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[not_a_traitor]

["Felix Gaeta speaking."]

mail deliveries: 115 Goldleaf Street, Apt. 1C, Downtown Hollow

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[abhorrently]

[no one talks about how heavy an absence is. she had taken it for granted that they'd have more time, that before Tayrey left back to the Tradelines, there would be time to learn more about her world, her happiness - to be able to look at the stars the way she does, a little bit. everything that wasn't said piles up and up, and Fever closes her eyes.

in her mind, she writes out a name that she'll have to put to paper when she returns home. things will need to be done for her. this house shut up. someone might try and claim it and-

she can't allow it. not for a while.

Fever doesn't know how long it is before she speaks again, low and brittle.]

...did she tell you how we got out?

[the probe. the mission. the fight for a message from someone, anyone.]

[not_a_traitor]

[he can't speak right away. even if his mouth and throat would let him form the words, no language surfaces. just grief. that sinking, hopeless cloud of loss again, made all the worse because the island had begun to feel like a respite. even for all the horrors of this place -- at least if you die, you come back.

you're supposed to, anyway.

at last, in a cracked whisper:] Of the Eterna? Once. Said she put out a distress beacon behind the captain's back. [a convulsive twitch of his mouth] But she never wanted to talk about the ship too much. I didn't push.

[abhorrently]

She was clever. Risked everything for it. Without it, we may never have gotten free. Even though she knew it would piss a lot of people off. And she was brave enough to keep the names of those who were helping her to herself. Her entire team remained shielded, because of her.

[her words are still distant, but a little stronger. trying, trying to get this out and give shape to what's in her chest.]

I was on that team. I helped with sending out the beacon. And even though I questioned her, backed her into a corner several times, she never made me leave. She let me keep working on the project. Promised when we reunited that I wouldn't have to worry about any ill will that might have followed us here for it, even though the mission was over and done with.

[she exhales slow. no one gives a shit about that anymore - not when the results are here. no one has the energy to hold onto those grudges, those squabbles that were born of them eating each other alive to stay fractionally steady.]

I still think of her as our commander.

[not_a_traitor]

[it's a story Tayrey should've had the chance to tell him herself someday. not like the pieces she shared before, when the weight of their pasts crushed them until they could do nothing but gasp out the worst moments of their lives. something gentler that could've only been granted if she'd been allowed to frakking live for more than a few months.

she was so much better than he knew, and he should've been allowed by the universe, the gods, or whatever the frak, to learn it firsthand.

gaeta's so furious all of a sudden. his eyes burn. he tightens his fists against the unfairness of it all; tries to smother the sparks before they turn into a conflagration.]

[low:] I told her a couple times I would've been proud to serve alongside her. I would have been proud to call her "Commander," too.

[abhorrently]

I think you can. I think you've earned that right.

[the words are too loud in the empty room. all she can do is breathe, letting the silence resettle like the dust that will inevitably come to this place.]

...Godsdammit. It's not fair.

[it's no logical argument, but it isn't. it isn't fair that someone who could have been happier here, in a world that makes sense, isn't. it isn't fair to not get the chance to say goodbye, to have everything conclude abruptly, to just have items left and not a person theirself. no pictures. just memories.]

[not_a_traitor]

[for some reason, it's the plural that does it. gods. she's not even talking about the same gods, but it drops like a pebble in the stillness; ripples outward with its borrowed familiarity. it washes over the fury and extinguishes it as fast as it began.

another breathless, broken sound rips out of him, and Gaeta buries his face in both hands in a futile effort to stop it from becoming worse.

of course it's not fair. it's never been fair. absolutely nothing will make it all right that people can vanish so quickly, their whole existence wiped out between one second and the next. maybe Gaeta should be used to it by now, but he's not. he's not.]