At first she had thought he was just sitting in his usual spot on one of the benches that lined the observation deck, bending over to look down at the earth below them. But then she noticed the dejected slump of his body, his head in his hands and the subtle shaking of his shoulders.

He obviously heard her footsteps approaching and looked up. His face, that gorgeous face that she knew almost as well as her own was streaked with tears, his expression one of pure sorrow and desolation.

"John? Baby?"

Her soft words were enough to break him, his face crumpling. He reached out to her and she was there in an instant, catching his hand in both of hers.

She fell to her knees in front of him, not knowing what the hell was going on but knowing that he needed her. She kissed his hand, first his knuckles, then his palm and the inside of his wrist, needing him to know she was there.

He leant forwards, his hand closing around hers, tugging her closer. She didn't ask what was wrong, he wasn't at the point of being able to speak. His body felt stiff and unyielding, like he was physically trying to hold himself together.

"It's OK, baby," she caught his face in her hands, pressing soft kisses everywhere she could reach, his cheeks, salty with his tears, his forehead, his lips that weren't curving into their usual smile for her.

"I'm here, my love, I'm here."

He slumped further forward then, his face buried against her chest, letting her wrap her arms around his shoulders and draw him closer.

"I've got you, you're OK, baby."

She heard a soft whimper escape his throat, the most heartbreaking sound she'd ever heard from anyone let alone the man she loved with all her heart and soul. She held him tighter, felt his arms slide around her waist, clinging tightly. His legs seemed to give way as he slid off the bench and onto the floor beside her.

She held him as his last ounce of strength abandoned him and he came apart in her embrace. She held him as he sobbed like his heart was breaking, held him as his body shuddered and shook with the force of the emotions riding him.

"You're OK, you're safe. I've got you." What the hell happened while I was gone? she asked herself, unable to comprehend anything so bad that would affect her spaceman in such a way. She knew the family was safe, she knew that no one was hurt, there were no emergencies that needed coordinating, she was drawing a blank.

She stroked his back, rocked him like she would a child, knowing that he needed her more than ever at that moment, no matter what it was that had happened.

She didn't know how long they sat there, wrapped in each others arms but it was long enough for her butt to start aching on the hard floor of the gravity ring and for her foot to go to sleep. She didn't know how long it took for his tears to stop, but he'd been silent for a long time. Maybe she should risk speaking.

"Baby, talk to me, please?"

"I…I can't…"

She nodded her understanding, not about to force him to talk if he didn't want to, she just contented herself with holding him tighter, whispering soothing nonsense to him as she sought to soothe him, wanting, no needing, him to be OK.

She kissed his neck, kissed his jaw, kissed his chin and up to his lips, soft butterfly kisses, while silently praying that he would respond. It took him a few minutes but he finally turned his head, his lips meeting hers in a gentle kiss.

"I love you," she whispered, a declaration and a promise.

"I love you too."

She felt him move and let him go, let him move out of the shelter of her arms. He rested his back against the edge of the bench, his head still bowed, looking down at the endless expanse of space below them.

She moved to sit beside him and slid her arm around his waist, resting her head against his shoulder. He took her hand in his, studying her fingers, as if he needed something to focus on, his thumb stroking over his ring on her finger.

They sat in silence for a long time, Selene too worried to risk talking and fucking things up further, she needed to give him time to process and talk if he wanted to. When he finally found the words his voice was soft and pain filled.

"I don't know how I didn't pick it up."

She frowned, lifting her head to look at him.

"Pick what up?" What was he talking about? John noticed everything.

"His distress call. Braman managed it, a hunk of junk more than a decade out of date, picked up my father's distress call and I didn't. I scan everything, I hear everything, but I didn't hear him."

"Babe, no, you-"

"I failed him, Sel, I failed to hear the one person that mattered the most."

"You could never fail him."

"But I did," the desolate tone of his voice broke her heart just as surely as his tears had, making her want to weep for him, for them all.

"He disappeared eight years ago, eight years. And every night, from that first night to the night Brains translated Braman's SOS, I've run scans, checked every known frequency he's ever used, and I never caught it. How did I not catch it?"

Selene turned to wrap her arms around him again, needing him to know he was loved.

"Our original Five didn't have the capabilities this one does, but since her overhaul it was easier to program in everything, even EOS has been looking since she joined me, I didn't have to spend as much time on it then."

That made sense. "Is that why you spend so much time up here?"

"One of the reasons, yes."

"Babe," she kissed his shoulder affectionately, "this is not on you. You weren't to know, none of you were."

He pulled himself up and out of her arms, walking the length of the observation deck and back again, his body stiff with tension, lacking his usual effortless grace.

"I should have known! Don't you see? I should have thought of that. I should have thought of everything, that's my job!"

Selene shook her head, denying his statement. "No, it's isn't. It's not your job to know everything or to plan everything."

He continued to pace, still ranting, he had no control over the words that were now spilling forth. Some seal inside him had broken and there was no way to keep it all inside a moment longer. He needed to make her understand, to see him for the failure that he was, to see just how badly he had let everyone down, especially his father.

"I'm the logical one, Sel! I'm the one that can think things through and come up with a solution. I don't stop until I find an answer to a problem. I look at every angle, I look at all the information. But I didn't with this! How could I not have done it?"

"Because you were in shock! You were mourning. Baby, you're human, you can't do everything."

He ground to a halt, his fingers raking through his hair as he let out a frustrated bellow. His harsh words, when he spoke, came shooting out like bullets.

"I should have looked! I should have studied the plans, I should have done everything that Brains just did, but I should have done it sooner. I should have called up the schematics and checked each and every camera on that fucking machine and I should have looked for that escape capsule before. We knew that fucker survived, we knew, yet we didn't figure it out. I didn't figure it out! We didn't ask ourselves how he survived, if I had of done I would have realised all this years ago. Instead I've condemned my father to eight years of hell in a place where he is far away from everything and everyone that he knew."

He took a shuddering breath, his words harsh and ragged, like they had ripped from the very depths of his soul.

"He could have ended up in some desolate wasteland somewhere, alone and scared, calling out for help, believing that we would we would hear him, that I would hear him, and that we'd come for him. But we didn't. And that's only if he managed to land that thing! If he didn't, if it was damaged somehow it could be floating out there, the life support wouldn't have lasted this long. He could have been counting down the days, the hours until he would die and we did nothing! And I'll never forgive myself for that. Never."

Selene was stunned into silence by his outburst, it was so unlike her usually placidly calm John. He never shouted, he hardly ever lost his cool or allowed emotions to stand in the way of his logic.

She wanted to help him, she wanted to make him feel better, but she didn't know how. She scrambled to her feet, catching his hand as he began to pace again, dragging him round to face her.

"Listen to me, stop and listen, there was nothing you could have done differently, you all acted on the information that you had. How old were you when your Dad vanished?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"How old were you?"

"Almost Eighteen."

She pulled him back into her arms, although he fought her attempts to comfort him, freeing himself almost immediately. She tried very hard not to take it personally.

"Baby, you were seventeen years old. I know you are a fucking genius who hit university years ahead of your peers, but you were still a teenager, you can't take that responsibility onto your shoulders. You did what you could with the resources you had, you didn't give up on him, I know you didn't, he'll know you didn't. You'd didn't have the technology you have now, you were studying in between stints up in Five and you were doing everything at a hundred percent of your ability. You did everything and more. You never gave up on him."

"No, I didn't," his eyes were sad, haunted. "But I stopped trying so hard, I stopped giving the searches my full attention. I stopped doing them by hand and automated them, I left it to EOS to squeeze in between rescues."

"Babe, no."

John pulled away, needing to not be coddled, he didn't deserve comfort at that moment, besides, any more love from her and he'd break again. The desperate sadness she'd walked in on had morphed back into anger, anger at himself, anger at The Hood for his role in it and anger at whichever higher power had allowed it to happen. He didn't believe in deity as she did, but he did believe in the power of the universe, the celestial bodies that made up his world. He just didn't know why so many bad things had to happen to good people. In truth he'd like them to all be out of a job, because then he'd know the world was a better place.

He'd tried to believe the things she said, he knew she meant well, but he couldn't get the images out of his head, couldn't rid himself of the thought that his father had been alive when he had been blasted off to fuck knew where, that his father had sent out a desperate message meant just for them and he, the one supposed to hear everyone, to never miss a distress signal or a call for help, had remained ignorant.

"Have you ever heard someone die?"

He didn't know why he had let that thought surface enough to leave his mouth, but there it was, a hideous question that hung between them. Her eyes had widened in shock, unable to understand why he would ask her such a thing, unable to answer.

"Because I have, too many times. I remember each and every one of them. People we couldn't reach in time, people that were gone before they even finished their call, people who called out for help and didn't get it."

He waved a hand, calling up one of the smaller holo projectors that lined the entirety of five. He tapped a few boxes on the screen and typed in a password of some kind and up popped a call log. There were 29 separate calls, each with a red cross next to them.

"Pick one."

"I'm sorry?" She didn't understand what he was asking, he knew that, but it was important she did. She wanted to share his life with him, then she was going to get all of it. He was tired, tired of doing everything alone, tired of hiding part of his truth through fear of chasing her away or putting too much on her. He wanted to share everything with her, just as she asked him to, the good and the bad. She had brought a lightness into his life with her crazy ways and loving heart, but she couldn't make this better for him, and she needed to know why.

"Pick one, it's not a hard request."

She stared him down, ignoring the tone, as she touched one of the listed calls at random. A box popped up but he didn't even need to look at it to know what she was reading.

"That was a climber who broke his ankle after a nasty tumble. He called for help but the local authority was on hand and dispatched a team, while I was liaising to arrange his rescue he stayed on the call, but he didn't listen to the instructions given. He didn't stay still, he got up, trying to see where he was. The edge of the mountain was crumbling and it gave way under him. I heard him screaming as he fell and I heard it abruptly stop as he hit the ground. I heard the phone clatter against the rocks and go dead."

She was shocked, he could tell, he knew her well enough by now.

"Pick another."

Her hand was shaking slightly as she touched another, the file opening.

"Family of four, nine car and one truck pile up, the truck crashed into a bridge and fishtailed out, catching the two cars behind it, which slammed into the ones following. Virgil and Gordon were on their way, I was on the line when part of the bridge collapsed on top of their car. Two parents and two children. One more."

She pointed to another, not needing to actually call up the file, knowing he'd have it memorised as he had everything else.

"Retired firefighter, he had risked his own life to rescue three people from a burning apartment, breaking down the door and guiding them out and had gone back in for a fourth and fifth in another at the top of the six storey building that he lived in. I told him to wait, I told him I'd called the local authorities, his own fire station was responding, but they were too late, he was overcome with smoke and I listened as he coughed and wheezed, listened as the hot ash filled his lungs. I talked to him as he took his last breaths, I told him that the people he saved were doing well. I didn't tell him that three other people died in there with him that night." He gestured to the screen."I remember each and every one of them. I listened to all these people die."

Selene wanted to hold him, to do anything she could to help but instinctively knew that if she were to touch him now he'd retreat even further into himself and never let it all out.

"You did all you could, you were there for them, in their last moments someone who cared was with them, you did good, bubba, they didn't die alone."

"But what if Dad did? What if he called out and I never heard, what if he died alone out there and I wasn't there for him? We have no idea how long ago that message was transmitted. He survived the launching of Zero-X, but we have no idea how long for after."

It was then that she realised exactly what he was thinking, what he was torturing himself with.

"Please, sweetheart-" she reached for him but he avoided her grasp.

"No, don't touch me, I need you to not touch me right now."

She held her hands up in a gesture of submission, stepping back a few paces. She'd never seen him this affected by something he had no control over, but maybe that was the problem, he wanted control over it, and the fact that he couldn't was too much for him.

"What if he's dead? We've all thought about it before, I know we have, even though we never spoke the words, there was still a finality about it, and we'd all managed to accept it in our own way. But now this has brought everything back, brought back all the questions."

He backed up a few steps, taking the display screen with him, his eyes scanning the logs. He pointed to one."This was a crew out on a craft heading to Venus for a fact finding mission as part of a mining company. Something went wrong, we still don't know what. But they just had time to get out a call to their main ship, which I intercepted. Their main ship was floating nearby and they refused to allow us to help, saying they would handle it. But they didn't, they couldn't get there in time. The life support fritzed out and the crew were relying on their suits and breathing apparatus. Unfortunately it only held twenty minutes of air and by the time their organisation allowed us to mobilize they were dead. I talked to them reh entire time, I heard their breathing grow laboured as they wasted their last units of precious oxygen to ask me to pass on messages to their loved ones."

He tapped the log and it opened, showing the details of the incident but also the messages he had noted and subsequently delivered.

"I learned that their names were Jessie, Clara, Tim and Ralph. They told me how old they were and where they grew up, and once they had told me their messages I talked them through a visualisation, of their homes and their families, to bring them a little closer as they passed on. I heard their choked panting and when they sucked in their last breaths, then go silent. Their company never followed up with me about them, they didn't care."

Selene was horrified that any company could be so cruel.

"It was Alan and Scott that retrieved the craft and towed it home so their families could claim their bodies. So you see, I know what it sounds like to die out in space."

John swiped at the screen again, dismissing the call logs and bringing up the ones that catalogued every sweep he'd made in the last eight years, each one negative, the last one recorded as being six weeks before.

"I looked for him everywhere, even though I never really believed that I'd find him. Maybe that's the problem, I never believed he was out there, so I didn't find him. Brains found all this in a matter of weeks, why wasn't I good enough? Why didn't I find him? I stopped trying so hard, I abandoned him as surely as that company abandoned that crew." His eyes glistened with unshed tears that she desperately wanted to wipe away, but she was determined to respect his rule of no touching until he was ready.

"Baby, you are more than good enough, and we're going to find him. You will get him back, I just know you will. You didn't abandon him, you didn't leave him to die alone because you will see him again. I have faith, and you need to have it too."

"What if I've lost my faith?" his voice was soft, almost a whisper.

"Then I'll have faith enough for both of us."

He moved slowly, tentatively, reaching out a hand to draw her closer, wrapping his arms around her, holding her tightly against his chest. She gave it a minute before doing the same, her fingers sliding up and down his spine in a soothing caress.

She felt a subtle shudder run through him, followed by his soft sigh. She supported his weight as he sagged against her, burying his face in her neck as she held him tight.

"We'll get through this, bubba, I promise. Whatever happens, however long it takes, we'll get through it together. Besides, we have to find him, because we aren't getting married without him and I fully intend on marrying you, because you made me love you so damn much."

She breathed a sigh of relief when her love managed the smallest of laughs, barely a sound, but still magical nonetheless.

"Is that your latest condition to marrying me?"

"It is indeed."

"Then I guess I'll just have to dig deep and find a little faith."

She turned her head, seeking his lips in a soft kiss, relieved when he didn't pull away.

"I promise it'll be OK," she whispered against his lips, hugging him tightly.

"I'll hold you to that," he pulled away, visibly pulling himself back together, but he kept hold of her hand, squeezing it tightly.

"Good," she squeezed his hand in return, "because you're mine and that's never going to change. You can't get away from me now."

"I wouldn't want to. At first I didn't think I needed you in my life, but it seems I was wrong. I need you more than I've ever needed anything."

"Even your morning shower?"

"My shower and my bagel."

"Wow, you must really love me."

He nodded seriously. "I do."

"As I do you." She paused for a moment, unsure if she should push him any more than she already had, but her instincts when it came to him were usually pretty good, so she trusted them now.

"I don't think you should stay up here tonight, I think you need to be with your family."

John wanted to argue, but he knew she was right, he couldn't keep avoiding them, staying out of the way and leaving them to make plans without him. He knew he'd been more absent than usual lately, especially given how much time he'd been down to be with Selene, and he probably needed to apologise for that.

He sighed, rolling his shoulders, feeling lighter than he had in a long time. He hadn't realised how much he had been bottling up inside him until he'd snapped, the self imposed loneliness of being away from his family and the woman he loved proving to be his breaking point. He'd felt like he didn't deserve to be there, to be involved in all the hopeful planning of their mission to save their father when he wasn't even sure there was still someone to save.

He hadn't talked to his brothers about it, hadn't been able to stand the thought of breaking their hearts that way. He didn't want them to look at him with anger because he couldn't believe wholeheartedly like they had. So he'd retreated into what he knew best, his craft, his work and his own head. But it seemed that Selene had had more of an influence on him than he had realised and rather than making things easier, separating himself from their support and love had made things so much worse.

Seeing her standing there, right at the second he needed her the most, when he felt like he would never be able to stop the flood of emotions and thoughts that assaulted him, had been like the answer to his prayers. He hadn't realised how much he wanted her there until that moment.

She hadn't judged him, she hadn't let him blame himself, she'd simply listened, supporting and loving him as she always did. He'd trusted her with his heart and he'd never regret that. And he'd trust her now.

"OK, we'll go down tonight, but can we just have an hour or so alone before we do? I don't quite feel ready yet."

She nodded. "Yeah, I think we both need that, we can take all the time we need."