One quick breath and it's over. She's sad, and she is angry about the way it ends, but mostly she misses her friends. Especially her best friend, whose last words to her were "I... love you." She feels cheated, somehow, that she never gets to see any of them again, especially him and his blue, blue eyes.
But it is over, and to go back would just be reliving old memories. So she puts it behind her and moves on. Yeah, she thinks about them all from time to time, especially those blue eyes, and wonders what really happened to them. And it all comes back to her when she has a difficult decision she has to make and she wants to make sure she does what's right. Yeah, if she learned nothing else while she was on that bus, she learned how to think about complex moral decisions. In her life after the ride is over, she has learned that "ruthless calculus" is about a lot more than war.
She moves on. She makes new friends, finds a great job, takes a lover. Takes another lover. Always drawn to men with a dry sense of humor and clear blue eyes. She moves to a new city for a promotion. Finds the man she marries, the father of her children. Another thing she learned on that journey was to value loyalty; he values it, too. They go through life together, helping each other, best friends.
Some of their children flourish, some not so much. She and her husband try to help enough, but not too much. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they don't. They live a life like most lives around them. Nothing special. Nothing heroic. She is content. But once in a while, when the moon is dark and the wind is high, she wanders out into their backyard alone, looks up with longing to the stars flung across the unclouded sky.
Sometimes, when she remembers, she feels silly. Here it is, 40 years later, and she can't forget. Some part of her is frozen there in time, never to move, never to change. So silly, she'll think, then shake her head and return to her day.
Time goes by. She has grand children, one great grandchild, and she is very old. Frail. Her husband ages beside her and they are content until the day he dies. He says he's ashamed of it, but he's grateful he doesn't ever have to learn what it is like to live without her. She understands completely, and is beside him when his last breath is taken and he has to go.
Alone, tired, she spends a lot of time reliving her very good life. And her journey on that bus, that beautiful sleek interstellar bus so very long ago. She's almost glad that there is no way back now to that story she left behind her. It has stayed clear and pristine in her mind, one time, one set of choices, one set of consequences, one great friendship that had become so much more. One great love that lay hidden in her heart through scores of years. An impossible love. But undeniable nonetheless.
She is home, in an adjustable bed by the window. Her eldest son is with her. She loves how much like his father he is, with the dark hair and crystal blue eyes. She can no longer sit up, or speak much, but he holds her hand and they wait together in companionable silence. Their eyes are shining with tears, but it is only right that they should be.
Her eyes are heavy and she feels it is time. No more struggling, no more yearning, just peace. She is not afraid, not at all, and she breathes a little sigh. It is over.
Her son holds her hand a minute longer, then goes into the other room, too full of grief to cry.
In her mind, though, the sigh seemed to be a new breath, a first breath, not the last. It's odd, but her body feels different. It hurts all over, that's true. But not the way it did before. She stretches a little and it feels good. It is confusing to her, because she feels like there is a life she is forgetting, a good life, but not the life that was really hers, not the life that runs like a river through her heart. She stops trying to hold on, to remember. She just lets go.
Something snaps, like the string of a kite, and her heart lifts. She knows where she must be and who she is. She has returned to the life she was made for, and to her oldest, most beloved best friend.
She opens her eyes, and the light is almost unbearable. She feels a pressure on her arm. It's a hand with just three fingers. His hand. She glances up and feels her cheeks flush. The journey's over. She is home. She is safe. Her heart beats wildly and the river of her life rushes all through her. She smiles. And she is certain she is just where she has always wanted to be, lying there looking up with infinite warmth into predatory blue eyes.