I had forty-five minutes.
I headed for my quarters to change into something appropriate for public recognition. Elena was there when I arrived, sprawled across her sleeping alcove reviewing what looked like electrical schematics. She glanced up when I entered, her hazel eyes sharp despite the deliberately casual posture.
"You look like hell," she observed.
"Thanks. That's helpful."
"Just stating facts." Elena sat up, setting aside her datapad. "Dana stopped by Engineering earlier. Said she talked to you. Said you looked ready to bolt."
"I'm not bolting."
"You're thinking about it." Elena studied me with the uncomfortable perceptiveness that had made her both an excellent engineer and a challenging roommate. "Don't. Therapy sucks, but it helps. Trust me on this."
I paused in the middle of pulling out my dress uniform. "You're in therapy?"
"Started three weeks ago. Vaxon noticed I was developing some problematic coping mechanisms and suggested I talk to someone before they became full-blown issues." She shrugged, affecting indifference that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Turns out being a genius prodigy who's stranded in another galaxy creates some psychological complications. Who knew?"
"Vaxon made you go to therapy?"
"Suggested. Strongly. With that particular tone that means it's not actually optional." Elena's expression shifted, something vulnerable showing through. "He was right, though. I needed it. Still need it. The work helps, but it's not a replacement for actually processing trauma."
The admission from Elena, who guarded her emotions as fiercely as I guarded mine, felt like permission somehow. Like maybe acknowledging the need for help wasn't weakness after all.
"Zorn ordered me into mandatory sessions," I said.
"Good. He's smart. Marry him."
"Elena—"
"I'm serious. Man who cares enough about your wellbeing to be the villain when necessary? That's rare. That's valuable." She stood, moved to her locker and pulled out something. "Here. Wear this."
She handed me a small pendant, delicate silver chain with a tiny compass charm. Earth jewelry, impossibly precious given our distance from home.
"I can't?—"
"You can. Consider it a loan." Elena fastened the chain around my neck before I could protest. "Reminder that even when you're lost, there's a way forward. You just have to be willing to look for it."
The gesture was so unexpected, so unlike Elena's usual emotional distance, that I felt tears threaten again.
"Thank you," I managed.
"Don't thank me. Just show up to therapy and actually try." Elena returned to her schematics, conversation apparently over. "And Bea? The ceremony is about celebrating survival. Let yourself have that. Just for an hour."
I finished changing in silence, Elena's words echoing in my head.
Celebrating survival. As if survival was something to celebrate rather than something to feel guilty about. As if being alive when others weren't was a gift rather than a burden.
But maybe that was the problem. Maybe that was exactly what I needed to address in therapy, the toxic belief that surviving meant owing something unpayable, that living required constant self-sacrifice as penance for being the one who made it out.
I touched the compass pendant at my throat. Forward, not back. Even when lost.
The commendation ceremony was held in Mothership's main conference hall, a massive space that could accommodate crew of all sizes and species. Beings filled the rows of seating: Zandovians, Krellians, Thellians, Vaxxians, and at least a dozen other species I'd learned to recognize over the past months. At the front, Captain Tor'van stood at thepodium, his imposing figure somehow managing to look both authoritative and approachable.
I found a seat in the back, next to Pel'vix. She nodded acknowledgment, her lavender skin catching the overhead lights.
"Dr. Santos. You look better than you did at Veridian Station."
"Low bar," I muttered.
