One more butterfly wing shattered the twist of time.

Her mind numbed to the timing; until she knew what happened without fail, without correction or deviance among the variability. Admiral Mythrai starts the briefing. Her leg screeched with the past reality she no longer had the ability to change. Neo will present his findings. Flames chewed her skin around the lodged debris in her thigh. Nova chewed on her sleeve and tried to map out the blueprint long after Neo left her side to return to his own desk, ready for the start of the loop. Thuni and Ulin—head to the hangar, where it'll be waiting for them. It was nothing more than a stretch of silence before the loop proceeded. What must I change? What must I shift to change the consequence? Fuck...

Nova stifled her whimper and drove her fingers into her knee to stem the tide.

I have to make a difference.

I have to try.

I have to try for him.

In the best moment, she cried into her arm and no matter how she tried to ignore the pain, it dogged her long into Neo's spiel, whose hesitance on his words told her she failed to hide everything. Alone at her desk, curved around her body in one last protection, she tucked her leg against the other, to try and push the pain out, to drag it across the floor in her boots. None of their words changed the end result, or mattered.

Nova wanted to shield the glass butterfly.

Chairs scraped against metal as people filed out, but when she tried to move, a sweeping wave of numbness crawled through her body. The last teeth of the last loop. Her fingers dug into her desk as Neo hopped the steps to her, returning to her side in an instant — in a moment where the empty engineer tossed all three of them over the side, into the maw of the abyss. A sickening crunch echoed in her ears.

Neo, or the empty engineer?

Or both?

Questions unanswered, Neo loomed over to her as Admiral Mythrai collected what he needed from the presentation podium. "Nova?

Nova tried to put weight on her leg, to prove it wrong. It refused, and bit at her knees with her attempt. "Neo," she whispered into her sleeve. "I... can't get up."

"What?"

"I can't move," she hissed. "My leg's killing me."

Neo tipped his head. "You can't move it?"

"No." Agitation swept through her fingers. "Help me?"

"Do you... want me to get you to the medical tower?" Neo turned to Admiral Mythrai, but Nova lunged for his hand, to squeeze it and return his attention to her. "What?"

"Just need to get to our room, I don't want to go to the medical tower."

An argument creased his brow, but he shrugged his shoulders and took her arm. On her feet, Nova almost screamed with the last remains of the loop tearing through her leg as she stumbled into Neo's arms, who adjusted her. "Fuck."

"What's wrong?" Neo questioned with a curious glance at her legs.

Nothing! Nothing's wrong with it, obviously. I don't know why it's like I'm still in there. Nova clutched onto the back of his lab coat. He no longer pressed for questions, using himself as a crutch for her, he dragged her out of the briefing room with a shake of his head. Nova cupped her hand against her hip, allowing old tears to slip down her cheeks. Out of the way, Nova choked on a gasp when Neo went to let go of her, tugging her back when she failed to keep her balance. "Fuck."

"Maybe I should've taken you to the medical tower," Neo said and sat her down on the bench. "Nova, if it's that bad—"

"No."

"You should—"

"No." Nova dug her nails deeper into her skin, to make it reality.

Neo stared at her, wide-eyed as she rubbed her thigh. It prickled against her fingertips, a crack into the last loop. It slammed into her temples and chewed on her brain. Atmospheric pressure thumped in time with a distant heartbeat, past her lips, she tasted blood. Her pants remained as clean as they were before the collapse of the reactor. Dry as if she had never landed in water.

"Let me take a look at it, then."

Nova lifted her head to him. "What?"

"You don't want to go to the medical tower, but—" He sighed. "Can you let me take a look at it?"

You're not going to find anything. Unless the... the debris came with me?

It was a flimsy possibility, and she nodded.

"I'm going to move you for a minute." Neo hauled her from underneath the arms to switch her seat to his chair. He whipped to the table, tapping on the panel to lower it in line with the dining benches. Nova squirmed in the chair, trying to ignore the pulsating on her brow as he bustled around, setting a thin blanket across the table. "Okay."

"Neo, you're going to think I've lost my mind."

"Why?" He smoothed it out.

"Because—I mean look at it."

"That's what I'm about to do." Neo returned to her.

"No, I mean, just from a cursory glance, does it look like anything is wrong?" she demanded.

His gaze trailed down her leg. "I don't know what you want me to say. It doesn't have to be on the surface." He helped her up again, and she hobbled her way to his haphazard set up. Nova chewed on resentment, leaning on him once again when he was the one she failed to pull out of the fatal loop. "Try and relax. It won't take me long."

"And if there's nothing there?" Nova groaned in frustrated agony and smacked her hands against her face as Neo guided her downwards. I wish I was just losing it... at least then... then he wouldn't be dying over and over. It'd just be me. Nova dragged her fingers down her cheeks to tug on skin, then waited for Neo to start, to confirm what she knew for a fact.

"We can cross that bridge when we get there. Ready?"

"Go nuts."

Neo shuffled through his coat and slipped on gloves.

"Oh, getting serious, are we? You never do that for anomalies." Nova tasted the laugh in her lungs, but pain swallowed it before rolling up the one pant leg, already seeing nothing of what happened to her, the injury she sustained.

"Sorry, Mom instilled at least one good habit in me. Anomalies are a little different to people," he said with a sense of caution.

"Here I thought you were an anomalous scientist, not a doctor," she said, and forced a smile on her face.

Neo copied her expression. "Funny, that... I'm not a doctor," he joked. "But, I know enough to assure you, I guess. Okay. Tell me when it hurts."

"You don't see anything."

"Not on the surface, no."

Nova wanted to bite at his refusal to acknowledge the truth in front of him, but she cracked out a gasp when he placed his hand on her leg the loop shuddered. Black. Inky grey nebulous tendrils. It cracked over her head, slamming, twisting, crunching bones. Needle sharp teeth driving itself into what almost crushed her, swallowing it past the event horizon. Her hands found his shoulders as he jolted. "Okay, that hurts like a mother—" It tore through her mind, the reactor core, halfway through its explosion — until it stopped. Time froze around the atmospheric pressure of the black hole.

Neo lifted his hand. "That bad?"

Nova sniffed and nodded. "You don't have to act like this makes sense, Neo," she rasped as he checked the rest of her leg. "There's nothing there. The pain I'm feeling—"

"Seems real enough," he said, no longer focused on her. "Do you want me to say you're faking it?" Something cold entered the greys when he gave her a side-eye.

Nova tensed when he drew closer to the painful spot the debris lodged into. "There's nothing there," she repeated, more to herself. "Nothing."

Neo frowned without looking at her. "You want to know something funny?"

"Huh?" Pain swirled her brain.

"Mom wanted me to be a doctor." He shrugged. "I didn't want to disappoint her, but I had nothing to worry about in the end when I took up anomalous studies and she supported me anyway," he said, calm and collected as he let go of her leg. "I still tried, though, but as it turns out, that means having to deal with people. Hurt people. Sick people. I wouldn't know where to start. I'd want to help them, and then feel bad if I don't have an answer. Better that I'm studying anomalies, where any... failure to... do what I'm supposed to won't hurt other people. Just me, if worse comes to worse." He stared at her leg. "I try to find the answers in everything."

"You're so good with people though," Nova mumbled.

Neo gave her an empty grin and said nothing more as he checked her leg one last time. After a quiet moment, he said, "I don't see anything wrong, but I believe you when you say that you're feeling pain." He took off the gloves to throw them in the garbage. "I know that's not a satisfactory answer."

No, Neo, you're wrong.

Nova grabbed onto his shoulders when he hauled her off the table, and the pain numbed against her knees. "You should lie down," he said.

"I think you would've made a good doctor," she whispered.

"I guess we'll never know. I enjoy anomalous studies too much." Nova set her on her bed, and she curled into the blankets. "Speaking of, I need to deliver my findings to central command, but I couldn't get my thoughts straight in the briefing. If you need to get to the medical tower, just call me."

"Wait." Nova reached out before he left her side. "Don't do that. Just stay here for a little longer. If... If they're going to do another briefing, I'll be ready."

Neo sat down on his bed when she let go of him. "I still think you should go to the medical tower."

Just stay with me.

"Guess I'll lie down, then. Collect my thoughts." Neo chuckled and whipped out his datascroll to sprawl across his bed. "If they do another briefing, you don't need to go."

"I know. I want to."

Because... because something needs to change.

Nova sat there in her silence, then asked, "Neo?"

"Yeah?" He opened up another tab on his datascroll.

"How do you do it?"

"What?"

"Get up in front of people," she whispered, a plan forming in her mind. "How do you do it? I always end up stumbling on my words, or completely forgetting what I meant to say." She tangled her fingers into her shirt. "How do you do it?"

Neo pursed his lips and brushed his finger across the screen of his datascroll. "I pretend nothing else exists, which is quite easy for me to do," he said with another laugh. "I focus on... a point past the crowd. Failing that, I actually focus on you," he admitted. "That's what I told you to do, remember? Focus on something that makes it easier to get the words out. I know not everything works the same for some, but that's how I do it. Why?"

I need them to believe me. I need them to know. If more people know, maybe there's more opportunity to change. I'm just one person, there's so many more qualified on this space station. Nova smiled at him. "Just curious. I need to get better at it."

Pretend like I still have the opportunity to have something normal. Like the crippling anxiety I feel when I'm standing in front of people, and they expect me to deliver. And my brain goes blank.

Neo raised an eyebrow. "Nova... I never shut up."

"What?"

"I never shut up," he said. "That helps. If I don't talk, I'm just stuck with... my own thoughts, and they can get pretty out of control." He laughed, but it was tight in his voice. False. Fake. His smile never touched his eyes. "You... You can do it with a sense of purpose. You can get to the point once you're over the hurdle. I have a tendency to preamble. Just to fill the gaps in my point, when I should just get to it."

"People still listen to you," she pointed out.

Neo dragged his gaze to the ceiling.

"They do," she insisted at his silence.

"They listen to white noise," he whispered. "People need white noise. A word here and there, and then just droning on and on. I know because that's how people sound sometimes to me when I drift off. Droning." He tipped his head back against his pillow with a shaky huff. "I should be a better listener." He sucked in his lips then twisted onto his side to keep his back to her. "People enjoy listeners. Because then they can actually get a word in."

"What are you talking about?" she questioned, the pain long gone.

"Nothing, Nova," he said after a moment of silence, and twisted back to her, a glassy emptiness in the greys. "Just... rambling, like I usually do." He took a deep breath. "Thank you for listening." Out of his bed, Nova winced when he shuffled to the door. "I'll come back, but I need to get this to central command first, okay?"

"Neo—?"

He was gone.

Nova frowned and pressed her hand into her leg. No more pain.

Exhaustion dragged her back into the covers, and she rested her arm over her brow, trying to unravel the truth of the loop — and Neo.

What was he talking about?