Minkowski, 41
“I feel like I can’t breathe.” She rests her head against the window with a sigh and closes her eyes. “You probably think I’m being ridiculous, right? All this atmosphere and I just can’t. Breathe.”
“I don’t think you’re being ridiculous.” Hera’s voice rings tinny through the cheap speakers they’ve installed for her in every room. “I don’t have lungs, and I can still get anxiety. Stupid programming. Stupid biology.”
“Stupid biology,” she echoes, and gives her a short, tired laugh. “It was fine when we were dealing with plant monsters and aliens and imminent death on a daily basis. Why is this happening now?”
Hera sighs. “You know, your processing power is so limited.”
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“It means you prioritised. You dealt with the difficult crap and now… now you’re dealing with the stuff that came with it.”
“Meaning anxiety? That’s not- I’m not like that.”
“And I am?” Her tone would have been spiky once, but time (and losing Eiffel) had dulled it to a dry humour. “Panic attacks are a normal part of-”
“Don’t say it.”
She raises her voice: “A normal part of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Which you have. And Lovelace has. And Jacobi probably has, not that I’ve asked. And Eiffel would have if he could remember the first three words.”
“And they have reasons to be traumatised. Me? I went to space. I got the command I always wanted. I fought some bad guys. I got exactly what I wanted,” she says, and hears the bitterness creep into her voice. “All it cost me was a husband, and that’s…” They’re working on it. They’ll probably be working on it for a long time. “It’s not like I lost anything.”
“You lost who you were. We all did. And we might be home now, but we can’t go back. Not really.”
She looks up towards the cameras with something like a smile. “If I could… even if I could go back, I wouldn’t. Not to before I met you and Eiffel and Lovelace. Before I knew you were a person, not a number. You’re you. And I wouldn’t trade knowing you for… anything.”
There was something like a smile in Hera’s voice too: “Neither would I.”
