinking machine so much!” 

Humans are built to remember music. Beats and key changes, it sinks into their brains fast and doesn’t leave. That’s why jingles are so stupidly effective. Every day Frank hears Mel speak, his ear gets a little more attuned to her, picking up the pattern in her words with increasing fluency. 

“Soon enough I’m gonna be able to throw this hunk of junk away.” Frank laughs, holding up the laptop that he carries around almost instinctively. He almost took it into the bathroom with him yesterday before his brain caught up with his body.

“You built a very okay machine.” Mel comforts, patting his arm.

Frank laughs, hand lifting to ghost over Mel’s gently. “I was just kidding, but thanks. My duct-taping of two computers together is probably worth a Nobel Prize.”

“Humor. Confusing.” Mel deadpans as she turns away to face the screens, gesturing at them widely. "Show me what this thing is all about so I can tell you if it's as good as you think."

Frank snorts. "Coming right up."

- - -

“What are you doing, question?” Mel asks, frowning as she looks over her shoulder where Frank is leaning in to catch a better eye-line.

Frank isn’t able to hide his interest as he peeks at the meal package in Mel’s hands. “I want to watch you eat.”

He hasn’t had a chance to see it yet. Mel always seems to sneak off for it, only returning to nap nearby when she’s done. It’s Frank's god-given right to be incredibly nosy and he wants to exercise that right. Badly. 

“It’s boring.” Mel looks around the dormitory like she'll find some reason Frank is asking now of all times. “And usually private.”

“Oh, okay.” Frank nods. It's not a 'no' though so after a beat he asks- “Can I watch?”

“Why, question?”

Because Mel is his first alien and she’s completely fascinating and he loves- science. “Why not.” 

“Fine.” Mel coos quietly, turning her attention back to the container as she opens it up and pulls out five round balls, yellow powder falling off each of them. If Frank was making a comparison, he’d say they almost look like pollen-coated moss balls, strangely fluffy and natural looking at the same time. She pokes at them for a moment, assessing them as trustingly as Frank does every time Mary hands him a meal from storage. She slowly judges them safe, although boring, rolling them around the container for a moment.

“What happens next?” Frank asks, wedging one of his hands under his butt so he doesn’t do something dumb, like ask her if he can have part of her dinner to play with under the microscope. He's such a good observer. Barely disruptive. So quiet.

“I eat.” Mel says with the tone she uses to talk about chores. “And then I fall asleep so my body can process the sugars.” Mel explains, still rolling them back and forth, before pausing for a beat to glance at Frank. “You’ll-”

“I’ll watch.” Frank says, leaning back slightly on his bed to give her a smile. “I’ve got you.”

Mel settles slightly, turning back to her meal. She picks up one of the balls and tilts her head back to swallow it whole, before repeating the process the others. Eating them whole hadn't been on Frank's bingo card, but he's too fascinated to speculate. Within a few seconds of swallowing the last ball, Mel's eyes droop heavily as the effects already seem to be kicking in. “You’re…you’re watching?”

“You’re safe. Go to sleep, sweetheart.” Frank promises, voice low and warm as he watches her curl up on her bed mat. Sleep is a well-worn routine at this point.

“Okay…” Mel hums, closing her eyes. “Good…”

Frank watches her breathing even out in a matter of seconds, drifting into a deep sleep. The room is quiet with the mellow hum of mechanical noise from the ship's systems and Mel’s steady breathing. It’s peaceful watching Mel sleep, face soft and relaxed as she untenses completely. Her body is usually so full of motion, practically dancing along with her words, it's always such a shift to see her like this. Trusting him to keep her safe.

Frank slowly picks up his computer and gets to work, updating his Eridian notes to the soft symphony of Mel breathing.

- - -

Frank thinks about what the mission would have been like if Mel wasn’t here sometimes.

A silent ship. A mystery that was too big for his body. And the growing knowledge of how crucial his success is for billions of people back on Earth. Just the idea of it is crushing. Frank isn’t sure how he would have handled it, but poorly isn’t a bad place to start.

It’s not a hypothetical though.

Mel lived it, with the full weight of Erid's survival hanging over her head for who knows how long.

They haven’t talked about their crews very much. Some hurts are private, even when they’re shared. They’ll sidestep certain comments or Frank will let Mel talk around a task that must have taken more than one person to complete. He doesn’t need to pry into fresh wounds. There’s just one gap that Frank can't close without it - he has no idea how long Mel was out here alone. 

There’s something that shadows Mel’s movements - the complete apathy to her meals or the apparent state of disrepair on Blip-A that always had Mel fixing something as they talked. Her excitement in leaving Blip-A, even with all of the dangers involved.

Frank lifts his head from the lab desk he’s been working at to look at Mel, taking her in absently like he might be able to see it on her somewhere.

"What? I can feel you looking." Mel asks, poking at a handheld device in her lap that almost resembles a gun. Frank's pretty sure he hasn't offended her that badly so he decides not to panic just yet.

Frank chews on his words, weighing them for a beat before he voices his question. “I…how long were you out here before I showed up?” 

Mel lifts her head to look at him directly. “I've been in the Tau Ceti system for approximately sixteen of your Earth years.”

Sixteen-

“What?” Frank stumbles, blinking at Mel in shock. “You’ve been out here for sixteen years, wh- how long do Eridians live?”

"Two hundred to two hundred and fifty years is about average." Mel says, wobbling her head as she estimates. "I'm still in my first century, but I was selected for the mission because of my engineering talents. Why? How long do humans live, question?"

"We tend to max out at a hundred, usually a little sooner." Frank winces as he watches Mel straighten up in shock, looking Frank over carefully. 

"So young?" Mel echoes before she crosses her arms with a sour expression. "See, this is exactly what I said and you didn't want to listen."

Frank groans at the return of one of Mel's favorite arguments. "It's not because we breathe oxygen-"

Just because her atmosphere doesn't have any doesn't mean it's a bad element.

"It's not a good atmosphere. It's combustible!" Mel says with a shudder like Earth is just blowing up all over the place. Sure, spontaneous combustion happens but that involves more than just oxygen. "If you had something more reasonable like ammonia-"

"Then we wouldn't be able to survive on Earth." Frank refutes as Mel pouts, shaking her head and refusing to concede the point. Still, Frank chews on her numbers, even with Eridians living longer than humans, that's a long time to spend out here. "How long were you...alone?"

Mel's joking tone disappears, melting into a rising tension in her shoulders like she doesn't want to say the number. When she speaks again, her voice is hushed. "Sixteen years."

Frank's heart stops, ice slowly spreading through his chest in its absence.

“My crew passed one by one on the journey…” Mel explains quietly, hands twisting in front of her. “I took care of the ship, kept us headed for Tau Ceti. I thought if we just got here, it would, they would stop-” Mel swallows once, fighting to keep her tone steady. “By the time we arrived, there was no one else left.”

There are quiet mercies in what happened to Frank, even if he can't find anything inside of him resembling gratitude. To watch her crew die one by one...Frank's stomach drops at the thought.

“Mel, I'm so sorry.” Frank breathes.

“I…I tried to figure out the Astrophage alone, but I’m not trained in science. I couldn’t understand it.” Mel shakes her head as she stares down at her lap, biting her lip hard. “I don’t even know what happened to them."  Mel says, voice falling into a whisper as she looks back up at Frank. "They had no injuries, no reason to be hurt. None of us could figure out why it was happening. They got sick, slowly, and then got worse so fast...eventually they just went to sleep and-and never got back up.”

The air feels like it's squeezed out of Frank's lungs as he pictures Mel surrounded by her sleeping crewmates - an unknown threat taking them down one by one until there was no one else left. Other memories creep in as he pictures it - Mel's panic as she begged Frank to sleep in the tunnel so she could watch him sleep. Her enthusiasm every time Frank peels himself off the mattress with a 'good morning' and a wild case of bedhead.

Frank can't imagine it.

Sixteen years of grief with no answers and nowhere to go. The small mercies of a suicide mission is that no one expected him to sit here in the after. That's all Mel has been doing since Frank was still in academia. 

What she's describing though, a progressive illness in space with no obvious causes, almost sounds like radiation sickness. Frank's mind latches onto it, frowning. That doesn’t make any sense. Any space-faring species would already know what that is.

“Mel, where does your ship store the Astrophage?” Frank asks as the shape of something terrible starts to form in his mind. 

“In the back. Next to the engines.” Mel says, frowning in wary confusion.

Oh no.

“Anywhere else?" Frank asks, throat constricting. Please be wrong, please be wrong- "Any amount of it."

“No.”

Fuck. 

Space is empty - for the most part. That doesn’t mean that there’s nothing out there.

High-speed particles shot off from dying stars, supernovas, the Big Bang itself still zip around the nothingness at incredibly high speeds. Those particles, the surviving radiation of old cosmic events, is one of the most dangerous parts of traveling through interstellar space. Without the protective gravity and magnetic fields of a star, the rate of radiation spikes exponentially higher.

Any ship traveling between stars would be fighting the full brunt of it from every direction.

The Hail Mary was built with this in mind. A thin millimeter wide gap was left between the interior of the crew compartments and the exterior ship hull and that space was filled entirely with Astrophage. Whatever properties allow it to interact with neutrinos the way they do also allows them to interact with stray hydrogen radiation in deep space. It prevented anything from piercing the crew compartments as they slept.

Eridians didn’t even know there was a threat.

Their science program is young, barely further than escaping Erid's local orbit. They didn't have the extensive science or experience or the decades of collected spacial data that humanity had and they still sent a ship to Tau Ceti anyway, attempting to save their sun.

Desperation is the greatest mother of invention.

“You said that your crew got sick…where did they spend their time?” Frank asks quietly, an awful knowing already settling into his skin.

“Middle of the ship.” Mel frowns, trying to piece together what Frank talking around before he actually says it.

“And you kept the ship running trying to get to Tau Ceti, working in the back...right?”

Mel nods, watching him carefully almost like she's getting ready for him to swing at her. Frank almost feels like he is.

“I know what happened.” Frank whispers as his lungs compress dangerously. “There are incredibly fast particles that travel through open space. They can pass through solid walls and affect the people inside.”

Mel’s breathing stutters at his words and Frank has to force himself to keep speaking, to get it all out. He knows if he stops, he won't be able to make himself start again.

“We call this radiation. These particles are…they’re toxic to cells. And once someone is sick, there’s- there’s nothing you can do.” Frank says, voice falling out from under him. The answer was so simple, they just had no idea what they were facing. “Astrophage can block these particles from getting through. You were working in the back next to the fuel, it just...protected you from it. There was nothing for you to to have done.”

Mel’s expression crumples as something in her seems to just give way. Large tears streak down her cheeks, bright and almost luminescent. "I tried e-everything to get the Astrophage, to figure out the science.” Mel hiccups, notes wobbling between octaves uncontrollably. “I couldn't do it, couldn't figure anything out. I’m not as smart as the scientists and the 🎶🎵🎵🎶, I don't know the 🎵🎶 or- 🎵🎶🎶🎵🎶, I didn’t, I couldn’t 🎶🎶-"

“Mel-” Frank breathes as he watches her fall in on herself, words blurring between the crackling of her notes and terms she hasn't taught him yet.

“Erid would already be safe if a better Eridian had been by the engines-” Mel isn’t looking at him anymore, shaking her head viciously as she buries her hands in hair. “Stupid. So stupid. 🎶🎵🎶🎵🎵🎶🎵🎶-”

Mel curls in on herself, sobbing condemnations still falling out of her in a steady stream of Eridian. 

No, that's not-

“No.” Frank gasps, far too loud, almost like the word was ripped out of him. He finds himself stumbling over to her, crash into the floor in front of her, hands slamming into the wall to slow himself down. She doesn’t look up at him even with the loud crash. “Mel. You did everything you could have. There was no way for you to know, no one had any idea. It was pure, awful chance.”

Mel doesn’t hear him curling in on herself tighter as she lets out harsh choking sobs that shake her whole body.

Frank feels trapped here, locked outside as something in Mel finally gives way. He doesn't know the right words to fix this. Frank has always been helpless with tears, it didn't matter if it was someone else or his own. He would lock up, brain so stuck on the need to make them stop that he freeze, hands hovering uselessly until someone else stepped in. There's no one else out here and every sob rattling through Mel feels like a knife slid between Frank's ribs.

Mel refuses to look at him, trapped in her own head and hurt.

An old memory of his mom trying to get him out of the same position drifts through Frank's mind.

Oh.

That's not bad.

Frank clears his throat, trying to picture the twanging background music in his head for a moment. “Hey, where did we go? Days when the rains came down in the hollow, playin' a new game.”

His voice is rusty, out of practice with anything that could be called a genuine performance, but Frank holds the mental image of Van Morrison in his head as he forces himself to keep going. “Laughin' and a-runnin',” 

Mel’s shoulders slowly still, hiccuping breaths coming a little less frequently as Frank sings. He can feel the thirteen year old in his head that cringed away from the spotlight in choir begging to stop singing, but the slight lift of Mel’s antennae is enough to keep going. “Skippin' and a jumpin' in the misty morning fog with our, our hearts a thumpin'.” 

Mel lifts her head slightly, staring at Frank with misty eyes.

“And you, my brown-eyed girl," Frank croons quietly. "You, my brown-eyed girl.” 

Stray tears still roll down Mel's cheeks irregularly, but her face seems a little clearer.“What are you doing?” 

“Singing. Humans do sometimes, to feel close to each other.” Frank says, words falling short now that Mel is actually looking at him. 

"Oh." Mel whispers.

"Mel, it wasn't your fault." Frank says, raising his hand pre-emptively to cut her off. "I know it feels like it has to be, because it's a way to make things make sense. But that doesn't mean it's true. Sometimes awful things happen and there's no good reason for it, no matter how much either of us want there to be."

An old grief swells in Frank's chest, fed by the weeks of loneliness on the ship when he first woke up. God knows he wanted there to be a reason that everything, everyone had to rely on him. A mistake or a shred of blame that he could use to stop feeling so trapped under the weight of everyone's expectations. He didn't find it.

But Mel did find him.

"No matter what happened to get here, I couldn't do this with anyone else." Frank whispers, watching her carefully. "I-I need you, Mel." 

"And the singing?" Mel asks, voice low. Her cheeks still catch the light, shiny with tears.

"I know it's not the same, but...you're not alone anymore. I thought it might…help.” Frank says as his voice trails off weakly. He doesn't think he can replace her home or her crew, but he'll give her everything he has if it helps her even the smallest amount.

Mel stares at him for a quiet moment. “It does.”

Her voice carries a hidden weight to it, but if Mel notices it, she doesn't make its meaning any clearer for Frank.

“Oh, I- good.” He fumbles, nodding awkwardly. “Do you want...more? Mary has everything, I can put on the original if you want something better.”

“No, you’re my favorite.” Mel says as certainly as when she talks about how to form xenonite or repair a temperature regular. Simple and direct. Like she's stating a fact of the universe. Space is dark, the stars are bright, and Mel's favorite singer is Frank.

Frank’s cheeks burn with embarrassment even as a small smile forces its way onto his face. “Thanks Mel.”

“More?” Mel asks, shifting to leaning against the wall in front of Frank. It's almost like they're side by side, like they were back in the tunnel. There's no one else around, nothing to pop this quiet bubble. Just Mel asking Frank if he'd give her a little more of himself.

How can he refuse a request like that?

"Now what ever happened, Tuesday is oh so slow-"

- - -

Music quickly fills the corners of the world around them after their conversation and Frank doesn’t even perform all of it (although he hasn't found it in himself to say no any of the times that Mel's asked).

Mary's library is more than enough for their purposes as Mel falls headfirst into one of the most foundational forms of art humanity has: getting a little jiggy with it.

Pop songs and throat-singing and live concert performances, Mel consumes everything she sees with a warm homesick delight. 

Eridians don't have advanced computers like humans do. Aside from being a point of mockery when Frank relies on his too heavily, it's part of why sending so many crew members was crucial to their mission. They couldn't use any shortcuts to send everything with a skeleton crew like Earth. If an expert on Blip-A didn't know something or have a reference for it, they wouldn't be able to solving the mystery at Tau Ceti. Mel's systems don't have nearly the data banks that Frank's does and not nearly as many songs.

Their vocabulary explodes as Mel teaches Frank dozens of musical concepts with timing, flow, and note variation to explain what makes pieces particularly beautiful. When Mel explains it to him, Frank can see it even in the most avant-garde work.

They're gorgeous. Each in their own way.

And her love isn't limited just to the music made by humans.

This afternoon that means the ship's speakers are crooning the rising notes of a symphony of whale songs.

They dance and overlap, rising and falling in gentle unity. They're beautiful and, if Mary is to be believed, ten hours long. Frank settles in comfortably for the ride. He hasn't seen Mel end any song she tries early yet.

Mel sings along with the recording in her own pattern, voice curling over the notes like she’s harmonizing with them. The screen room is dim, projecting the image of the whales twirling with one another in the hazy blue depths of the ocean to match their song. Frank’s laptop rests nearby, screen black, but he doesn't reach for it. His eyes track lazily around the room, watching the melody come to life as a physical act.

Mel's voice quietly fades as she lays back on the floor next to Frank. “I like Earth.”

“Me too.” Frank breathes. He loves Earth, the people and the animals and the fantastically strange. It lights up something tender in his chest to be able to share it with Mel. “What do you miss most about Erid?” 

Mel is quiet for a moment before she turns to face Frank. “My sister.”

“Sister?” Frank blinks at her in surprise. They haven’t talked about family before. Frank had kind of assumed Mel was like him, untethered in a way that makes a trip into the void less of a tragedy. “What’s her name?”

Mel croons for a long moment, distinct from the recordings around them, chords crossing over one another like lapping waves. There’s an arc of grief in the song, a longing for her sister even, and especially, after all this time. 

When it finally ends, Frank gives Mel a gentle smile. “That’s beautiful.”

Mel nods with a private smile of her own, knuckles rubbing over her sternum instinctively even as the suit blocks it. Frank doesn’t ask what the motion means, letting her take a moment.

“What about you, question?” Mel asks gingerly, looking at Frank carefully like she might be pressing on an old wound. “Do you…have a mate?”

Frank is grateful he worked with kids sometimes. There are very few questions someone can ask him that a thirteen year old hasn't blurted out at eight in the morning. There's an inoculation against privacy in that experience that doesn't hurt to have when Mel asks him something so genuine and bracing at the same time.

“I used to. Her name was Abby.” Frank says, picturing his ex-girlfriend vaguely. She was the longest relationship he'd ever had. “She thought I couldn’t keep my feet on the ground, focus on the the important stuff. So we broke up...and now she’s with Mark.”

“I hate Mark.” Mel promises immediately to Frank’s unexpected laughter.

“I'm gonna hold you to that.”

He can’t remember his whole relationship with Abby, but Frank knows that they weren’t…good. Not enough words for far too many problems. At a certain point it felt like both of them just stopped trying and the relationship just kept going without either of them. They just became two people trying not to inconvenience each other.

Frank thinks of Mel and her xenonite suit and the sprawling habitat woven throughout his ship.

She certainly doesn’t minimize herself. Mel takes up a large, unflinching amount of space in Frank’s life. It’s nice. A kind of promise that he’s not alone anymore and a demand to pay attention all in one.

There’s something powerful about being inconvenienced. 

- - -

Mel is quiet when she sleeps.

Frank assumes it’s an instinctive trait to maximize the chances of survival when her body is paralyzed. A sleep-talker in a species that can't wake up when they're sleep isn't a member of the species that makes it very long. Still if Frank watches her carefully, he can make out the tell-tale movement of her chest rising and falling. Can hear the quiet shift of her breathing. Safe and sound.

They’re set to arrive at Tau Ceti-E in nine hours.

Frank doesn't know how he feels about that fact. Part of him is terrified, another part is impatient. A third part can't help feeling awed by all of it. A billion man hours went into getting the mission this far. All of it hinged on the hope that the crew of the Hail Mary would find something they could send back to Earth. Tomorrow is the big moment that they've been waiting for.

Frank's eyes slide back down to Mel again.

That both of their worlds have been waiting for. Whatever they find needs to be something they can send back. Something concrete.

Which means tomorrow is when the real work begins.

Frank tries to force his eyes to focus on the laptop in front of him, full of predictions and possibilities that were sent in the Hail Mary's systems. Ideas generated back on Earth for things to check. Are there elements in the system that Astrophage can't stand? Is there a line disruption provided by a previously unknown asteroid belt? Do they get confused by some kind of positively charged particle that's more frequently found over here?

The words on the screen smudge as Frank's eyes slip past the edge of the screen to look at Mel again.

Success means very different things for them.

Mel will go home. To people that love her, her sister and a planet that she's been away from for far too long already.

And Frank? He'll just have to sit here and watch her go. He's already at the end of his journey.

He lets out a quiet huff, shaking out his shoulders. He’s getting melodramatic.

They haven’t even gotten a sample of the local Astrophage yet. Success first, then freak out about success. A formula as old as time and one he's clearly not following right now. Frank isn't getting any more work done tonight if this is the quality of his internal monologue - he might as well get some rest before their big day.

Frank tucks his laptop out of the way before falling back into his mattress as Mary automatically dims the lights. Mel’s sleeping mat is lined up with his, her sleeping face soft and open just a foot away from his through the transparent wall.

Frank curls up on his side, fighting to hold his eyes open for as long as he can. Eventually the steady rise and fall of Mel's breathing lulls him to sleep.

- - -

For a group facing the end of the world, the members of Project Hail Mary know how to throw a pretty good party. 

Well, they do now that the crew has joined them.

McKay brings the storied experience of someone who’s lived life to the fullest and knows exactly what makes for a good time, and Ellis? She’s just creative. Shen seems to be less of a party animal, at least in the planning phase, but he doesn’t shy away from them when it’s time to get down.

The ship lounge has been converted into a one night karaoke hall, complete with a microphone from somewhere and the off-key stylings of most of the project's management. Frank had no idea that Ahmed from Construction could hit high notes like that. 

He stands firmly humbled.

Santos is off in the corner, chatting with Baran and Heather from Engineering about something that has them all snickering and glancing around for eavesdroppers. McKay and Ellis are on the mic scream-singing to an old Kesha song and frantically waving Shen over to join them. 

Even Samira made an appearance, nursing a drink and watching the room with an awkward shiftiness. She seems out of practice with the whole scene.

Frank understands the feeling. He settled himself at the unmanned bar when he wandered in an hour ago, a carefully researched social-looking seat. Seen by everyone and rarely spoken to, something that he figured out in undergrad.

Not that he used it much then.

Now though…

It’s a weird party. The energy is high and there are wide happy smiles scattered around everyone’s faces, it’s so full of life and they all know that at least three of them are going to die. Statistically probably more of them. They’re standing on the deck of the Titanic, watching the bow start to tilt, and everyone’s smiling. Asking what song the band should play next.

Frank's stomach twists, tight and unsure.

He ducks out of the room in the transition between songs, chasing fresh air and a change of pace all the way up to the flight deck.

It’s as empty as it ever gets, final checks complete and no flights scheduled. The party is inside, with everyone else. Frank wanders out a little farther, making his way towards one of the thin chain railings that keep people from tipping overboard accidentally. He feels like a downer, getting so bent up like this. It’s a good night. The launch is three months out, Frank can’t imagine there are so many of these nights coming that he can afford to waste them like this.

Still, it looks like he isn’t the only one avoiding the energy inside.

“Getting some air?” Frank asks as he comes to a stop next to Robby, staring out at the ocean with him. The sun has already set but the light hasn’t fully faded, still painting the sky with oranges and purples. 

“Something like that.” Robby says, glancing at Frank over for a beat. “Too loud inside.”

There’s a silent understanding of confidentiality between them. What Frank sees in Robby’s meetings, what they say to each other - it’s a locked box of something Frank might even call friendship. It loosens his tongue at the question in Robby’s eyes.

“People are so happy.” Frank says, shaking his head in confusion. “I mean, they know- we all know how this is going to end. How can they…?”

Frank’s words fall short of what he’s really getting at, but Robby understands what he’s trying to say.

“People need that.” Robby says, shaking his head as he turns back to the view in front of them. “They need something to hold onto through all of this. For direction.”

“I didn’t see you down there.” Frank asks, raising an eyebrow. 

“I’m not people.” Robby snorts like Frank said something funny. “I focus on the big picture, the distance left to cover. That’s what keeps me on track.”

“And the cost?” Frank asks quietly. Robby isn’t heartless, but he makes a good show of it for the people they work with. Frank’s never quite sure where the act ends and the denial begins.

“I swallow it.” Robby says, eyes heavy where they linger on the distance. The horizon continues to darken, smearing their faces in a dimming purple stain. “You can’t get too close with something like this. It’ll eat you. You have to stay…above it.”

Frank isn’t sure how much he believes that. Or how much he believes that Robby actually lives by it, watching the darkness creep into his eyes. He’s seen the little cracks in Robby's mask, breaking through in tight breaths and quiet conference rooms. The lingering glances at Heather in engineering, the aborted motions of reaching out to her that Frank knows he'll never let himself follow.

Frank doesn’t intend to push. Some things deserve to be private. He turns on his heel to look over the abandoned flight deck, decorated with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military jets. “You think we’re gonna pull this off?”

“God willing.”

Frank blinks, looking at Robby with a questioning smile. “You believe in god?”

“It beats the alternative.” Robby says, matching his gaze with a finality. 

Frank nods to himself, watching Robby linger by the railing as he quietly slips back inside. His feet guide him back through the twisting hallways towards the party, hearing the laughter spilling out of the room before he even reaches the doorway. Warm yellow lights beckon him back inside, baking everything in a pre-nostalgic glow like Frank’s already looking back on this moment from a decade in the future.

His abandoned drink still sits at the bar, half-drunk, just like he left it. Beckoning him back to the audience. Instead Frank finds himself gravitating towards the unoccupied karaoke machine. He scrolls through the songs for a moment before finding the right one, a familiar grin pulling at his cheeks as he remembers his dad singing it in the car for the first time.

Frank doesn’t know how to separate himself from the job, from the people. He can’t just turn it off or hover from a safe distance like Robby. Frank’s always been a whole chest kind of person. No fifty percent. So there’s only one way forward.

Immersion.

The track starts to play and Frank grins at Santos’s wide eyes as she finally catches sight of him. 

“She packed my bags last night, pre-flight,” Frank sings, shaking off the rust. “Zero hour, nine a.m.”

McKay gives a hearty whoop next to Shen, saluting him with her drink, as the room turns to take notice of the latest person to step up to the mic.

“And I'm gonna be high as a kite by then. I miss the Earth so much, I miss my wife.” Frank sings, a smile stretching across his cheeks. His eyes drift to the doorway for a moment, catching on Robby’s lonely silhouette. He gives Frank an indecipherable look before he keeps walking. “It's lonely out in space, on such a timeless flight.”

Frank can’t be like him. 

Robby’s job is to be in charge, to lead this whole project to an impossible success through lucky failure. Maybe that means holding himself apart, finding a way to stop this from hurting so bad when the inevitable comes crashing into fact.

Frank-

He’s just a scientist.

“And I think it's gonna be a long, long time 'til touchdown brings me 'round again,” Frank sings, voice catching on something a little stronger as the chorus approaches. “To find I'm not the man they think I am at home,”

Frank feels the weight of the world on his shoulders like everyone else standing in this room, but that doesn’t mean he can stand still. Melancholy has never been his natural state. He can’t stop living just because he knows what’s coming down the barrel. Frank wants this to be a good memory when he looks back on it in five, ten, fifteen years. He wants it to be yellow-warm with time and emotion, even when it aches.

“I'm a rocket man! Rocket man burnin' out his fuse up here alone!”

Ellis laughs, wrapping an arm around Shen’s shoulders and swaying back and forth dramatically, as she hollers along with him. Santos (along with half a dozen other highly regarded scientists) join her, bellowing in a semi-drunken chorus. Everyone seems to find it in them to chime in, the song too classic for people to not to know it. And if they don’t, the words on the screen behind Frank and a willingness to sing loudly anyway see them through it.

Even Samira cracks a smile when Frank catches her eye, tilting her drink at him acknowledgingly.

The swell of the room, lit by wide grins and full drinks, carrying on through the rest of the song, swaying together as the notes slow down in a final fuzzy refrain.

“And I think it's gonna be a long, long time.” Frank trails off, glowing and somber in the same breath, as the song finally ends. A wave of whooping cheers ring the room, riding a unanimous wave of celebration for (most likely) their own musical prowess. Frank feels alive, like he can feel his heart beating in time with everyone else. He’s not someone who can settle on the sidelines. Not for long at least. He wants to live while he's alive, he'll take the pain too if that's what it costs.

“Us next.” Santos says, appearing next to him as she scoops up the second mic and starts navigating through the karaoke machine’s menus. “I hope you can’t hit the notes in Total Eclipse of the Heart. It makes the song so much better, trust me.”

Frank laughs at her in delight. “I’m ready, hit me.”

It’s a good night.