prompts 5 and 34 for engineer mark please?
Love me some angst. Post-ISWM pt. 2
Prompt: “I can’t sleep. Can I sleep here?” / “It’s just you and me.”
You didn’t go down to the planet like the others, preferring to stay on the Invincible II where you could see it and protect it. It had been some days since you’d last seen a wormhole, but the creeping feeling that you’d be sucked into another dimension at any moment had yet to fade. You couldn’t eat. You couldn’t sleep. But you could pace the bridge, staring into (literal) space, pretending you were okay.
You turned. Mark stood at the door, refusing to meet your eye. He shifted his weight back and forth, shuffling his feet. “I can’t sleep,” he blurted out, when you didn’t say anything. He gestured to his cryopod, just to the right of the door. “Can I sleep in there? I’m . . . more comfortable there.”
You kept your expression carefully blank even as a maelstrom of thoughts crashed into your mind; Mark here, for decades, entire lifetimes, with nothing but himself and the ship, looking for a solution. Looking for you to be a solution.
“Captain?” Mark asked, and you cleared your throat; you’d been silent too long.
“Of course,” you said, hoping your voice was steady. “You can sleep wherever you want.”
For a moment Mark looked so intensely grateful that you had to avert your eyes. You heard his quiet footsteps as he plodded to his cryopod, and thought even those footsteps were exhausted.
You turned. Mark had the cryopod door open and was half-in, leaning out to talk to you.
“Do you ever think about how it’s just you and me?” He asked. “Just you and me who know, I mean. What happened.”
Of course you did. It was all you thought about.
You paused a moment to compose your answer. Mark’s stare remained on you, unwavering.
“It is just you and me,” you said carefully. “But it is you and me. You’ll never be alone with what happened because I know, too.”
For the first time since you’d destroyed the universe, Mark smiled. “Thank you, Captain.” He said. “That makes me feel better.”
He climbed fully into the cryopod, its interior glowing faintly as it booted up. As the door shut and latched you turned back out to look at the massive planet below, glad Mark found your words comforting but wishing you felt the same.