I should have been terrified. Should have been spiraling into panic about suffocation and slow death in the vacuum of space. But pressed against Zorn in the cramped darkness, feeling his warmth and solid presence, I felt something else entirely.
Clarity.
The kind that comes when you think you might die. When all the noise and distraction and carefully maintained walls suddenly seem pointless. When you realize that some truths are too important to leave unspoken.
"Zorn."
"Don't." His voice was tight. "Don't say goodbye. We're not dead yet."
"I know." I shifted slightly, trying to see his face in the dim console light. "That's not what I wanted to say."
"Then what?"
I took a breath. Let it out. Felt my heart hammering against my ribs for reasons that had nothing to do with our desperate situation.
"I'm in love with you," I said. Simple. Direct. True. "I think I have been for months. I was just too afraid to admit it. Too afraid that caring about someone again meant I'd lose them. That letting myself be happy meant I was betraying everyone who died." The words came faster now, years of suppressed emotion finally breaking free. "But if these are my last moments, I don't want to die with that unsaid. I love you. However much time we have left, I want you to know that."
Silence. Just the hum of life support and the faint sounds of debris pinging off our hull.
Then Zorn shifted, his large hands finding my face in the darkness. Gentle despite their size, cradling my jaw with infinite care.
"I know," he said softly. "I feel it too."
His golden-brown eyes reflected the console lights, warm and certain and completely focused on me.
"I love you too," he continued. "From the moment you collapsed in my arms during that outbreak response and trusted me to care for you. From watching you work yourself to exhaustion because saving others matters more to you than your own wellbeing. From every session where you fought your way toward healing even though it terrified you." His thumb brushed across my cheekbone. "You're brilliant and dedicated and so goddamn stubborn, and I would face any disaster, any danger, as long as I could face it with you."
I kissed him.
Fierce and desperate, believing it might be our last. Pouring months of suppressed feeling into that contact, all the longing and fear and need I'd been too controlled to express. His arms came around me, pulling me closer in the cramped space, and I felt him respond with equal intensity.
We parted, breathing hard, foreheads pressed together in the darkness.
"We're not dead yet," I whispered against his lips.
"No," he agreed. "We're not."
His hands were already moving, pulling up the pod's diagnostic interface. My hands joined his, checking life support parameters, running system diagnostics. Neither of us gave up. Neither of us accepted defeat.
Because maybe we'd die out here, drifting through debris until our air ran out. But maybe we wouldn't. Maybe Mothership would find us. Maybe this wasn't our ending.
And even if it was, even if these were our last hours, at least we'd face them together.
At least I'd said what mattered most.
The pod's distress beacon blinked steadily in the darkness. Sending out its automated signal, hoping someone was listening. Hoping rescue would come.
"Life support stable," Zorn said, reviewing the readings. "Twelve hours at current consumption rates. More if we reduce activity and enter minimal-function mode."
"Minimal-function means reduced consciousness. Medically induced near-hibernation." I checked the pod's medical systems. "The protocols are there, but it's designed for single occupancy. Splitting resources between two people?—"
"Six hours each instead of twelve hours together." His expression was grim. "Not ideal, but it extends our window for rescue."
Math was simple. Cruel, but simple. If we stayed conscious, we had twelve hours before the air ran out. If we used the hibernation protocols, we could stretch that to maybe eighteen hours total, but only six hours where both of us were functional.
Which strategy gave Mothership the best chance of finding us?
Before I could voice the question, the pod lurched violently. Something massive passed close by, close enough that I felt the gravitational tug through the hull. Debris. A large piece of the refugee ship's superstructure, tumbling past us.
