It was simple enough to time things as well as he did. All he had to do was ask the computer and the calm female voice confirmed his suspicions and then he was getting himself underway. Kelly had offered to go with him but he hadn't even needed a moment to think about it before shaking his head and telling her it was something he needed to do alone. In the end Kelly walked part of the way with him, breaking off to head to sick bay to see if Claire wanted to grab a drink after shift. Ed had stood for a moment watching her go before continuing on his way.

Even out of his uniform people nodded their heads respectfully and addressed him by his rank. Only a matter of weeks ago he had been hesitant to return any such acknowledgement, feeling that he didn't deserve it and it ought to be reserved for someone else. There had been a time in the beginning when Ed had believed he would never again bear that rank but as the weeks had passed it had become less and less of an impossibility.

Hope, Claire had said. And he couldn't argue with her. Much like when she had made her primary diagnosis something in Ed's mind had just clicked when she had spoken with such certainty, such strong and unwavering belief. Maybe there was something in it, some psychosomatic effect at play, but if that really was the case then so be it. Ed would readily take hope over the despair and confusion he had felt all too keenly and constantly in the beginning.

When the doors opened it was obvious that he was the last person Talla had been expecting to see. Her surprise was written all over her face, her mouth briefly dropping open in a silent oh of uncertainty and doubt, and there was a moment when she shuffled her weight on her feet as if unsure of her next move. "Captain," she managed to say at last, and then stepped back from the door. "Come in." Even as she said those words she sounded almost uncharacteristically tentative. Talla Keyali wasn't the sort to hesitate or second-guess. Ed almost felt guilty for being the cause.

The doors slid closed after he accepted her invitation and stepped over the threshold and he turned his head to her and gave her a small smile. He wanted to try and set her mind at ease but there was a wariness in her eyes that told him it wouldn't be that simple. "Don't worry," he said to her then. "I promise not to go crazy and do anything drastic."

All things considered making light of how he had been not so very long ago might not have been the best idea and he saw another flash of surprise pass over Talla's face before she realised it was intended as a joke. When she smiled it was a little awkwardly, and she dropped her gaze with the beginnings of a laugh that she clearly couldn't bring herself to form fully.

"Can we talk?" he asked her after a moment of quiet had passed between them, his expression sobering. She lifted her eyes to him and nodded her head, almost as if snapping out of a daze that she hadn't realised she had slipped into.

"Of course, Captain." She shook her head then, almost immediately after the nod, and it gave her a slightly frantic look that he just wasn't used to seeing in the Xelayan. "Can I get you anything?" With one hand she gestured back towards the synthesiser.

Ed shook his head. "No, that's okay." He hadn't come here to impose, or make her feel obligated to play host to his unexpected guest. With his brows raised a little he indicated the couch. "Can I?"

Talla looked momentarily scattered again. "Of course, yeah." She gestured at the couch as well. "Go ahead." After he claimed a seat she waited a moment and then came around to take one for herself. Ed couldn't help but notice that she sat herself in the armchair instead of on the couch as well, but he wasn't going to take it personally or hold it against her. He had put her on the spot by coming here, and he couldn't blame her for feeling so off balance, even if it was strange to see in someone he had only ever known to be confident and unfailingly comfortable in her own skin.

To his surprise, before Ed himself could speak, Talla summoned her courage and beat him to it. "I know what you came here to say, Captain," she said to him with a small shake of her head. "And I just want you to know that I appreciate it, but—" She looked briefly down at her hands in her lap. "But that's not how I see it. I'm never going to see it that way." Before he could argue, which he had fully intended to do, she went on, "It's my job to keep you and everyone else on this crew safe, especially when we're off the ship, and I didn't do that." She was holding his gaze unwaveringly now. "I let you down, and it almost cost you everything." Talla shook her head once again. "I'm so sorry, Captain." After only a moment's pause she went on to add rather gravely, "And I'll understand if you have a hard time ever putting your trust in me again after all of this."

She said the words like she was already expecting him to agree with her. Ed couldn't help but frown.

"Talla—" His voice failed him temporarily. Ed hadn't expected her to speak first and it had thrown him more than a little, and just for a moment he didn't know what to say or do, or even think. That wasn't wholly like him, the real him, he knew, but instead of letting that self-doubt take hold and gain power he pushed his way through it and quashed it as thoroughly as he could. Lifting his eyes again he fixed his gaze back on Talla and pressed on, "You didn't fail me, or anyone else. You did your job, and as far as I'm concerned, you went above and beyond the call of duty." When she started to frown he said, "I heard about what you did. When I was taken, on Jarona II, on the D'Nari ship. All of it." Ed let out a breath, almost of disbelief, and went on, "If it hadn't been for you then I never would have been found at all. You're the one who followed the Razers to their shuttle and recognised it. You gave the crew everything they needed to find me." That was how Ed saw it, that was what he believed, and no one would be able to convince him otherwise. Though it was true that the crew had recovered the device used to neutralise the landing party and Isaac had tracked its origin to that outpost, Talla's identification of the Razers had started it all and given them something concrete to work with. Ed gave credit where it was due.

Talla was silent, either because she couldn't think of a good way to word her argument or because she simply didn't know what to say, but he took the opportunity to press on either way. "And on that ship? Doing what you did?" It hadn't been easy at all for him to use the other man's name since everything that had happened. It was something he and Claire were continuing to work on. "He could have killed you. And he would have." Ed knew that for a fact. "But you put your own life on the line to make sure he couldn't hurt anyone else." Ed shook his head, momentarily stunned into silence himself because saying the words out loud made Talla's actions all the more incredible somehow. It made them more real. "Talla, what you did? It was unbelievably brave, and selfless, and—" with a small chuckle he realised there was no other word for it, "—it was amazing."

Ed watched as the Xelayan ducked her gaze for a moment, and though he couldn't be sure he thought he saw the slightest flush of colour rise into her cheeks. "I'm so grateful to have you on board," he told her, waiting until she had lifted her eyes back to his before he said the next part. "And I'm incredibly proud."

He wasn't sure if it was just a trick of the light that made it look as though her eyes shone for a moment, before she blinked and swallowed and managed to say, "Thank you, Captain."

With a shake of his head Ed stood and held out his hand. "No, Lieutenant," he said as she rose and took his hand with her own, her grip just as firm and steady as he expected. "Thank you."

If it hadn't been for Talla he never would have been found, he never would have gotten out of that system, and he would have been lost forever. Completely and utterly lost and destroyed, never to recover. He owed her more than he could ever put into words, and more than he could ever begin to repay.

But he would be damned if he wasn't going to give it his best shot anyway.

It was a relatively short walk from Talla's quarters to his next destination, and much as had been the case with the Xelayan when he pressed the chime there was no call from within to enter. Instead the doors opened when the rooms' occupant stepped up to them.

Unlike Talla, Bortus was harder to read in terms of expression. He was far from the most expressive member of the crew and as a general rule he was what a majority of those on board would call stoic at best. Still, Ed thought he could see at least a degree of surprise in the Moclan's eyes when the door opened to reveal him standing there. "Captain," he acknowledged after a moment. "I did not expect to see you."

In a strange way Ed found he had missed Bortus' dry and matter-of-fact manner. There was something so reliably straightforward about the Orville's Second Officer, an honest upfront quality that was oddly reassuring even though at first it had been a little jarring. If he was completely honest with himself Ed had to admit, if only to himself, that he had been nervous about this moment, crossing paths with Bortus again, and there was a part of him that felt awful about that, especially as he stood there in that moment and remembered all that the Moclan before him had done not just for this ship but for him specifically.

Most recently, especially.

"Sorry to drop by unannounced like this," he said, managing to pull himself out of his thoughts and meet Bortus' gaze properly. "It's not a bad time, is it?"

Bortus hesitated for only a moment before replying, "No. Klyden has taken Topa to get some new clothing." He stepped back from the door then. "Come in, Captain."

Ed accepted the invitation, stepping inside, nodding his head quietly for a moment before he spoke again. "New clothes, huh?" He looked to Bortus. "Is it a special occasion, or—?" He left the question hanging like that so that Bortus could fill in the gap if Ed's guess was way off base.

"No," Bortus responded. "He has outgrown several of the items of clothing he already possesses and requires new ones to replace them." Much as had been the case with Talla, Bortus gestured to the synthesiser across the room. "Would you care for something to drink, Captain?"

"No, thanks, I—" Ed frowned. "Outgrown them? Really?" With his brow furrowed and his frown still on full show he met Bortus' gaze, still standing just inside the lounge area of the main room of the quarters. "Already?"

"Yes. It is a good sign." Bortus sounded proud and the faintest smile had appeared on his face. "It means that he is strong." After a pause he went on, "Those of our race who mature quickly are usually the strongest. On Moclus it gives us the best chance of survival, given our planet's harsh climate."

Ed was quiet for a minute. "Right." He thought he might have known that, that Kelly had told him that once, but it must have slipped his mind. But he wasn't really thinking about that at that moment, unfortunately. His mind had other ideas. Bortus' talk of strength and quick maturation made Ed think, completely against his will, of the last Moclan with whom he had had close contact. It was an actual conscious physical effort to keep from shuddering, and Ed didn't realise he had closed his eyes until Bortus spoke and he was opening them again.

"I have made you uncomfortable, Captain. I apologise."

As Ed looked at his Second Officer he realised Bortus wouldn't need an explanation of what had just happened, even if he had felt the need to offer one. Difficult to read though the Moclan's face was, Ed could see the subtlest signs of understanding there anyway. He frowned again. "No, it's—" Lie. That was a lie. And not a good one, certainly not a convincing one. Far from it, actually. Ed sighed. "It's okay," he said instead, shaking his head. "It's not your fault." He met Bortus' gaze again then and gave him a faint smile, even if he couldn't really conjure one properly.

The two of them fell quiet for a while. It wasn't a particularly long silence, and it wasn't even especially uncomfortable given the Moclan's tendency to only speak when there was something to be said, but Ed found he didn't care for it all the same. If nothing else he felt as though he was imposing, and he couldn't help but be conscious of the fact that Klyden and Topa might be back at any minute.

So he needed to stop wasting time. "That's kind of why I'm here, actually."

Bortus didn't say anything, instead simply tilting his head a fraction to one side, questioningly.

"I wanted to thank you," Ed told the Moclan, meeting his gaze then and holding it. "For what you did on the D'Nari ship."

"No thanks are necessary, Captain," Bortus replied levelly. "Commander Grayson—"

Ed cut him off. "I know what happened," he told Bortus. "Kelly told me everything." It had felt important to know the details even if it had made him feel uncomfortable to hear them. Kelly had told him everything that she had been able to, from her own accounts as well as those of people she had spoken to who had witnessed events for which she hadn't been present herself. "You were following orders, that's true," he conceded, before going on, "but you were still taking a hell of a risk. And you didn't even hesitate." Ed shook his head. "I know you have a lot to lose, with Klyden and Topa, and—" There were a lot of things that he wanted to put into words, sentiments and opinions, but for all his eloquence when he was at his best he was recovered enough to know that he wasn't quite there yet. His gaze had dropped briefly but he brought it up and met Bortus' eyes anew as he said with a straightforwardness that he thought the Moclan would appreciate, "He could have killed you."

Bortus looked back at him quietly for several moments before he replied. "Yes," he said, and at first that was it. When he spoke again he took a step closer to Ed as he did so. "But there are those who must be stopped, by whatever means necessary." Still holding Ed's gaze he went on, "That—" and he paused to consider his choice of words, "—abomination could not be permitted to live any longer." He dipped his head as if fully satisfied with how he had described the male in question. "I did what was right, Captain, and nothing more. I did what needed to be done." There was a pause then and Bortus drew in a breath before he said, "For the galaxy." Another pause. Bortus' voice was quieter when he added by way of conclusion, "And for you, Sir."

It caught Ed off guard how much those words meant to him. He hadn't been expecting them and they just about knocked the wind out of him. For a moment it was all he could do to draw breath steadily, and he realised he had to blink a few times to clear his vision. He tried to cover the moment by dropping his gaze briefly but he suspected Bortus didn't miss the motion, or the real reason for it. Those who spoke very little tended to see a great deal, in Ed's experience, and his Second Officer was certainly no exception.

Difficult though it was to find anything good that had come of such an awful situation like the one they had all just come out of, he couldn't deny that the reaffirmation of the strength, courage, and loyalty of his crew was right up there at the top of the list. He had known even before all that had happened with the Razers and the D'Nari that the crew of the Orville were an incredible group of people, extremely talented and unwaveringly devoted not only to the Union but to all those around them. This crew was more like a family than anything else and if Ed had needed to be reminded of that this whole situation and its aftermath had done just that.

When Admiral Halsey had given him the Orville, he had been giving him more than just a job and a title. He had given him everything he had ever needed, and more besides. Ed hadn't known it at the time but he definitely knew it know. There hadn't been any doubt in his mind for a while now. All of this had just cemented his conviction.

When he brought his eyes back up to Bortus' face he thought he could trust his voice to be steady enough not to betray the intensity of the rush of emotions that had swept over him. "Thank you, Bortus." Perhaps his voice wasn't completely free of any unsteadiness but it was close enough. It was the best he could do.

The Moclan dipped his head in a nod of acknowledgement and acceptance before he said, "You are welcome, Captain." He offered his hand forward then, surprising Ed once again with the gesture because it wasn't something that the other male was known for. As he did so, Bortus added, "It is good to have you back, Sir."

Ed felt those emotions bubbling up inside him again but he had enough warning that time to keep them under his control and he returned his Second Officer's small nod even as he took Bortus' hand with his own. "Thank you, Commander," he said, his voice steadier now, and audibly so. "It's good to be back."

There was one more stop he had to make. There was no real need for the last stop, not as there had been with Talla and Bortus, so much as it was a case of want. Something told Ed that it was the right thing to do, that he shouldn't miss the opportunity while it was right in front of him, and though he couldn't say what exactly that something was he had decided to trust it. Instinct, maybe.

Probably.

Ed knew better than to not listen to his gut.

"Ed." Caro sounded surprised but not unpleasantly so, and within moments she was offering him a smile. "Hi." She waved him through the door. "Come in. Please." As soon as he was through she looked him over and smiled again, nodding her head. "You look better," she said to him, sounding glad.

"Yeah," he agreed, looking down at himself and nodding as well, knowing that the last time she had seen him he hadn't exactly been at his best. Far from it, actually, all things considered. "The whole space hobo thing wasn't really working for me," he told her and was pleased when she actually laughed. He had made Talla vaguely uncomfortable with his self-deprecating humour but in all fairness the moment had been awkward enough without his somewhat ill-advised attempt at a joke. "How about you?" he asked Caro. "How are you doing?"

She paused before answering, looking around the room and briefly out to the stars beyond the window before she nodded her head. "I'm all right," she told him, and though he suspected it would be a while before she was really all right, he did believe that she was making progress on that front, and enough not to challenge her. Besides, what right did he have to do any such thing? He was doing much the same thing that she was, telling himself and everyone else that he was all right in the hopes that saying it enough would make it true. And it was happening, one day at a time, slowly but surely.

Hope was a powerful thing.

"How's Tommy?" he asked then, even as she gestured at the sitting area and encouraged him to lower himself down onto the couch. There was no sign of her brother in the main area of the quarters but Ed knew he wouldn't be far away.

"He's resting right now," Caro told him, confirming his suspicions as she took a seat for herself. She gave a small smile as she said, "He's doing that a lot lately."

"That makes sense," Ed said, nodding his head. "I know how he feels," he added as he brought his gaze back up to hers. That bone-deep tiredness was taking a while to loosen its grip, and he didn't doubt that the Sadler siblings were having the same trouble. The small nod Caro gave him after his words told him that she was no exception, certainly. With a slight furrow to his brow he went on, "I heard there was a discussion about a memory wipe?" Even though he knew that for a fact it felt more respectful somehow to pose it as a question instead.

She nodded again and was quiet for a while afterwards, looking at the coffee table and the small but colourful plant upon it. To Ed it looked as though she was gazing at something not in this room, but instead something very far away. Something that only she could see. "I decided against it," she said at last, bringing her eyes back to his face with a small shake of her head. "I couldn't do that to him."

Ed was quiet himself for a few moments before he gave a nod, thinking that he understood her reasoning for that. "It might have done more harm than good," he ventured.

"Yeah." It was little more than a whisper. Caro was sitting forward with her elbows on her knees, her fingers knitted together. "If we took the memories away and it left the damage behind?" She shook her head again and fell quiet.

Ed definitely understood. Drawing in a breath and holding it for a moment, he said as he exhaled, "For what it's worth? I think you made the right choice." He met her gaze. "And I know I don't know him that well—" Ed paused and frowned a little, "—or at all, really, I guess, but I think Tommy would agree with you." If he could, that was. "And who knows?" Ed went on, giving Caro a soft smile, though it was one very much fuelled by hope. "In time he might just heal all on his own." After a pause he added, "With your help, of course." Because he didn't doubt for one second that his big sister would be by his side every step of the way.

After a moment Caro smiled as well. "That's the hope," she said to him, and then she tilted her head. "Just look at you," she went on, her smile growing. "You're living proof that it's possible."

Ed ducked his gaze for a moment and turned it towards that small plant, the same one that she had been so fixated on herself only a short time ago. "I didn't really do it on my own," he told her. "I had a lot of help." He turned his eyes back to her then. "I wouldn't have been able to do it otherwise."

The smile on Caro's face had taken on a knowing edge and after another stretch of companionable silence she said, "She's your wife."

There was no question who she meant by that, but Ed still needed a second, if only to deal with the emotions the subject conjured. Of its own accord his mind flashed back to that moment in the shower. That kiss. It had been only brief, just a small thing really, some people might say nothing at all, but to Ed it had been everything. When he replied to Caro at last his voice was quiet. "She was."

Caro studied his face quietly, almost as if she was searching for something, and Ed thought he saw the moment when she found whatever it was she was looking for. "She still is," she said to him, nodding her head slowly. It changed to a shake only moments later as she went on to add, "She never stopped."

Those words lingered in his head and he heard the echo of them for a while after they were spoken. Just how right Caro was about them he couldn't even begin to guess but the fact that Kelly had stuck by his side through everything that had happened since his recovery from the D'Nari ship told him that she cared about him, at least. Ed had known that for a while, obviously, and not just because she had recommended him for the position of Captain of the Orville in the first place. On several occasions since they had started serving together Kelly had shown him just how much she still cared about him and he had seen those moments at the time but sitting there in Caro's quarters right then he thought about them all anew and couldn't help but wonder. Was there more to it than what there appeared to be on the surface? Did it go beyond the affection and caring one might show a close friend and co-worker? And if so, how much further?

Kelly had never told Ed that she didn't love him anymore, even though he had asked her the question more than once. Ed hadn't missed the fact that she hadn't been able to answer that question each of the times he had posed it to her, either.

And yet she kept telling him that they couldn't be together.

Ed sighed. "Maybe you're right," he told Caro, shaking his head for a moment. "All I know is that it's complicated." And that was something of a laughable understatement, as most of the crew would agree, he was sure.

Caro smiled at him. "I have no doubt that that," she said, and then she reached out and laid a hand on his leg, just above his knee. "But whatever happened between you," she went on, "it's in the past. And that's where you should leave it. Both of you." She gave his leg a small squeeze as she added, "You never know when you might run out of time." She shook her head then, almost as if she wanted to tell him not to waste it, but she couldn't put the sentiment into words.

Ed returned that smile she had given him and nodded his head, wishing that it was as simple as Caro had made it sound but knowing that it never could be. He loved Kelly Grayson with all of his heart, and fiercely, but he couldn't make her choices for her. She hadn't made his for him while he was recovering, she had respected him enough to wait until he was well enough to do so on his own, until he was healed enough to be able to do it for himself. Ed had to show her the same courtesy. If nothing else, it was the least that he could do.

"I'm sorry I never got a chance to meet her." He brought his gaze up again then, looking into Caro's eyes and hoping she could see just how sorry he was for her, how much he hated that she had lost someone so dear to her. Ed couldn't imagine the pain that she must have been feeling, and almost constantly as well, but he had come close to losing Kelly a few times and he knew how he had felt. If he actually had lost her? If he was honest with himself Ed didn't know if he would even survive that.

"So am I," Caro said at last, after a long stretch of quiet in which he had seen her working through that pain, struggling to find her voice and the words to properly express how she was feeling. With a small smile she added, "She would have liked you, I think."

Ed smiled back, nodding his head. "I'm sure I would have liked her too." That was an assumption on his part but while he hadn't met Erana he had met, and gotten to know, her wife and brother-in-law. Caro and Tommy were good people, people that he had come to care about and admire, and he didn't doubt that the former's wife would have had many of the same qualities that she herself possessed. He could imagine that they had had a lot in common, and he knew that Erana had been by Caro's side in her hunt for her brother. That spoke volumes about the sort of person that she had been before her untimely death.

"What will you do now?" he asked her then, distracting Caro from whatever reverie she had been lost in after their brief conversation about her late wife. "You and Tommy." He hadn't needed to clarify but he wanted to give her a few moments more to compose and collect herself.

She had drawn her hand back from his leg a short while ago and now she was worrying one over the other between her knees as she thought about the answer to his question, looking over to the wall that separated the room from the one in which Tommy was resting at that exact moment. When she spoke at last there was a quiet certainty to her words despite the fact that it had taken her a while to give them voice, "We're going home."

And there it was, the reason why he had felt he ought to come here when he had.

Caro turned her head back to him then and gave him a smile that was almost apologetic, as if she hadn't wanted to tell him that. She shook her head slightly and went on, "I know you said that we could stay as long as we wanted, as long as we needed, but—" She drew in a deep breath, looking past him to the vast field of stars beyond. "I think that's where we belong." She nodded her head then as her eyes came back to meet his, and though there was still an apologetic quality to her smile there was an acceptance there as well. Caro had made peace with the decision, and she was comfortable with it. In her mind, and in her heart, it was the right thing to do.

Ed couldn't argue with that. As much as he would miss her, and her brother as well, he couldn't ask anything of anyone that they didn't want for themselves. Caro obviously believed that she had no place aboard the Orville, and as much as Ed would have disagreed with that on principle maybe she was right. She knew her own mind, after all, and who was he to say otherwise?

They both knew just how important it was to make their own decisions, and to own them. They had both had that simple right stripped away from them by the D'Nari. It wasn't something to be taken for granted or overlooked or written off in any way. As small and insignificant a thing as it might have seemed to so many, more often than not it was everything.

"If you ever change your mind," he said to her, hearing the faintest touch of regret at the thought of saying goodbye touch his voice, "then you know where to find me." They had only known one another for a short time, in reality, but they had been through so much together in that short space of time that it was already difficult to imagine not seeing her again. For a while they had each been all that the other had had inside the system and even though that was no longer the case Ed knew that bonds like that weren't forged every day. It was certainly something that he would carry with him for the rest of his life.

The smile on Caro's face told him that she felt the same way. "I know," she said, and warmly. "Thank you, Ed." She moved closer to him then, and without any sort of hesitation or uncertainty she wrapped her arms around him.

Ed returned the embrace, hoping that she felt in that moment just how grateful he was to her, how much he owed her for all that she had done, and just how much he would miss her. Trying to put those sentiments into words felt not only beyond him then but somewhat futile because no words could properly express what he was feeling. She had done so much for him, perhaps more than either one of them realised, and he didn't even want to imagine what would have become of him if they hadn't met inside that system. For all the damage that it had done, for all the scars that it had left in its wake, something good had come of it at least. It was only one thing, but it was something that Ed would cherish for the rest of his life.