"Hand me the wrench." She passes him the socket wrench and watches as he tightens a nut to secure half of the auto-nav circuit plating to the interior wall of the cockpit. The other half is lying at their feet, the singed edge a consequence of the faulty wiring that up until a few minutes ago ran along its backside.
"That'll have to hold us until we get there." He stands and swipes a rag over his hands. "It figures that something would crap out on us just before we land."
"The ship never gives up, does it?" Despite her best effort at levity, the words land tense and bitter. Their home for the last few weeks has given so much and yet proves once again capable of blithely introducing another stressor onto the beings trapped in it.
"Don't know what I'd do if it did." He digs through the toolbox that has accompanied them to every nook and cranny on the ship, pulls out a neon orange roll of tape, and sticks a strip on the offending plate.
She doesn't answer and instead peers out the viewport at the approaching star system. He nudges the toolbox with his foot so it rests flush against the wall and sidles up behind her. She feels the heat of him on her back but refuses to relax against him.
"Hey." He touches her arm with a new hesitation, attempts a smile. "You're not gonna bail on me too, are you?"
A sudden fury, that he would be the one to ask, gathers and churns in her gut before retreating into a profound weariness. She is weary of flying so slowly, weary of their cramped and cluttered environs, weary of avoiding the one topic between them miraculously left untouched and unresolved.
He watches the rise and fall of her shoulders, the angle of her head in mute contemplation, and drops his hand down to his side.
She gathers herself and draws a breath. After a final glance out the transparisteel, she turns to him.
"No," she says quietly. "I'm not failing." The misspeak rolls off without a stumble. There is more strength in her now. She will not fail.
"Good." He pulls her to his chest in a practiced move and drops a kiss in her hair. "We gotta few days to figure things out after we land."
She forgives him the hopeful lie; after all, she still nurtures hopeful lies of own. And even her foresight that those lies will inevitably collide against the reality of their circumstances and ignite a new conflagration between them doesn't fully defeat her.
"We'll have a break," she hears him say. "From the ship, from all these repairs. It'll be good for us." He tries to inject some playfulness into his words. "Bet you never thought you'd hear me say that."
She pulls back and thumbs his lower lip. "I may have once been surprised to hear that from you." A smile breaks through. "But not anymore."
"That's me, never dull."
Her smile widens so far that tears threaten the corners of her eyes. "No. Never dull."
"Come on." Oblivious of her sudden emotion, he scans the nav console and keys in a command. "I'll make us drinks to commemorate our last night."
She watches him leave the cockpit and waits a moment before following. The blurriness in her vision blinks away into clarity and the ship is just a ship again: a creaky, junk-ridden, broken-down vessel limping its way across a deserted sector. Weeks-old memories, once so sharp and resonant, recede into the distance on their way to being overtaken by future events outside of her control.
One more night. She crosses the threshold and follows the path he has taken. There is, after all, nowhere else to go.
A/N: Thank you for reading!