The Icarus II’s mission is to deliver a massive stellar bomb in humanity's last ditch, desperate attempt to reignite the sun and save life on earth. En-route they encounter the Icarus I, lost 7 years prior. Then some really weird sh*t happens.
In the same garden that housed their first fortuitous encounter in the hellscape that was the planet Earth, Raphael waited patiently for the woman that had called for his presence. When he saw her arriving in the distance, he almost called out for her — the instinct was still rooted deeply. He really was quite incapacitated without a voice. Just in the nick of time, he remembered, and instead he raised the makeshift message board, drawing the stylus over the surface to write a message: ‘YOU’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR ME?’
warnings: capa is mildly suicidal but it's basically tooth-rotting fluff for the most part, capa has a bruise from his fight with mace, i try (and fail) to explain several pieces of theoretical physics through dialogue despite having only a layman's understanding of the concepts.
summary: capa's insomnia inadvertently causes an impromptu date.
word count: 3263
a/n: i know almost nothing about physics, but I do try to explore some of the concepts in the narrative here, so when I inevitably get things painfully wrong, please do correct me. AlsoI know that Searle is the medic as well as the psych officer, but you're going to have to bear with me here. I sort of think of Doc as a bit of an all rounder on board: part gardener, part mechanic, part cook. Basically a spare who helps keep everything running smoothly until it's time to treat illness and injuries.
The floor lights burst in and out of life like tiny stars as I tip-toe down the hall. Icarus tracks my movements closely, giving enough light to see my feet and enough darkness to stay half asleep. The dream is still fresh in my mind, almost more real than the floor beneath my feet. It was frightening, but I wish I could salvage that feeling somehow. The weightlessness and unbearable brightness, the heat and pain so strangely pleasurable, like cleaning corruption from a wound. I wonder if it would truly be so magnificent to die that way. I know I should doubt it- that death is grotesque in truth- but a piece of me still clings to the sense of belonging I felt as my hands turned to dust and burned away into the cosmos. I focus my eyes on the floor lights as they appear and try to bring the vision back into my mind. The lights pale in comparison to the unbending beauty of the sun's surface, but I still see the orange ripples of the source of all life swimming in the tiny artificial effigies. The details of the dream are slipping out of my grasp, back into the shadows of my subconscious when I collide with something warm and hard. I stumble back, sucking in a breath and wheel back blindly to punch my assailant.
"Hey, hey!" A low, gravelly voice commands me, and my arms lock in a vice grip. "Ah- calm down! Icarus, floor lights up."
White light floods the hallway and I come back into myself to see that I'm trapped in the arms of Robert Capa. God help me, he's so cute. His hair is ruffled up and his brow is creased with concern as he sets his nebulous blue eyes on me, locking me into their gravity field.
"What's the matter with you, Doc?"
"Ca-Capa... I'm sorry." I will myself to pull away from him, but time and space seem to stand still. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"
"No, but you were going to." He huffs.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry-"
"Relax. What are you doing up anyway?"
"I-" As he frowns, it feels as if every pair of eyes in the universe are scrutinising me. "I was just... Taking a walk."
"Where?" A smirk tugs at the corner of his lip like a fishhook.
"Nowhere."
"Funny. That's exactly where I'm going." He lets me out of his grasp and pushes past me to walk a few paces down the hall, then looks over his shoulder. "Are you coming?"
He gives me a rare smile of encouragement, and as I walk obediently towards him I realise he could make me do anything he wanted with just that smile.
As the primary medic on board the Icarus 2, I am essentially the mother of my crewmates. I kiss their grazes and fuss over them all. I listen to them cry and offer what comfort I can before I move them to the more calculated psychiatric care of Searle. It is my job to love these people as if they are my own family, and I do sincerely. I must treat everyone with equal kindness and empathy, never picking favourites or singling out scapegoats, but when I look at Robert Capa, my training is sucked out of the airlock. No matter how much I try to deny it to myself, I know that his safety and happiness takes absolute precedence in my mind. He is my first thought in the morning and the last one at night. Speaking to him is the only thing that brings me peace, even more than the Earth Room. We are a handful of humans traversing the impossibly massive vacuum of space; we should all be losing our minds, but I feel safe as long as I am close to Capa. Even so, dreams can be more frightening than reality. I want to reach for him somehow and ask him to take on the futile task of protecting me from my own subconscious.
My throat dries up and my cheeks are burning as I walk close beside him, my hand inches from his. I could just slip my fingers in between his. Surreptitious. He might not even notice. What might be an insignificant gesture to him would serve to anchor me to reality. I'm not sure if it's my logical side or simply fear, but I stay my hand and follow beside him as he marches through the hallways, fleet footed and silent.
"So, um," My voice wavers. "Where are we going?"
"Almost there." Capa inclines his head toward me and the ghost of a smile passes over his face.
We wind through a few more hallways until we reach the Payload unit. Capa fiddles with the keypad.
"Why are we here?"
He keeps his eyes trained on the keypad, but quirks an eyebrow and bites the inside of his cheek, his expression somewhere between amused and annoyed.
"Primary Payload entrance unlocked." Icarus lowers the intercom volume and isolates her voice to only this corridor so the rest of the crew may sleep undisturbed.
"Mind yourself." Capa warns as he releases the door and steps inside.
As I pad in behind him, it seems as if a whole world is opening up before me. I have only been inside the Payload a handful of times, and the sheer size of the place awes me every time. Panels upon panels stretching for miles in every direction, each one containing enough nuclear matter to fuel an atomic bomb.
"Beautiful, isn't she?" All the wonder I feel is written on Capa's face.
All I can do is nod. There is a power here that none of us can comprehend, maybe not even Capa himself. I follow him as he traverses the scaffolding that runs a few stories above the ground until he sits down, dangling his feet over the railing. I have only ever seen the Payload from ground level, and the huge scope of the glossy black room is all the more evident from up high.
"It's big in here." I say it just to fill the silence.
Capa huffs, eyes alight with amusement. I sit close beside him and try to focus on the view.
"Fifty billion tonnes of fissile material." Capa muses. "Every scrap of accessible nuclear fuel in our solar system is in this room. The Stellar Bomb. Payload. Humanity's final hail Mary. Doesn't it make you feel tiny?"
Though I have heard every detail hundreds of times before, Capa's voice breathes life into the story that every human in the planetary system thinks about in every waking moment.
"I feel tiny next to you." I admit. "You are the Payload. You're the only person in the universe who can pull off the detonation."
"No pressure, huh?" Capa squints.
"None at all." I bump him with my elbow. "But I didn't mean to freak you out or-"
"I've heard it all before, don't worry."
With nothing to say, we fall into silence again. I drop my legs over the edge and kick them like a child on a swing. I tap his foot with mine earning a breathy laugh, and for a minute or two we tussle as we both try to keep our feet on top. He eventually wins by pushing his ankle underneath mine and locking my foot down under his. My heart races so hard that I'm afraid Icarus might ask me why I'm exercising outside of the designated gym room.
"How's your bruise?"
"Hmmph." Capa lifts his shirt to reveal a yellowing bruise on his ribs. "Hurts when I poke it, but it's alright."
"Why would you poke it?" I giggle, trying hard to keep the redness off my cheeks.
"'Cause its there." He side-eyes me. "Anyway, you should have seen the other guy."
"I did! Not a scratch on him."
"That was on purpose." He closes his eyes and presses his hands together as if in prayer. "I'm completely zen in the face of violent aggression."
"Maybe you just can't fight."
"I can fight, I assure you." He cracks his knuckles and eyes me in amusement. "I'd drop you in an instant."
"Sure, you would." I nudge him.
"You wanna go?"
In a rare moment of confidence, I sling an arm around his shoulder and ruffle his long, velvety hair. He tickles my sides in response with dexterous fingers.
"C-C-Capa stop tha-at before I fall off!" I gasp between giggles.
"I've got you." His grip on me tightens, but he keeps tickling. "Now, say 'yes, Doctor Capa, you can fight.'"
"Ye-yes, Capa, you can fi-ight!"
"Doctor Capa!" He grumbles. "I have a PhD, you know."
"Yes, you can fight, D-doctor Capa."
"Say I'm the most handsome physicist in the solar system."
"You're the mo-host handsome physi- physicist in the- the solar system!"
"Good girl." He quits tickling but keeps a strong hold of me while I catch my breath.
"Dr Bigshot PhD," I say weakly. "You weaselled that out of me!"
"You didn't put up much of a fight." He growls in a voice like black treacle, and I notice how close we have gotten.
My eyes trace the dark stubble growing into the hollow of his cheeks, then his heavy, sleepy eyes, his dicky little sideburns, and finally his pink seashell lips. I feel him studying me too, and I can't help but lean closer as he rubs circles on my waist. A husky breath escapes his lips, and he relinquishes his hold on me. Leaning away, he shakes his head as if to un-stick an annoying thought. A strange, guilty sickness grips me. What did I do wrong?
"You wanna see something cool?" He slaps his hands on his knees and stands up, offering me a hand.
I nod dumbly and accept his help, just happy to touch him. Capa leads me to the control room, and goes through the familiar motions of setting up the control panel. I sit down on one of the swivel chairs and watch his slow, methodical movements. I have noticed before that Capa always thinks things through this way, doing everything by the letter. He has the same slow, practiced approach to relationships, after all it took until nearly the end of our training for Capa to really feel like a friend to myself and the rest of the crew.
"Icarus, show me the lights." Capa presses the test button.
"Yes Capa, initiating Payload visual test."
"C'mere, look." Capa pulls me close to him and points out a tiny white star blossoming in the corner of the room. "See, that's a projection of what the Payload will look like when it's detonated. It's called Cherenkov light."
"I've heard of that." I admit as the lights begin to spread and dance across the room. "How does it work?"
"It's quite fascinating, really." Capa murmurs, the wonder clear in his voice. "The light is caused by charged particles travelling through a dielectric medium faster than the speed of light. That's how powerful a nuclear reaction is. It can fire out particles faster than light itself can travel."
"It's beautiful." The lights wink and swirl together like a glowing algal bloom.
"It is. When this thing detonates and all the stars come out, there will be so much energy all in one place that time and space will smear together. For a few seconds, everything will be unquantifiable. The impossible will be possible. You could light a candle in a fish tank, live a lifetime in a second... stand, unharmed, on the surface of the sun."
"It's almost a shame that we won't get to see it up close."
"I want to. I'd die to."
"You better not." The lights begin to fade, and I look up at Capa. "I'd miss you."
"Yeah?" Capa almost smiles.
"Yeah. What's the point in any of this if we can't enjoy the sunshine together back home?"
"You don't think we'll all be sick of each other by the end of it all?"
"Well... I'm already pretty sick of Harvey, but-"
A hissing laugh escapes from Capa, and he covers his face in embarrassment.
"I think even Harvey's sick of himself by now." He snickers
"We should be careful, he might be listening."
"Oh no, he might be." He chuckles and guides me to sit with him on the lounge at the back of the room. In the quiet darkness, Capa's eyes catch the luminance of the control panel lights.
"Where were you going when we ran into each other?"
"I couldn't get to sleep. There was just... so much going through my head with the comms fuck-up, and..." He sighs. "I've just had a lot on my mind."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Not yet." Capa chews his lip. "What about you? Where were you going?"
"Oh um," I flush. "I had a dream and it frightened me. I... I guess I was just clearing my head. Can I tell you about it?"
"Sure." He shifts in his seat to face me better, and tucks his feet up under him.
"It- it was us. We were floating together in space. We weren't wearing equipment, but it was warm and we could breathe. Everything was so still, and there were stars everywhere all around us, just like the Payload test. I thought it was beautiful, and I wanted to tell you but it was like I forgot how to talk. I thought you looked like a star too, so maybe that's why I forgot, I don't know."
"Like a star?"
"Yes, you... I don't know. You were you, but amplified. A-anyway, I noticed that one of the stars was getting bigger, and bigger, and then I realised we were falling towards it. We kept falling and falling so fast that we had to hold hands, or we would have lost each other, and the stars smeared out into white lines, but I wasn't scared, and eventually we passed all these planets and I realised we were falling into the sun. We just kept getting closer and closer to it, and I could see more and more of it until it was all I could see in any direction. It was so burning hot but I couldn't die. Eventually we caught right up to it, and it was right there in front of us and we reached out to touch it, but then I woke up so I don't know what would have happened."
"That's incredible."
"It was. It was really strange, though. It was just like Searle said, the light becomes you, and because you were there too, it was like we became each other."
"Do you get why I would die to see the Payload detonate up close? Not even Icarus knows what will happen when she blows. It'll be a big bang on a small scale. It's entirely possible your dream could occur under those circumstances. You could touch the sun."
"No?" I squint, baffled at the urgency of his tone. "No. I- I don't want to die like that."
"It would be beautiful, Doc, but I won't die with the Payload." He is burning with intensity. "Not if you forbid it."
"Were you planning on it?" I laugh, hoping he is joking.
For a moment, he stares into the middle distance, focused on something only he can see. His eyes are blue supergiants; stars that burn hotter and brighter than any other, and die young as they collapse under their own weight and burst out into brilliant explosions of light.
"Yes." He finally says, coming back into himself. "For a while now, I... I've planned to detonate the Payload from inside, so I can see for myself what it's really like."
"Why?" My voice cracks in despair.
"No human being has ever seen such a thing, or ever will again. What is returning to a frozen earth worth compared to seeing the impossible?"
"Everything, Capa!" I want to shake him. "You'll get to see the ice melt. You'll get to see the world as it was when we were children."
"So will everyone."
"Exactly! We'll see it happen together."
He smiles in a ghostly far-off way.
"Forbid me to do it, and I won't."
"I forbid it." The words come as easy as breathing.
Capa nods, a shadow of disappointment passing over his face for a second before it melts into acceptance.
"Okay."
"I'm sorry." I do not fully understand why I apologise.
"Don't be. You just saved a life."
"Why did you give me the choice?"
"What do you know about entanglement theory?"
"What does that have to do with-"
"What do you know about entanglement theory?"
"Very little."
"So, basically, when placed under a huge amount of energy, such as during the Big Bang, a pair of particles can take on some shared property, and even if one of those particles ends up light years away from the other one, you can still tell that the two are entangled because they still share the same property." Capa is alight and animated in a way that only physics can make him. "Now imagine those atoms spend 13 billion years apart, until eventually they end up on earth, one as part of a person in the United States, and one as a person in Australia, and these particles can sense each other. They're calling out to each other, and it effects the people they are a part of. They make them both interested in science, they make them both adrenaline junkies with fucking god complexes who think it'll be fun to get fired into the sun in a big steel stick insect. And, eventually, the two people find each other. Well, one of them doesn't really know how to act for a while, but the other one is always good to him until he realises what he really wants, and hopefully, one day soon, she might let him kiss her and the two entangled particles can touch again."
"My god." I whisper. He can't be serious, can he? "That's some cheesy shit, Capa."
"Yeah, I know." He buries his face in his hands.
"You don't really believe that do you?"
"No." He grins. "No, I'm talking out of my ass here. But it's a good story, huh?"
"I'm impressed. But I need to know something. Capa, if I tell you now that I don't feel the same, will you throw yourself into the sun?"
"No." Capa's face creases in pain. "I already promised you I wouldn't."
"Good."
I lay my lips on his, as gently as I would hold a rose petal between my fingers. Everything he is melts into me, and I am completely and deliciously his, forever. We are simultaneously binary stars, gravitationally bound to one another in orbit, and a pair of insignificant creatures trapped in the void of space by the hubris of our species. Our hands move across every inch of each other in the ancient, desperate hunger that humans have felt for centuries. The hunger to be closer, even when two bodies are pressed flush against each other, the hunger remains. It is as if there is something deep inside each of us that pines to be touched by the other, something that wants to burst out of us and be a new kind of naked. Everything I have felt for Capa since the start of our training boils out of me and into the kiss. I never want to be without him.
