milestone (or, a portrait of a marriage)

She opens her eyes and she swears, just for a second, that she can hear his voice.

Fucking sleeping pills. She hates them. They blur the line between dreams and waking until it's hard to tell the difference, and though the worst nightmares are gone since Valkorion's final death she still dreams every night, retracing paths through old memories she wishes she could forget. But since that day on Umbara she hasn't had much choice- it was either the sleeping pills or no sleep at all.

She's no use if she isn't sleeping. No one says it, but she knows it's true. Even with stims, after a few days awake she's snappish, sloppy, starts missing details; they can't afford to miss a single thing, not now, not this close to what might be the end of it. So she makes faces at Lana- dear, dear Lana, such a nag but someone's got to make her take care of herself if Theron isn't here to do it- and makes a show of taking the pill, set on her tongue and washed down with water, a nightly ritual.

What other choice is there? She's no use if she isn't sleeping.

(Is she any use at all any more? She doesn't know.

The whispers in the corridors get louder every day. We should have found them by now. What's taking so long?

You know what'll happen when we do. How hard do you really think she's looking, when-)

But oh, stars, she wakes up curled around a pillow and it's like he's right there beside her, soft words whispered in her ear as the fog of sleep lifts.

"Good morning, sweetheart. Wake up."

It's him. Either it's him or she's finally lost it completely- equally likely possibilities these days. She turns, shoving the pillow aside, but save for rumpled sheets the bed is empty and she bunches up her fists, sits up and-

No, not entirely empty. Her holo's there, half-buried beneath the blanket- she'd been going through her messages when the pill finally kicked in and it must have fallen from her hand- and there he is, smiling, just as she remembers; she catches up the device, frantic, and lifts it to face height.

"Theron? Theron, are you-?"

His expression doesn't change and his hair's the way she remembers it, too, not the way it looks now with pale scalp exposed (though not so pale now, probably, with months passed since their last meeting- he took after his father, there, skin deepening to brown with the slightest sun. Not like her, pink and blistered; she fared far better in the dark.) A recording, then? But why?

"Wake up," he says again, gentle. "If you're hearing this, then I'm-"

No. No.

NO

please let that not be what this is, oh, no-

"-then I'm sorry, and I'm probably going to have a lot of making up for things to do whenever I finally make it back to you." Not dead. Her heart starts beating again. "But it must be important, whatever I'm doing, to keep me away from you on our anniversary."

Anniversary.

It is, isn't it? Officially it was still two weeks away; regardless of the date on the formal certificate, though, that was never going to be the one they celebrated privately. Binding or not, their little ceremony on Rishi had been a year ago today.

"Hopefully you're not hearing this at all." Theron leans forward, sitting on- a bed, she thinks, but not this one, not the one they're supposed to be sharing, not the one he should be in right now, curled up beside her. "Hopefully you'll never hear this and we're waking up together and I'll give you a kiss and tell you look beautiful and-"

She misses the last phrase, ears full of her own low keening, and she can't read his lips if she can't see properly- only sleepy, still, bleary-eyed, not crying, certainly not-

He sits up a little straighter. "I'm sorry if I'm not making sense. I don't even know what time it is but I can't sleep and I know it's tradition to have couples spend the night before a wedding apart, but that's a really stupid tradition and-" he takes a deep breath, rubs his forehead and focuses on the camera again. "I can't sleep without you, now, I so I've recorded a few of these to fill the time… birthday, anniversary, just because. Messages for you if I can't be there. Maybe I'll delete them later. I don't know."

(He had looked tired that day. But it was such a long day, so much ritual and ceremony, nearly an hour spent simply standing as people filed past, bowing or curtseying, until they'd finally shut themselves in an antechamber to gulp down a half-dozen little hors d'oeuvres before they fainted from hunger- she hadn't had time to think about it, really.

She hadn't known about any of this.

She wishes she'd never had to find out.)

"At least I'll have more time to think about a present." Shaking his head slightly, Theron makes a face; she reaches out one fingertip and it goes through the projection as she knew it would, but if she could just touch him, just for a moment- "I just spent half an hour looking that up on the 'net and there are all kinds of rules, apparently. Year one: paper or a clock." He holds up a datapad. "I'm going to have to do better than that, I think."

She shakes her head. Forget presents, forget celebration. Him, home, would be enough.

"I love you, sweetheart. I'll be home soon. And I promise that however long I've been away-" six months, Theron, six months and no end to this in sight. Did he know, even then, that this would happen? "I promise I'll make it up to you the moment I get there. Happy anniversary. I'll see you soon."

The recording ends, his picture frozen; she curls back onto her side, still holding the holo tight in one hand.

She should do something. She should- has this been on her holo all along, or did he just send it because if he did then she should look at the file more closely, try to trace it even though she knows there won't be anything to find-

She should do something.

She should do something other than lay here, crying, rewinding the recording- but that's for later. For now, she presses play.

"Good morning, sweetheart," Theron says.

"Good morning," she whispers back. "Happy anniversary."

(ten minutes earlier)

Ten relays, six address masks. A private network, carefully hidden. It should be enough.

It's a bad idea. If it's intercepted-

It should be enough.

He presses send.

Happy anniversary. I'll see you soon.