And so it went. Work. Testing. No one else so far exhibited the tactical time dilation at least not to the same degree. Only a handful, one in fifty showed signs and most of them fell short of the Captain's skill.

Often during testing she would regale them with stories of her exploits talking excitedly and waving her hands. Sometimes Phineas would look up and see her smiling at him with a fondness that made him feel...well, he couldn't quite explain.

They made headway on their serial and when things got tense she'd grasp his sleeve. The violence turned his stomach and he hid his face in her shoulder at these moments, and during the nude scenes, exclaiming 'oh law…'until it became a running joke between them and she would say it when they suspected impending nudity.

Sometimes they'd talk after, about the show but sometimes she'd talk about her life before she was frozen. She was a regular worker bee that much Phineas knew but she had greater aspirations.

What those aspirations were drifted to Phineas from another room in the form of a song. At first he ignored it thinking it the workings of an idle mind but it was pleasant to hear something other than a jingle. These stuck in his head like a long-forgotten memory. At one point he found himself singing under his breath without realizing.

She'd wanted to sing and that was all but the changing world wouldn't allow anything such as art. That plus drama with band mates prevented them from remembering what they really set out to do. Fame wasn't her ambition. She only wanted to share old music with the rest of the world, words and melodies to move the soul.

Discouraged and in debt she boarded the Hope, and the rest Phineas knew. Meeting a fellow music lover did make Phineas happy for such things were contraband under the Board since he could remember. Even the music at the countless balls and receptions couldn't encourage rebellion.

"What about you?" She asked him one night when they were cleaning up yet another mess courtesy of Bubbles. "Did you always want to be a scientist?"

Phineas cast the line of memory into murky waters. He spoke as they both tidied up the lab -a task made less onerous with her charming company at least- scrubbing down a table she stood nearby with a bio hazard waste bag open at the ready. "I wanted to fly on the ships. Had neither the aptitude nor temperament. I did have a knack for chemistry, biology and the like. My mother and father nudged me in that direction. Guess they didn't want me to become a hardened spacer with no better ambition than soaring the cosmos."

Or an outlaw. He thought sourly and put more elbow grease to a particularly stubborn spot. "They sacrificed much to put toward my education. I poured myself into my work, I wouldn't have been able to stand the disappointment in their eyes."

The Captain picked up a sheet of paper adding it to a sheaf in her hand tapping them on the table to straighten them. "They'd be proud of you."

Gathering the soiled rags he deposited them into the bag.v"I'm not too certain about that. When I was about twenty three my father passed away suddenly. I worshiped that man. He put his heart and soul into everything and feared nothing. He was my rock."

Phineas saw her forlorn expression and lowered his gaze. "Mother didn't take it well. We grew apart over the next few years but I had my work to sustain me. Those were some dark times. I had no idea how much darker they'd become. When I discovered the truth about the Hope."

He thought his ramblings of events decades in the past would be going through one ear and out the other but when he turned to look at her again he saw he was staring at him with rapt attention. "I suppose I never told you the full story did I?"

She shook her head. Phineas took a slow deep breath. " I discovered that the Hope wasn't lost- they knew exactly where it was. While the bigwigs debated what to do I proposed we find a way to revive the colonists. I tried to reason with the Board, give me funds, resources, something and let me do this. Thousands and thousands of human lives are slumbering, forgotten."

"Lost Hope," she said in disgust "more like Ignored Hope. Dismissed Hope. Let me guess- they refused."

"Of course they did. So I did research on my own. I thought if I could have one success they would see I was right. But they kept dying-"

The horror struck expression on her face was devoid of accusation or contempt. "But you didn't mean to…" She placed a light hand on his arm. "Did you ever talk to your mom again?"

Phineas remembered to breathe. "I couldn't risk it. I sent her what bits I could in secret. When they started coming back I realized she'd died. She'd died with her only son branded a murderer."

He turned from the Captain only to return to his task, she hastened to apologize. "I shouldn't have brought it up, I'm sorry."

"Oh no, it's not that." Phineas secured the bright orange bags. Hopefully they'd hold for their short trip to the waste disposal." Trust me I've sat here for years thinking of it."

Phineas almost didn't dare face her.

"All these years alone with all that eating at you. It must have been hard."

Now he really couldn't face her for she sounded on the verge of tears. And yet "Don't." was the only word he could manage.

What Phineas meant by that even he did not know. But the Captain turned to him. "Right. No reason to dwell. Everything's alright. It will be."