Echo had been waiting for what felt like forever.

It was strange, time usually passed so quickly for her; the last few hours had felt much longer than her entire life time put together. The last ten years had seemed like ten seconds compared to what she was now experiencing. She tried, but couldn't remember if every hour felt like this and then faded into oblivion when it was over, or if she had actually entered some sort of time loop.

Someone in the back of her mind laughed at her, or maybe it was two people. It was so hard to tell now. It didn't matter.

Alpha was late.

Same day, same market, same planet, same everything for the last – what? – Five hundred years now, and he was late. He had never been late before, and Echo was beginning to worry, an endeavor that she didn't take lightly anymore.

Last time she had seen him he had seemed so happy. He had finally found someone to ground him, and Echo had been happy, even though Alpha hadn't understood that Echo had found that long ago.

Paul pushed his way to the front of her mind, trying to comfort her, telling her that Alpha would be there soon. It was unreasonable to worry, and it would give her wrinkles. In her mind, Echo thanked him, but she began to pace in the market, earning her a few stares from the local people.

When she arrived, the sun was beginning to set. Echo noticed when she walked into the market, something changed, the air chilled, and the sky got a little darker. Alpha's wife had appeared . . .

Without Alpha.

The woman, Echo somehow remembered her name was Zoe, looked surprised to see her. When Echo stared at her, Zoe looked uncertain for a moment, confused for some reason. Echo wouldn't make the first move, however, so she waited, and finally Zoe walked towards her, hesitation in her gait.

"Hello." Zoe said once she had crossed the market.

Echo was stricken mute by a plague of shouts from all corners of her mind for a moment. "Zoe."

The woman once again looked baffled, but she continued anyway, "I remembered how you. How you and . . . Wash had looked when you were talking. It took me ten years to figure it out, but I finally understood what the number ten meant to him." She paused, perhaps expecting an answer from Echo, but there was none. "Anyways, I thought you deserved to know . . . Wash is dead."

Echo's mind exploded in sound, rendering her unable to . . . do anything. She stared straight ahead a blank expression trapped on her face. The voices were almost unbearable, and Echo couldn't tell what any of them were saying. She thought she heard Paul trying to stop them, but even as he got one silent, another started up again.

When the noise in Echo's head quieted enough for her to function, which must have been an uncomfortable amount of time by the look on Zoe's face, Echo began to speak. "I . . . I'm sorry. For your loss. Alpha – I mean Wash was a good man. The world will never forget him." Echo was sure that it wouldn't. Even here, on this backwards planet, Echo could see him. In the shape of the land, in the voices of the people, in the stars that were just now appearing in the dark sky, the sun having vanished under the horizon.

Through the chaos on her face, Zoe said, "Thank you." When Echo said no more, Zoe turned to leave. She had made it across the now empty market, and was about to vanish, forever lost to Echo; when a question bubbled it's way through Echo's lips.

"Did you bury him under the stars?" The question echoed through the abandoned market.

Zoe turned slowly, making eye contact with Echo for the last few seconds of her final answer, "The clearest planet of them all."

She turned away.