Five
Lily sucked in a breath. She wasn't scared.
Four
Beside her, James Potter reached up to adjust his glasses, a nervous habit she'd noticed during training.
Three
His eyebrows furrowed in momentary confusion when his fingers found skin instead of metal. Contact lenses were mandatory on space missions. Her life was about to change irrevocably and she was fixated on an acquaintance's glasses. Okay, maybe she was slightly scared.
Two
Acquaintance probably wasn't the right word for the man she'd be alone with in endless depths of space for thirteen months.
One
She forced her eyes down to the control panel. Each button suddenly resembled a hieroglyph from a long-dead civilisation. Lily realised with a jolt she hadn't released her breath, but found that she couldn't. Her body was frozen, her eyes flitted around in panic, she couldn't –
"Blast off," James whispered, leaning forward in his seat to tap out the sequence that had been drilled into her during training. Not him.
The ship shuddered; Lily's body unfroze enough for her to dig her fingers into the firm leather of her chair. Simulation after simulation had drilled into her exactly what it would feel like to physically be taken up with the ship, so she was able to force out a breath and inhale again. Strangely, she felt in more familiar territory than she had during the countdown, when she was still tethered to Earth. She was ready for this.
No simulation could ever have prepared her for the sight in front of her. She was seeing what no human was ever meant to see. It had barely been seconds since take-off and yet they were bypassing Earth's atmosphere as if it was never there.
Minutes passed in silence, the two of them fixated on the impenetrable window before them. Hours could have gone by, even. It's easy to lose track of time when you're faced with the entirety of the universe.
When Lily finally relaxed in her chair, her body drooping to fit the crevices that had been designed around her measurements, she turned her head to face James. He was still leaning forward in the position he'd been in as he'd stimulated take-off.
"What," she began in a low voice, drawing out the word accusingly. He jumped at the sound, as if he'd forgotten her presence. "Was that?"
He craned his neck to look at her. She wondered if the amazement in his eyes was reflected in hers. The smirk he wore, on the other hand, was definitely nowhere to be seen on her features. "You mean me saving you a lot of embarrassment? You're welcome."
Heat crept up her neck, threatened to set her cheeks ablaze. "It was my responsibility to launch," she hissed.
As he nodded once, he turned back to watch the view. She continued to stare at him. "You aren't serious, are you?" he asked in a tone that implied her stupidity.
"You were taught that sequence in case there was an emergency and I was unable to complete the task that was bestowed upon me by the director herself." Her words, she knew, sounded condescending, but they were also true.
"You froze," he said simply.
By this point, she could feel heat radiating off her cheeks and she was glad he wasn't looking at her, however rude it was. "I did not," she lied.
He chuckled, but it was a short, harsh sound devoid of humour. "You weren't even breathing, Lily. There was no way you were going to launch this ship, so it was either I did or they replaced you with someone who would."
"They wouldn't have replaced me," she said, not even bothering to disguise the horror in her voice. It was one small slip up, and she was one of the best trainees they'd had at NASA for years. The best of the best. Well, her and James.
James sighed and deigned to look at her. When he spoke, his voice was softer. "You know how important this mission is to them. If they didn't think you were ready they wouldn't have hesitated to pull you off."
She closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. This mission was important to her too. "Thanks."
"You're welcome." She thought she could hear the smile in his voice, but when she opened her eyes, he was looking back at the window. This was going to be her view for the next year of her life: blackness punctuated by pinpricks of light, and the side of James Potter's face.
They could start the hard work in a few hours. For now, Lily was content to sit back, watch space unfold beyond the window and realise she owed her job and her dignity to the arrogant astronaut sat beside her.