How did everything come to this?

On the edge of the ripping, screeching black hole, released into torment when the destabilization of the space station began in earnest. Teeth tore at the limbs and created a multitude of sucking vacuums in broken parts. Her head screamed at the writhing mass unable to unravel itself into a calm, but no less powerful, pressurized state. Her voice never escaped her lungs as it tore metal apart and flaked off the carapace which kept them from the freezing heat death.

Neo.

Nova winced when a tendril swept through the massive reactor core and sent a shock-wave through her body. It was too much. Too fast. Everything went wrong at once as he ripped the station apart in his pain.

Neo.

But as he warned her, he couldn't hear her. Nova found the event horizon chewing in the lower bowels of the space station, where he saved her the first time, but in consequence, died for his act of loyalty. Flames sputtered across the abyss in falling stars, sucked into the depths of the center. Nova held on tight when the catwalk beneath her cracked. Her footing scrambled, but she held on tight to find a way across.

If I let him destroy that reactor... I don't think the reset will be safe. Things aren't resetting. This is bad.

Teeth cracked through the walls and burst out nebulous crimson to splatter over her view.

Her catwalk slipped further, threatening to drop her to the level below. "Neo!" she snapped. "It's me!"

There's no one else...

Everyone went in one swept motion, leaving her alone because she dodged at the right time.

But he can't hear me anymore.

Nova scowled and tried to find another unbroken route around the subcores. One cracked and burst, sending piercing light into her eyes. A gasp escaped her throat when a whistle of piercing teeth drove itself deeper into the space station. All around her, all at once.

Free of the pain, but never the agony in her screaming head, she took out the broken necklace and slipped past the event horizon. Into silent darkness to leave her ears ringing with a piercing shriek. "Neo, you have to turn it back," she said, feeling a little silly for attempting to reason with a black hole, but in the end, it was a manifestation of the anomaly's power, with Neo as a vessel. "Just turn it back, I can prevent this. I can stop you."

Just let me try again.

Grey stars twisted into crimson tears as the ground beneath her rumbled, and she fought the terror at the edge of the universe. "Come on," she whispered when the inevitability nipped at her heels. "You said you believed in me." Nova winced at the quiet without his voice, staring into the abyss when it swirled around her. "Let me try. Let me fix my mistake."

Teeth grew in the maw, a threatening snarl, different from the bluff he gave when she stood over the bomb.

But if I can't reach you... what can I do?

Nova held out the necklace with starlit sinew curling around the wings of time. It floated in zero gravity over her palm. Embers burst along the glass surface, and she winced when it shattered and dissipated into the event horizon, a return to its owner. "It fit you better anyway," she whispered.

The piercing unfathomable shriek in her head stopped.

"Just turn it back," she begged in a break in the torment. "Let me try, just once. I can get to you if you let me do this again. I'm certain of it."

"STATION DESTABILIZATION IN PROGRESS," the PA system said through terrible static, so far in the distance, an echoing distress beacon for those spared the fate of both the D.S Butterfly and the B.H Supernova. Two doomed research stations sent to the edge of the galaxy, one after the other.

A plume of nebulous grey clouds spread inwards, and she shivered when the alarms layered over the moan of metal. "You don't have to die for this," she whispered and closed her eyes. "Not for someone else's arrogance."

Not for someone else's mistake.

It cracked in her ears, but she felt no pain.

People clamored with their returned voices.

Thank you, Neo.

I knew that no matter what... you were still you.

Nova stood up in the slow motion of time, causing Thuni and Ulin to stare at her in confusion with Neo's lost presence beside her. I need to stop this. I need to make sure there's time to get him to the source. Chair tossed to the side though everything tried to follow her and stop her. Out of the silent, ringing briefing hall, where Izerva swept their gaze to her in confusion, but there was no more time, his warning fell on her shoulders.

I can't let this happen again.

It screamed.

Nova reached the eastern living quarters, where the past two loops ended with gunshots, one way or the other. She slammed her fist into the lock, losing precious seconds, precious moments. Her foot went into the side, and she forced the door open.

Neo energised the capacitor, looming over his last death as he brought it closer to his temples.

This will all end.

Nova lunged at him to grab his arm, tugging him back and causing him to gasp. He writhed in her grip, struggling against her, but she readied herself to do whatever it took to keep him from cementing his fate. Both of them tangled limbs, and Nova wrapped her arm around his back to try and force him down to his knees. Time roared against her. There was no time for second-guessing, or for caution.

Nova pushed him against the wall with her side, the hasty scramble almost made her fumble. Almost made her lose. Her breath quickened as she kept herself pressed against him and tore the blaster out of his frozen grip. Deenergized and taking every single piece she could out to scatter them to the wind, she dropped it to her feet, then kicked it into the wall with whatever strength she had left.

It continued to ring when Neo pushed her, but she whipped around to press her hands into his face, to get him to wake up from the last loop.

"It's me," she begged.

Tears reddened his face as he hyperventilated with a sob. His hands rested on the wall, and she dared let herself relax for a moment.

A moment too long.

It washed out the feeling in her limbs when the grey nebula overtook his eyes in one fleeting second.

He slipped to his knees when his breathing stiffened as he appeared to glance back and forth between the unseen. Nova reached her hand out to steady him, but the pressure exploded her mind when he screamed and echoed the shriek of the last's pain.

It's like no matter what I do...

"Neo. Neo," she pushed into his waving arms to keep him steady as he vibrated and it continued and threatened to burst open her skull with the endless sound. "I know." Nova held onto him, wanting nothing more than to take the pain from him and unto herself as he drove his fingers into her ribs to cling onto her.

Time sped up.

He went quiet.

Nova relinquished herself when his grip slacked, and held his forearms. "Neo? Neo, look at me."

He shivered in cold exhaustion. In another breath, he lifted his head where the nebula twisted around his pupils, driving its teeth into it to reveal the starless sea. Nova smiled and tightened her grip on his elbows. "Good, you can hear me," she whispered and brushed his head. "It's okay now. It's okay."

I got here in time.

He released a shaky breath as he went to stand up, and Nova braced herself when he slumped, then collapsed onto the floor. Panic swept into her mind, but she fought it off to loom over him, to check everything. He breathed, shaken, but alive. Unconscious.

As she brushed her hand down his back, she turned when large footsteps ran to kick open the door. "What happened?" Admiral Mythrai snapped.

Nova sucked in her tears, then rasped, "He just tried to kill himself."

It was the hard truth.

Everything returned to the despairing tension as before.

"Alert medical tower that we have an emergency!" Admiral Mythrai snapped to the nosey personnel, but Nova ignored them to poke Neo's cheek, then brought her hand to his necklace to investigate its surface. Small cracks formed in the wings, and she winced at the touch of dark crimson from a previous loss, tiny, almost unnoticeable, but there. "Spacyn, are you alright?"

Nova forced herself to nod and brought Neo closer to her lap.

"Izerva," Admiral Mythrai said, taking charge through the pressure in the air. "Stay with them until they bring a healing pod here in case Teimea attempts it again." Admiral Mythrai shooed other personnel before disappearing in a rush.

Neo trembled and shut his eyes tighter.

Izerva blinked. "Engineer Nova?" They came closer to touch his shoulder. "There is something wrong. His energy is shattering, disappearing."

It's so much to explain to them. I just need to make sure he's okay first. Then... then I need to check something. Just for a bit. "Izerva?" she rasped. "After-After this, can you meet me in the southern bay?"

Izerva tipped their head. "I shall try."

Nova held out her arms when Neo tried to tear himself off the ground with a quiet sob. "Come here," she instructed. "Come here, Neo." Her back hit the wall when he hugged her. "Thank stars," she whispered to the cosmos as he tucked into her. I did something right for once.

Izerva sidled over to the broken blaster to pick up the pieces and holstered it in the safety of their belt.

It took long minutes for a medical team to arrive with a healing pod floating behind them. Nova ripped her own heart in two when they lifted him away from her, and he gave no attempt to fight as one lifted him on the bed, slipping a vitamask over his clammy face. Nova took Izerva's hand to haul herself off the clean ground, and went to follow, but jolted when a doctor stopped her.

"You're Nova Spacyn, right?" they asked, gently.

"Yes."

"We have to get Mr. Teimea set up first before we let people see him. We don't want to overwhelm him," they said. "Let us get him to the medical tower, and we'll contact you when it's safe to do so."

"He's my partner," Nova hissed. "I have to be with him. He's in pain and—" And I need to tell him everything.

"I understand," the doctor said with a shake of their hand. "You will be the first one we call when he's calmed down."

Izerva clung onto her shoulder with a small flick of their ears. Nova scowled, then stopped fighting the hurdles. Late tears drove into her cheeks when they took him away, alive, but so far out of her reach and the real end of the loops.

"We can take this time to head to the southern bay," Izerva signed with one slow, calm movement. "I know it is hard not to worry yourself sick with something like this, but you will not help Neo Teimea if you do."

I know. I know that better than anyone here.

Nova shuffled along behind Izerva, almost losing her will to move through space. It filled her mind with his tormented shriek of pain instead of despair. When I stopped you... you started seeing something... and it was too much. With no way to win without harm, she let it go and got on the transit.

Thuni and Ulin were inside at their arrival, staring down at their terminal. "Oh, hey, Spacyn," Thuni said, but stopped. "What... happened? Last I saw you, you just left the briefing without a word so..."

Nova bit her tongue and tried not to cry and choke.

Izerva stepped forward. "Give her time, Engineer Horizol... it is not an easy thing," they signed with a sigh. "It is Neo Teimea."

Thuni's brow furrowed. "He didn't come to the briefing." He went quiet, then a flicker of recognition swept into his features when he looked at her. "Is he okay?" A question of a thousand lifetimes, and she no longer knew the answer.

"He's alive," Nova managed out. "I... I need to tell you three something, and you're probably going to think I'm nuts." With the last of her strength she headed for the terminals. "Have you opened your droid?"

"No?" Ulin questioned.

"Do it, it might make things I'm about to say make sense," she said through tears.

Thuni nodded at Ulin, and Nova slipped into the chair at their terminal as Ulin jumped down to the lower landing pad to work at the chewed droid. Her heart pounded with the truth, and she released a soft sob when Ulin gasped, and Thuni twisted around. "What?" they asked.

"What is it?" Thuni asked.

Ulin climbed back up with her core. "This isn't our core."

Everyone looked at her when she burst out into sobbing laughter.

"It's not," she rasped. "Your core is in my droid." It fell down her face with the last of what was left of her strength. "If you're wondering how it got in there, we switched them. You don't remember, but we did it before. You can even check the security footage. I had no time to do the switch before the briefing." Her chest hurt when she wrapped her arms around it, and Izerva loomed over her. "We're in a time loop that's starting to shatter. We brought that anomaly in... and it dragged us into a fracture. We didn't find the D.S Butterfly." Nova choked. "It found us."

In the screaming silence of their collected disbelief, she pressed her hands into her face and cried.