"Why'd you turn the radio off? They'll hear us talking."
"I just feel like they're about to play something terrible."
Pidge flicked the radio back on.
"Do you want us to get caught?"
"I'm not the one who's breaking the rules right now."
"Fine. You want ME to get caught so that you're stuck on your own? You wouldn't be ANYWHERE without me."
"I just have a bad feeling about it."
"Yeah, well, this might surprise you, Keith, but not everyone cares how you feel."
"That doesn't surprise me at all."
No one apologized. They hadn't gotten any apologies in a while, they had none to give anymore.
Pidge huffed and rubbed her temples.
"I don't know where else to check. There must be some hidden files somewhere, something that only a few of them know about."
"You mean besides just classifying everything?"
"Right. I mean information they don't even claim to HAVE. Maybe only one or two people know about it."
"How would they keep secrets like that?"
Pidge smiled grimly.
"They have their ways."
"What do you think they'd be hiding?"
"Well, think about it. What haven't we found?"
"A lot of things."
"A distress call."
They were quiet.
"So, what are you saying?"
"Either they're hiding it, or there isn't one."
"And if you find it?"
"If I find it, it'll be because you helped me."
Keith looked down.
"You want me to listen to it."
"Yes, that's going to happen."
"What if I don't want to hear it?"
"Are you going to help me at all, or are you just going to give up when things get scary? You should have known what you were getting into when you talked to me."
He wasn't a friend. He was a resource. That was how he felt about her, too.
It was like that since the day they first met.
She looked so much like that boy, he had to bite his cheek when he saw her.
That boy that Shiro spent so much time with. The one who was presumed dead in space.
He'd spent a lot of energy hating that boy. It was easy to hate Pidge just the same.
It was that, and it was that FEELING. The things that made him corner her and say, a bit more aggressively than intended, "Who ARE you?"
And when she lied to him, he said, "You know Shiro."
Things were patchy since then but it had gotten them talking.
They were most certainly not friends.
He was only in her room right now as a conspirer. In the event of a room check they'd pretend they were fucking.
The music from the radio was nothing to be enjoyed either.
When it had nothing to cover up, it just filled up the silence. Like it was doing now, singing one of those songs that had a heartbeat.
"The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead when the skies of November turn gloomy."
They stopped what they were doing.
They'd never listened to the music before.
"With a load of iron ore 26 thousand tons more than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and crew was a bone to be chewed when the gales of November came early."
They were quick to dislike the song.
But it had a heartbeat. It was more alive than anything in the room.
"The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound when the wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the captain did too, t'was the witch of November come stealing."
Kerberos had been lost in January. But if there was a witch in space, she wouldn't have cared what they called it on Earth.
Finding nothing for so long, it was starting to feel like there really was a witch up there.
"The captain wired in he had water coming in and the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went out of sight came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."
Neither of them wanted to listen to a distress call.
"They might have split up or they might have capsized, they may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names of the wives and the sons and the daughters."
They held onto what was precious to them. A knife, a pair of glasses. They each had their own world of suffering that they didn't share.
"In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed in the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral
The church bell chimed till it rang 29 times for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald."
The Kerberos memorial service had been secular. Keith didn't go.
He'd sent back the personal invitation with a few words in red marker.
The next day he'd been "requested" to see a counselor, who told him it wasn't polite to tell the president to go fuck himself, but considering the circumstances they'd hold back on disciplinary action if he continued with counseling.
He did not continue with counseling.
For Pidge, it was never an option.
She curled up like she wanted to cry.
"The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead when the gales of November come early."
The heartbeat stopped. Pidge spoke first.
"It's true that Superior never gives up her dead. It's too cold for the normal decomposition that causes–"
"Pidge, shut the fuck up."
"Fine. I'm sorry."
Keith sighed.
"So am I."
It was a bad time for both of them to have met. They knew it inside and tolerated one another.
They weren't friends. They were resources. But resources must be taken care of.
"My dad sent me a message the night before," Pidge said at last. "They landed without incident. They were going to sneak me back a pebble."
"Shiro asked me if I wanted one before he left. I know it was a joke… I don't want a pebble."
"I used to."
It was so much easier to want a pebble.
"Did your dad ever talk about Shiro?"
"All the time. He loved him."
Everyone had loved Shiro.
"What did Shiro say about my brother?"
"He loved him, too."
There was more but it was hard to say.
"It must be nice to have Shiro love you."
Keith hid his face.
"It was the only thing I cared about."
If this was the end, it was all that they had for each other. Pidge balled up a sheet.
"They're still out there. They have to be."
Keith bit himself on the knuckle.
"He'd be so fucking disappointed if he saw me now."
"Hey," Pidge looked at him. "You're not disappointing as a person. You're only disappointing as an accomplice."
Keith scoffed and dabbed his nose.
"Good to know."
"Look," Pidge conceded, "If you find the distress call… tell me where you are and I'll listen to it with you. Right then."
It wasn't the most streamlined plan but it was a plan.
For a moment they both desperately wished they were friends.