Nova coughed for air and lifted herself to her knees. Neo tore his hands away from his eyes to lunge for her. "Nova, stars. Talk to me."

"I'm fine," she mumbled through sticky webs caught in her throat and used his shoulders to steady herself. "What are you doing here? I told you to go to central command."

"Fine? You are not fine. You were getting strangled." His grey eyes turned to the same hard iron as before with a lick of fearful rage. "I'm glad I didn't do that and listened to my gut." He embraced her, and her tears spilled over at her inability to shoot; where Neo — peaceful, gentle, excitable Neo who avoided violence like the plague even if it would save his own life — managed the one thing she found herself unable to do.

He snapped his head to Thuni's corpse, and cringed into scooting away from her. "I-I didn't think—I never thought Thuni would..." Tears fell down his cheeks as he pressed his unbloodied hands against his face, clawing at his cheeks. "I didn't want to kill him, I just—"

"Neo, no, that's not Thuni." Nova squeezed his shaking hands. "It wasn't Thuni. He was already dead, but why didn't you go to central command?"

Neo sat cross-legged in front of her. "It's like I said, I... I was going to go like you suggested," he murmured. "I just couldn't ignore the sensation that you were up to something when you threw me off the transit — and kissed me, I guess, but that's besides the point—" He rubbed his knuckles into his temples. "I went back to our room and grabbed your extra blaster. I don't know what came over me, but I knew I had to get to the droid bay before I was too late." He sighed, then pressed a hand against his heart. "It was like something screamed in my head to go, and before I knew it, I was here and..." He hid in his hands. "This is so messed up."

"Neo." Nova held his shoulders. "Neo, I know it's messed up, but—"

"No. No, I don't think that's the right word for it." He drew his attention to the terminal. Numbers glitched across the screen, and he pulled her to her feet. Nova rubbed her throat when he stopped at the desk to grab the sample. "Is this what you were after?" He poked the core. "This?" He shuffled on his feet in discomfort, too close to Thuni's corpse.

Nova steadied her breathing before joining him at the terminal. "Yeah."

Neo eyed Thuni's corpse, but Nova tugged him back to the terminal, away from the consequences of her actions. "What do you make of this?" One eye on the corpse, she refused to relax on the off chance it got up to enact a third revenge, to choke her or pierce Neo's throat so he drowned in his own blood.

Neo wrote information down onto his datascroll. "Alone, this can't tell me much." He thumbed the sample, then frowned. Using his free hand to trace the lines, he stopped at the highest points where they met. "It mirrors each other, fractured from the whole." He shrugged off an unseen weight and held the beaker over the core. "You have to fill in the gaps."

Nova jolted when the station screamed out the same warning as before.

Neo ignored the call, and tipped the sample over the core.

Counteraction to similarity. It unraveled against the biological compound and became one constant line. Disbelief crushed despair when she pushed to gaze into the truth. Steam slipped through the metal core as it absorbed the traces left behind. I can replicate this. I can replicate this with a couple of fuel cells and a subcore to release the energy — the question is, how much would it output? Nova drummed her fingers on its axis. Definitely anything in the vicinity might vaporize upon release, but—

Nova tickled her cheek, but frowned when Neo tipped forward.

His eyes rolled into the back of his head across the trail of grey stars.

Glass shattered when he hit the ground and the rest of the sample scattered across.

"Neo?" Nova knelt over him to shake his shoulder, but he winced. "Are you okay?"

"Sorry... dizzy spell..." he mumbled, and she lifted him to his feet again, tugging him back from Thuni's corpse and the released sample when the ooze slid for the vent and disappeared to the unseen whole. Agitation worsened the soreness in her throat, and she coughed as Neo wrapped an arm over her shoulders. "Let's just get out of here, Nova," he whispered. "We have to tell central command what happened here and get a report on what else is happening... and get you some help."

"I'm okay," she echoed.

"Nova, as I said, you almost got strangled to death."

"Well, I'm not dead." Nova steadied him when he swayed. "Also, I'm not having dizzy spells."

"That isn't the point," he argued, his tone sharp. Nova frowned, and he pressed his face into his hand. "I'm sorry, I just—" The same unreadable expression fell over his face, and he let out a small huff crossed between a whimper and a sigh. "I don't know what's wrong with me. Ignore me." He quaked and his breathing came out short, almost stuttered, but no tears fell down his cheeks. "Let's just get out of here, please?"

"Neo..." Nova nodded and grabbed the core off the terminal to disconnect it from her droid before stuffing it into an empty pack and heaving it over her shoulder. "I'm going to take this with me. Ulin wasn't here, so they must be... somewhere else." At least if the previous loop is anything to go off, but they went with Thuni earlier...

Nova checked on the fallen engineer one last time, who never moved in the loop. She picked up the blaster Neo dropped, and slipped it into his hands with no argument from him. He holstered it, lips tight as they shuffled back to the transit station in silence. Inside, she started it and it ran down the track.

Back to where she first left him behind.

She sat down at his urging, and he took the seat beside her and slipped down the back. Nova whispered, "Neo, you know he was already dead."

"How would you know that?" he asked, empty. "Maybe I could've talked him down. Aggression due to the vicinity of anomalies isn't that uncommon. It just—It felt like I had no other choice, but Nova, we always have a choice. I just wasn't thinking." He squeezed his eyes closed with a cringe as he doubled forward.

I know. Nova listened to his quickening breathing. "You saved my life, Neo." Something I couldn't do for you, all that time even when I scolded you for refusing to defend yourself.

He took in another small breath before snapping against the chair in wide-eyed shakiness. "How am I going to explain this to Ulin? Or to anyone? Oh, stars." He snapped out of the chair to wrap his hands around himself. "Stars, I killed someone."

"Neo—"

"None of this makes sense." He pointed in random directions. "You told me to check on the anomaly but it hadn't changed. How do I know that?" His eyes went ever wider as he leaned forward and trembled, rubbing the tips of his fingers into his palms. "It would've sent out an alert." He wandered the length of the moving transit and gave himself no chance to breathe.

Nova got out of the chair. "Neo—"

"Thuni never went near the anomaly," he said, sucking in small quantities of air and it echoed down her own throat, for an escape. "If anything the main research team would get hit. He can't access it." He trembled and his pupils dilated as he stared at the door off the tram. "Is it the droid? Is the droid causing the aggression—no—no that won't make sense—wouldn't—" He drove his fingers into his cheeks and sank closer to the wall, strangled by the very air he needed to live, and Nova lost her way when he rested his arm against the door and rested his brow against it, his words failing. "Ingest it? Why would anyone ingest it? No."

"Neo." Nova came closer to him at the shattered, piercing silence that came next, where his gaze snapped to her and he curled closer to the wall. "You're hyperventilating. You haven't taken a good breath."

He rested his clammy brow back on his arm as he shook against it, but somehow stiff all at once. Dread carved terror into his cheeks and widened his eyes further. Frozen in time, caught by his own rapid breathing as it left through his nose and he grimaced deeper into his sleeve, and a shivering rumble from the black hole drove teeth into her spine.

Just...

"Can you sit down?" she whispered.

Neo inched around to set his free hand on the seats beside him. His fingers dug into the plush and he lowered his head between his shoulders, his words long gone. "I... I know this doesn't make sense," she said, keeping her own breath steady. "I'll talk to Ulin so you don't have to. I'll explain the situation to them."

They won't remember when it resets. Neither will Thuni, or you. Just me. No matter what, I need to find a way to break this so you don't suffer. Nova reached her hand out for him to take, and she frowned at the clamminess of his skin when he squeezed her fingers. He slipped down into a sitting position. The transit stopped, but she frowned when Neo refused to, or couldn't, move. Nova leaned closer to him. "Do you need a bit longer?"

I will give you all the time you need... even if I don't have that time to give.

He nodded but kept his gaze on his legs, stunned into silence. He looked back up at her, and Nova put her hand on her chest in silent solidarity. Over. In, and out. Nova breathed deeper for her own lost air, and he echoed her, followed her.

He finally blinked, then shook his head. "I'm missing something important," he rasped.

"Sleep might be a start," she tried to joke, and smiled when one quirked the edge of his lips.

Nova sat at the end of the seats as he echoed her breathing instead of the rapid-fire heartbeat in the atmosphere. "Come here." He scooted closer without another word. A reflection of time she wanted to return to, to rest and sleep in the comfort of home. His shoulders stiffened, but he slumped into her when she held out her arms. Nova kept him close as his eyes shut, but the doors opened for their retreat.

"... I'll contact them soon," he mumbled through fabric. "I need to tell them which direction we're coming from... defenses not turned on us..."

Nova leaned into her seat to catch her own breaths. She tried to separate the monster from Thuni, but they overlapped all the same to murder Neo in front of her, and almost killed her had Neo not acted the way she should have before.

It was the one time. Nova brushed Neo's hair as the trembling subsided. I know something now. I'm not going to subject either of them to this again. Thuni's actions weren't his own. He was dead. Nova continued to count the time in her heart. He was gone. He trapped himself in that room when he realised there was no helping him. Neo and I just let the monster loose... not that I think trapping it in a room would do much, not that Thuni knew that. I can't blame him. I won't. Nova brushed the bag beneath the seat with her foot as Neo slipped into an uneasy doze. I might be able to stop this.

But for now... I need to let him sleep. And I need just a little bit of time to think and collect myself.

Alarms rang, but she found solace in the silence between. "It'll be okay," she whispered, not just to him.

But to herself, to find the overflow of hope for an end.