Ton-E watched the easy fluidity of their partner at the controls as they flung by Jupiter en route to Earth. They had been together over a hundred and fifty years now and though Ton-E could hardly remember what B looked like when they met in the Markarian blazar on a dark matter extraction team, they thought the grey hair spreading from his temples was quite elegant and handsome. They wondered why they never noticed it before.

"It's amazing this galaxy even still exists," B commented absently. "Sol has been a red giant for a while now. We probably got here just in time to see Earth."

Ton-E chuckled dryly, trying to ignore the sharp pain in their chest. It hurt to even breathe anymore, the carbon-based synthetic polymer grafted to their bones and organs to retain their body structure was finally spearing through their flesh everywhere as their body slowly deteriorated and Ton-E was out of options. Their body must finally succumb to the dissolving bone disease that was slowly eradicating humanity.

"Don't laugh," B criticized, frowning over his shoulder but Ton-E didn't care – all they wanted was B's eyes on them for a little while longer.

"Give or take a couple thousand years," Ton-E wheezed, trying not to wince.

They hated when B saw them in obvious pain but it was becoming more difficult to hide. Ton-E was sure B knew anyway, even though he never let it on, but especially on this trip... There was no denying it.

However B did them the favor of denying it and one of his brows arched, lip quirking up at the corner.

"Do you have a couple thousand years?"

Ton-E smiled and closed their eyes, chest shuddering with silent laughter. They appreciated B's morbid sense of humor maybe most of all his wonderful traits.

They fell silent as B turned back to the control panel, setting up the energy dispersal machination they had developed together. The technology had been on the verge of viability for years now but Ton-E wasn't exactly sure it would work. Still they knew they were dying either way – it didn't really matter if they died painfully as their body fell apart or in a bright flash of light. From the moment of diagnosis they knew it would happen. Most of their relationship with B was plagued by developing better materials to improve and lengthen the quality of their life but there was nothing left. This last resort was the only option. It was just that B wasn't.

Ton-E closed their eyes and focused on breathing, face twitching in pain with every few breaths. They hated this. They thought it through a thousand times during the flight and still came to the same conclusion.

"Please don't do this for me if –" Ton-E started but stopped when B looked back over his shoulder to glare.

"You're so selfish," he muttered as he slowed the shuttle for their rendezvous with Earth.

For a moment Ton-E let the comment go, but it rankled. And the longer it settled between them the more aggravated they became.

"Selfish?" they finally asked, irritation leaking through even in their weak voice.

There was nothing less selfish than they could imagine than to let their most cherished partner go live out the rest of his life without them rather than undergo a procedure that essentially amounted to an experimental time machine at best. And at worst...

"How do you expect me to go on without you?!"

B was hunched over the control panel, voice strained, shoulders shaking, hands balled into fists. He couldn't even look back at them. For the first time Ton-E got a clear picture of just how this was really affecting their partner. He was so good at hiding it, so good at focusing on solutions, he easily hid his true feelings from Ton-E.

"Let me see you," Ton-E asked in a breath, chest tighter than normal even given the polymer encasing their lungs and holding them together by a thread.

B turned, face flushed, tears streaming down the green sheen of his skin as he motioned to the view screen, trying to act casual, like he wasn't crying.

"We've arrived."

There was a moment of silence where Ton-E could do nothing but stare at his partner, their heart aching for him and his pain. Physical pain was nothing in comparison to what he was experiencing.

"Come here."

It wasn't a command, but a request. Ton-E had been bound to a chair for the entirety of this journey and B had been very respectful of their limitations but they had no right to demand anything from him. B deserved better than that.

B walked towards them, choosing to continue to ignore the fact that he was crying rather than wipe his face. Still, Ton-E thought he was never more beautiful than then, the last time they would see him like this.

"Closer," Ton-E requested and B complied, very gingerly settling himself into their lap.

Ton-E grinned as wide as they still could, relishing in the little they could still feel of his contact through dying skin. There was nothing they wanted more than to be able to run their fingers through his hair, wipe away his tears, place their hand on the back of his neck, pull him down into a deep kiss the way they used to. How one regrets the things they take for granted upon their death. Ton-E lifted their hand as much as they could, falling woefully short of his neck.

"I just want you to be happy," they mumbled but B just smiled – a sad but genuine smile.

"I've only ever been happy when I've been with you," he answered, pressing a long but delicate kiss against their lips. "Even the mere chance at spending eternity with you is better than a moment without."

Ton-E thought if it were possible for their heart to break any more than it already was, then it was in pieces now.

"Help me hold you," they whispered, beyond the point of the pride and embarrassment that was characteristic of their life.

B helped move their arms, Ton-E taking the pain of the unmalleable polymer as quietly as possible, their limbs no longer flexible with so little organic matter left to fuse with. But B managed to get their arms around him and with the bit of strength they had left they held him as close as they could. He buried his head in Ton-E's neck and they listened to the sound of him breathing, so nice and even. It still seemed a shame to cut his life short so early – but there was nothing Ton-E could do while they were so paralyzed, nothing they could say to change B's mind.

For the first time since they're arrived in Earth's orbit Ton-E looked up at the viewfinder at Earth – a horribly ugly crater-filled planet devoid of ozone, water, or life. Once they had seen a picture of the little blue dot in space but that was so long ago now it seemed hard to believe. This was the planet they traveled all this way for, their best chance at having their energy redistributed through time together. This was home.

"Isn't it amazing that we've gone so far and never found another species like us?" B spoke into his neck and Ton-E took a shuddering breath as they continued to stare out at Earth.

Earth. Only Earth. Where it all started – where it all would end.

"What's amazing is that I found you," Ton-E breathed, chest painfully tight, their difficulty breathing intensifying with the weight of their feelings bearing down on them as well as their imminent death.

"That's why I believe we'll always find each other," B murmured as he pressed a hand to their chest, feeling the shallow way they breathed now encased in all that polymer and knowing as well as they did that it was time. They couldn't wait any longer. "Our time here was cut short, but we are meant to be together – in every life, in every universe. Please don't ask me to forfeit that chance."

"Never," Ton-E sighed, managing to nuzzle their nose into B's hair and purse their lips in a weak imitation of a kiss – such a far cry from what they wanted.

B sighed, content, not moving his face from Ton-E's neck as he signaled the computer one handed to initiate the energy dispersal machination's programming. Ton-E had no fear of death, not really. Or at least they had come to terms with the reality of it years ago. This diagnosis was an early death sentence, everyone knew that. But still, now that this was real, now that it was finally happening? Their breath caught and their arms tightened more than they thought possible around B, a pathetic and futile attempt at protecting him from the particle combustion engine they'd developed. Ton-E just couldn't bear the thought of letting him go.

"I love you," B whispered, the whirring clink of machinery almost overpowering his voice as the machination charged, growing exponentially louder in seconds.

"I love you," Ton-E mouthed into his hair, unable to even hear themselves speak over the deafening sound of the machine.

Although Ton-E had never been a religious being, they thought for a moment about faith and wondered if maybe like B he could just believe it would be true, that they would never have to be apart, and they wouldn't. If the solid belief that they were meant to be together through eternity would bring their energy careening back to one another like dark matter and multidimensional lock. And though Ton-E was nothing if not a skeptic, in those brief seconds before combustion they closed their eyes tight and allowed themselves to believe with all their heart that B was right and that that was the truth.

In the final moment a flash of brightness shot through the shuttle, burning through their eyelids and into their retinas before ripping apart their corporeal form to the barest building blocks – to energy. But they never felt a thing. For then – they were gone.

The shuttle was empty.

Silence.