"Raleigh."
Small, cold fingers prodded at his shoulder.
"Raleigh."
He shifted, grumbling at the unwanted interruption. But the the fingers continued to poke at him, forcing awareness to gradually filter into his sleeping mind.
"...Mako? What is it?"
"I want to show you something."
"Now?" he replied groggily.
Silence answered him.
Raleigh groaned as he rolled out of the infirmary bed, his bumps and bruises reminding him of their existence as he haphazardly pulled on proper clothing and shuffled off after Mako. She was waiting for him in the darkened corridor, helpfully lighting his way with an emergency flashlight. It was proof of how tired he was that he didn't understand the need for the flashlight until they were fifty meters down the corridor.
"Power's out?"
Mako nodded, her eyes shining with suppressed glee as she led him to the nearest balcony.
Outside, where the lights of Hong Kong would ordinarily be lighting the sky, there was instead the gleam of thousands of stars, blazing brightly into the night. Mako sighed at the sight, her hands tightening on her deactivated flashlight as she stared into the black, a wistful smile sneaking onto her face.
"They are beautiful, aren't they?"
Raleigh followed her gaze upwards, his gut clenching in remembrance of all those times it had been him and Yancy standing like this, staring at the heavens. Still, Mako's excitement was infectious, and he found himself smiling despite his grief.
"Yeah, they are."
Within a few minutes, Hong Kong switched back on and blotted out the stars with its refracted light. Mako sighed again, disappointment darkening her features as she turned to go back inside.
"I know a place," Raleigh called after her, trying to do something, anything, to remove that look from her features, "In Anchorage. Yancy and I used to go stargazing there every couple of weeks. I can take you there sometime."
His words weren't much, but they managed to give her back her smile, and he was suddenly struck with how much it changed her features.
"Thank you. I would like that."