AN: Okay, here we go! For the record, here's how this works. The sections in italics are in a different time than the sections that aren't. This is Murph's story, told through the reading of her journals. You should be able to follow that with context, but why take the chance?

I've been away from writing major fanfics for a while, focusing on writing original works. Take a look on my blog for details.

Also, this is a companion fic to 'Feel The Need'. It's not a Sequel, maybe a prequel; but ultimately the two fics are telling two different stories, in the same universe. They overlap, but don't depend on each other that much.

Joseph Cooper stared out the window of Cooper Station. An O'Neill Cylinder, named for his daughter. His daughter, who had fought death by inches for so long that she had to hit pause for the chance to see him again.

"Sir?"

Coop turned. His shadow was there. More of a tour guide than an Administrator; but the man had been staying in his shadow since he'd woken up. Coop wasn't sure what they were worried about.

"The transfer went well." The Administrator said. "Your daughter is in Medbay now, currently being revived. The family has asked that that happen slowly. It's less traumatic on the patient, and it gives them a chance to... assemble."

"Assemble who?"

"Well, the rest of her grandkids. She's been in suspension a while, and... Well, she's The Murph Cooper. Half her grandkids are in high schools named after her on the Colony Stations."

Coop felt a rush of pride go through him again. "I guess that's not something you'd want them to miss."

He held up a box. "This also came on the shuttle. It's for you."

Coop looked at the box and opened it. It was a stack of faded, leatherbound journals. He picked one up and turned to the first page. "Murph's journals?"

The kid nodded.

"I don't know if I feel right about reading this."

"Well, you should know, it has been published. Edited, a bit; but it's been on the bestseller list for a long time. The original would be worth a fortune... And it's not from her." The kid offered. "It's actually from her late best friend, Ellie Marx. She left it to you in her will, left with specific instructions that it be delivered to you on the recovery of the Endurance." The Administrator grinned. "They expected to hold it in a safe deposit box forever."

Cooper was left alone then, and he sat down, reading the first journal. Professor Brand had taken it upon himself to tutor Murph before her suspension from Public School ended. Murph spent five days a week in Lazarus Base...

It was the weekend, and she was meant to be home by now, but the dust storms made travel too dangerous, so Murph had to wait it out.

"Hi, Ellie." Murph said as she came into the Cafeteria. It was empty.

"Hey, kid." Ellie waved. "So, I'm designated adult until morning. What shall we do?"

The eleven year old looked over at the counters. "Where is everyone?"

"At the…" Ellie thought for a moment. "The Dance. They hold one every Friday night."

"Of course, when I'm not here." Murph smiled. "My old school had to cancel their last dance because someone spiked the punch."

Ellie winced. "Right. This Dance is… um, eighteen and older. Because we always spike the punch. With vodka. And it isn't so much fruit punch as it is… more Vodka. So we can't really invite kids your age."

"There are only two kids my age on the Base. There's Me and Getty; and then there's a dozen in the nursery." Murph pointed out, and gestured at the serving line. "So if all the grown ups are at the Dance, I guess I can help myself?"

"Sure." Ellie said. "Getty beat you to the jello."

Murph checked. "Argh! Every time!" She gestured. "He took all of it?"

"No, but it's Friday Night." Ellie said whimsically. "Jello shots are a basic food group at these parties."

"What's a jello shot?" Murph asked.

"I probably shouldn't tell you this, but you know how they used to add fruit to jello and such? Well, Jello Shots are where we add… Well…"

"More Vodka." Murph said it with her, and the ten year old ran a hand through her hair. "I'm starting to detect a pattern."

"You know how high the stakes are, kid. We kind of need to go crazy once a week. It's how we all work so hard the other six and a half days."

"Yeah, I get that. Even the smart kids like recess." Murph nodded and pulled her books out. "I have homework. You can go to the party."

Ellie shook her head. "I promised the Professor."

"Ellie, I'm supposed to be at home for the weekend. The Dust Storms made you my babysitter." Murph told her. "Back home, my dad let me drive the rotary tractor when there's nobody else; I can sit in a quiet cafeteria and do my homework."

Ellie checked the books. "Whew. Well, those will keep you occupied long enough, I guess."

Pause.

"Thank you." Murph said quietly. "You're the only person other than my dad who hasn't told me that the titles are 'too smart' for a girl my age."

"Murph." Ellie said seriously. "At the turn of the last century; almost two thirds of 4th grade girls say they like Science and Math but only 18% of engineering Majors were female. Even in the days when 'educated' wasn't a dirty word; ten years was all it took for young women to somehow be convinced they aren't interested. Here at Lazarus? It's nearly a fifty-fifty split. We're putting together the next generation of the human race. You think we pick dumb girls for that?"

Murph actually found herself tearing up. "It was five months ago my teacher suspended me for arguing about whether or not the Moon Landings were real. Grandpa told me to just do as my teachers said, because it wasn't worth fighting about."

"Then you may have found yourself a proper home here." Ellie said gently.

Murph looked at Ellie sideways. "Y'know, you're really nice."

"Why, thank you."

"And my dad's single. When he gets back from wherever you launched him to, my Grandpa would want me to introduce you."

Ellie laughed at that, long and loud.

Murph collected a cup of pudding. "Go to the Dance. I can look after myself for a while."

Ellie bit her lip. "It… would be for only an hour or two…"

The doors to the cafeteria opened suddenly, and in came two of the engineers that Murph recognized. One male, one female. Both mostly naked, shuffling into the room while they made out, and one of them wearing tinsel in their hair.

"Peter, Amy; get outta here!" Ellie snapped.

The two intruders suddenly noticed the nonplussed little kid, and Amy dove under a table, covering herself up. "I thought you were keeping an eye on her tonight."

"I am." Ellie snapped. "I don't know if you noticed, but this is the cafeteria."

"Of course we noticed!" Peter slurred. "We came for jello."

"Getty got the last of it." Murph volunteered. "There's pudding?"

"Pudding could work." Amy called from her hiding place.

"Murph, take your books and go watch a movie." Ellie sighed, giving up. "Don't go past the Rec Room; and ignore any sounds you hear coming from closets."

Murph went to the Theatre. The Base had its own movie theatre, with seats for about forty people. Getty was there. He was the only one in the Base near her age, getting lessons of his own in medical. The two of them had semi-adopted each other.

Murph came in and glanced at the screen. "The Martian again?"

Getty shrugged. "It's a classic."

"You just say that because you've got a crush on Commander Lewis."

Getty pulled a face at her as only a twelve year old boy could. "Anyway, it's the only thing on the list. Everyone else is off at The Dance."

"Yeah, so it seems." Murph drawled. "Gimme that jello. Why'd you take three bowls?"

Getty handed her a bowl. "I don't know how, anyway."

"To dance?" Murph was surprised. "My mom taught me. Said dad was a lousy dancer, and she-" -wanted to teach me before she died.

Getty shrugged, and Murph suddenly understood that Getty had no idea who his mother was. His father was off-Base, struggling with health problems. Getty had been brought in, away from a series of Foster-Places who needed that ration cards, rescued by a friend of the family. Murph had seen other kids in the Base, most of them needed daycare. Murph and Getty had tutors; five days a week.

Murph ate a bite of jello. "Gets?" She said quietly; the first time she had ever called him by the nickname she had given him in her head. "You got the extra jello for me, didn't you?"

Getty shrugged. "It's Dance Night. Back in Foster Care, they always dump the kids in front of the TV when they want to go 'adult' by themselves. I wasn't sure you were still on the Base, but I figured we'd end up here."

The movie was getting to one of the scenes with loud disco music, and despite herself, Murph started moving along with it. Getty started giggling at her, and Murph promptly pulled him to his feet. "Come on! Like this!"

Reading the journal, Cooper flushed. The wild Doomsday parties that kept the Lazarus Personnel from surrendering to total despair had not been public knowledge, and he was somewhere between grateful that they'd kept his daughter away from it, and mortified that they'd done so badly.

The first journal ended there, and the next one along chronologically wasn't in the stack that had been left for him. The second journal picked up the narrative picked up years later, when Getty had been away at college.

Murph had finished her regular schooling a full three years ahead of the norm, under the exacting standards of Professor Brand. She had a doctorate by seventeen.

Cooper noted some of Murph's comments about the old man that had raised his daughter with lies, and felt an odd desire to forgive him. It was clear how highly the old man regarded his daughter, and even Murph could detect the guilt.

"Guilt about what?" Ellie asked her carefully.

"I don't know." Murph admitted. "But I see it every time my brother comes in here to send a message. It gets worse every time the anniversary comes up."

"Well, there it is then." Ellie told her briskly. "The Professor feels bad about convincing your father to take on the mission. When we lost contact with Endurance, he felt bad."

"Mm." Murph went quiet. "I don't know why. It was my dad's call to leave. If I couldn't talk him into staying, why should I blame Brand for talking him into going?"

Ellie tried to approach the matter tactfully. "Your brother still here?"

"Went home an hour ago, once the message was done."

"What about you?"

Murph glared at her. "You know I don't send messages to Endurance. It's been too long, and there's nothing to say anymore. Besides, we aren't even picking up the repeater pulse anymore. I got better things to do than scream into the wind. Or the vacuum, to be precise."

"Murph, I know better than to touch that particular raw nerve. Your father's been gone for eight years; and if you want to keep kicking his ass over it, I can't stop you." Ellie held her hands up instantly. "What I meant was: Your brother. Have you been back home since the Funeral? Or the Wedding, even?"

Murph shook her head. "Look, Ellie; I get that you're the Counselor for the Base, but I have to go talk to children in a few minutes, so can we not rub salt in that particular wound just now?"

"Certainly." Ellie nodded. "You've cancelled your last three regular appointments. You want to actually meet me for the next one?"

Murph set her jaw, but couldn't really be mad. "I liked you more when you were sneaking me jello shots."

"Someone had to be the big sister around here. Certainly Brand wasn't going to be much help when you needed Tampons for the first time."

"And my grandfather was notably grateful that you handled that one; may he rest in peace." Murph agreed. "Fine. Make the appointment. Tonight?"

"You know where to find me."

"Does your brother know, about the Doomsday Clock?" Ellie asked later, in session. Everyone on the Base had mandatory sessions with the Base Counselor.

Murph shook her head. "I told him when Jesse died. Hard to tell if he believed me. I tried telling him about Plan A. He wouldn't accept it. Told me I was clinging to straws."

"What do you mean?"

"He thinks that I'm so pissed at dad for leaving, that I drank the kool-aid." Murph explained. "He figures the same thing everyone outside this Base figures: That it'll be close, but we'll get there. Y'know, the 'Caretaker Generation' bit. Grandpa told him that was true, so did everyone who got in front of a camera or a microphone."

"It's hard to justify a big secret when you don't include people." Ellie reminded her. "But why does he think your belief is because of your father?"

"Because, if the world was ending, and my father was the last chance to save it, that means I have to forgive him for leaving." Murph sighed. "I'm not so sure that's true. Tom is of the opinion that dad will be back, and he'll need the farm taken care of when he gets here."

"And you?"

"I don't know. We should have heard back from him by now." Murph sighed. "Things happen, out in space… I'm not so sure he's coming back. But I do know him, and the fact is: If he did come back today, he wouldn't give a damn about the farm. He hated farming."

"What did he love?"

"He got what he loved." Murph said, and there was a touch of bitterness that she couldn't pretend away. "Maybe it is a comforting lie, but Tom doesn't even have that. I try not to judge him for following the same path he has since he was fourteen. It's a little like watching a hamster on a treadmill. He'll never get anywhere."

"Murph, do you ever wonder if you're doing the same?" Ellie said delicately.

"With or without a new planet, the Stations can get us free of Earth before she dies." Murph told Ellie. "If Brand and I can crack that, then we can do anything."

"Does Getty agree?"

"What's he got to do with anything?" Murph was surprised by the question.

"Because he was your best friend in this place, and I don't believe you've spoken to him since he left for college."

Murph hesitated. She didn't want to lie, but she knew the truth wouldn't be popular. "We've both been busy."

Ellie nodded. "Murph, I'm going to tell you something that I've been trying to say since you were about fourteen." She put her pad away. "Someone, and I don't know who; but someone along the way told you that you didn't deserve to be loved and wanted until the world was saved. And I think you believed them; which is why you're as obsessed with that equation as Tom is with the farm. Because if you can crack that, then the world is saved, and your dad can come home without any recriminations between you. Same reason Tom won't leave the farm. If he can make it work forever, then it was okay for your father to leave."

Murph bit her lip. "That 'someone'?" She said quietly. "You think it's my father, or Brand. And maybe it started that way, because my dad used the world ending to justify why he left, and The Professor used the same reason to justify why he won't ever see his daughter again."

"But you don't think that." Ellie observed. "So who was the 'someone' who convinced you that it was a sin to have a life before the work was done?"

Murph let out a breath. "Me."

The Friday Night Parties had created a dozen or so offspring over the years. Some of the Base Personnel had family somewhere outside, but most didn't want to send their kids out into the Dust Bowl. With so much to do, the children had been deemed 'community property' unofficially.

Murph wondered if it was the adults getting used to the idea of 'Plan B', with a bunch of larval humans being raised by a posse.

"Don't refer to them as 'larva', please." Ellie said patiently when Murph shared these thoughts. "You're their math teacher. Be gentle. The next 'you' could be in there."

"If you don't mind my asking, why did you ship Jaina off to your sister?" Murph asked. It was something she'd always wondered. "She'd be safer in here."

"I had reasons." Ellie told her, and presented her with a shiny red apple. "For you."

Murph's eyes bugged out. "Where did you find this?" She asked in awe.

"The Greenhouses. We were experimenting with orchard fruits, seeing if we could get one without needing a full size tree."

"Did you succeed?"

"Nope, but we have a miniature tree with only one fruit on it." She gestured at the apple in Murph's hand. "Be careful who sees you with it."

"Why me?"

"First day of school, you bring the teacher an apple."

"Well… If it's traditional." Murph shined the apple on her shirt for a moment. "Tell you what, come by later. I'll split it with you."

The kids were all raised by scientists, so they were fairly well read. But they all had the same handicap of being isolated from the rest of the world. They learned, but most of them were in wildly different places with regards to education, and interested in their parents' hobbies more than their work.

"I know what you're all thinking." Murph said patiently to the assembled children. "You're thinking 'Math and science is what my parents do all day, and that's boring'."

The kids giggled, half of them agreeing.

"But the point of math isn't to be smart, it's to figure out the universe. Last week, we covered the Golden Ratio, which is the math behind everything from a seashell, to the position of a leaves on a tree, to the arms of a spiral galaxy. What you kids haven't figured out yet is that everything else has an equation of one kind or another behind it too, and how they meet is what makes the whole of the universe work."

The kids were listening, but she was talking about concepts that were over their heads.

Murph sighed, and took on a more personal tone. "Look, math will help you figure out the universe. Figuring out yourselves, that's another thing. But on a very basic, lego-building-block level, everything that exists in you, or the universe you live in, is based on either math, or biology."

"Then why don't you have a Doctor co-teaching this class?" A familiar voice teased.

Murph spun. "Getty!" She yelped in excitement, them clapped a hand over her mouth as she realized that she'd let out a sound very much like a squeal.

He came in and gave her a tight hug, and she suddenly coughed. The dust was still thick on his jacket. He'd come straight to the classroom to see her. He hadn't even gone to decontamination yet.

Almost as if that was a reminder, Murph looked and noticed half a dozen assembled children watching attentively. She cleared her throat. "Kids, recess is early. Go have fun."

The class cheered and filed out of the room, leaving Murph and Getty alone together.

"You're home!" Murph said warmly and gave him a quick hug. "How long are you back?"

"Oh, I'm back for keeps." Getty told her. "I finished college early."

"And you're back here? I thought you were going to get posted out east somewhere…"

"Plans change." Getty said with a grin. "Well, for most people."

Murph flushed a bit. Her life plans hadn't changed a bit since he'd left.

Reading the last page of the second journal, Cooper smiled warmly, wondering if Murph knew it at that point. His reaction to his own wife had been much the same way. He hadn't expected, or tried to fall in love with her. He just found himself smiling automatically whenever she came into his line of sight.

Cooper checked the clock and found he'd spent three hours going through her life's story. He had no duties, exactly. They'd come and get him when his daughter was ready to receive visitors. As much as he wanted to be at her bedside, waiting for her every second, he knew firsthand how jarring a rushed emergence could be.

He had been told that these journals were left by Murph's best friend, Ellie. But as Cooper read through them, he knew that Murph had chosen which journals went into the box. His daughter had set these ones aside in particular for him to read.

The next one on the stack talked about things that he recognized. Things that involved him.

"What do you do all day, anyway?" Ellie asked one afternoon. "I mean, I know what you're doing, but how exactly do you do it?"

Murph didn't take her eyes off the chalkboards. "The equation is incomplete. When we get the thing finished, it'll program the machines do what we need them to do. But without a reference point, there's a huge number of variables; which is a question of altering the parameters, and making guesses. So I make one change, I run the equation, I get the result."

"You can't use a computer to do that?"

"A computer runs equations beginning to end and gets whatever's on the other side of the equals sign. Inventing those equations? That's the real math. Computers can't theorize on something that hasn't been discovered yet."

"So how do you know when you get closer?"

"I don't." Murph admitted. "That's why it's taking so long. Brand has narrowed it down quite a long way. The rest is just elimination and time." She rubbed her tired eyes. "A frame of reference would be a lot faster, though."

"Never a Rosetta Stone when you need one." Ellie rubbed her shoulder. "Anyway, we're getting drunk. Come with us, let your hair down."

"I'm working." Murph told her.

"You're always working." Ellie pointed out. "Take a few hours to recharge."

"By getting drunk?" Murph countered.

"Brand won't let you near the 'Dances' at all, no matter that you're a grown-ass woman now, so if you're gonna get your party on, you need a little help from your friends. Come play drinking games with us."

"Another time." Murph promised.

An hour later, Murph emerged from her thoughts as Getty came in and put a tray of food in front of her. The rations in the greenhouses made the Base mostly self sufficient with regards to food. Getty was the only one that never brought her corn; because he knew she liked it that way. Corn was just too much like the farm.

"So, I take it you're not going to the Dance?" Getty asked.

"Not really my scene."

"Mine either." Getty agreed.

Murph looked over. "No?" She smiled a little. "I notice you don't seem to date much." She gestured. "I have a reason, with Brand appointing himself my legal guardian. What's your excuse?"

"Right, I'm only a surgeon. What would I know about high stress work and unexpected hours?" Getty retorted.

"Sorry." Murph yawned.

Getty noticed the yawn. "I'm coming back for that tray in half an hour, and if you haven't eaten your greens, I'm telling Brand."

Murph smiled a bit, despite herself. "Thanks, mom." It was a running joke. Calling 'dad', even to mock him, would be too painful.

"And your cardio monitor says you haven't slept in twenty two hours. Get some rest after you eat." Getty told her.

He was halfway to the door when Murph spoke. "Gets, you wanna go to a party?"

Getty froze. "Really? Um, woah. Well, I gotta admit, I'd always hop-"

Murph rolled her eyes. "Not The Dance, dummy. Ellie's been trying to get me into her drinking circle for the last few months, and… I don't know, I'm just sleep deprived enough to think it's a good idea to get drunk with your therapist."

Getty smiled. "I'd love to."

"Great. Let me ask where it is."

Murph reached for her device, when Getty waved her down. "Don't bother. I know where she is. I'm the rest of her circle."

Murph twitched. "You and Ellie get drunk together often?"

"Not so far. You keep cancelling."

It was the three of them sitting on beanbag chairs, playing drinking games; with one of their phones hooked up to a speaker playing one playlist or another.

"Whoever's a shot ahead gets to pick the playlist." Ellie said. "So, what's our first game?"

"Um… Truth or Dare?" Getty guessed.

"Quarters?" Murph offered.

"Never Have I Ever?" Ellie suggested. "Flip a coin! The point is to start drinking!"

"You know you're the 'responsible adult' in this room, right?" Murph reminded her as she threw back her first shot.

"Check your license, Murph; you're legal now. And pass the bottle."

Murph did so, and pulled the apple out of her labcoat. "Get a knife, this is to be shared with friends." She directed. "And Ellie, at least one of us has to stay ahead of Gets. He likes Disco too much."

They killed off the first bottle after half an hour, and were feeling pretty buzzed. Getty went to get them another, and Murph looked to Ellie, who was a few drinks ahead of both of them. "It was your idea, wasn't it? To invite Getty to this thing. Just you, me, and him."

"Yup." Ellie agreed. "I'm-m the respopsicle adult, and you need a shhhap… a champer…"

"Chaperone." Murph supplied, and tilted the empty bottle back enough to try and get the last few drops. "There was a brief moment, when I asked him along to this little shindig, and he thought I was inviting him along to The Dance."

Ellie found that to be very funny.

"And here's the thing…" Murph said. "Just for a minute there, I think he was going to say yes."

"Murph, I don't know how to tell you this, but he isn't here playing drinking games tonight because of me." Ellie told her.

"I don't wanna fall in love, Ellie." Murph said, with the eternal wisdom of being young, half-plastered and sleep deprived all at once. "I know we talked about my issues in Session, but it just seems so… tragic, when we don't expect to be alive. And the thing is, everyone agrees with me. That's why they keep having those wild parties every week for all the years I've been here. They aren't romantic, or even fun. They're an R-Rated tranquilizer. That's, literally, the only standard that the smartest people alive bother to aim for. I don't know how you did it, having a daughter."

"Jaina is the very best thing that ever happened to me, possibly the best thing to ever happen in the history of the world. And I knew that, from the first moment I saw her looking up at me." Ellie slurred a bit. "Life goes on."

"And when it doesn't?"

"How is that different from any other day?" Ellie countered, and leaned back in her beanbag chair.

"How is Jaina, by the way?" Murph asked belatedly, realizing that she hadn't asked in quite a while.

Ellie didn't answer, head back, mouth open.

Getty came in a moment later, as Ellie started snoring. "Is she out?"

"Like a light." Murph agreed, and patted the other side of her chair. "Come, sit." Getty did so, and Murph took the bottle off him, before putting her feet up in his lap. "So, should we put her to bed, or keep drinking?"

Getty started rubbing her ankles, and put his own feet in her lap in return. "We should keep drinkin'."

"I agree." Murph poured for them both. "Okay, it's just us now. New game. Tell me something about you that I don't know."

Getty considered. "I never planned to be a Doctor." He told her. "I originally applied to study divinity, minored in Astronomy. Switched to pre-med after my first year."

"Divinity?" Murph was so surprised she felt sober for a moment. "Didn't think anyone on the Base was still a believer."

"In God? Moreso now than when I was in school." Getty told her. "Astronomy is what made me a believer. The whole universe runs with Swiss-Watch precision. I can only understand about half the math involved, but it's enough to be certain that there's no way it could be random chance; and I went to college just to make sure of that."

"Why'd you switch to medicine?"

"Same reason most people switched to farming. I did some practical work at a few Mission's internationally. They needed doctors as much as they needed priests. No reason a Doctor can't pray for his patients. Or for anything else, come to that."

"Do you still?" Murph asked, more reflective than usual.

"Pray? Yeah, I do." Getty said, and held out his glass. "More?"

"More." She poured.

"Alright, your turn. Something I don't know."

"Thing is, I don't have many secrets." Murph complained. "Downsides of having no life? I'm also not interesting."

"Aside from the whole 'prodigy genius saving the world' thing." Getty pointed out. "Hey, you started this game."

"I did, didn't I?" Murph slugged back her drink and poured again. "Alright… I've never told anyone about this. Not even Brand." She took a breath. "I believe in ghosts."

"Yeah?"

"One in particular." Murph poured for him. "When I was a kid, a poltergeist moved into my room. He used to leave me messages."

"He?" Getty was intrigued.

"He. Don't ask how I know that." Murph told him the story. "One day we come home, and my window was left open, and a windstorm fills my room with dust… and then some of the dust starts falling in lines; like a barcode. Dad checks it with other things, heavier things, and he tells me that gravity itself has written some map coordinates into the floor of my room in binary."

He was staring, glass halfway to his lips. "Map coordinates?"

"My dad follows them right to the door of this Base." Murph nodded. "Brand and his daughter thought it was 'Them' pointing my father to the Lazarus Mission."

"But you don't agree?"

"The Ghost lived in my room. Why would the message be for someone else?"

"I like it." Getty didn't even blink. "Maybe 'They' knew you'd be the one to solve The Problem, so they sent you here. You taught me about the Bulk Beings. If they live in more than three dimensions, it means they can see the future."

"I hope so. Certainly I've dedicated my life to that hope." Murph yawned. "My brother thought I was stupid for believing in ghosts. But it always felt… like it was there to help me."

"Do you still think that?" He asked suddenly, and finished his drink.

Murph actually had to think about it. "Huh. I haven't really been home in a while, have I?"

He poured for them both again. "Nope. Okay, my turn again."

She sipped her next drink, the room starting to spin. "Yup. Tell me a secret."

"Umm… You're really pretty." Getty said profoundly.

Murph froze. "What?"

"Ohh, I guess that's not really a secret, is it?" Getty slapped his forehead. "Duh. I'll try again!" He put on a careful 'thinking' expression, before his eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out.

Murph was still frozen, staring at him. "Gets?" She called quietly. "Getty, are you…?"

He was out cold, and Murph let out a slow breath, letting the sudden pounding in her chest fade away.

Murph started working in Professor Brand's lab more than her own. She stayed out of his way, he stayed out of hers. Their lessons were scheduled, but Murph knew there wasn't a lot more theory to learn that she didn't know already.

But it gave her a little distance from Getty, and that made it worth giving up her office.

Brand, insightful bastard that he was, figured that part out the second his new assistant Julie brought in lunch for both of them on trays.

"Murph, Getty brought a tray by for you. He thought you'd prefer jello to cornbread, for some reason." The blonde told her with a smile. "Private joke, I assume?"

"Something like that." Murph nodded, glancing back at the door. "He was… busy?"

"Not yet, but I'm working on it." Julie grinned saucily, and presented the Professor with his own tray; not noticing how Murph twitched. "Professor, your three o'clock is on line two."

"The weekly small talk with kings." Brand sighed.

"They want to know how it's going, and asking you once a week for eight years is grating on them." Murph counselled. "Be glad it's smalltalk. Any other country in the world, they'd have fired you and promoted me by now. One or two would do it by firing squad."

"You really do want this office, don't you?" Brand scoffed, and waved her out of the room. "I'm afraid the conversation is codeword classified; so you can't be in the room."

"Don't see why, if they keep avoiding the question." Murph teased and headed out with Julie. "So." She said as the door closed. "Liking the new job?"

"Just glad to be somewhere that isn't covered in dust." Julie sat at her desk, essentially standing guard outside of Brand's office. "And the parties are fairly wild, for a bunch of academics."

"So I hear. I never really attended."

"Really? That's a surprise." Julie waved a hand up and down Murph, as if that explained everything. "I'm betting you get some interest."

"I started my tutoring with the Professor from age ten. Nobody dared invite me, even when I became legal." Murph glanced over. "Why? Anyone bothering you?"

Julie snorted. "Naw. Like I said, they're all bookworms. They have dirtier minds than most, but don't have the nerve to say anything until they get a few drinks in them. It's like they save up all their 'unprofessional' for after working hours. Thank god for the Doomsday Parties, or I'd never get any action." She wore a Cheshire smile. "Well, not never."

"Mm." Murph decided she didn't like Julie. She was too… Anti-Murph. And blonde. "Anyway, let the Professor know I'm in Archives."

"How did Julie get a job here anyway?"

"Congressman's niece." Ellie told her. "Is this the one?"

Ellie checked the one Ellie had found against her manifest. "No, I'm looking for personal effects for the Lazarus Astronauts."

"That stuff's all sealed up as confidential." Ellie told her.

"Not the active missions, the ones that failed." Murph told her. "Since when does Lazarus involve trading favors?"

"Where have you been? All the world is reduced to trading favors before they starve." Ellie slid the box back on the shelf. "Besides, she's got the skills, professionally. No room for freeloaders on our Cafeteria line."

"That's good, because she's a walking lawsuit waiting to happen."

"Are you kidding? Knocking Boots is the only vice we've got in the Base. We can't be drunk on duty, can't spare the pharmaceuticals for anything less than an actual medical emergency; and it's not like we get paid to work here beyond clean clothes and three squares a day; so what use is gambling? Aside from the Apocalypse, Sex and Rock'n'Roll is all we got to think about."

Murph didn't really want to keep arguing the point. She checked her manifest again and looked to the top shelf. "Ah! Found it! Bring the ladder?"

Ellie did so, and held it for her. "What, may I ask, is all this in aid of?"

"The Professor told me that Doctor Mann was his last lab assistant. Practically his protege."

"Sizing the competition?" Ellie grinned.

"Trying to figure out what Mann knew when he left. If I'm going over old paths, I'd rather not waste the time."

"If you were, I'm sure Brand would tell you."

Murph pulled the box down. It was empty. "Yeah, well. I'm not so sure." She tipped the empty box upside down to demonstrate her point. "There's something he's not telling me, Ellie. I looked at the equation yesterday, and it's so… recursive. His numbers don't take into account time as an underlying constant."

"You know that when you say stuff like that, I just nod my head, right?"

Murph tossed the empty box aside. "I think the Professor has given up on finishing. I think he's…"

"Starting to go?" Ellie finished for her. "I'm the Shrink, Murph. It happens to all of us eventually."

"Yeah, but… Why wouldn't he tell me? I know he's sick. I even know about the wheelchair he's keeping hidden in his office closet. He doesn't want anyone to know yet; and that's fine. Why keep secrets from me?"

Elle bit her lip. "You know who might have an idea?"

Murph sighed hard. "His personal assistant?"

"So, I looked into it." Julie told Murph over lunch the next day. "Almost everything Mann did is sealed away somewhere, under Professor Brand's authorization, and nobody can tell me why." She sipped her drink. "I used to work in my uncle's office. I've seen those kinds of walls go up before. In fact, last time I went digging like this, I found out about Lazarus."

Murph bit her lip. "So what are they covering up this time?"

"No idea." Julie didn't seem worried. "How much worse can it be than the end of the world?"

Murph could imagine a few things, complete with bold technicolor and sound effects.

"But there were two things you might find interesting." Julie told her. "First: His daughter. Brand made sure Amelia made it onto the Lazarus Mission. It's an odd choice, but-"

"No, I know about that." Murph lied. She hadn't, but when she found out The Professor was sick, it suddenly made sense. "What was the other thing?"

"The only one to have their personal work sealed? Mann. Just Mann. Miller, Edmunds, even your dad? All their files are confidential, but no more so than anything else around here."

"So whatever it is, it's something between Mann and Professor Brand." Murph nodded.

"I took the liberty of pulling his biographical data." Julie told her. "Would it interest you to know that he had your job before he left?"

"That I knew, which is why I got curious." Murph was intrigued. "Because Brand has told me, point blank, that even if he had another ship that could make the flight, he'd never let me go. Apparently I'm indispensable right here."

'Maybe you're just smarter than Mann?" Julie said brightly. "Or maybe Brand wanted him off the planet for some reason?"

"Right." Murph nodded. "So, how do I find out what that reason is? Can we hack his account? Can we try to get clearance to unseal the files?"

"Well, we could." Julie smirked. "Or you could ask him."

Murph's mouth became a flat line from sheer 'duh'. "Or I could just ask him."

"So, I hit a snag on time travel." Murph said brightly.

"Why? Perpetual motion too dull?" Brand staring into his coffee cup. "What was the snag?"

"Well, at first I figured I'd just travel back in time and give myself the solution, but then it occured to me that I would have done it already; so I guess I'll never crack it."

"Believe it or not, Amelia made the same joke once." Brand told her, looking at the photo of his daughter, which hung alongside all the other Lazarus astronauts. "She actually spent some time trying to convince me that it could work."

"Gravity can affect time." Murph offered. "We already know that."

"It can stretch and condense, but only in one direction."

"Why?" Murph countered. "The whole point of Brane Cosmology is that dimensions interact on levels we can't perceive. Maybe the fourth dimension can only go in one direction, but so does a line, until you draw a circle, or an infinity loop, or a-"

"An interesting thought, Apprentice." Brand sighed. "But we have other things on the checklist to get to first."

"Yes, we do." Murph let it go, and moved onto the real purpose of her conversation, as casually as she could; drifting over to the photos. She stayed to the left, avoiding her father's image. "Remarkable Mann." Murph said out loud.

"Sorry?" Professor Brand called over.

"Just thinking, about when my dad was here. You said the Lazarus Missions were lead by the 'Remarkable' Dr Mann." She turned to face him. "You never used any florid verse with any of the others. Not even my dad, or your daughter."

Brand didn't look away from his chalkboards. He rarely did.

Brand went over to her terminal and pulled up Mann's personnel file. "That woman, that picture... Who is that?"

"Lucinda Mann. His mother." Brand said wistfully. "She was one of our team. Astrodynamics. Came in just after we figured out the Doomsday Clock would strike midnight. The drunken bacchanalia continued for almost a week, before the survivors of the party picked themselves out of wherever they'd passed out and went about the business of trying to save the world."

Murph snorted. "You and Lucinda were close?"

Brand looked over. "Ask me."

"What?"

"The question that you're discreet enough not to ask."

"Is Mann your kid?" Murph said it. It would explain why Brand kept Mann's things to himself, if it was personal.

"No." Brand shook his head. "His mother and I were friends, but only after she became pregnant. I was about to become a father too, so we became closer than most others on staff do."

"I was going to say, there are some of the old briefing tapes here, and I hear your daughter singing his praises..."

Brand shook his head. "Amelia was... intrigued. Mann held your job for a few years, while I worked on the formula. But he also helped out in every other branch. engineering, navigation, teaching, Stellar mechanics... he could do it all. he was just that good, so when we got as far as choosing volunteers, His was the first name on the list."

"Exactly." Murph repeated the key phrase. "He helped you with this? How? Because I don't see his notes anywhere..."

"Trust me, Murph. You've overtaken him by leaps and bounds in this area." Brand promised her.

"Even so, if we can't crowdsource the solution, having his own notes would be better than nothing." Murph said, when her device buzzed. So did Professor Brand's. The message came up for both of them: "Get to a Television."

"The town is called Littlebrock. It's being reported as a dust storm that got too heavy." Ellie reported. "But we've examined some of the autopsy results, and it was Nitrogen Narcosis. Their lungs didn't have enough dust in them to cause respiratory failure."

Getty looked grave. "The weather just lined up like dominoes for the first time, but it won't be the last. In fact, it'll just keep accelerating. Too much nitrogen and Co2 gathering in one place before the weather can balance it out. Three minutes of bad luck is all it takes."

"The first humans to suffocate." Murph whispered.

"How many?" Brand said patiently.

"Low elevation town, fairly concentrated… Looks like about eight thousand." Ellie said grimly, hugging her daughter's photo close to her heart.

"Eight thousand people, all at once." Getty said quietly, almost prayerfully.

Murph rolled up her sleeves. "No more days off." She told herself.

Murph never went back to 'game night' with her friends. Getty still brought her food, she ate, chatted with him a while. She didn't bother with Professor Brand's office. Getty had taken the careful brush-off for what it was. Every thirty hours or so, she would fall asleep at her desk, and eight hours later she'd wake up on her office couch, with her labcoat tucked warmly around her shoulders. She suspected it was Getty tucking her in, but he never mentioned it.

Other towns went the same way. Ham Radio was pretty much the only way left to communicate long distance when the satellites started falling. The Government was keeping on top of Doomsday by limiting access to some facts; spreading cover stories for others. Most people assumed it was typical bureaucratic confusion.

Ellie brought her food one night, and stayed to eat with her.

"Your usual waiter can't make it. He suddenly has patients." Ellie told her grimly. "The order came in: We can bring relatives onto the base. With the situation out there, it's more important to keep our people on duty than it is to have total secrecy."

"Good to know." Murph agreed. "The weather shifts and suddenly there just isn't enough oxygen left? Even if we can't take off, the Stations like this one might be the only hope of humanity. They're able to recycle air already, just underground."

"Unofficially, that's what I'm hearing." Ellie nodded. "The Powers That Be are getting ready to abandon ship."

"And here I am, still trying to get the damn lifeboats working." Murph said in frustration.

"You can only do what you can do, Murph." Ellie said gently. "It's easy for me to say, because I'm fairly high up in the chain. I'm essential. Even if Lazarus never Launches, I can keep my daughter here and fed. I'm sorry it's harder for you, but… Lazarus has saved my family already, and I apologize to nobody for that."

"Well, I am happy for you." Murph offered. "I don't mean to sound like such a Grinch, but it's agony being so close. I can see everyone losing faith. People don't even ask me how close I'm getting any more."

"Murph." Ellie said seriously, making the younger woman look her in the eye. "You have a brother and sister-in-law with a kid; living in the Dust Bowl. You already lost one nephew. I just told you that you could have them here, breathing dust-free air."

Murph scowled. "I… got special permission from the Professor when Littlerock died. They could have been here five months ago, but my brother won't allow it. Won't even discuss it, in fact."

"Did you discuss it either, or did you just pick up the phone and tell him to start packing?" Ellie challenged.

Murph wouldn't look at her. "I'm working."

"I'm going." Ellie didn't push it further, heading out.

Murph couldn't shake the conversation with Ellie, and finally picked up the phone a week later, after evening chow. It was the first serious conversation she'd had with her brother since Jesse died, and it was a disaster of epic proportions.

Completely wired from the screaming match, Murph knew that focusing on work wasn't an option, and went to see Getty. He wasn't at his post, and she was surprised to see Ellie there, handling his paperwork. "Hey."

Ellie looked up. "Hey."

Murph looked around for him. "Thought Getty was wall to wall with patients now?"

"Oh, Lord. I'm sorry, I thought you'd heard." Ellie rubbed her eyes. "I'm handling his non-medical duties for a few days. He's been stood down until Monday."

Murph felt her heart give a solid thump. "What? What happened?"

"Getty's father died this morning. He was on the way here, didn't make it. Getty was trying to get him to a clean-room before- Murph!"

She was already moving, nearly sprinting through the corridors towards Getty's room.

My arms hurt. Why are my arms hurting? Why didn't he come straight to me? Is it because he thinks I'll take out my own 'daddy' issues on him during this? Oh, Gets; I'm so sorry. What does he need right now? I'd do anything. Huh, I really would; wouldn't I? What does he need? What can I do to make it all bette-

Her internal monologue came to a screeching halt when she reached the right corridor. Getty's door was about twenty feet away, and she had a clear view of Julie, standing at his door, arms around Getty. His eyes were red, and she was holding him. She pulled back enough to look up at him, and give him a comforting, lingering kiss on the cheek, close to his lips.

Murph, frozen, was torn between going over anyway, and going in the opposite direction before he saw her.

She couldn't hear what they were saying to each other, but she saw the moment Julie pulled a large hip flask, and offered it to him. Getty rubbed his eyes, seeming to be as exhausted as he was emotional, and he opened the door to his quarters for both of them to enter.

For a split second, Getty and Murph made eye contact from twenty feet apart. Julie didn't notice her at all, and closed the door behind them.

Getty wasn't back at his post the next day when she brought by a breakfast tray for him. It was the first time she had ever brought him a tray instead of the other way around; and he wasn't there. Julie wasn't at her desk outside Brand's office either. Murph tried not to think about it, and went back to work.

Professor Brand looked older than she'd ever seen him. Murph didn't register it right away, but he didn't look well. She wondered how much he knew about where her head was at, given that she wasn't saying anything for most of the morning.

"Okay, back to basics." Murph said crisply. "The universe runs with precision. Has since the Big Bang. If Stellar Drift was a tiny bit slower, gravity would have brought the universe back in on itself very quickly. If the universe's rate of expansion was any faster, the cosmos would have flown apart into chaos long ago. The universe exists because of the balance between gravity and motion. So, how to use one to generate the other? You have to account for the fact that neither is a constant, Neither gravity, nor motion… But what about Time?"

His eyes were focusing. He was listening. Murph had tried to talk her way through this before, but he'd always changed the subject. Only this time, Murph was the one trying to distract herself away from what was on her mind, not him.

When the old man looked up at her from the wheelchair he was practically living in, she could see him getting ready to shift her off topic again, so she rushed forward. "Time is the tricky part, because even gravity and motion need longevity to have any effect on anything. But both gravity and motion affect time. Huge gravity can slow it down, same for light-speed velocity. So if none of them are a constant, how do they work together so perfectly?" She waved at the whiteboard. "And more importantly, why don't you have any temporal mechanics on the board at all?"

Finally Brand spoke, and it was clear he knew everything, as usual.

"You know why Julie's with him right now, instead of you?" Brand said quietly. "Because she's presenting a warm, sympathetic shoulder for a heartsick orphan to hold onto, and you're in here, saving the human race."

Murph said nothing, just looked harder at her chalkboards.

"It's neither better or worse, good or bad, right or wrong. That doesn't enter into it. Getty loves you, and trusts you, and he's in absolute awe of you. But right now, that doesn't enter into it either. Julie knows what we're trying to do in here, and she knows she can't help us at all. But she feels the dread growing, just like everyone else. For better or worse, she wants to make a little bit of it easier for someone. None of which is anyone's fault, or something they should apologize for."

"No, I guess not." Murph sighed, and finally looked at her teacher. "Is it possible, to dedicate yourself totally to trying to save the whole world, and still take all the time you need to care about one person in particular?"

"It's a paradox. It's also the most human question I've ever heard you ask." Brand said quietly. "People will care selflessly for people they know, but rarely beyond line of sight."

"I don't buy that." Murph said quietly.

"I know. But Getty isn't your only loved one. Just in case it slipped your mind."

"Like it slipped yours?" Murph was still feeling the angst, and finally said what she wanted to say. "Why, Professor? Why send your daughter off-world? Of course you hoped it would work out, but you had to know… I don't mean to cast aspersions, but you did pull some strings to get Amelia on my dad's flight. Why? Why send her away, if she was all you had to care about down here?"

'I care about you." He promised.

Murph always felt a little better when she heard him say that. "I care about you too, Professor; but that's not exactly what I asked." She made him look at her. "Hey. I know you haven't told me everything. I've been in this room for most of my life now. I've been looking at these equations since I was ten, I've understood them since I was seventeen." She pointed at the chalkboards, one by one. "Every month you rub that part out, and write a different variable. Every other month you change it back."

Professor Brand couldn't look at her.

"Hey." She reached out and cupped his face gently. "I know why you can't tell anyone, with the Government calling every other day for updates. The Doomsday Clock hit zero years ago, and only this Base knows it. Be honest. You don't need someone to check your sums."

"No, I don't." Brand admitted, looking almost hopeful.

"You taught me well, old man; and I love you for it." Murph said softly. "You can admit it to me. I know about your health trouble. And once I found out, the rest was just so obvious. Why you were spending so much time on tutoring me, instead of letting someone else babysit while you worked. Why you got your daughter off-world, before she had to watch the mental effects set in. I'm betting Mann knew, which is why you sealed all his journals; in case anyone stumbled onto the truth." She squeezed his hand. "Because the whole Mission is based on the idea that you can do this; and you know that without a Rosetta Stone, it's a time consuming search… and you don't have long enough left."

His face fell, imperceptibly to anyone else.

"It's okay." Murph promised him. "I know you well enough to know you aren't scared. Just sorry. But you don't have to be. This I promise you: I'll finish the job. You got me so far, I can take it the rest of the way. It's just time and thought. I'm sorry your time ran out."

"My time…" Brand croaked, and they both felt tears forming. "I'm such an old man now, Murph. I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid of time."

Because you can't crack it fast enough. Murph thought. It's a slow job to eliminate the variables. How time affects Gravity and motion. The trifecta of the universe. Gravity, Motion… time.

There was a knock on the door, and they both stepped apart, wiping their eyes and presenting the image they could show everyone else; two geniuses hard at work on the formula. "Come in."

Julie put her head around the door. "Murph, I have your sister-in-law on Line Three."

Murph was surprised and picked up the phone automatically. "Lois?"

"Murph, hi… Um, would you like to come for dinner next week? I know you don't, usually; but… Please?"

This was uncharted territory. Lois never called her directly. She was always nice on the few occasions that Murph did come home, but her loyalties were exclusively to her husband. Lois sounded scared about something. "Sure, I'd love to come." Murph heard herself say.

It was the first time Murph had been in a room with her brother since the telephone conversation when she'd demanded he come onto the Base.

Tom didn't mention the screaming match, and neither did his wife. Denial was a way of life for everyone still trying to stay alive.

They didn't discuss her work, because Tom found it offensive to waste so much time on academics that didn't create food. They didn't discuss the farm because it wasn't doing well, and they didn't discuss family, since neither of them could talk about their father, and Murph could barely look at young Coop without tearing up.

Lois was a model of grace under pressure. She kept the conversation moving, steered it away from difficult topics, refilled the plates regularly… But her eyes always flicked to Murph when someone else was speaking.

Her sister in law had a very specific reason for getting Murph to come visit, but she couldn't come out and say what it was. "So… Would you like to stay the night? We kept your room exactly the way you left it."

Murph felt bad for her. A spare bedroom was a source of income, particularly on a farm that was trying desperately to get the hands to stay on. Tom's denial of change was getting harder to live with.

"I… can't. I have to get back." Murph said, and pretended not to see her brother roll his eyes. She covered the plate again. Every place setting had a thick tea towel, and everyone covered their plate between bites. Murph hadn't eaten outside the Base in a while, but you didn't forget those tricks. "Too many memories in that room."

"Well, I might have a cure for that." Tom said easily, and went to the liquor cabinet.

Trying to scrape the plates clean, Coop, their surviving boy, started coughing. A real bad cough. Smoker's cough on steroids. Lois flinched hard, and Murph finally made the connection.

"Y'know, Lois; I have a friend." Murph said, keeping her voice casual. "He would come out and take a look at his lungs, if..."

The look on Lois' face was all the answer she needed. Tom's missus was halfway between throwing herself at Murph's feet and shushing her before Tom could hear the offer. She wanted help so desperately she was almost willing to risk asking for it.

Tom had arrived back at the table and poured for all of them. Two or three rounds later, Murph made an excuse to go check her 4x4 and Lois went the opposite direction, out the back door.

Murph waited in the driver's seat, watching the dust pile on the side of the house.

The noise jumped dramatically when Lois sat in the passenger seat and shut the door. "He's washing up. The shower clogs pretty regularly, but I reckon we have another five minutes or so."

"I'm sorry I was away so long." Murph said quietly. "I didn't realize it had gotten this bad."

"The wind never stops at night. The dust piles on… We have to dig ourselves out every morning." Lois was near tears, for reasons that had nothing to do with the grit in her eyes. "You heard about Nelson's farm? The other families are all bugging out. All our neighbors, the school's more than two thirds empty… We can't stay, but he can't leave." She looked to Murph. "I know you have your issues with Tom-"

"It's an old argument." Murph said quietly. "A very old argument."

"The kind you can only have when you still love each other very much, even after everything." Lois agreed. "Murph, I want to be clear… I knew when I met him that he'd never leave the farm. I chose this life when I became a farmer's wife. I was a farmer's daughter, so it was not a hardship. I'll starve with him, I'll choke with him. Part of me had hoped that he'd see reason, but..." She gestured out the windows. "The sun never shines anymore. Just this hazy twilight, all year round. Today was the clearest it's been in months, which is why he had to do the crop-burning today. It should have been a week ago, the way the Blight spreads; but you can't use the really strong accelerants on croplands, and you can't keep the fire lit in a dust storm and..."

"And Coop?" Murph knew the point she was working herself up to.

"He's getting sicker." Lois could barely raise her voice over the wind. "Tom knows it, but he can't do anything, because the hospital closed down last month, and the family doctor migrated a week after that. Everyone's heading south. Even with the constant hurricanes… at least the rain washes the air clean for a few hours."

"So he sticks with denial."

"Not just him." Lois confessed. "I think it's been the main thing keeping us together since Jesse died."

Murph looked to the other end of the backyard; with the three gravestones. One for her eldest nephew, one for grandpa, one for her mom. The legacy of Cooper Farm; with one grave missing for her dad.

Murph let out a breath. "I'll call Getty right now."

"You can't." Lois hissed. "He isn't stupid, Murph. He'll know, if you suddenly decide to…"

Murph turned to stone. "Lois, are you in danger? Has Tom been…" She didn't want to say the words.

"No, no violence." Lois shook her head very quickly. "But I swear, I can see him getting wound tighter every time he goes out to the crops. He keeps saying 'one more harvest' but I don't know if we'll get there! He took over two whole other arms, and the harvests keep getting smaller." She looked sick. "He'll snap at some point. I just hope…"

Murph bit her lip. "Listen, by the end of the night, hint that I have a serious boyfriend. Tell Tom that I'm hiding him from my family. He'll insist on meeting him. I'll let him 'convince me' and tell him we'll come over for lunch. He'll be out at the fields most of the day, we can make sure Coop's all right, figure out what to do from there."

The relief was palpable. "Thank you!"

Murph did her best to give her a hug, in the confines of the vehicle. "I've been away too long. I had no idea it was getting this thick..."

"No, I'm sure you didn't." Lois said with silky disdain.

Murph looked over. "Why do you all hate us so much?" She asked suddenly. "I don't just mean Tom, I mean people in general. Because that's what it is. It's hate. I don't understand why. We aren't bothering anyone…"

Lois shrugged. "Part of it might just be the bitterness that comes from hungry, dirty people when faced with clean, well fed people."

Murph looked down, conceding that point. "And the other part?"

"Murph, your grandfather talked about how 'in his day' it was like they invented something new every day. But we both know that couldn't last… and finally, it didn't. Technology was supposed to be this magic wand that would cure the sick and feed the hungry and take us to the stars… and then it just didn't. Science and Technology had its chance to save us… and it created the Bio-Blasts and everything else the Resource Wars served up. Tech had its day, and they hate people who still trust it."

Murph looked over, eyes sharp. "He told you, didn't he?"

Lois bit her lip, kicking herself. "Yeah. Tom told me about the 'Lifeboat'."

Murph winced.

"I know, it's a secret." Lois nodded. "But that shouting match you had? I could hear him from the barn."

"He still shouldn't be telling you, if he's not going to come." Murph sighed. "Tom hates us for it. How about y-"

"Take Coop with you!" Lois blurted out. "When you crack it? When you… I haven't told anyone, but nobody will be surprised if they get told the truth. It's all falling apart, and nobody's impressed by all the happy noises the government keeps making. You can't take him now. Tom will kick your door in and take him back, but when you figure out how to get away from this… wretched planet; take my son with you, please!."

Lois let herself out of the car before Murph could say anything to that.

Murph watched her go back into the house, shut her eyes a moment, listening to the dust beat a machine-gun rhythm on the 4x4. Without opening her eyes, she tapped her phone.

"Hello?"

"Getty, I need you to help me with something next week." Murph sighed. "Something important. I'll tell you all abou-"

"Murph, thank god! I've been trying to reach you for an hour!"

"What?" Murph came upright in her seat. "What's wrong?"

"Professor Brand collapsed."

Lois wasn't wrong. The roads were impossible to see during the day, let alone the night, and Murph already had a few drinks in her. How she made it back to the Base without killing herself or others was a mystery.

"No more nights off." She told herself again and again; inching along in the dark.

Getty rushed her to Brand's bedside. The old man had been asking for her.

"You got me so close." Murph promised him, whenever he was lucid. "Don't worry. I can get us the rest of the way." Inwardly, she wasn't so sure, but there was no way she'd tell him that on his deathbed.

"I wanted you to have… faith." Brand croaked, eyes watering, voice cracking and sobbing. It was a terrible thing for Murph. Brand had practically raised her since her father left; and she was watching him fall apart right in front of her.

"I do." She promised him, keeping that loving, sentimental smile on her face, though her heart was breaking again. It was the goodbye that she should have had with her father, instead of running after his taillights, sobbing…

"...I… lied." Brand croaked out. "I'm so sorry. There was never any… way to help us…"

Murph floundered a bit, trying to dissect what he actually meant. Brand had been declining slowly for a number of years, and she knew that. She alone knew that. Maybe Ellie, but nobody else. She knew he couldn't get to the end of it in time…She had made peace with that. She had vowed to finish the work he'd started. And he knew that. The formula would be cracked eventually...

So what was he really confessing to? Or did he even know what he was talking about as his brain started shutting down?

And finally, it hit her what he meant.

Murph should have felt scared; but the first words out of her mouth were immediate and unplanned, born from some deep, secret fear.

"Did my father know?" Murph asked, and for the first time, the rage was coming through; just a little. It was the question she'd never dared ask him before. She'd talked about it with Ellie a hundred times. Because if it was to save the world, leaving the earth was an acceptable evil, no matter how much it hurt. If it was all to save humanity, Murph could forgive him, even if it had gone wrong, even if he'd died out there.

But if Brand couldn't crack it...

And if her father had known that…

"Did he just leave me?" Murph asked, scared to hear the answer. She'd been dancing on the edge of asking for ten years, and she'd left it too late to be honest.

Again.

"Do… not..." Brand rasped, and Murph could tell it was going to be his epitaph. "...go… gentle…" His eyes closed.

"No." Murph rejected that, feeling her face twist. No! I worked up the nerve to ask, it would have been a 'yes or no' answer, come on!

Brand was gone.

"No!" Murph hissed at him, frustrated with the laws of life and death. Getty rested a hand on her shoulder, but she pushed him off instantly, getting in Brand's face. "You can't leave me on that!"

Word spread through the Base soon after. Murph had expected… something. A reaction of some kind. But there wasn't one. The Base just didn't have it in them to react anymore. Nobody had the energy to offer her sympathy, and she was glad for it. Nobody had the energy to wail in despair. The whole base, the whole world was just plodding along, numb; trying not to think about it.

Murph went back to her office, and slouched in her chair, glaring balefully up at the chalkboards. She knew the answers weren't there, but like Brand before her, she pretended that if she stared hard enough, the universe would hand her the ending.

In a world where Multi-Dimensional Bulk Beings could lead little girls to secret laboratories, it didn't even seem that strange.

"Give me the answer!" She whispered, broken. "You haunted my room once, Ghost. Help me again!"

Knock knock.

Startled, even a little hopeful, Murph very slowly turned her hair. "Yes?"

She didn't know what she expected, but the familiar face was a disappointment.

"Julie, come in." Murph said with quiet resignation. Julie worked closely with the Professor more than anyone except Murph herself. Despite herself, she felt the strongest kinship with Julie now, above others. "I meant to come by, but…"

Julie waved it off. "I wasn't exactly at my desk. I hope you won't fire me for that. You're pretty much my boss now, anyway."

"I haven't decided if I'll take his workspace, but-"

"No, I mean… of everything." Julie said. "The rest of the Advisory Board submitted their resignations this morning. Williams went back to Washington, and Devane headed south to be with his grandkids… Which effectively leaves you in charge until Washington sends someone new."

"Do we know when that'll be?" Murph wavered.

"Nope. The word from DC is that the Base is self sufficient, so it doesn't cost them many resources, and they 'have every confidence in our ability to carry on, given urgent matters elsewhere that require more immediate attention'…" Julie shook her head, gone to somewhere very dark in her head. "The usual #%!&* they feed people they don't care about."

"Well, that inspires confidence." Murph drawled. "Glad to know the rest of the old men have as much faith in me to carry on as The Professor did."

"Yeah, well…" Julie looked exhausted by the whole mess. "I inherited a few things. Personal effects, mainly. Brand didn't have a next of kin anywhere on the planet. Not one he'd admit to anyway. So his personal effects were basically handed to the medical staff." She held out a thick leatherbound book. "It took some doing, but I got Getty to look the other way while I lifted Professor Brand's Journal."

"Brand kept a journal?" Murph was stunned. "I never saw him writing in it…"

"Yeah. Last entry was a week after your father launched." Julie said quietly. "Murph, you won't like what's in there." She held it out. "I'm gonna go get drunk. My advice? Burn this thing and do the same."

Murph took the journal. The moment it left her fingers, Julie burst into tears and ran out of the room. Unsettled, Murph started reading.

It was worse than she'd thought. Brand hadn't just given up. He'd finished his work decades before. He hadn't just given in. He'd run a con-game with the whole human race.

Getty was in the Transmission Room, getting ready to record a message to Endurance. It was procedure. Nobody thought there would be an answer after this long.

The door swung open like a hurricane hit it, and Murph was suddenly here, with a half empty bottle in one hand, and a twisted journal in the other. "Gets, get out of that chair." She told him. "I have words for the Endurance Crew."

"About… Professor Brand?" Getty actually felt scared of her for some reason.

"Ohhh, you betcha." She stalked over to the camera. "Besides, you're the one always telling me to send a message, so here I am."

"Um, that's Ellie, not me."

"Same difference, most days." Murph came over, weaving a little.

"I'm the Physician of Record. If his daughter is alive, it should come from me." Getty told her gently. "And it's got to be hard for you…"

"I said get out of the chair!" Murph outright snarled.

Getty considered his options and obeyed. "You… want me to go?"

"I don't care; and you shouldn't either." Murph said, and scrubbed her face with her hands, pulling herself together. "Roll tape."

"Who uses tape anymore?"

"It's traditional." She told him.

"Okay, but… try to be less drunk-like?"

"Copy that." Murph nodded, trying to straighten her appearance a bit. She slid the bottle out of view, and tossed the journal over her shoulder. It hit the wall and she turned to the camera before it hit the floor.

"And of course, you realize that with the Dust Storms worsening, the static charge in the air means it could be days, even weeks; before we get a clear transmission to the satellite, let alone to the Wormhole…"

Murph gave him a look. She didn't care any more than he did.

"Right." Getty picked up the journal from the floor and left the room.

"Doctor Brand." Murph said, sounding almost normal. "I'm sorry to tell you that your father died today. He had no pain. He was at peace. I'm very sorry for your loss." She reached out to turn off the recording, but that was mostly so she could pretend she felt conflicted. If Amelia Brand was alive, she was about to heave all this misery on someone from a galaxy away. She took a few shuddering breaths and let the camera have it. She wanted to scream, but instead, her voice came out weak and broken. "Brand? Did you know? He told you, right? He knew. This was all a sham. You left us here. To suffocate. To starve."

She took another breath, and asked the question again; knowing she wouldn't get an answer from this source either. "Did my father know too?" The tears came then, spilling out helplessly. "Dad?" She wavered, not even looking at the camera anymore. "I just want to know… if you left me here to die." She covered her face. "I just have to know!" She reached out and turned the camera off. "You had to know. Of course you knew. You were too smart to fall for Brand's patter; and you had no tolerance for BS..."

The loneliness had turned to impotent fury in seconds. "You knew." She choked, seething. "You had to know."

Murph went back to her office, and collapsed in her office chair, nursing her drinks. After what felt like a million years, her door opened. Getty was there, holding up the open journal in one hand, and a meal tray in the other. "I figured you hadn't eaten."

"You'd be right about that." She rasped, and he put the tray down in front of her. "You read it?"

"I did." Getty said softly, sitting down across from her. "By the way, you aren't allowed to steal my patient's personal items."

"Does that really matter?" Murph scorned. "Does anything?"

"Be honest, Murph. You wish you'd never read this."

"He knew." Murph breathed a confirmation, somewhere between grief and pure hellfire. "Brand knew. Mann knew. My father knew. The whole time; there was never any hope."

"Your father didn't." Getty promised gently.

"The hell he didn't!" Murph snarled at him. She was slouched in the chair behind her desk, small and broken, and only kept upright by suffocating anger. "Dad wanted to be an astronaut. He never got his wish. He was stuck being a farmer, which he hated. And then we came here, and either he was too stupidly eager to realize he was being played, or he was smart enough to know there was no hope, and decided to be an astronaut like he always wanted. The day he left, my father tried to tell me that he didn't think he was coming back! And at last, I know why! It's because there was nothing to come back to!"

"There's you." He said.

She glared at him as she stood up and staggered over to the wetbar. "Yeah well, that wasn't enough, apparently." Getty was the last person in the world who deserved her wrath, but she was too mad to care, and let him have it. "Why are you still here, anyway? There's no point in being a doctor, or a Priest, or anything else you had to offer. Take your stupid face, and your stupid jello, and just get out!" She slapped the food tray off the table with a sudden swipe of rage; sending precious food everywhere. "Go off with Julie and die in whatever manner seems most disgusting to you!"

Getty responded by stepping over to the bar and giving her a hug from behind. She had just yelled at him, taken out ten years worth of frustration on him, and his response was to give her affection and kindness.

She almost hated him for it, and turned to punch him right in the mouth. And then an instant later she was clinging to him tightly, bawling her eyes out on his shoulder.

Murph woke up from a fitful doze and found herself stretched out on her office couch, head on a pillow in Getty's lap. Getty was there, stroking her hair, asleep himself, still offering her comfort on autopilot.

The door opened quietly, and Ellie was there. She would normally smile at the two of them, curled on on her couch. But not today. Ellie regarded them a moment and went over to the food tray that Murph had thrown, picking the mess up as best she could.

Murph sat up slowly, head pounding. Getty woke from the motion, and saw Ellie. "Hey."

"Get some sleep, Gets. I got this." Ellie told him. "You had a rough brain-twist too."

"Not as bad as Murph." Getty said. "And I think we both know she's the priority right now."

"I don't need a babysitter." Murph slurred, reaching for Ellie's coffee. "Gimmie."

Getty got up. "I'm gonna crash. I'm on duty in three hours."

"No you're not. I put you both off duty for forty eight hours." Ellie told them. "I'm Chief Counselor. I can do that. Sleep, eat, and take a shower. Not in that order."

Getty nodded and tried to walk in a straight line to the door on stiff limbs. "Call me if you need me."

"Gets?" Murph croaked. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"...I don't know." Murph admitted.

"Well, you're welcome anyway."

Once he was gone, Ellie perched on the edge of Murph's desk. "You're having a big day, huh?"

Murph looked up at her old friend, eyes completely dead inside. "You knew; didn't you?" She rasped, not recognizing her own voice. "You knew the whole time. Chief Head Shrinker? You had to have been briefed. You and Getty are sitting with me in shifts, like I'm on suicide watch; and I've known the Big Secret for a day. You had to know, just in case anyone else found out and blabbed it to everyone."

"Yes, but I knew before that." Ellie nodded.

Murph sipped the coffee, frowned, and went back to the wetbar, dumping a fair amount of vodka into her mug. "How do you handle it?"

Ellie waved a hand philosophically. "You of all people should understand that."

Murph twitched. She hadn't thought about her mom in years. "Mom was honest with me about the Brain Tumor. I was six years old, and I knew she was going to miss my eighth birthday. I could handle it then. Why couldn't Brand tell me?"

"Because you weren't being groomed to be a survivor, Murph. A six year old kid in tears can lean on someone else. This is different. We need people to lean on you now." Ellie said gently. "Getty saw it instinctively. Brand spent years preparing you to take over. You're the great white hope of the Lazarus Base. I'm the Professional Shoulder-To-Cry-On around here, and while I can't give you specifics, I can tell you that people confide in me: They all lost faith that the Professor could crack it long ago. But they all believed you'd be the one to do it."

"There is no 'it'."

"Yes, but for now they need to believe that there is, and you are the only one left in the world that can be a vessel for all that hope to pour into."

"False hope." Murph pouted.

"Well, that's up to you." Ellie said. "You've been following Brand's work all this time. You telling me you never found a glimmer of something good in it?"

"How much of that work is even real?"

"You are literally the only person left who can answer that question." Ellie told her with a sad smile. "I don't envy you."

"I feel like I'm ten years old again, barricading myself in my room so that I don't have to say goodbye to dad." Murph complained. "He told me he might not make it. Tom didn't hear that, and he's still trying to turn dust into corn, waiting for dad to come back back and say 'good job'."

"Yup." Ellie said carefully. "So, with that in mind; I have to ask you something…"

"Am I going to tell?" Murph wasn't surprised. "No. I'm stuck with this now, and… I hate it with a fiery passion, but I know the truth would be worse, unless I…" She let out an epic sigh. "Unless I can solve the Plan A Problem; god have mercy on us miserable sinners."

Ellie chuckled. "That's the spirit."

"Tell me one thing?" Murph drank deep of her coffee. "How'd you take it? When you found out?"

Ellie winced. "I… The Professor confessed to me… When he found out he was going to be a father again."

Murph looked over sharply. "Jaina?"

"Always had a thing for older men." Ellie nodded. "It was after one of our Friday Night parties. The Professor found out I was pregnant and came to me. He confessed everything, and begged forgiveness; because he could get Amelia on a mission and put her offworld, but not my kid. There was only one ship left. So I told him that she wasn't his; and I put Jaina with my sister. Brand's smart. He might have figured it out if he'd seen her often enough. She looks like him." She sighed. "I wasn't even mad. The Professor had already lost one of his kids to suicide when he told the truth about Plan A."

Murph blinked. "I didn't know that."

"Yup. His firstborn son. That's what being honest cost him the first time he tried it." Ellie held out a picture of the day Jaina was born. "I told Brand that the baby wasn't his, and that it was okay, I wouldn't tell anyone. We all tell our comforting lies in the face of Armageddon. Because sometimes the truth isn't good enough."

"I agree." Murph croaked. "But I'm not so sure this is one of those times. People are already suffocating by the thousands."

Ellie bit her lip. "That's why there's a Plan B." She said seriously. "I'm getting my daughter to move into the Base. She'll live longer here than she ever will outside."

"So, that was your price?" Murph said sullenly, not really in the mood to be reasonable or understanding. "A longer lifespan for your kid, and that's all it takes?"

"Murph, if you ever have kids of your own, you'll learn there are worse reasons."

"Right. If I ever have kids." Murph said dryly. "Which do you suppose will get my babies first? Starvation or suffocation?"

Ellie shook her head at that and headed for the door, satisfied Murph wasn't going to do something drastic. "God, I forgot what a mean drunk you are on bad days. You should have come to a 'Dance' or two, kid. You'd find a whole other way to deal with empty despair."

Murph watched her go, poured another... and threw the glass hard against the wall.

Murph had never been to the weekly 'Dance' before. Brand had kept her out of it while she was underage, and she was too obsessed with the work by the time she got interested.

Tonight, she just didn't care. Brand was dead, and she wanted to be numb. The Rec Room was crowded with a seething mass of people who were desperate to get drunk and tear each other's clothes off, drowning the fear in vice for another week.

"All these people…" Murph whispered. "God, all these people, believing there's still a chance…"

The deeper she pushed her way into the pit of seething human flesh, the less she believed that any of them still had hope. This was crazed, unthinking, animal action. The way people were when they didn't care about tomorrow. They could feel it in their bones, just as Murph could, now that she knew. On some level, they all knew they were doomed. They all knew it was over.

How did I not see it? How did I not know, when everyone else has figured it out without being told?

Because I trusted the Great Professor, the same way I hoped dad would come back.

Stung deep all over again, hating life fiercely, Murph forced her way over to the bar and slugged back the first thing her fingers touched.

"Murph!" A familiar voice called, sounding fairly tipsy already.

Murph ached suddenly. Oh no, please no. She threw back another shot to fortify herself and turned, plastering a smile on her face. "Julie! Fancy seeing you here."

One of the only three people to get the truth that day apparently had the same idea Murph did, and was apparently several drinks ahead of her. "Ohh, you know me; do I ever turn down a good time?"

"So I hear." Murph said blandly. It was a veiled insult, but Julie was impossible to offend on this particular night. "Getty here?"

"Oh, he never comes to these things." Julie waved that off. "In fact, neither do you; I'm a little surprised you decided to come!"

"Good!" Some distant corner of Murph clocked that Getty wasn't part of Julie's scene, but she pushed that away and ordered another round. There's no reason he needs to see me like this. Wait, why do I care what Getty thinks? I don't. I don't care. I DON'T CARE! Stop thinking, Murph! You came here to stop thinking! Keep drinking! Drinking stops the thinking! "I… uh, just needed to stop thinking for a while."

"You and me both! And you came to the right place!" Julie giggled and kicked her shoes off, flinging them in opposite directions. The crowd cheered and Murph did another shot.

Murph woke up with a gasp, felt half a dozen bodies splayed out on either side of her, and forced her way upright with a moan of pure hellish agony. She'd been sleeping on the floor, in a pile of people. Her pants and socks were still on, but the rest of her clothes were gone, and she had no clear memory of where they went.

There was almost no chance of identifying which of the articles of torn clothing on the floor were hers, so she settled for the longest labcoat she could find, and staggered out of the Rec Room. She was the first one awake, and she felt her way along the wall back to her quarters, eyes welded shut with sleep and hangover.

Getty was waiting for her in her room, looking clean and shaved enough that she didn't want to look at him. He already had a large coffee and aspirin waiting, along with a bottle of electrolyte drink for her hangover. "Good morning." He said quietly.

She started to say something in return, when her stomach rebelled, and she lurched for the sink. He held her hair back while she heaved up the whole night's excesses. The coat wasn't doing much in the way of protecting her modesty, and he was pointedly not looking until she stopped puking.

By the time she got her breath back, he had already started a shower for her, and brought some clothes for her to change into. "Never again." She promised him miserably as he led her to the bathroom. "Never ever again."

"Good choice." Getty said firmly. "Speaking as a doctor, I mean. Can you feel your braincells dying?"

"Feel them?" Murphy groaned. "I can count them. I can hear them screaming as they jump off a cliff."

"Well, take the hint. Your braincells might be our most valuable resource now." Getty chuckled. "Come on. Don't waste the hot water."

"Guh." Murph surrendered and let him baby her, just this once.

After half an hour of hot water and some clean clothes, she felt awake. Getty had breakfast prepared for her when she came out. He didn't say a word as she ate. Some light food and a few litres of fluids had her feeling mostly human again. She had crashed into a drunken level of sleep, but felt even more exhausted than she had the day before. She could barely bring herself to keep eating. Getty was on the verge of cutting up her food for her.

"Why do you keep coming back, Getty? I've never exactly been appreciative." Murphy asked quietly, exhausted and introspective enough to finally bring it up. "There's not a day goes by when you haven't made sure I've eaten, made sure I've slept, made sure… I admit my brains are a little scrambled right now, but I can't remember ever deserving any of it."

"You'd do it for me."

"Yes, I would." Murph nodded. "Except I can't think of a single instance when I have; or when I've had to."

"Well, I can." Getty told her. "Besides, you don't need me piling on after the last few days. You have enough issues with the guys in your life."

"I do. All four of them. You and Tom are the only ones left, and I can't even be in the same room as him." Murph admitted. She rubbed her aching head again. "I'm sorry I froze you out over your fling with Julie. I misread that."

"Yeah, well. So did I." Getty admitted. "But in my defense, I wasn't exactly thinking real clearly when that particular Mistake happened."

"You don't need a defense, Gets. I'm not mad." Murph sipped her coffee and her head tilted. "Huh. I actually don't seem to be mad at anyone right now. Not even Brand." Murph almost laughed. "I've known the truth about Plan A for twenty hours and I spent as much of it as I could being very plastered. Imagine carrying that for more than thirty years. And my dad? I don't even blame him. I've got a nephew who lost his big brother. I've been home to see him maybe twice in four years, and my brother thinks it's because I don't care. Truth is, I just can't stand to look at them. Coop especially. He deserves to see my age at least, and he ain't gonna get there. I told myself that I'd go back when I had a solution, and a way to save them… but there isn't one. And there never was." She put her face in her hands. "I don't blame dad for bailing before watching it happen to me."

"Yeah, well. I don't think that's necessarily what happened." Getty rubbed her back gently.

She rolled her neck to look up at him. "Why do you have more faith in him than I do? You never even met him."

"Maybe not, but…" Getty hesitated, and finally spit it out. "I know you. And I know that he wouldn't leave without you. Not for money, not for fear, not for survival of the species." He paused for a microsecond before going further. "I couldn't leave you forever if I had a gun to my head; so I don't believe your father could."

She looked up at the earnest look on his face, and even as messed up as she was, she recognized that he'd just served his heart raw on a plate to her. It was less than a day since she had roasted him and sent him away. She had responded to her pain by spending the night at a drunken rave, and she wasn't even close to being rational about it yet. Part of her wanted to slap him harder, so that he'd get the message this time and just leave, like… Like everyone else had.

But she just couldn't do it.

"It should have been me and not Julie." Murph said suddenly. Did I just say that? He looks stunned. I must have said that out loud. "I should have stayed with you the night your father died. I'm sorry I didn't, but when I saw Julie showing up at your room, I lost my nerve." She reached out and squeezed his hand. "It should have been me."

"Well..." Getty said finally. "You don't owe me anything, least of all… that. But I needed you that night. Julie would tell you that I just needed to not be alone, and that was true, but I didn't want it to be 'just anyone'...and I didn't wait for you. I should have thanked Julie for her concern and come to see my best friend. I'm sorry if I hurt you by not-"

"No, Gets. You don't owe me any apologies for needing whatever it was you needed on the worst night of your life." Murph told him quickly. "And I feel like a total ice bitch for treating you like you did. We both grew up in a place where they called every Friday night a 'Dance' because nobody wanted to tell the ten year olds what went on in the Rec Room. We know the difference between what's necessary and what's real. When I heard the news, I went running to your room. My arms actually hurt, I wanted to hold you so badly." She rubbed her aching head and poured her heart out. "Your father had just died, and you'd been taking care of me all the time I was without mine. You deserved to have 'real' that night. I should have acted like an adult, and come in. I should have told Julie not to let the door hit her surgically-improved ass on the way out. You needed me, and chickening out because someone was thirty seconds faster wasn't right. It should have been me."

Getty took a shuddering breath. "I wanted it to be you."

Both of them were breathing a little hard, stunned into silence by the mutual confession.

"I have no idea what to say now." Murph admitted finally.

"Me neither." Getty said quietly.

Long silence.

"Surgically improved, huh?" Getty said finally.

"You couldn't tell? You're a doctor." She quipped, and knew they'd be okay.

Silence.

"It should have been me last night." Getty offered. "Worst night of your life, and I stayed back, waiting with hangover cures. I should have gotten you out of there right away."

"Gets, it's the same problem with the opposite solution. You needed to be cared for. I needed to not care. For that, it had to not be you." She'd woken up with her pants still on, but it was hardly the time to get into that. Murph rose, set her coffee down, and put his face between her hands. "Getty, it's not an exaggeration to say that you're the only person I still trust. I mean: In the world. Living or dead; the only one. You're holding me together right now. For a lot longer than now, in fact. But…"

"But." He repeated the magic word, turning red.

She made him look at her. "I'm not an idiot, Gets. You've gotten some offers from classier sources than Julie, and you don't even go to the parties. I know that calling you 'just a friend' all this time was like stabbing you in the heart." She had tears gathering, despite herself. "And believe me, I know what it feels like to get stabbed in the heart. What you need to understand is that there's no 'just' about it for me." She hugged him quickly. "But I can't. Not like this. Please don't think it's because I don't love you utterly; or because I don't take your place in my life seriously enough. You're my… well, my everything now. But I just can't go there. Not with anyone. Not until..."

Until what? She asked herself. Until the world is saved? You just found out that was a joke. What are you waiting for?

She could see the exact moment he decided to be a man about it. "Back in college, I saw some guys get really annoyed when their girlfriends got higher grades than them. I've known how much smarter than me you were since we were twelve. I wasn't angry about it, even once. I was twelve years old, and I knew you'd be the one to solve The Big Problem. I could see it. The first time I tried to tell you so, I came by your bunk with hot cocoa, and I saw you crying into your pillow, holding a picture of your dad."

Murph nodded, still holding his face, feeling like a lonely little kid again. She hadn't cried over her father's picture since she was fourteen. How long has he felt this way? How long have I? She pulled his face down to her neck and wrapped her arms around him, years late, but not too late for it to matter to him.

"I didn't have the nerve to say anything to you about it, but…" Getty sighed. "I made up my mind that I'd be the one thing in your life that was hassle free. A policy that I took too far, I admit." Getty hugged her back. "Murph, right now, you've got a much bigger job than making me happy. But I promise you this, while you're saving the world, someone has to make sure you stay healthy enough to finish the job. You're The One. I'm the one The One counts on. Not such a bad deal for me."

"You still believe in Plan A, then?" She wavered.

"I never believed in Plan A." Getty told her. "I believed in you. And I still do."

Murphy let out a breath and released him. "Faith?"

"Faith." He promised. "Murph, you've always needed trust more than you could ever want love. But… if you ever decide you are ready for both?"

"You're the only one I could ever ask." She promised. "Be patient with me a little longer?"

"Heh. Until the end of the world, anyway."

Murph kissed him, so soft she could barely feel his lips on hers, and went back to holding him for a very long time.

Ellie, also a bit hungover, came into Murph's office, hours later. The redhead was packing her reference works into boxes. "Everything okay?"

"Not really, but I'll live." Murph rubbed her head. "But yeah, better than they were."

"Good." Ellie said, stayed where she was.

Murph glanced up. "If you're sticking around, start pulling things off that shelf. I'm moving into Professor Brand's Office."

"Okay."

Murph looked back at her a few moments later. Ellie was taking things slowly off a shelf without taking her eyes off Murph. "Ellie, you can take me off the 'suicide watch'. I told you, I wasn't going to out the truth about Plan A to anyone." Murph assured her. "I had a bad day. I've been racing at breakneck speed towards a prize since I was twelve, and I just found out it was a mirage the whole time. Give me one weekend to have breakdown over it before you break out the butterfly nets?"

"One weekend is all it takes." Ellie told her. "I know, because… Well; Julie killed herself last night."

Murph looked up from her boxes sharply. "What?"

"At least, it looks that way." Ellie said sickly. "After the party, she was good and loaded. She went up to the surface, got in her 4x4, and drove full speed into a tree. It was the only tree for five hundred feet in any direction, and she had to go offroad to get to it. Could be she just passed out at the wheel, but..."

"Hell." Murph bowed her head for a moment. "Does Getty know?"

"He knows. He took it fairly well, all things considered. Whatever you said to him this morning must have helped."

Murph shook her head. "I feel terrible. I treated her like-"

"Never to her face." Ellie told her. "This wasn't you. This wasn't even Brand. It's a fact of life you can't confess to suicide. Losing hope is what finished her off." She stayed right at Murph's side, as though expecting her to run away, or turn into smoke. "So I'm asking… You still have any left for yourself?"

"Hope? Not sure. Faith?" Murph asked, glancing over at the door, as though he'd be there. "Yeah, I got handed some of that just this morning. Enough to keep going."

"I'm glad." Ellie said quietly. "Because… it's on you now. To keep that illusion of hope going for us. You're the only one left that understands even a fraction of what's on those chalkboards, let alone what's wrong with the equations, so-"

"It's not enough." Murph told her. "I won't be satisfied with a comforting lie. I'm not stopping until this thing is solved. For real. Brand gave up on us. So did my dad. I haven't."

Somewhere, in another galaxy, Joseph Cooper fired the retros that would get him back into orbit, away from the time dilation of Gargantua. Even gaining the altitude would take months and months of objective time, but that couldn't be helped.

Cooper's hands were so tight on the controls he heard them creak. Nobody said a word. They'd waited impatiently for the engines to drain, knowing that every second was irretrievable.

Amelia, on his left, didn't look much better. But of all of them, she started to speak. "Do not go gentle into that good night…"

Murph started sorting her new office from the late professor's belongings. The only book that was open on the Professor's desk was a book of verse, including the old man's favorite.

As much as she hated him for the lifetime of lies, Murph found herself clinging to the words herself, feeling the weight of her mission settling on her shoulders. "Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night."

Cooper shivered as he looked down at the planet they left, and the same wave that had killed Miller, still making its slow journey across the surface of the water world, and the next one that cost them so long giving chase. Despite himself, he followed along with Amelia.

"Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Down in medbay, Getty slowly packed Julie's things, her body in a freezer behind him; as he boxed up her personal effects. He'd heard The Professor reciting the words like a mantra, and felt their weight on him now.

"Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night."

Covering the box with Julie's name on it, he slid the box into storage, with all the others; and added the paperwork to the file. So far, the count was up to seventeen suicides in the last year, even on Lazarus Base. He was responsible for sending the remains home to their families.

"Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Murph had moved her things into the Pr- into her office. Her last act was to take the photos of the Lazarus Astronauts down. She had hesitated over her father's face, before taking that one down too, letting him go, as she had with the Professor. She was starting over completely.

"And you, my father, there on the sad height," Murph said quietly, not knowing if she meant the words for her dad, or for the Professor.
"Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

AN: Sorry for the downer ending, but you can't save the world without it being in peril first.

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