Disclaimer: Mine? As if!
For The Sake Of?
Crouched on the roof of his home, he looks up at the starry skies above, his head simply tipped back, ignoring his telescope and just using the naked eye.
Because the star he wants to see, the only one he truly cares about, right here, right now, tonight, in the whole damned universe, is too far away to see.
He watches as the atmosphere causes the larger stars to twinkle.
So many stars.
So many of them.
But he cannot see the one he wants to. The one orbited by a small, green planet, so full of life, so full of people.
All of whom are now dying.
Including her.
Including her.
Oh God, including her!
His gut twists and his head rocks forward in grief as he registers, again, the fact that they, his friends, his team of old, his family and his one remaining chance of happiness, were marooned on a dying planet.
And that he, as the General, had been the one to order their GDO's to be locked out.
Permanently.
In her own words, "For the sake of humanity, Sir."
She was, of course, as always, right, but for the sake of them, for the sake of her, he had held on 'til the last possible moment to agree.
He had argued with her for so long.
He had tried everything, bar telling her how much he needed her here. With him. Because he had known, from the moment that she had started to speak, that this was it. This was the end for them. And he didn't want her end to include any guilt, any sadness about leaving him behind.
It was going to be painful enough already.
His apparently only temporarily dry face feels the sting as more new tears fall onto his already salty cheeks.
He doesn't notice.
He looks up again and fixes his gaze on the patch of starry sky above him that he knows contains that star, that planet, albeit unseen to him.
He speaks to her, his voice low, firm, yet broken, even though he knows she will never hear.
"I love you, Sam. I'll miss you."
He tries not to think of what she is enduring now, in her last hours.
Contagion.
Sometimes, there are things that just cannot be overcome.