“What happened?” she asked, watching him wipe at the blood and tears on his face. “You were fine in the lab and then—”

“It’s you.” He cut her off, not meanly, but with a shuddering sigh. His eyes were wet again. “It’s you. The Foxfire is . . . trying to use you against me. It thinks it can, I don’t know, dangle you joining the cluster in front of me like some sort of prize. It’s disgusting. First my mother, now you . . . Whatever I care about is just turned against me.”

Rosalyn flinched, but didn’t move her hand, and Edison was still. “Edison . . .”

“You don’t have to say anything. You’ve been pretty clear about what you think of me.”

“No, I haven’t been,” she said. “But I don’t think hope is a luxury we can afford right now. I run every scenario over and over again, and it doesn’t look good. Maybe in another life. Maybe . . . God, I don’t know, maybe if we get to CDAS and they greet us with champagne and a perfect cure for you and Misato.”

Edison pulled his lower lip between his teeth and glanced away, his forefinger working against the fissure nervously. “It wasn’t the song.”

“What?”

“The song. It helped, sure, but it wasn’t the song that brought me back,” he said.

She wanted him to go on but he didn’t. He didn’t need to. Rosalyn felt a lump rising in her throat, sharp and unavoidable. “What if I’m not there to help next time?”

“I don’t know,” Edison admitted. “But I’ve tried swallowing this down deep, and it doesn’t seem to be working out so well. I won’t speak for you, and I won’t tell you what to do, but me? I’m going to try running toward the light instead of away from it.”

Rosalyn tipped her head to the side. “I’m the light in this metaphor?”

“It’s not perfect, I admit. I didn’t exactly have time to workshop it, okay?”

“Take a step back,” she said. “Please.”

Edison put both hands up, rolling his eyes, not at her, she knew, but at himself. “I get it. I’ll leave you alone. No need to ask twice.”

“Just a step.” She reached for the door panel. “You are terrible at following directions.”

“I’m the captain, I’m usually giving them.”

The shield lifted, wisps from the diffuser spreading into the corridor before she crossed into the hall and shut the door behind her. She reminded herself that she was being incredibly stupid, and then reached for his hand, holding it lightly in her gloved palm before he returned the gesture, twining his fingers in hers.

“I guess there’s something romantic about tragedy,” Rosalyn muttered, glancing up at him.

“Stop it,” he said, but he was half grinning.