a/n: Hope had a partner named Ornella. Spoilers ahoy. Hope skims the worst part.

All the good things, belong to Monolithsoft. Ornella was amazing.

"I had a partner. A friend. We were roommates." Hope kept restarting her explanation, but every beginning looped back, refusing to move forward. She tried approaching from the very beginning. "She was my helper on the Whale. No one told her, it wasn't an assignment. She saw what I was trying to do and decided I needed help, and that's exactly what she did. She stepped up and started to help me. We worked together on the evacuation ship, all the way to Mira. But it wasn't just work," she assured Quincy. "She took care of me. Made sure I ate, made sure I could sleep. She took so much work onto herself so I could get a chance to breathe."

Hope lifted an unseen hand, carving out the form of the Whale in the gloom. "Early on, there were shortages on the ship, sometimes bad ones. Sometimes, if you didn't eat your lunch fast enough, people would help themselves to food off your tray. I'd go to the mess hall and I'd end up not eating anything. There was always someone who needed me to listen during their only break, someone that needed my attention. She made sure I got food and ..." Hope blinked several times. "Her name was Ornella."

Her voice was breaking. She needed to keep talking, to push away the shakiness in her throat. "She was my best friend. She cared for me. Sometimes it felt like... she was older than me ... it was almost ..." She was choking. Quincy leaned down and pressed his forehead on her shoulder. Somehow, knowing that he wasn't looking at her, even in the dark, but was so close, that helped.

"... it was like having a mother." Hope had run out of air, getting that bit out, but she had done it. She inhaled, messy, rough, held it for four, let it slowly out. She could continue now. "Not really, you know. We were adults. But she would nag me a little, boost me a little, argue or encourage, and sometimes it felt nice to feel that way."

Hope stopped for a long while. Eventually Quincy rolled away, his hand sliding to her elbow, and they both stared at the ceiling. Maybe they could stay that way until morning.

"She died?" Quincy phrased it like a question, but they both knew the answer. The imp of anger flared, this time a very familiar heat.

"She was working for the Ganglion." Hope wanted it to be brutal. She wanted to have him gasp a little in the darkness. She wanted to shut him up. It was unkind and she did it anyway. She knew she'd regret it in a second. She would have to hide her anger and calm him down. Make it not so bad. She shouldn't give in to that angry imp in her brain.

"Wow." It wasn't a gasp. He wasn't shocked like that. But there was a tenseness next to her. Maybe he was angry too?

Everyone in NLA knew the next bit. Hope had never had to explain, not even at the time it was happening. Someone else had always done it for her. Someone else did it now. Hope heard her most professional voice, clear, measured, the one that outlined new paperwork policy or announced reduced water quotas. "The Ganglion made contact with her and she agreed to help them. I can't imagine what they offered her. Maybe she was tired of her role here. It turned out that she had always planned to use me, even on the Whale. Influence, blackmail, I'll never know. In NLA, she tricked clients, people we were trying to help, and delivered them to the Ganglion." There. It was said. It couldn't get worse.

"Could you still get them back? Rescue them?"

She had been wrong, of course, because things always got worse on Mira. She could manage a few more seconds of detachment. "They were used as materials."

Still no gasp, but Quincy was definitely shaking. That was him making the bed shudder, very slightly, not Hope. His hand had returned to her shoulder, very heavy and still. How odd, that he was shaking and his hand was so still. She had her own hands clasped together, and she thought she'd reach over and hold his hand, as soon as she could pull her fingers apart. He breathed in, out. She mimicked it, in, out. The shaking stopped, her fingers started to relax.

He hadn't moved his hand yet. She was very glad of that. Instead he rolled a little closer to her, stacking his forehead onto his hand onto her shoulder. An anchor to someone else.

Hope realized she still hadn't explained about the bed, but it felt obvious. She could skim over the details. "When we came back from ... stopping her ... (she could allow that for herself, skipping that one thing) ... I couldn't stand to see her bunk. Friends helped me clear her things, she'll want them when we're all restored, but the sight of her bunk made me feel ..."

"Sad?" offered Quincy.

Hope tested different words. "Sad? Terrible? Frightened?" Hope didn't have an answer.

"All the things," Quincy decided.

"All the things," she echoed. "I saw it and I felt all the things, yes. It didn't help to get a new roommate. She was a lovely person, cheerful and bright, but I would see the bunk and panic. She joined some other girls after a bit, invited me to join but somehow it didn't feel like it would work. So I had a single. I got rid of her bunk, of course, but that still didn't help. It just became the space where the bed had been. Even rearranging furniture didn't help."

"So you got a new bed," Quincy said with understanding. "One so big there was only space for you."

"Exactly." There was a long pause. She thought he might be sleeping. She thought she might fall asleep. But then he rolled away and settled back.

"It's a nice bed," he said admiringly. He wriggled appreciatively. A few stuffed animals bounced onto him and were batted away. "Very big."

"It is," emphasized Hope.

"So big. You could hold a conference here."

Hope smiled, weakly, which was frankly amazing. Even after so many months, thinking about Ornella could make her miserable through the entire night. "I do!" she joked weakly. "We call them slumber parties. You know, gossip and makeup and sharing our favorite music."

"I'll take your word for it. Fun?"

"Very. We put a movie on the wall and stay up late. Or I can let people, um, borrow it. Newlyweds without a shared room." She blushed.

"Erm," said Quincy in the darkness.

"I usually go on a long mission then," she admitted quickly. "Long ones. Far away."

"I can imagine," said Quincy.

"I try not to," replied Hope.

A second later they were both cackling with laughter. "Poor Hope," gasped Quincy, "stuck with a blockhead like me."

"You asked," she wheezed.

"Hey, Hope?" His voice was still light, but the laughter was gone.

"What is it?"

"Could you do me a favor?"

"If I can. Of course I will." She squashed whatever worry was crawling back up her spine. The bed was too warm and comfortable to start shivering again.

"Could you not tell me about my deal? Let me stay ignorant instead."

Hope didn't understand. "I told you already: I don't know who your special woman is."

"I know. I meant, could you not tell me about the people I lost? I can't remember, but I'm guessing I must have lost people on the old planet."

"Yes," Hope answered slowly, realizing how much he could be hurt, and for what?

"And maybe here? Wait, no, don't tell me, that's the whole point." He sighed heavily. "I know I sound like a wimp, but I don't think I can handle much more."

Hope considered. "You have quite enough to cope with. It makes sense."

"Besides, it's just for a few more hours, right? So call it a mini-vacation."

"All right."

"Thanks. I feel bad asking, especially after learning about your friend, but ..."

"... but you're already doing enough. Knowing limits is important."

"Again, thanks."

They were both silent but not asleep. Each thinking whatever thoughts passed by. Hope finally spoke. "May I tell you one thing?" She'd worked with some of the citizens in NLA who had lost memories. There was one thing that nagged at them pretty consistently.

"Okay?"

"You have nothing to be ashamed of," she said firmly, "about what you did or the people you loved."

Quincy didn't respond immediately. Finally, he said, very quietly, "I'm pretty sure the same is true for you, Hope."

Hope was surprised. She was surprised by her surprise. She wanted to see how many layers of surprise she could pile up before she wasn't surprised, but instead she fell asleep on that very thought, and slept straight through until her alarm buzzed.

a/n: Got that over with.

Next up: Wakey wakey eggs and bakey!