I laughed, couldn't help it. "Seriously?"
"Seriously. They get everything wrong. Diagnostic procedures that would take days happen in minutes. Ethical violations presented as heroic choices. Don't even get me started on their depiction of surgical technique." He shook his head. "Dana told me about some Earth show calledGrey's Anatomyonce. I listened as she described three episodes before I had to stop for my own sanity."
"That show was a guilty pleasure. Terrible medicine, great drama."
"Terrible medicine is correct. Great drama is debatable." His expression softened. "But I understand the appeal. Sometimes we need stories where the diagnosis is simple and the cure is straightforward and everyone gets to be heroic."
"Because real medicine is messy and complicated and you don't always win."
"Yes."
We fell into a companionable silence. Just the hum of life support and our breathing and the occasional ping of debris against the hull. Waiting. Hoping. Holding each other.
"Your turn," Zorn said. "Tell me something I don't know about you."
I thought about all the things I'd kept hidden. All the parts of myself I'd locked away behind professional distance and emotional control. The person I'd been before the Liberty disaster, before displacement, before Mothership.
"I wanted to be a veterinarian," I said. "When I was a kid. Loved animals more than people. Thought I'd spend my life treating dogs and cats and being happy." I smiled at the memory. "But then I did a volunteer shift at a hospital emergency room when I was sixteen, and something clicked. Thechaos, the pressure, the weight of someone's life depending on my choices. It terrified me. And I wanted more of it."
"So you chose trauma surgery."
"I chose the hardest path I could find. Thought if I could handle that, I could handle anything." I laughed without humor. "Turns out trauma surgery prepares you for a lot of things. Doesn't really prepare you for intergalactic displacement and falling in love with an alien."
"No?" His voice carried gentle humor. "That wasn't covered in your medical training?"
"Surprisingly, no. Though maybe it should have been. Seems like relevant information."
His arms tightened around me. Warm and solid and absolutely real despite the impossible situation. Despite everything.
The distress beacon continued its automated signal into the void. Hoping someone was listening. Hoping rescue would come.
And in the cramped darkness of a failing escape pod, I hoped too. Not with desperate panic, but with something quieter. Something that felt like trust.
We'd survive this. We'd make it back to Mothership. We'd have more than just these few stolen hours in the dark.
We had to.
Because I'd finally admitted what mattered most. Finally let myself care about someone despite the risk of loss. Finally chosen connection over control.
And I wasn't ready to lose that. Not yet. Not after just finding it.
"Zorn?"
"Yes?"
"Don't give up on me. On us. Whatever happens."
His hand found mine in the darkness, threading our fingers together despite the size difference. "Never," he said. "I'm patient, remember? I can wait however long it takes."
The life support console beeped again. New alert. But this time, when Zorn checked the readings, his markings flared bright with sudden hope.
"Signal," he said. "Faint, but there. Someone's scanning this sector."
"Mothership?"
"Has to be." He was already working the communications array, trying to boost our distress beacon. "They're searching. They haven't given up."
Neither had we.
