Chapter 11

ARCHIVED: Nonessential Baggage Request, Capt. Wilhelmina Lucas, March 13, 2041

ARCHIVED: Providence Intracrew Messaging Service Conversation — Capt. Wilhelmina Lucas and Travis Onyango, March 13, 2041

Wilhelmina Lucas

Trav did you code this infernal baggage request form

Travis Onyango

I did! What's the issue, Cap?

Wilhelmina Lucas

I need you to manually approve my stupid request

Travis Onyango

What went wrong exactly? I know some folks have reported problems at the input level

Wilhelmina Lucas

Just look at the transcript

Travis Onyango

[... ]

ah

Okay yes I'll get that approved right away Cap

Sorry

***

I don't get a wink of sleep that night. Not that I've ever slept particularly well in the Other Place. Not that my body seems to have any physical needs here at all. But that night, I feel particularly awake in a way I haven't in what should have been twenty years.

I need to help her. I need to save her. I need to do everything I can, even if the Other Place explodes me into molecules for the crime of it.

I just don't know how.

I pace back and forth for hours, knowing Eli can hear me in the next room, not caring. My footsteps become a second-nature rhythm, just an ambient ebb and flow like the gentle heartbeat of the ocean. And, right when the heartbeat becomes indistinguishable from my own, I slip away back to the universe. Back to her.

***

Cleo woke up in the med bay feeling like her head had been pressed through a pasta machine and boiled to a nice al dente. But the first thing she saw was Billie, leaning against the wall by her bed and watching her with tired eyes, so it wasn't all bad.

"Cleo." Billie bent down to her eye level. "Are you—are you alright, do you need anything, should I get Ros—"

"'m fine, Billie," Cleo mumbled, even though she wasn't, not really. Anything to get the gasping panic out from between Billie's words. "My head just hurts."

Billie reached out like she was going to touch Cleo's face. But this time, she didn't draw back, letting her fingers hover like Cleo was a butterfly that would flutter away if spooked. Cleo held her breath, almost forgetting, almost leaning into Billie's not-touch. But then she remembered, and stopped herself. And she remembered other things too, like what had gotten her into this bed, and what was waiting, and what she had to do.

"Where are the others?"

Billie dropped her hand, and Cleo could practically hear it when her jaw clenched tight. "Off working out a plan for how to deal with Kris when we arrive at Proxima B. They want to enter the planet's orbit and then maybe send a select team down to—"

"I should go help them."

"No." The force in Billie's voice was enough to push Cleo back against her pillows. "You need to rest. And also have as little to do with Kris as possible."

Cleo crossed her arms. "What, so you want me to let my friends face him down by themselves? No chance, Billie. He said I—I have something he wants, or something, and I need to make sure I don't let him get it."

"What you need is to take your own safety into account, for once." Billie's voice was all rough edges, and Cleo tried not to think about all the different, better, impossible ways she'd imagined it taking on this low and desperate tenor. "You promised you wouldn't wimp Kris again, and yet here we are."

"What else was I supposed to do? You know I didn't have a choice."

"There's always a choice."

"Not when our lives are on the line."

"Especially when your life is on the line." Billie leaned closer, the pain on her face enough to whip Cleo's blood up to fever speed. "What happens when we get to the Proxima System? He already has the power to hurt you and enter your mind and teleport himself across the galaxy somehow—what happens when there isn't a light-year of space between you and Kris?"

Cleo swallowed. "I don't know."

"But you do. You have something he wants, and Kris—he has never, not once, been dissuaded in his pursuit of what he wants. I've seen him in action. He doesn't stop. Whatever it is, he'll take it, he'll use it, he'll use you up for whatever his idea of progress is now. And the closer we get to the planet, the closer he'll get to making good on that promise."

Cleo turned in the bed to properly face Billie, standing up on her knees so their faces were level and Billie's green, green eyes were glaring right into her own. "What's your point, Billie? You gonna turn the ship around?"

"Maybe."

"We can't do that! That was the first thing you ever said to me, that we can't do that."

"Not right now, maybe. But what happened to the orbital schematics from Erebus? What happened to just swinging around the system and heading back to Earth? You and Kaleisha could get us there in a matter of weeks, we know that now."

"Are you shitting me?" A sweaty curl fell in Cleo's face, and she tugged it back, nails scraping across her scalp. "We can't just let Halvorsen do whatever it is he's going to do. Look how that turned out for you last time."

Billie reeled back. "This is different."

Cleo threw her arms in the air. "How, Billie? How is this not the exact same shit you pulled twenty years ago? Except this time, the consequences are even more dire, and I know that, and you know that, and if we let him get what he wants, that'll be on us for the rest of—"

"I can't keep watching you break apart, Cleo!"

Billie shouted it like the words were being dragged from her throat. Cleo went quiet.

"I can't watch him hurt you. I promised—" Billie hung her head. Pounded her fist into the wall soundlessly. "Fuck me, I want to be different this time. I would do anything to be better, to protect my crew. But I promised I wouldn't let him hurt you, and look how useless at that I turned out to be."

Unbidden, Cleo's mind went to Neil. How had he died, again? Cancer, wasn't it? Another hospital bed, another love withering away before Billie's eyes?

"Hey." Cleo raised her hand up to Billie's chin, just close enough to make Billie look up at her. "Don't say that, okay? You are the opposite of useless."

Billie gave a tiny shake of her head. "I couldn't save a mug if it was falling off a table, Cleo, let alone save you, or Eli, or anyone else. I was built to solve a mystery, and I've done that, so what am I? What am I for?"

Cleo brought her other hand up to frame Billie's face, her fingertips just atoms away from dipping into Billie's light, and leaned in close. If she listened really hard, she could almost imagine that the buzzing of Billie's photons was a heartbeat.

"You're not for anything, Billie," she whispered. "You just are."

Billie's gaze fell down, maybe to Cleo's mouth. "I'm not, though."

"Yes, you are. And you're going to help us kick Halvorsen's ass, and you're gonna help us get your brother back and save the Providence crew—"

Billie stepped back, and Cleo almost lost her balance, almost like she'd actually been holding Billie tight. There were a million emotions working their way through Billie's face, it looked like, and none of them were good.

"The crew," she whispered.

"Uh, yeah?" Cleo fell back on her heels. "The crew that we've been trying to save from their interdimensional dark matter prison, that crew. Elijah's there, as well as two hundred and two others, in case you—"

Billie cut Cleo off with a watery, terrified, furious look. Oh. The others.

The other, that is.

"Hey," Cleo said, hopping down from the bed and only swaying on her feet a little bit, "I told you, I don't—I'm not thinking about her."

Billie clenched her fists. "I don't believe you."

"What—well, I'm not, and unless you've figured out how to read minds I don't know how you expect me to prove that."

"But she's me, and she's real, and that's—that's everything you want, right?" Billie scrubbed a hand over her mouth, looking around the room frantically, desperately. "Why wouldn't you be thinking about her?"

Cleo tried to ignore how much she felt like her lungs had just been punched out of her body. "Why wouldn't I?"

Because the other Billie doesn't know me, she could have said.

Because every moment I've spent with you has been lightning in a bottle,she could have said, and you know what they say about lightning striking twice.

Because I don't think I could stand to be around a version of you that doesn't love me back, she could have said. Because I think that would actually end me.

"Because you're everything I want, Billie," she said instead.

Billie squeezed her eyes shut and inhaled. "Don't lie to me, McQueary," she said, and with a pop, she was gone.

***

Fuck, I think, falling out of my trance too suddenly, an upside-down vertigo feeling scraping in my stomach.

This isn't—

What am I supposed to do if—if she doesn't—

***

Cleo went to the mess hall fully intending to help the others with their plan. But apparently something of what had just happened still showed on her face, because as soon as she walked in Abe gasped.

"What's wrong, Cleo?"

And Kaleisha and Ros turned and saw whatever her stupid face was doing, and the deep concern in their eyes was too goddamn much. So much that Cleo started crying, which was not at all what she had intended to do.

The other three had wrapped her up in a warm, tangly group hug before she knew what was happening. There was a lot of Cleo sniffling into Kaleisha's jacket and Ros awkwardly patting Cleo's hair and Abe cooing comforting nonsense. And then Kaleisha had somehow gotten her into a chair, and the rest of them were sitting around the table looking at her, some horrible combination of worried and expectant.

For a moment, Cleo considered lying again. But her head hurt, and her heart hurt, and they were hurtling through space toward a freezing planet, population one brain-shredding madman, and these people were all she had in the universe right now. And, really, who had the energy?

So Cleo took a deep breath, because everything was about to change, and it seemed the thing to do. "I think," she said, staring very carefully at her hands on the edge of the table, "that I'm in love with Billie."

Kaleisha snorted.

Ros let their head drop forward onto the table with a clonk.

Abe smiled sweetly and said, "Wow, really? Thank you for telling us."

Kaleisha elbowed him in the side. "We talked about this weeks ago, you goober."

"Yeah, but I wasn't going to say that because I'm trying to be supportive—"

Cleo covered her burning face in her hands. "God, was it really that obvious?"

She felt Kaleisha's hand on her arm and reluctantly peeked through her fingers. "Yes," Kaleisha said. "We were waiting for you to figure it the fuck out, frankly."

"Since when?"

Ros straightened up and pulled a sarcastic thinking face. "Since—hold on, let me consult my records—about the second day on the ship."

"But," Cleo spluttered, "that means you guys knew before I did."

"Duh."

"We know that matters of the heart take you a little while to figure out," Abe said.

Kaleisha snorted again. "That's one way to put it."

Cleo felt more tears gathering in her eyes. God, she hated crying. The snot. The puffy face. The deep-down, unsteady, I don't have time for this feeling of it all.

"Hey. Hey. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to roast you." Kaleisha took her hand, and Cleo gave up on containing the snot. "What's bringing this up? Did you and Billie have a fight?"

Cleo wiped her face on her other sleeve and nodded. "She's, uh. She's really upset about being, you know. A hologram."

Abe nodded sagely. "Because you guys can't bone."

"Oh my God. No. Oh my God." The other three all raised their eyebrows at Cleo in unison, so Cleo just plopped her head onto the table. It had looked so satisfying when Ros had done it, but it just made Cleo's head hurt worse. "I mean, ugh, maybe. But there's also a lot of other. Um. Stuff."

"I'd be shocked if there wasn't." Kaleisha rubbed little circles on the back of Cleo's hand. "What are you gonna do about it?"

Cleo twisted her neck to look up at her. "What is there to do, Kal? Other than suck it up and get over possibly the most ill-advised crush in history?"

Kaleisha smiled at Cleo like she was being very, very dense and Kaleisha loved her very, very much. "I'm not going to tell you to stop loving her, Clo. Not when it's been obvious from the jump that you two just... fit."

"But how? How do I love her right?"

"Listen, Cleo," Kaleisha said softly, "if there's anything I've learned from this whole clusterfuck, it's that you can plan and plan and turn everything over in your mind until you pass out, and the universe still doesn't care. Sometimes, we just gotta fly by the seat of our pants, baby. So just, you know, fly your pants on over to Billie and see what happens from there."

"She's right," Abe said. "You guys, when you're around each other—we can feel, in the air, how much you want to be together. So, if you want to, you'll be able to make it work."

Cleo found herself looking at Ros, who had been quiet while Kaleisha and Abe talked. Cleo hadn't expected them to have a ton of input, but they raised a ginger eyebrow at Cleo's searching expression.

"Just try to let her in, Clo. I know it's hard, but, like. It's so worth it." A sly smile tugged at the corner of their mouth. "No more jokes."

The tugged corner turned into a full, blinding smile, and Kaleisha ran around the table to wrap Cleo up in another crushing, basil-scented hug, and Cleo felt her heart go Oh. Oh yeah.

***

The Other Place was right about Kris chipping away at the boundary. Now that I know what to look for, I can feel the places where it's weaker, thinner, more pliable. Like I could break through if I poked at just the right spot.

Or Cleo could, if I showed her where.

But I can't—I need to focus. Focus on the plan. Stop letting thoughts of her distract me, for now.

***

The lights in Billie's lab were that viscous nighttime orange. Winding her way through the shadowy corridors of junk, Cleo found herself tiptoeing, even though there was no reason to. Maybe it was to compensate for the ear-piercing pounding of her heart. Maybe it was because she felt ready to vibrate off the floor and out into the stars.

She stopped in front of the door to Billie's quarters. It had always opened so easily in her dreams. "Billie?" she whispered.

Nothing, for a breath. Then a pop, startling in the heavy silence, and Billie was there, leaning against the door and not looking at Cleo.

"Billie," Cleo said again, and it sounded like please.

Billie ran a hand over her mouth, and Cleo felt her whole body throb like a plucked guitar string.

"Cleo, I..." Billie swallowed. Her whole throat tightened with the movement. "I'm sorry, Cleo. But I can't."

Cleo took a small step closer, close enough that she would have been able to smell Billie if she'd had a smell, feel Billie's heat if she'd had a body. "Can't what?"

"You know what." Billie looked down at her feet, still not at Cleo. "I can't be what you need me to be."

"I don't need you to be anything."

Billie squeezed her eyes shut like something had hurt her from the inside out. Cleo wanted her, needed her, was going to explode if she couldn't wrap her arms around her, pull her close, and kiss her hair until neither of them remembered what they'd been crying about.

She wanted, she needed. But there were other things to want.

"Billie," Cleo murmured. "Spend the night with me."

Billie finally looked at her then, with such a sudden flare of fear and shock and hope that Cleo was surprised to find herself unburned. "What—what do you—"

"I mean I'm going to lie down in your bed, and you're going to lie next to me, and we'll be close to each other. And that'll be enough."

It sounded true, when Cleo said it. It almost felt true too.

They settled into the bed in the captain's quarters: facing each other, hands almost touching, breathing the same air, sort of, if Cleo didn't think about it too hard. Billie seemed stiff at first, scared to move, scared to disturb the equilibrium, but then Cleo shuffled even closer until their noses were dangerously close to brushing. And Billie gasped against Cleo's mouth, and her long fingers curled near Cleo's collarbone, and Cleo felt the spark of it tremble all the way through her.

"See," she murmured, "this is perfect. I get all your good blankets to myself."

Billie puffed out a breath that was almost a laugh and almost a sigh. "You're doing it again."

"Doing what?"

"Making jokes instead of feeling."

Cleo breathed in and out, letting the electric buzz spread into her belly and curl her toes. "Am not."

Billie took off her glasses. Seeing her like this was like looking up at the night sky, Cleo thought. She wouldn't get tired of counting the details if she lived for a million years.

"I love you, Cleo," Billie whispered.

"I love you too," Cleo said, and wondered at the ease of it.

They stayed like that, breathing together, their lips just photons apart, until Cleo's eyes started to flicker closed. She was tired. She ached all over—from Halvorsen's attack and from the wanting—but she didn't want to sleep. She couldn't let her body forget that Billie was there.

"Billie," she said softly, thinking of what her friends had said. "When did you know?"

Billie blinked her eyes open, her face completely untired. "Know what?"

"That you loved me."

"Hmm." Billie smiled, her eyes searching Cleo's face. "You first."

"You're deflecting, but whatever." Cleo trailed a finger over her own palm, imagining the light touch was Billie's. "I knew when I told you Elijah was alive. I should have realized earlier, but I've never been in love before, hindsight is twenty-twenty, et cetera, et cetera."

"That was pretty late in the game."

"Alright, Dr. Love, tell me how soon you knew."

Billie slid her hand just a hair closer to Cleo's, her eyes following Cleo's fingertips as they traced the lines of her hand. "From the beginning."

Cleo's blood pounded in her chest, in her cheeks. "Bullshit."

"Is that so hard to believe?" Billie murmured. "That I could know I was going to love you from the moment I saw you giggling to yourself about Newton's third law of motion and that goddamn sneaker?"

Cleo squeezed her eyes shut again, just for a moment, so she wouldn't do something stupid like try to kiss Billie's brains out. "No way you knew that after knowing me for, what, fifteen minutes—"

"I did." Billie's voice was so rough. So soft. "It was—"

"Love at first sight?" Cleo was scared that if she smiled, her happiness would be too bright, too blinding, but she did it anyway. "Gross."

Billie gave Cleo as exasperated a look as she could manage with their foreheads practically touching, and didn't deny it.

***

"Bill, are you okay?" Eli asks me, after I've been in another trance, picking at the boundary and utterly failing to find a way through for God knows how long, making him worry about me again.

No, I could say. No, because I thought I would never see Neil's face again, and when I did it was because a monster had put it on to threaten me, and you, and the woman I love.

No, I could say, because Cleo is in love with the hologram, the one that I was an idiot and gave my face to, and my mind, and my weakness for people who shine like the sun. So when—if—I meet her, she's not going to want me. Because she already has me.

No, I could say. Because still, despite everything, all I want to do is help her. And I don't know if I can.

"I'm fine," I say instead. "Let me get back to work."