Click. Click. Click.

Voices came into clarity, but he sat on the couch beside her and clicked the top of his pen in consistent, methodical, comforting predictability. In a past life — in a future dream. It was a white noise among the uncertainty, though he dismissed his actions as nothing more than an infuriating, ceaseless scream.

Chaos theory, the beat of a butterfly's wing.

Click.

Blood on her hands; Neo's blood.

Responsible for the truth, unable to escape the black hole, her thoughts wandered ever closer to the event horizon. People's voices intensified but was rescue worth without him? She listened closely for the report of death, for no other survivors. One foot in the endless, starlit grave.

Admiral Mythrai's voice blurred through the cosmos, an echoing repetition.

He's... talking about the situation...

A life to flash before her.

Thuni muttered something once more about his droid, with Ulin giving a quiet, unheard response.

What?

Crimson splattered her hands, and the world flickered.

Nova opened her eyes to shattered time.

It shuddered with rippled pressure and the last remnants of crusted goop filled the corners, but whispered into a false dream — or her true awakening. Lungs expanded into her ribcage to drive the bones inside and bleed her from within, she twisted to the other desk where the clicking source continued. Labcoat red, his lips too pale and the warmth leaving his cheeks when she tried to shake him from the lethal slumber, where a metal stake tore his heart in two.

Overcrossed between two fictional realities.

He rested his pale cheek in his palm, writing on his datascroll with wavering attention on Admiral Mythrai.

Look at me. Open your eyes! Talk to me!

His eyes opened, halfway through a beautiful grey nebula and a lack of light. Unable to gaze on her failure, she shifted in her seat and tried to scratch the blood out from between her fingers. It spread on her lap and stuck to her skin, but she dragged her hands down her pants and shook her head. No. No. No. Ice cracked across her heart and she longed to tear it out herself. Words were nothing more than white noise, and the clicking of his I-pen stopped and silenced the universe. It dripped behind her ear, and she tore herself out of her sticky puddle of blood. Ignoring the confused expressions of those sitting around her, she rushed out of the briefing dome.

No, what is this? Nova drove her teeth into her nails, no longer tasting any blood but her own. What is this? Am I dead? Her feet tugged her down the eastern sector. Alarms rang in the distance, but never shattered the awakening. In slow motion film, it tried to correct itself, there was no escape. Keycard fumbling in her fingers, she drove it into the door to their room as someone's voice called her name.

He's dead. Stars, he's dead. Vomit filled her nose when she stumbled to hold onto his chair and resisted the urge to scream. Why am I here? What is happening? It spun confusion through the rest of her senses when she swiped at the creeping, nebulous tendrils at the glass, trying to break free to the mercy of the vacuum. Butterflies fluttered in the gaseous particles, and she swung when he grabbed her forearm, saying something noiseless when the alarms deafened her. Her back hit the desk in an attempt to get away from the morgue — the dead to haunt her.

Sharp pain shuddered her spine when she tripped on her own chair and her ass hit the floor when he tried to steady her. It rang in her ears with the cracking of bones as her hands wound around his, and she lost herself in the field of the black event horizon, the last tangle of light before the center.

"Nova," his voice cleared through the screeching distress.

Warm.

Nova closed her eyes tight and shut away the lie.

His hand went limp.

No...

Nova returned to the world.

Neo knelt down in front of her, no longer splattered with his own blood. Light returned to the greys with worried insistence and continued to chatter, with his voice fading into the void once more. The heartbeat silenced him instead. He hesitated then snapped his fingers, but it came out static. He mouthed her name, but his voice joined the orchestral beacon of loss.

... was it a nightmare?

He's... alive?

But it was... so real?

Neo squirmed in place and withdrew from her with a noiseless sigh and concerned frown.

It swirled back into her ears with the hum of their terminals.

"Should I just be quiet for a minute?" he asked softly.

Nova tapped the floor of their room, before crawling to her knees, but when he offered his hand to her, she grabbed onto his arm to squeeze it tight. It pulsed underneath her fingertips when she drew her attention to his face when he winced, but went still as death. "You're fine?" she rasped, tasting the lie on her tongue when it threatened to burst her heart. His lips parted, but she grabbed onto his cheeks, blazing hot underneath her fingers. His chest rose and fell in a calm rhythm again, and she shook his head.

"Ow—I'm fine," he murmured. "What's the matter?" It hissed in her ears when she dug her fingers into his face, and he shrank into his shoulders with a befuddled twist to his lips. "Nova?"

Nova released him and scrambled into her chair when he pressed his hands against hers, a response of life. "Stars!"

He raised his hands. "Okay, I'm sorry for pushing it. I didn't mean to upset you further. Planets, I've never seen you run out of anything—"

Nova shook her hands out of the calculation gone wrong. Fingers pressed against her own cheeks, she felt around her eyes and nose before holding onto him when he reached his arms out once more, an invitation, but not another insistence. "I'm sorry," she dragged off her tongue through her tears when she hugged him close by the neck, to protect him from uncertainty. "Talk to me. Just talk to me."

I don't want it to go quiet again.

"Are you... are you sure?"

Warmth of life. Cold at death.

"Tell me about the anomaly being a heart. Tell me about your theories. Say anything." Just let it be a nightmare. Let it be false. "I just need to hear something."

Neo's brow furrowed. "How'd you know a heart was one of my theories?"

"I told you about the heartbeat." Her own confusion settled on her shoulders. "You..." You were... going to talk about it — or maybe you already did... I think? "The briefing? Didn't you... mention it?" It swirled in her mind between differing points of her memory.

"I mean, I was... planning on mentioning it, but then you ran out and I told Admiral Mythrai I wanted to make sure you were okay, so he's delivering the presentation instead," he whispered with a hand on her forearm. "Nova—"

"I don't want to talk about it, please don't ask." It tore through her cracked throat.

His gaze drifted to the ceiling and the scientist's mask lifted to reveal the unsettled concern. "If that's what you want," he murmured, returning to her. "It's like you said, I theorised it was a heart, but I'm all but certain this anomaly has something to do with the D.S Butterfly."

Yes, you said as such... in the briefing, but apparently you hadn't said it yet?

Nova counted time. "The senior researchers think it's a coincidence," she recalled under her breath.

He shrugged, but never tore his studious expression off her. "It is hard to say. We'll find something." He frowned, then tugged out his datascroll to press it into her hands. "Here, take a look at these readings. You see the fluctuations?" His finger traced the steady line. "It looks like a heartbeat monitor, doesn't it? I mean, it's not concrete proof as I was told — but they want me to delve into my theory further while they work on theirs so..."

It reflected her own and calmed with his voice.

"What about the anomaly? Anything odd about it?"

"Apart from the observations? Not really. Although earlier in the shift it..." He rubbed the back of his head with a soft puff of breath leaving his nose, and Nova frowned at his self-soothing action. "It showed signs of severe duress. Why? Did you notice anything odd about it — when you last were there with me, I mean?"

When I last looked at it you were...

Nova stared at the unseen hole the debris left in his chest. Nails dug into her palm, she pulled him closer again. "No."

It was a false awakening.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked.

Blood stuck to her fingers, but when she examined her own hands over his shoulder, there was nothing left of her nightmare. "Keep talking... I'm starting to feel better."

"I don't know—" He shook his hand and held her at arm's reach with another fervent shake. "I might go on too much. I don't want to bloat the conversation and not let you get in a word in first, and I don't want to make it worse—" His voice tightened. "What's going on?"

"Neo, I asked you to talk to me."

His frown deepened, then he let her go. "Yeah... sorry. Don't mind me," he murmured. "Thanks for listening, then."

"Thank you for talking."

Thank you for existing.

His smile returned, shaken, but genuine. "That is the first time anyone thanked me for being a notorious chatterbox. Usually I get told to shut up." His lips folded, and he looked away from her. "So... I'm glad I can help you with that."

"I do appreciate you, chatterbox or no."

Before I take you for granted again...

"You know, you can tell me if it's overwhelming, I don't mind." He sat at his desk. "You can talk to me about your work on the droids. We wouldn't have found the anomaly without them... and I know you were upset about the botched emergency, but Nova, that wasn't your fault."

It layered in her heart, and she no longer cared about the past when he rested in her hands, bloodied and dead.

What else matters?

Just talk to me.

Let me know you exist.

Nova sat beside him. "I'm going to help Thuni and Ulin salvage their modules from their droid before the anomalous liquid rusts through it." Nova rested her hands in her lap and leaned against him. "I'm sorry if I scared you. I think I am getting Space Sickness after all." Her palm smacked against her brow and she let out a groan. "Fuck..."

He curled his fingers on his desk without another word. "You've been under stress lately, Nova," he whispered. "People can only take so much at once without properly handling it. I won't presume, but I think you need some sleep after you're done at Droid Bay A." He straightened himself out with a softer smile. "You can talk to me, you know. I... won't judge you."

"I'm fine." Nova held her boiling stomach and tried not to imagine him splattered with blood. "I just need to get back to work. Take my mind off... off the emergency landing sequence."

Off of your corpse.

Neo tipped his head. "You really think the core is still intact?" Full of questions, he sought knowledge and truth in the unknown and strange. "I mean, if you don't mind, I want to come with you. I'd like to take a look at it, I mean. If the liquid didn't have an effect on it, I'd need to note that down for our findings and data."

Nova tested his words, but frowned at her own shuddering realisation deep in her soul.

I don't think it's still intact. I know it's still intact.

But stars, if it is... I don't know what that'll mean.