Now they weren't looking at each other. But he felt her hand reach out for his in the expanse, in the nothingness. He felt one white, skinny finger touch his. Almost like a child, reaching out for a pinky swear. He turned his hand and took hers in his, intertwining their fingers. He had never been one for leaving famous last words. Why be remembered by the very last thing to trickle out of your dying mouth? But now he had to force his voice to be even with the weight of his words.
"If we die now," Rose squeezed his hand, "this will have been enough."
But the meager five minutes they'd been alloted to wait for their death were up. The words were swallowed by the explosion.
Rose awoke in a cold sweat. This was not a particularly strange way for her to awaken, all things considered. She had far more nightmares than she did any other form of dream, including the sort of sleep where you drift into the blackness and remember nothing of the visions aside from primal emotions.
The only thing particularly unique about the experience of waking up that particular day was that, rather than sitting up in her room, comforted by the various instruments and laying across from a still-snoozing Jade Harley in the other bed, she was locked in an arm that kept her from the theatrics of sitting up so dramatically. A familiar arm – Dave, of course, was holding tightly to her and snoring softly.
"Oh, right," she whispered to herself, letting her pulse slow down. Her voice was barely audible, though she knew that neither her voice nor any of her not-particularly-substantial movements would stir him. At the same time, though, it was excrutiatingly nice to not have that privacy, in some way, she thought. Because Dave was there, and the weight of his semitan arm snaked around her waist was a reminder of that. He was inexplicably there and basking in thereness, and no matter what her whisper-filled dreams told her, he was alive and well.
She wormed out of his grasp a bit to reach for her notebook – another minor item she'd brought along. His forearm fell away from her waist and landed innocently on her thigh. She felt herself flush slightly and made an irritated face as though her expression would certainly teach his arm to be more careful next time, then relocated the limb to the blankets. Dave shifted so he was laying on his back, but was still asleep.
This was her dream diary. The latest one, anyway. She flipped to the last entry, with details about the last nightmare she remembered. The back of the page was empty and she began to sketch, early afternoon light filtering through the blinds in little strips of gold across her musician's fingers. She sketched the device like her life depended on it, her fingertips squeezing the mechanical pencil she'd snatched from Dave's table as though intending to break it in half just like that.
She sketched a machine. All science-fiction, edges and silver and little lights adorning it like a wacky Christmas decoration. All kinds of wires and seals. Two tubes with some kind of liquidlike something inside. A huge machine. And then the thing in the middle: some kind of shape, a ball but with a plethora of triangular faces, with one face cleared black. Something written there.
'5:16.'
"Whatcha sketchin', sweetheart?" Dave drawled, slumping and sitting up at the same time, resting his chin on her shoulder with the teasing maybe-not-teasing he always had.
"Nothing," she gasped, heart doing an acrobatic fucking pirouette in her chest. The Strider almost never woke up that quietly – it was always full of groans and curses at the sun for daring to shed its sleep-invasive light on New York City.
He looked down at the notebook; closing it now would be too suspicious, she'd decided, and facing him seeing it was better than facing him thinking she didn't trust him. She shrugged her shoulder away from his chin and he sat up proper, looking over the page.
For a moment, Rose almost legitimately expected him to say what everyone else always did – 'that's nice' or 'that's some talent' or something of the like. But that – that would be stupid.
"That…" He said, recognition plastered all over his face. "That's the bomb."
The way he said it registered in her mind. It wasn't 'that's a bomb'. It wasn't surprise or basic recognition of the construct. It was recognition of a specific construct. It was the bomb.
"Bad dreams," she answered simply, continuing to darken the numbers in the triangle viewport on the construct. 5:16. Darker and darker. 5:16. Five minutes and sixteen seconds that those poor saps – but what poor saps? – wouldn't see the explosion coming.
"Rose," Dave breathed. His voice sounded almost sharp, angry. Forceful. "Rose, don't you pretend like this isn't it, like this isn't the bomb, that you don't remember–"
"–I don't remember–"
"–those five minutes in limbo–"
"–and I have no idea what you're–"
"–when we fucking died together!"
"–what you're even on about!"
The two voices clattered like breaking dishes in a midmorning silence. If there had been birds chirping outside the window, they were certainly gone now. Bro slept harder than Dave did, so there was no worry about him waking up. Even if there was, though, they wouldn't have worried about it. Their attention was focused on the mess they'd just made with their metaphorical broken-glass exclamations.
"I spent last night remembering," he said carefully, voice soft to contrast the way he'd just snapped at her. "I remember it. Just – bits and pieces. But you don't."
"I don't remember anything except delusions of a mind partially ruined by hallucinogenics, no thanks to your help in motivating me to quit," she answered grimly. Her voice was all ash and knives; she couldn't help it now. It was too late to tame her fire.
Dave looked like he was legitimately trying to hold back wild horses that were begging to burst out of his chest and run amok in the square of his room. Like he almost wanted to let them. "Don't say that." He searched for the words to say. His fingers made little grasping motions at the sheets, searching for something there, too. "You're premier in telling people that their nightmares all have meaning, and things don't just pop up because you want them to. Everything is rooted in your subconscious and your memory, and nothing is left up to chance."
Rose didn't want to listen to it any more. Not another second, though the smell of Dave's sleep-scented whisper made her want to lie back down, say 'okay' just to make him be quiet, salvage a few more minutes of peaceful warmth. That was tempting. But not so tempting that it stopped her from pulling herself out of the bed and pulling on her jeans, her hoodie.
"You're not an authority on what my subconscious may or may not decide to tell me through use of various science fiction tropes. Now," she said sharply, emphasizing the 'now' with her tone and extension of her hand, "hand me the journal."
He did so, not breaking her gaze for a moment.
She grabbed her book and her cigarettes, then gave a look back to him after sliding on her little black ballet flats. He was making an unreadable face at her; half patented Strider poker face and half a combination of pleading and anger.
"Don't be mad," he finally said, looking deflated now, anger mostly gone out of his eyes.
Wordlessly, Rose left.
