“Just stay close.” Edison hadn’t been looking out the doors but down at her. Maybe he was the desperate one, frantically sucking up every detail of her face, her posture, her frame, imprinting it deliberately on his memory. He had no idea how long it would take for the core to destroy the station. It wasn’t something he had read about or seen before; no station had ever suffered catastrophic core failure. Would it be loud and fast or painful and slow? Would he burn up in a moment or fall gradually to pieces, shredded by prolonged radiation poisoning?

He watched his gloved right hand push at the doors, fighting the stringy bands that had grown up around the glass and clung to it like overgrown jungle vines. The station workers that had fallen to Foxfire were waiting, standing in haphazard places, pulling themselves up from whatever wall or floor had become their last resting place and turning toward them, vigilant. They had failed to protect their mother, and now they were ready for the one who had done it.

“Don’t let go of my hand,” Edison added.

They pushed out into the hall, both of them raising a forearm in defense. Rosalyn was shaking so hard it was difficult to keep hold of her, but nothing could make him let go. He was the captain, and she had become part of his crew. Every member of a crew had a duty, a mission. Misato was completing hers, and soon Rosalyn would perform her final act as a portion of the Brigantine. He had hated that ship when it first came under his command. The assigned Servitor was old and poky; the thruster tech could be newer; the layout seemed cramped and ill conceived; the toilet pipes leaked.

Now he ached to be back on board, curled up in the odd little bunk he had created out of repurposed crates and half of a crew bed. Rosalyn could come with him. They could sleep and sleep and sleep while the Brigantine flew them home. She would work on that coated chip tech while he waited in quarantine, biding his time until her genius saw them through.

Edison was shouting, barreling down the hall, shoulder checking softened bodies out of their way, heedless of the scrabbling hands that pulled at him as they went, ignoring the tear that opened up in his suit and the blood that poured freely from his arm.

Slam. They were at MSC, laughing because he had gotten tired of the quarantine food, worse than the cantina food, as if he was being punished for falling sick. Rosalyn smuggled in Twinkies when she visited, the strawberry kind, because she gave a shit and couldn’t stand to see him on the bland diet.