Fiona hadn't meant to stay, she only meant to stop by. To see him, to say something. To leave.
But Sky was still cocooned in light, wrapped in machines that hummed like a second heartbeat, and the nurse smiled at her.
"I'll give you some time," she said.
The door closed.
The room softened.
Fiona sat beside the cocoon, book on her lap, screen dimmed in her hand where Inuyashiki had played its fifth episode.
She stared at Sky.
Then at the floor.
Then at her hands.
"I don't understand," she said quietly, not to him, not to the room, not to anyone. "Why did he choose to stay human?"
No response.
She leaned back against the wall.
"I mean, he didn't have to. He could've been anything. He could've disappeared. He could've…"
Her voice caught.
"...ended."
Silence.
She rubbed her eyes.
"I think I would've ended," she whispered. "If I were him."
The machines hummed.
Her breath slowed while she sat on the floor.
Her eyes closed, just for a moment.
The hum grew louder, swallowing her thoughts…
***
She opened her eyes on the floor.
Cold beneath her spine. Light above her eyes. The room unfamiliar in that brief, empty way rooms are when you wake without memory.
She pushed herself upright.
The cocoon was empty.
No light.
No Sky.
Only the machines, their screens washed in green:
RECOVERY COMPLETE
Fiona stared.
No residue of a dream. No voice. No explanation. Just the echo of having been there and no longer being sure when she stopped.
For a moment she didn't remember closing her eyes, didn't remember anything between the wall and the floor.
Her heart thudded once, hard.
"Sky?" she said.
Nothing.
She stood, slower than she needed to, and looked around.
The door slid open.
She stepped into the corridor.
Footsteps passed, a soldier escorting an engineer, both moving fast, both not looking at her.
"Excuse me," Fiona said.
They slowed.
"Did you see Sky walking out of the medical wing?"
The soldier nodded. "Yes, ma'am. Observatory. Left at the end of the hall. Last door."
"Thank you."
She walked.
The hallway narrowed. The lights dimmed. The air felt… higher. Thinner. Like standing somewhere that wasn't meant to hold sound.
She reached the door.
It opened.
The universe poured through her.
Stars bloomed in motion, galaxies drifting in layered depth, nebulae unfolding like breath, light moving in arcs and slow spirals that ignored gravity, scale, time. Andromeda passed through her chest, luminous and vast, its core sliding through her ribs like a memory too large to stay inside a body.
She stopped.
Sky sat on the floor.
Back straight. Legs extended. Hands braced behind him, holding his weight like someone grounding themselves against a tide.
His wings refracted the light, prismatic, shifting, breaking galaxies into color and color into silence.
He was looking up.
Not at her.
At them.
"Sky?" she said softly.
He didn't answer.
She stopped beside him. Started to speak but stopped. He didn't look at her.
The stars moved, the galaxies turned. Light crossed his face and left it again. After a while, he said, "They didn't make it."
She didn't ask who but she sat down beside him. She didn't touch him, didn't lean on him.
Just there and they stayed like that.
After a while, minutes, hours, she didn't know, the door opened. A soldier stood at the threshold but he didn't enter.
"Sir," he said. "The plaques are ready."
Sky stood.
Fiona stood with him. He walked without meeting anyone's eyes.
The corridor widened into the hangar approach. Vast, steel, light moving along rails, the distant silhouette of ships resting like sleeping beasts.
Near the entrance, beside the Jordens Röst catapult, a bare wall waited.
The plaques were stacked on a table.
Metal. Matte. Simple.
Sky picked up the first.
He placed it on the wall with a click that echoed through the hangar.
He picked up the second.
Another click.
Then another.
And another.
Time did not pass evenly, it moved in placements.
Fiona watched his hands.
Steady.
He did not rush, didn't hesitate either. Each name was given the same weight.
A soldier passing by, stopped, turned and saluted. An engineer halted mid-step, tools still in her hands. She just stood there. A janitor froze with a mop lifted off the floor.
No one spoke.
The hangar breathed.
One minute.
Then life resumed.
Sky placed the last plaque.
He stepped back and sighed.
He didn't bow, didn't close his eyes. He just stood there.
Fiona stood beside him, looking at the plaques, didn't try to take any of it from him.
She just stayed.
Then an engineer approached quietly.
"Sir. We're ready to begin rendering Fiona's new profile for the quantum disruptor."
Sky nodded and turned to leave.
"Sky," Fiona said.
He stopped but didn't turn around, not completely.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked. "You don't owe Camilla anything. You don't owe me anything."
He shifted his weight.
His shoulders lifted, just a little, like someone bracing against wind.
"Do you remember our oath?" he said.
She did.
"Master Sagan wrote it," Sky continued, his voice lower now. Thinner. "Who am I to contradict him?"
Then he walked away with the engineer.
And Fiona stood there, with the echo of a promise older than grief, and stronger than obligation.
***
Fiona felt the shift before she saw him, the hallway seemed narrower, quieter, as if the building itself had decided to stand at attention. Then she turned.
"Fiona," he said.
She straightened without realizing it.
"Barkhad," she replied, surprised by the warmth in her own voice. "You're… I mean…" She gestured vaguely. "You're here."
He nodded once.
"Where else would I be?"
A pause.
"How is Tavo?" she asked. "Did everything go okay?"
Barkhad tilted his head slightly.
"Well," he said. "You will see for yourself."
Then, after a beat: "But he is fine."
Barkhad and Fiona went directly to the geothermal reactor but the room was empty.
Panels blinked red. Consoles pulsed warnings. The air hummed too loud, too wrong, like something essential had been left open. Medical monitors blinked red. Vitals flatlined. The machine stood open and empty.
Barkhad stopped and his face changed, the look of a man who knows exactly where someone has gone and exactly why.
He turned and ran.
Fiona froze for half a second then ran after him. They reached the stairwell.
Tavo was there.
Halfway up.
Crawling.
His hands were raw, palms scraped red. His legs shook violently, trembling under weight they weren't used to yet. He moved inch by inch, breath ragged, teeth clenched.
Fiona stopped at the bottom, stunned and confused. She stared at the body, new, rebuilt, dragging itself upward like gravity had become personal.
Barkhad didn't stop, he ran past Tavo. Didn't slow, didn't look down, didn't reach for him.
He took the stairs three at a time, boots hammering metal, the sound echoing through the shaft.
Tavo looked up.
Expectation flickered. Then embarrassment. Then confusion. Then betrayal, raw and immediate, like being left behind had always been the plan.
Barkhad reached the top.
Turned.
Stood there, massive, immovable, and shouted down:
"Come on, Tavo. Are you going to stop midway!?"
Tavo's face changed. Shock first, then hurt, then anger. Then… slowly, understanding.
Tavo clenched his jaw and kept crawling. Fiona took one step up, then another, but stopped.
This wasn't hers.
Barkhad at the top, standing like a wall.
Tavo in the middle, crawling like war.
Fiona at the bottom, watching.
The distance between them was the space Tavo had to cross, by himself, alone.