For Fictober 2024, prompt #6: "I'm not giving up."


Resolutions

After the storm, she thinks, if she hadn't kept him by her side. If she'd left him on the ship where a pilot belongs.

She means to say, "I'm not giving up," but what comes out is, "I'm sorry." She's stolen his life away—for what? Her own selfish desire for a single day without rank or regulation, on a planet so like home…

But he hadn't known. Hadn't chosen.

Tom looks at her oddly, carefully. Says, "You're the only home I ever needed." And then, like a vow: "And that'll still be true, after we get out of here."