Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ryley frantically moves out of the way of a charging stalker, and immediately finds himself darting into a creepvine bush.

The SeaGlide gets leaves stuck in the propellers, slicing them with a weird churning noise he's sure isn't good. He yanks the machine clear, and tries to swim out of the plant before anyone sees him.

At least, he tries to. He realizes his leg was tangled in the vines. He tries to rip it free, but he can't exactly use gravity or strength to his advantage while underwater. The plant just sways along with him.

With a jolt of panic, he forgoes any embarrassment at getting trapped in some creepvine and promptly turns his comm on. "I'm stuck in kelp!" He quickly calls out.

Avery's the first to respond. "What?"

"Kelp!"

He hears a snort from the other side of the comm. Was he laughing while Ryley sat here drowning?

"Was that a pun?" Avery asks, and Ryley finally sees him come into view.

Ryley was too worried about drowning to wrap his head around what Avery meant by that. Instead he just gestures to his leg.

"You could just.. tear it with your hands, you know." Avery comments as he swims closer.

Ryley blinks. "What? No." Avery reaches a hand towards the tangled vines. "Bart always uses a knife on it. You can't just-" He cuts himself off as Avery easily rips the plant leaves, and Ryley swims clear of the remaining swaying stalks.

"Oh."

"It's just a creepvine. It's not that strong. Have you never been in the ocean before?"

"Have you?"

Avery shrugs. "In VR."

"VR doesn't count," Ryley claims, "I meant real life."

"I've spent long enough down here to know the kelp is just a bunch of leaves."

Ryley stares at him for a second and then swims for the surface. It's only as he's swimming up does he realize he had another five and a half minutes left in the tank.

Ryley was absolutely not going to tell Avery that.

As the other surfaces next to him, he gives him a stare that makes Ryley think he already knew.

"Hush," Ryley defensively says, before Avery could attempt to say anything more.

Avery grins.

Chapter Text

He boards the lifepod alone. He'd waited a few seconds, but then he'd heard another explosion. There were plenty more lifepods. And he's too afraid for himself to spend another second this close to death.

At first, he prays because he wants to live. He has no survival experience, and who knows what he'll find wherever he lands? How long will it take before someone finds him? Should he even stay put? The lifepod must have food and water; he'd be okay for a day or two, provided he doesn't land in the middle of a lion's den.

"Hull damage detected."

And in the matter of three seconds, in the matter of three words, his panicked thoughts and plans grind to a halt.

"Life support systems offline."

His prayers change their tune, and he simply hopes he did well enough to not warrant any suffering.

He does not get a chance to know the name of the planet, nor what it looked like. He does not get a chance to see his lifepod sink below the ocean surface, to see the rays skitter away and the sharks cautiously observe the hunk of metal before going on about their lives. He does not get a chance to hear the coordinates for a rendezvous, and does not find any other survivors.

He does not get a chance to discover only half of the lifepods launched. He does not get a chance to learn that most of them will not be found; destroyed or sunken to depths unreachable. Depths unfathomable.

He never gets a chance to even know when he hit the surface.

At least it had been painless.

Chapter Text

"Dream job? Oh, YouTube prank channel."

Milo stares at Emily for a moment. "What, do you think you were born in the wrong generation or something?"

"I'd put a dead rat in your bed."

Milo doesn't think a lack of internet access is a strong enough deterrent for her actually doing that. At least this planet didn't have rats.

"That's not a prank," he dejects, "That's just mean."

"Think of the views, man! I'd give you a cut of my earnings!"

"I think you'd get banned. You're a menace to society." Milo deadpans.

Emily rolls her eyes, though she's still smiling. "Clearly some god thinks so, too. They threw me on this planet."

"A lifelong time-out."

"I took it too far by destroying Ozzy's desserts."

"You finally admit it was you?"

Her eyes turn to him, her voice a whisper, "Oh, yes, but nobody else is here. They'll never believe you."

Milo can't help but laugh. "I think Roman already believed me."

"He forgives us, I'm sure."

"Ozzy never will."

Emily hums. "Ozzy never forgets the crimes done to their food."

Milo lightly shoves her shoulder. "We ruined dinner for weeks. The entire ship never forgot."

"Look on the bright side," Emily gestures to the ocean out in front of them, the sun long since set. "All those no-dessert nights were worth it for this view, yeah?"

Milo thought that most of this planet was terrifying and vicious and much too large for him to think about going anywhere near. But, well, the night sky, free of decades of light pollution, was certainly the prettiest stretch of stars he's ever seen. The Aurora didn't exactly have windows.

But he also thinks that if he were to think of the good side of crashing on this planet - he glances over at Emily - it certainly wouldn't be the sky he was thinking about.

Chapter Text

Marguerit first met her with Bart and Paul at her side, when they finally managed to get off the cursed planet they crashed on.

Marguerit met her again a couple days later, and thought nothing of it.

She saw her again and again, and eventually they started talking. Actually talking.

Yu was a risk-taker, didn't listen to the rules. Even when she got caught, she didn't care, and did what she thought was best.

Marguerit liked her.

Started liking her a bit too much.

Yu laughs, and Marguerit's heart flutters, and she suddenly finds a new good in her life.

Chapter Text

Getting sick wasn’t one of the many worries any of the three ever brought up. Being stranded on a completely unexplored planet that no humans - at least, no recorded humans - had ever been on, brought more pressing issues. Like starvation. And habitat locations. And the very large, aggressive animals with very sharp teeth.

But it still probably should have at least crossed Bart’s mind. They were on a different planet with different oxygen levels, plants and animals that they weren’t sure they could even eat.. they could be allergic to anything here, and how would they know until they stumbled upon it?

Bart hadn’t thought any of that for.. months. He’d eaten any plant Marguerit would bring back, just to test. His only concerns were over how long he could keep it secret from his father; which wasn’t very long at all, because of course he’d start questioning why only Bart kept getting ill. Bart still felt bad for how long Marguerit had been lectured.

It isn’t until they start coughing that it occurs to Bart that there could be anything harmful to them that wasn’t a toxic leaf or fish. But how could he even know where it was coming from? He had practically no equipment. He’d tentatively brought the coughing up to his father, but he’d been brushed off. He’d claimed it was just a cough. It would go away.

Bart didn’t share his optimism over their health, but so far, it had only been a cough. And Bart couldn’t do anything about it, anyways. So he’d reluctantly agreed, and hadn’t brought it up again.

Of course, it wasn’t just a cough, and as the days pass they slowly get worse. Or, Bart does. Marguerit is gone most of the time, and Bart’s asleep a quarter of the time she was in the base. And his father was starchy ignoring everything that Bart tried to question him on.

Bart isn’t sure if it’s simply stubbornness against the symptoms that Bart can so clearly see, being near him inside the habitat so often - or if his father genuinely thought nothing of the alien bacteria that none of them had any knowledge on.

Bart doubts Marguerit paid any mind to it. If she was worried about it, she’d have brought it up to him by now, surely? Bitterly, Bart finds himself unsure of the answer to that. She definitely wasn’t a very open person. For all Bart knew, she wouldn’t admit to anything she determined to be ‘weak’. If she thought it important, she’d be the exact same as Paul, and simply never say anything to suggest she was anything other than perfectly fine.

Bart doesn’t turn to her for answers. He instead sneaks out of the habitat and goes to look for some fish.

Which, of course, prompts a lecture from his father. Or an attempted one, at least, as Marguerit jumps to defend him. Bart watches the two of them argue, and he thinks Marguerit just wanted the excuse to start berating Paul again.

With a groan, he snaps at both of them, because after months of hearing the same two voices go at each other’s throats, Bart’s patience was wearing thin.

Marguerit looked.. ever so slightly shocked, for only a moment, before she starts mocking. Paul glares at her, and finally starts to take Bart seriously.

On one hand, Bart is relieved that he was listening for once, and that Marguerit at least seemed to tolerate Paul with the knowledge that this sickness was clearly something worth worrying about.

She brings him a few fish to study. A peeper, a shuttlebug, a newly hatched stalker. Bart spends almost a month trying to get somewhere, anywhere. He barely sleeps. He’s awake so often that he catches Marguerit taking naps more often than he thinks he had the entire rest of the time he’d known her.

Paul and her argued less. Bart can tell that sometimes, they clearly want to. Most of the time, his father would sigh and grumble something under his breath, but ultimately let whatever problem he’d seen go. Marguerit stood down.. much less. It still surprised Bart a bit whenever she would wave something off or begrudgingly do what she was asked.

That was another thing. The two of them were asking instead of demanding anymore.

If Bart wasn’t so tired and hungry, he’d be ecstatic over the fact that they were finally trying.

But instead he’s nauseous, and his hands hurt, and he feels like he’s always cold even though he’s had a fever for three days now. Blisters start to develop on his hands. He can feel them on his face as well, notices small ones on Paul and Marguerit. They ache more than blisters usually do. Just looking at them makes Bart feel so much worse. He pushes himself to work more.

He spends almost a month researching. Cutting open the fish never gets any better. It certainly doesn’t help with the nausea.

He can’t figure out anything. He doesn’t know how they survive, he doesn’t know why some seem sick and others don’t. He doesn’t understand any of this at all.

His head aches and he has hallucinations every few days, if he’s sleep deprived enough. He swears the warpers are speaking to him sometimes. Or speaking to each other. They’d been harmless when they first built down here, but as time went on, they stuck around the base more often and began attacking Marguerit.

He was becoming desperate. Everything hurt all the time and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could go on spending all of his time dissecting various fish and writing down notes that felt more and more like gibberish as his energy depletes. Things that the other two did irritated him even more, things that he doesn’t even think he noticed before. He tries his best to not yell at either of them. He didn’t blame them, and it wasn’t fair to act like he did just because he was sick.

He passes out on his desk one day, and awakens to the sound of Marguerit calling for him. Groggily, he glances out the window, his eyes catching the Cyclops.

And a bleeding reaper tied to the top of it.

He can’t convince the two to see reason, and he goes utterly ignored as they turn to argue amongst themselves more.

Bart couldn’t even convince himself to be angry anymore. He was just so tired.

He leaves the habitat. He can hear his father telling him to come back, but he ignores it.

He hears a reaper roaring, but he’d hallucinated so many noises anymore that he knows it isn’t real.

He surfaces on the island, and simply sits, staring at the clouds, wishing he could figure out how to cure the damn sickness before they all died. He’s worried for his father most of all. Marguerit didn’t seem to be all that bad yet, and Bart was pushing himself so hard he was never entirely sure how he felt. But his father was old, and everything about this had been more stressful for him than Marguerit and Bart. He worries about the toll it might take on him if Bart doesn’t figure out an antidote before much longer.

The sun was setting before Bart got back in the SeaMoth to go back down. He thinks up apologies and a way that might finally convince them to listen to each other.

He pauses at the sight before him.

A destroyed habitat. Glass shattered and still floating around nearby, pieces of titanium broken off. The Cyclops was lying sunken at the floor, split in two pieces. The reaper was gone. Blood was still in the water. Bart gets out of the SeaMoth and swims closer. The habitat was flooded, and there was no sign of Marguerit or Paul inside. Bart looks around more, as panic builds in his chest. They were fine when he left. He’d only been gone a few hours. He’d heard nothing over the comm. Nothing but his father telling him it was dangerous. But that had been normal.

He finally spots a PDA lying on one of the foundations. He picks it up and swims back to his SeaMoth. They couldn’t still be down here, right? It’d been so long since Bart left. They- they must be back at the surface somewhere. Bart must have just missed them. Maybe they went to the shallows.

He finds a log on the PDA. His father’s PDA.

He listens to it.

He looks around for a long while. He can’t find any sign of him nor Marguerit. There are no bodies.

Paul had clearly not been anywhere near the surface. Marguerit could have been dragged.. who knows where, or how deep, or for how long.

Bart returns to the island. He lies on his back, on the sand, and stares at the stars.

He’d only been gone for a few hours. Less time than Marguerit usually was gone for. No more than he’d ever left for. Everything had been normal, everything had been fine.

Bart is numb. None of this felt real. He must be having some sort of fever dream. He must be hallucinating. He’d wake up and everything would be fine. He’d wake up and his father and Marguerit would be fighting in the main room, and he’d be glad to see it because it meant that they were safe and okay.

He wakes up alone in the sand.

Chapter Text

The weather changing was almost completely unnoticed for a while. After spending so much time at the other sector, a slightly chilly breeze really wasn't much bother at all.

Of course, the first snowfall didn't manage to silently creep in quite as easily.

Bart had simply been dozing off next to Avery.

"Holy shit," Emily's voice cut through the mumbled input of outside noises, "It's snowing."

Those four simple words had ended up with the entire group outside nearly as quickly as she had said them. As if they were children, as if they hadn't just spent several weeks stuck in blizzards.

Granted, when Bart leaves Ryley's side, Marguerit and Paul don't seem very optimistic with the snow as any of the others.

"I don't think this shit ever melted back there," Marguerit grumbles as soon as she notices Bart.

"Fire melted it," Paul replies, his eyebrows furrowed as he stares at the sky.

"Fire solves most problems." Marguerit glances longingly back in the direction of the habitat. The notably heated habitat.

Paul looks as if he wanted to argue against the statement, but he says nothing.

Bart nods to where Marguerit kept glancing, "You can go back inside, you know," he gives his father a knowing stare, "Barely falling snow is not dangerous."

Paul looks once again vaguely offended, but Marguerit hums before he gets a chance to open his mouth. "I'm waiting to see Ryley slip on the ice."

There's a distant scoff. "I'm not going to slip on the ice! There's no ice yet!"

Bart smiles. "I'm sure you won't be waiting long."

Despite his quiet response, Ryley, several meters away, still turns his head to give Bart a look of utter betrayal.

Robin, standing next to him, has a sudden mischievous glint in her eyes. Bart glances at Avery, who stares right back, and neither of them say anything.

Despite being so used to seeing snow now, it somehow felt different this time around. Bart isn't exactly sure why. He tries to churn it over in his head for a few moments, but all he finds is that he's content, and that there's nothing to worry about at last. And that was good enough for him.

"Do you think we could get the coffee machine to make hot chocolate?" Bart asks absentmindedly as he watches snowflakes settle on the ground for only a moment before melting.

He looks away just in time to hear a startled yelp and a blur of a shape crashing to the ground. 

"Told you so." Marguerit says with a grin.

"He's going to get a concussion one of these days." Paul mutters.

"He'll be okay," Bart replies lightly, watching the enfolding commotion.

He can't recall ever being happier.

Chapter Text

Danielle likes Samantha from the moment they met.

Sam was sweet, and passionate about her work, and seemed like one of the only people genuinely excited to be on 4546b. She could get a little loud sometimes. But Danielle didn't really mind.

They were both scientists. Sam had a real knack for creating things. Robots, prosthetics - she could give the AI in computer chips their own personalities.

Danielle did more research. Learning about the wildlife on this planet, their health, their unfamiliar habitats.

Danielle appreciated the spy penglings, and Sam appreciated the information on the Pengwings.

They made a good team.

Dani likes her.

They saw each other more than Dani thought they would.

They made the same friends. They didn't work in the same area, but that never stopped Sam from stopping by. Their bosses were getting a bit irritated by it. But Sam was smart, and she was useful to whatever Alterra wanted down here, so she usually got away with just a warning.

Dani likes Sam.

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you were flirting!"

"And what if you don't know better?"

She likes her a lot.

Dani starts to think she definitely made the right choice in working here.

And then Alterra… changes.

Dani's work gets cut, and she's suddenly moved to something new. A disease. Alterra instructs her and three other people to dissect it. Understand it.

Dani gets to work.

Sam tells her of a giant creature she found in a cave. She seems worried.

Alterra blocks off and guards the cave. No one is allowed in. Except for the scientists researching the disease.

Kharra. The disease is Kharra.

They have some information on it, thanks to the Aurora survivor. Dani knows it's deadly, and all throughout the galaxy. Dani knows it's killed billions .

Alterra wants us to make a cure, she thinks. They could save countless lives. They could make new cures with it.

She stops seeing Sam as much. She focuses on her work.

Sam grows steadily more worried about it. Anytime they talk, Sam brings up the creature. She even brings it up during game night, once.

Dani wishes she'd stop asking. It's hard to keep it a secret. Dani wants to tell her, but Alterra was insistent that this stays quiet.

Eventually, Sam pokes her nose in one too many times, and Vihn tells her of the Kharra.

Sam asks Dani about it. She sighs, and explains.

Sam looks gutted. She says Alterra didn't want a cure, they wanted a weapon. Dani tells her she's too worried. It was a horrible, deadly virus - and Alterra was just a bit greedy. It wasn't full of horrible people. They didn't want to kill anyone.

Sam doesn't believe Dani. Dani doesn't believe Sam.

They stop talking as much.

Dani really likes Sam.

She wonders why Sam was so worked up about all this.

They argue about it. Sam tells her she has no idea what she's working on. Dani tells her she shouldn't even know about it to begin with.

Sam leaves, and Dani is caught between feeling guilty and angry.

She doesn't hear from Sam for a few days. Sam doesn't show up for game night. They get an announcement that Sam was being moved to Outpost Zero.

Danielle wonders if it was her fault.

She had really liked Samantha.

Danielle doesn't hear from Sam again. Sam never visits anymore.

One day a SeaTruck is spotted near the lab, and Dani is grateful Sam wasn't there.

The lab is destroyed. All traces of the Kharra are gone. All her work, all gone, all for nothing.

She's grateful at first. And then she thinks, who else but Samantha?

They return to the surface, and take the trek back to the robotics lab, because where else could they go?

There's quiet whisperings when they enter.

The cave collapsed. The cave with the leviathan. The cave Samantha had tried over and over again to tell everyone, anyone, about.

She knows Sam did it. She's struck by the thought immediately. Her chest feels tight.

She tells no one.

Parvan was in the cave. Dani isn't sure how to feel.

At least the lab was empty. Did Sam know Parvan was in the cave? Surely she did. Parvan was stationed in it. He rarely left. Sam had to have known.

No, there's no way she knew. Sam wouldn't do that. Sam wouldn't kill Parvan. They were friends.

Then again, Dani wouldn't have thought Sam would stage two bombings. Maybe she had Sam wrong the entire time.

No, she thinks, I must be wrong. I have to be wrong.

Sam wouldn't do this. It wasn't Sam.

Dani had really, really liked Sam.

They say Sam was in the cave, too.

They say it was an accident.

Negligence.

Sam's fault.

Samantha Ayou's fault.

They say she fell.

Everything about the Kharra is gone, and Alterra promptly begins to kick them off the planet. They had nothing more to do there.

Dani feels sick to her stomach.

She had loved Sam.

She had really, really loved Sam.

And Sam had been right.

Chapter Text

Ryley had mostly gotten used to how loud everything was. Most things ended up just disappearing into background noise, dull and muffled. The wind, the sound of waves, the various chirps and bellows from creatures in the sky and in the sea - he didn't really single any of it out anymore.

But he was still struggling to filter out anything human.

He overhears most of the petty arguments, unable to ignore the voices. He hears all of the serious arguments, and struggles to keep himself out of it. He also, very unfortunately, overheard much more.. private conversations, as well.

It's not as if any of his housemates were unaware he could hear them. Maybe it slips their minds sometimes. Either way, it wasn't fair to ask any of them to travel to the other side of the crater anytime they wanted to be left alone.

Sometimes, he wonders if it's really too much trouble to take the ten minute walk to the teleporter.

But he says nothing. It's not that big a problem.

What he really hates is how easily he can see through anyone's lies.

Anytime Ozzy chops vegetables, he can hear Danby's heartbeat rising as he stares at the knife.

Anytime a thunderstorm rolls around, he can hear Avery struggle to breath, hiding in the observatory underwater to try to drown out the sounds above.

Anytime Marguerit comments she simply didn't sleep well, he'd already listened to her the night prior, waking suddenly and then checking on every person twice, checking the entire habitat twice, going outside and looking for something, once and then twice and then a third time.

He hears their suffering. He hears their fear. But what can he do about it?

Avery wasn't closed off on his emotions. But Ryley can't solve anything. Knowing, knowing exactly why because Avery has told him - Ryley just feels even more helpless. He wants to help. Instead, he just listens, and listens, and listens.

Somehow worse, is that he doesn't hold the burden alone. And with Avery, the pictures they see become clearer and worse to see.

Ryley can hear Roman leaving the habitat and sitting for a long while; Avery can feel his still lingering guilt over Hollister, over boarding the lifepod when so many never had a chance to. He never refers to himself as a captain. Jochi had dropped the nickname a while ago now.

Every so often, Ryley hears Paul walk around the long destroyed habitat sitting at the west of the island; Avery says there's a heaviness that weighs down worse every time he does so, that lingers in everything he touches.

And then, Ryley listens to Jeffrey, sitting by the portal that leads to the other sector; Avery tells him that Jeffrey was thinking through everything he'd done since they crashed. Struggles with himself over making the right choices.

The more Ryley hears, the more Avery fills in the gaps, the more Ryley realizes. There was a hole in all of them after crashing here, never mended. Despite how long the Degasi had remained, despite that the three of the survivors were still here - it solved nothing. They all had their own lies to each other, to everyone else. Ryley couldn't help. He couldn't fix this.

He couldn't mend himself. Avery couldn't, either.

There was always something missing.

He thinks it's what makes him feel remorse for Jeffrey. He knew all of them had made mistakes - some more than others - but Jeffrey was still the odd one out.

Anytime he walked in a room, the mood would shift. Sam and Robin would only make curt small talk. Marguerit and Ozzy wouldn't speak to him at all. Al-An would barely acknowledge Jeffrey most of the time.

Ryley can't force them to forgive him. He doesn't expect any of them to. He's surprised Danby can speak to him, almost freely now, when so many of the others wouldn't.

Sometimes he wishes they'd just try , though.

Bart heavily disagrees.

He tells him the same reasoning, if Ryley ever brings it up. Jeffrey had tried to kill Ryley, had tried to kill Bart himself - had almost gotten Marguerit and Sam killed. Had considered killing Bart's father. Had threatened and blackmailed Danby to the point the other survivors had nearly cast him away. He'd nearly ruined several of their lives.

It's a fair reasoning.

But Ryley knows that some of that blackmailing had been done straight back to Jeffrey through Al-An, who most of the group was okay with. He knew Jeffrey had been attempting to do what he thought was right. To protect his friends.

He hadn't made good choices, but Ryley knew he was struggling, had been for months, watching as someone who had done nearly the same things was welcomed much more freely than him.

Ryley tries to take the time to chat with him. Bart and Avery never tell him he shouldn't. Avery simply tells him to be careful. Bart doesn't say anything about it.

It never causes a real rift between them. Bart's always happy to see him. Avery is just as affectionate. Ryley never pushes it.

He struggles to ignore it, though.

They all have their hurriedly stitched wounds. They were all still bleeding.

But all of them had somebody to fall back to. All of them except Jeffrey.

Eventually, maybe they could be mended, and Ryley would be able to sleep better at night without having all of his friends' problems weighing heavy on his heart. Eventually, maybe they'd all sleep better, too.

He's not sure if Jeffrey would be able to follow them.

Ryley can't filter it out.

Chapter Text

For once, the Aurora was oddly quiet.

It was never fully quiet - a constant stream of jet noise and humming from the air vents, always laughter and voices from some room, somewhere, echoing through some empty halls.

Truthfully, Jochi isn't sure if it's the Alterrans or just the ship. He was more or less used to it by now, but it was hard to not wish for silence sometimes.

He feels he deserves some quiet for all he puts up with. He's roaming the halls, half an eye out for a specific face. Two of his crewmates round a corner - Jochi isn't sure he's ever seen them before or not - and their conversation instantly stops. One gives him a slight nod of acknowledgement, and the other outright ignores him. It isn't until he's passed them that he hears their whispers start back up.

It doesn't bother him. Not in any particular way. He doesn't think it's personal. Most of the Aurora thought of him as a rival, an enemy. They didn't know why he was there, they didn't seem to really want to know, either. They just wanted him gone. For the sake of Alterra. For their money.

A janitor glances up at him as he makes for the captain's quarters. "Hey,"

Jochi's slightly caught off guard. He pauses, wondering if he's done something wrong, wondering if he's said anything to this person before. He clears his throat. "I'd say good morning, but I'm not sure if it's morning at all."

The janitor quirks a smile for a moment. "You get used to it, being in space all the time."

Jochi doesn't tell him that he spends a large portion of his job being transported around.

The janitor clears his throat. "Uh, the captain left a few minutes ago, if you're looking for him," he gestures back the way Jochi entered from, "Went off that way. Probably breakfast."

Jochi hums.

"..Keen was with him." Jochi squints at the janitor, trying hard to identify the name. They had blue highlights, but everyone in this damn ship had some dyed hair, so it didn't single him out. "In case you're looking for him, too."

Jochi hesitates. "If you're implying something-"

The janitor shrugs, turns away slightly. "Go find the CTO if you want to crack down on rumors."

Jochi scoffs, and turns to locate the nearest cafeteria without saying a goodbye. They're not even halfway into their mission, and there's rumors about him?

Jochi passes another person who silently walks by, and feels strangely self conscious. Were they all threatened by him? What the hell kind of rumors were spreading? He's barely talked to the CTO - what could she know about him? Why would she make things up about him?

Jochi's so lost in thought that he jumps when he hears his name quietly called. He stills, looks up the hallway, as Keen swiftly walks towards him.

"Roman," Jochi greets, trying to appear as nonchalant as possible.

Roman glances around, "We should be fine here," he murmurs. "Not a populated hallway."

Jochi smiles. "Someone just told me the CTO has been spreading rumors about us."

Roman groans. "Funny. I was just telling her and Berkeley off. One of them blasted a damn hole in the ship."

The fact that Roman was only mildly upset by that reassures Jochi that the two were fine. As much as Roman complained about those specific two engineers, he seemed fond of them. He briefly wonders if he ever spoke about Jochi to either of them. He's certain Yu would have a field day with some of the things Roman might accidentally spill.

"She causes trouble all the time," Roman continues, "Everyone will forget about it within the week. Just pretend you have no idea what they're talking about until then."

"You deal with keeping secrets often?"

He intends it as a joke, but Roman's jaw tightens. Jochi wants to reach a hand out, but he's still too worried about being seen, even in this empty hallway. He only ever dares behind closed doors

"I'll be happier once we get home, anyways. This mission is pointless. There's no way the Degasi…"

He trails off, crossing his arms, looking lost in thought. Jochi frowns.

"You worry too much," Jochi comments, "It'll all work out in the end, Roman."

Jochi tries to ignore the heaviness in his heart. If even Roman didn't think any of the Degasi were still alive somewhere down there, then-

Then Jochi doesn't want to think about it. Not until they're closer to 4546b. Not until they've scanned the planet.

Roman smiles at him, pats his shoulder. It lingers for a moment too long for Jochi to not notice, a moment too short for any possible onlookers to claim anything out of.

"We can continue this later," Roman says, a bit stiffly, and not a moment later a sealed door down the hall loudly opens, and a small group starts to exit, openly complaining of being tired.

Jochi straightens his spine. "Your room?" he whispers, keeping his face carefully emotionless.

Roman doesn't quite stop himself from smiling. "As always."

Roman winks before walking away, something neither of them could at all pass off as platonic, but Jochi is so completely fond of the way Roman's demeanor changes around him that he can't bring himself to call him out on it.

The only other people around couldn't see Roman's face, anyways.

It was fine. It would all be fine.

In just a few weeks, they'd reach 4546b, and Roman would personally overlook the scan for the Torgals. If Jochi was truly lucky, he'd find both of them. Maybe all of the Degasi.

And if he wasn't lucky, well… it's been a decade. Maybe Jochi was naive to believe anyone would be down there, anyways.

At least he had Roman. No matter what happened, he'd have Roman by his side.

Jochi could accept that.

Chapter Text

Jeffrey’s eyes dart up at the sound of a gasp and the falling of clumps of snow. For a moment, he doesn’t see anything, the cliff above too dark. But his eyes quickly adjust, and he spots a humanoid standing there. He can’t make out the face, but they look like they must be tall.

The person only stares back for another long moment before turning and making a dash away.

Jeffrey’s heart is surely beating out of his chest as he tries to remember the tunnels - but before he can make much of any movement at all, the person above slips, and Jeffrey watches as they lose their footing.

More snow comes loose, and he watches with wide eyes as the person crumbles down with it.

Jeffrey rushes over, moves snow away to see the face of the person.

There’s a large gash in their skull. Blood seeps from it, turning the snow and ice red. Yet they continue breathing, quickly and shallowly. They blink open their eyes and they instantly turn to Jeffrey. He can hear the breathing hitch.

They both stare at each other for a moment.

“You.. you killed him,” Danby murmurs.

Jeffrey glances back at Maxim. Blood still trickled from his neck. Blood was still staining Jeffrey’s hands, and he could feel it on his chest. He only just realizes that he’d dropped the knife in his rush to Danby.

His panic was only increasing as he turned his head back to Danby. What did he do now? Nobody was supposed to see this. If he brought Danby back with him to safety, he’d tell everyone about what he saw here. It’s not like he could just stab him, too - a dozen people out looking for him would surely bring someone to this cave eventually. Only the Ayou sisters would be worried about Maxim. They’d never go here as long as he said he’d already looked.

If they found Danby dead with the same injuries as Maxim, it’d be too obvious. Just leaving him here to either bleed to death slowly or freeze felt cruel; as far as he knew, Danby had never hurt someone. Danby hadn’t done much of anything. He seemed to care about people, and put his friends before himself. He didn’t deserve to freeze to death in a random cave, alone and away from everyone he knew.

“I’m not a bad person,” Jeffrey says, mostly to himself, though loud enough that Danby clearly hears. “I know this looks bad, but I’m not. I’m doing the right thing. I’m doing it to save us. Because nobody else is willing to.”

He stands up and paces the cave. “I don’t want to hurt you. You’re Danby, right?” Danby doesn’t respond, and Jeffrey continues, “This was just bad timing for us both. You didn’t want to see that, I didn’t want you to see. I don’t think you’re a bad person, either.”

He stops and turns to look at him. Danby’s eyes were slightly glazed over. He was wheezing with each breath. “But I can’t trust you. And you can’t trust me.”

Jeffrey leans back over him, and though his heart was thumping wildly in his chest, he doesn’t dare show any signs of it. “I’m sorry. Really, I am.” He grabs a fistfull of snow, pinked with blood, “But, look, Alterra won’t ever figure it out. They’re not going to care about some random guy who died out in space. Your lie won’t ever make it big.”

Danby’s eyes widen, and he opens his mouth to say something.

Jeffrey shoves the snow into him before he gets a word out.

Danby weakly tries to fight back - Jeffrey hates it with every fiber of his being. He was a good person.

He did not feel like one, as he piled more snow on-top of him, growing weaker and weaker.

Jeffrey doesn’t fully cover him. He watches as the breathing stops. He can still see his eyes, wide open and afraid.

He stares at Danby for.. a while. Tries to convince himself he was doing the right thing.

There’s a faint presence in the back of his head. It seemed to be telling him this was necessary.

Was it? He wonders. Was any of this necessary?

Maybe he was a bad person.

He finally stands up, his fingers long since gone numb. He walks over to his desk, and grabs his PDA. He smears blood on it as he finds Robin in the contacts.

“Hey,” He starts when she picks up, his voice shaking, “I.. I found Maxim.”

He tells himself he’s shaking from the cold.

“He was with one of those Aurora crewmembers.”

He was a good person.

“Maxim.. Maxim is dead. Robin, he was murdered. That- fake doctor was standing over him with a knife.”

He was a good person.

Chapter Text

"Damn it, boy, I know you can hear me!"

He could. The intercoms on their helmets all worked perfectly. He could just as easily reply as he could listen. He didn't.

The arguing had cleared in the months they spent on the planet. They finally started to get along, and maybe that wouldn't last once they were rescued, but as long as the nights didn't consist of drawn out arguing over whether they should leave or return to the islands, that was fine by him.

Bart was just glad they got over that, and his relationship with his father mended. Maybe it wouldn't last, but at least he gained some closure.

The times when an argument finally did break out, it was just as petty, but twice as harsh. It wasn't about the island anymore. It ended up being about blood being on his father's hands. It would be about the classified reasoning behind Maida's firing from the military. Whatever happened must have led to her becoming a mercenary.

Sometimes, they'd fight about him, and whether they thought he was happy. Sometimes, Marguerit would blame his father for every single flaw, every single problem, and Bart would feel so angry at her, so angry at them both.

So with the simple comment that Bart's mother died when he was young, that Paul had raised him without her, of course that should have been the first sign. But Bart hadn't thought about it when he told Marguerit, and it wasn't exactly a secret either. Paul never openly talked about, but he rarely openly talked about anything.

But a simple "You were raised by him?" was all it took to light the fire. A simple "That explains so much about you." and Bart could practically hear the emotions stirring in the person standing across the room from them. A simple, thoughtless, sarcastic, "No wonder you're so unhappy," a joke, a cruel one, but Marguerit simply had that sense of humor. A simple jab. No bad or mean intentions at all.

Yet it was all it took to start.

The two of them barely had a chance to start the argument before Bart stepped in, because he can tell how angry and upset his father is, and he can tell that he's no doubt a few moments away from starting an actual fistfight with Marguerit.

He's never felt bothered by the topic of his mother before - he never got the chance to meet her, she died and he was born - but a sudden wave of sadness and nausea and grief is washing over him, and as soon as both their eyes turn to him, he thinks he might cry.

"Can you two not go a day without purposefully agitating everyone else?" He says, and he feels sick and terribly out of his league, he feels like he can barely breathe- what's wrong with him all of a sudden?

The room feels too small, he's not even touching Marguerit or his father and he feels like he's being burned by them. He turns, quickly, grabs the rebreather closest to him on the way, and makes for the hatch.

He feels their eyes on him, burning into his skin. It makes it impossibly more difficult to stop the tears threatening to fall from his eyes. He feels like he might be dying. Was he dying? He didn't want to die. Not while everything was starting to become better. He really didn't want to die now.

"Bart! Come back inside, it's not safe!"

He didn't reply. He couldn't trust his voice. Couldn't trust himself to not start sobbing because something was very very wrong and he needed to get to the surface, to the island, he couldn't stay here any longer.

"Damn it, boy, I know you can hear me!"

He could, he so clearly could, and he said nothing, and didn't turn back towards the habitat. He could reply if he wanted. And he didn't.

He's looking for the holes that lead out of the cave, desperate to just swim up and leave, and maybe Paul and Marguerit would follow, but as long as he wasn't trapped down in the habitat they so terribly placed, he didn't mind as much if they saw whatever breakdown he's on the cusp of having.

He sees it before he hears it. He hears a voice from the intercom, quiet and muffled - it had to be Marguerit - and he had only seen the one Marguerit brought back a mere couple minutes ago, but this one's bigger than the one Marguerit brought, and so much more terrifying swimming around, perfectly healthy and unharmed.

A leviathan. A reaper leviathan.

Swimming directly for their habitat.

It didn't see him.

"Run!" He tries warning them, but he isn't even sure if he can do anything at this point, it's faster than any of them, they can't outswim it. "It's going to attack the habitat!" His voice is all too fast, and if he couldn't breathe before, he definitely can't before. His chest is tight, and he feels nothing but panic, panic, panic.

He hears Marguerit yell something, and then the reaper roars, and rams directly into the glass compartment.

He watches as the base practically crumbles to dust. The leviathan is unbothered, and their habitat is destroyed in seconds. He sees his father and Marguerit, sees blood, and he feels stuck, floating helplessly above them, barely daring to breathe.

They're alive.

The reaper swims toward his father, and yet Bart sees Marguerit grab a floating piece of metal and a seaglide sitting on the ground, and feels his fears start to diminish as she stabs it and drags it away from him. It roars again, and swims off into the darkness, with Marguerit still on its side.

She'll return for father, he thinks to himself. They're going to be at the island with me in less than a minute. Paul would yell at her, Bart would cry while lying on the sand, Marguerit would defend herself with every breath, and maybe they'd all cry, because this was a little closer than anything they'd been through before, and they'd huddle up and complain and fall asleep in the all too cold sand and figure everything else out in the morning and it would be okay.

And he about a minute to prepare himself for all that, so he took one last look at his father, who seemed just slightly confused, but his eyes drifted up to meet his, and he was sure he'd be fine for the few seconds it took for Marguerit to return to fetch him.

And he swam to the surface.

He sat on the sand, tried to control his breathing, and counted the seconds until they'd breach the surface.

5, 4, 3, 2…

He frowned.

5, 4, 3, 2…

His fingers tapped against the sand.

5, 4, 3, 2…?

They should have resurfaced by now. Where were they?

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

54321-

He counts the seconds, waits for them to join him on land, and thinks at this point he's definitely going to cry, where are they?

He waits.

And he waits some more.

Several minutes pass, and he thinks they just got turned around, maybe they're on a different side of the island. So he sets his rebreather down, and continues to another side of the beach.

He doesn't see them. He sets down his seaglide.

He hopes they tell him he's alive and waiting, in case they happen to reach that side of the island.

He continues. He sets down his gloves.

He sets down his fins.

He sets down a crumpled soggy note left by Marguerit he finds in one pocket.

He sets down a photo of himself and his father, just as water-logged, that he found in the other.

He sits himself down, facing the sunset.

He waits.

He sits through the night, becoming more and more confused and upset as he counts the minutes.

They were perfectly fine, Marguerit can take care of herself so well she could have survived on this planet just as long as they had now on her own with no problems. A leviathan is terrifying, a huge scary and deadly problem for most people, but comparable to an annoying pest to Marguerit.

No, they couldn't be dead. She knows her way around, knows the fauna and flora, knows how to reach the island. There was no way they could have been harmed.

What happened?

Did they construct a new habitat near the old one? Risky, perhaps, but Marguerit had been attempting to convince Paul to go deeper for a few days, maybe she was just hoping to temporarily stay in it and convince him to head into the tunnel she found a few hundred meters away?

It made sense to him, and he chose to believe that's what the problem was. They were waiting out the night in a small temporary habitat. They'd fetch him in the morning.

So he sat, and he waited for them.

His chest starts to hurt, at some point, and the sickness already made it difficult to breathe, but now he barely can.

Paul would warn and ask and check constantly that he didn't wear it too long, especially after the crash - because too much exertion wasn't safe. He knew perfectly well what could happen. He'd usually play it safe.

He's way too panic stricken and cold and shaky to bother trying to pull a binder off his still damp chest, so he decides to ignore it for now. Paul would be anxious and angry about it, most definitely, but that could be dealt with later.

Morning comes, and they do not.

Bart halfheartedly eats a lantern fruit, and finally forces himself out of the soaked through binder if only to be able to breathe better while diving down.

He only eats about half of it before throwing the rest to a nearby cave crawler - they'd learned to stop attacking them and wait for scraps. Bart wouldn't consider them tame, but he's glad they don't jump at them anymore.

Paul always thought they were a burden. Marguerit would call them parasites and reach for her knife if she thought any were getting too close.

Bart hopes they get used to them, because he really doesn't want to leave the island anymore.

He hopes they're okay.

When he finally dives back down, reaches the destroyed habitat, he starts feeling desperate.

There aren't any newer habitats nearby. There isn't any sign of them.

At least there isn't a body.

But who's to say they just weren't eaten by something?

He spots a PDA on the ground near the habitat, with a newly recorded message on it. He takes it back up to the island with him.

He doesn't listen to it. He dives down again. And again. And again.

For hours.

He never finds anything else.

He finally listens to the PDA. His father recorded it.

Bart listens to the message recounting the attack. He listens to him complain about and blame Marguerit, because of course he does. The voice doesn't have bitterness in it though. Bart knows he'd only argue with her about it because he worries for their lives.

He listens to him say he thought he saw Bart. He listens to him say he followed the light his Seaglide would've created.

Why didn't he help him? Why did he swim away?

Paul doesn't sound upset with him. He sounds hopeful he made it out unharmed. He sounds almost proud of him.

He says he wishes he told him he loved him more.

He mentions his low oxygen, the destroyed habitat, the bleeding wound in his side, and that he's lost 500 meters under the ocean.

It sounds final.

His father's final words.

He repeats the message over and over and over again, trying to hear Marguerit, trying to find any hint at all, trying so hard to convince himself they're alive somewhere and waiting for him to find them and bring them back to the island.

He forces himself to believe that they're okay. They have to be okay.

Days pass, and he finds nothing.

He scans for life signs on his PDA.

It tells him there's three of them.

They aren't dead yet. He just has to find them.

He builds a new Seamoth, and searches every part of the grand reef there is. Places he's never been to before. Drives past leviathans they'd been careful to avoid before without much thought. He spends days down there, ignores how hungry and thirsty and tired he is, and looks so hard.

He goes to the borders, and doesn't go into the dead zone, yet he scours through every inch of the drop off for any sign at all that they'd been there.

Four days pass, and a heavy headache, nausea, and numb legs finally convince him to return to the island empty handed and no closer to any answers.

He stares off into the sunset, and screams.

Screams their names.

Screams his own.

Screams with no words at all.

Screams until his voice is broken and his throat hurts and he cries and cries and cries and wishes he went back for them. Wishes he just brought Paul back with him.

But he didn't.

And they were gone.

He listens to the recording again.

He taps replay over and over like he did before.

He doesn't listen for hints anymore.

He listens to his father's voice, scared and hurt and believing he was about to die, and sobs.

In one hand, he clutches the note Marguerit wrote weeks back, when they lived among the crabsnakes, the writing sloppy and barely comprehensive, noting a pack of newly hatched stalkers she wanted to sneak into the base for Bart.

In the other, he holds a photo he took several years ago, of himself and his father, early before he left for school one morning. Paul looks exhausted, clearly up all night working. Bart looked more energetic. A bright smile was worn on his face, opposed to Paul who simply had a warm one painting his. He looked genuinely happy, though. They both did.

He holds them close to his chest, and he can barely breathe, and his eyes burn from tears and his lungs ache from dry heaving and he really really thinks he's dying.

He holds them close, and records a new message on the same PDA alongside his father's.

It's apparent he'd been crying. His voice shakes and sounds harsh and he pauses more than he should have.

"Until then, well… there's always the view."

He ends the message there, stares out from the observatory, watches the sunset.

And mourns one final time.

He doesn't die.

He almost wishes he did.

Weeks go by, and nothing happens. He waits at the island. The thought alone of going into the water again makes him sick. He doesn't want to see any of it anymore.

He just wants his dad.

He just wants to go home.

He scans for lifeforms again.

It tells him he's alone.

He sobs.