Skybase was quieter than usual.

Most of the lights had dimmed for the night cycle, casting long, bluish shadows down the silent corridors. Somewhere, machines hummed softly—life support, atmospheric stabilisers, the quiet pulse of a floating fortress keeping the world safe.

Destiny Angel walked those halls alone.

Her flight suit was still half-zipped, streaked with smoke and oil. She hadn't changed after the mission, hadn't spoken to anyone since debrief. Not really. Her feet had brought her here before her thoughts caught up. She paused just outside the medbay, fingers brushing the edge of the doorway like it might shock her.

Inside, Captain Scarlet sat shirtless on the edge of a medical cot, gently cleaning a long scrape along his ribs. The skin already shimmered with faint signs of regeneration. Blood still clung to the cloth in his hand, but it was drying fast. Healing faster.

He didn't look up. "You're awake later than usual."

Destiny lingered at the door. "So are you."

Scarlet offered a half-smile. "Occupational hazard."

She stepped inside. The doors hissed shut behind her, sealing them in a bubble of humming silence.

"Should you even be doing that yourself?" she asked, nodding to the wound.

He shrugged. "Doesn't hurt. Won't scar. Just habit, I guess."

Destiny folded her arms. "You were dead. Again."

Scarlet didn't respond. He set the bloodied cloth aside, reached for a fresh one.

"I saw you hit the reactor floor," she continued, voice low. "You didn't move. There was smoke. Flames. And then nothing."

"I came back."

"You always say that like it's a guarantee."

He finally looked at her.

His expression was unreadable—gentle, maybe, but distant. Like someone seeing the world through thick glass. She hated that look. It made her feel like he was somewhere she couldn't follow.

"You don't understand what it's like to watch you," she said, stepping closer. "To see you fall. Burn. Drown. Shatter. You keep getting up, Paul, but what if one day you don't?"

Scarlet breathed in slowly. "That's always a possibility."

"And that doesn't scare you?"

"Of course it does."

The words came too quickly, and she could see it—the flicker behind his eyes. Not fear, exactly. Not in the way most people understood it. More like memory. Haunted by the dozens of times he hadn't gotten up right away.

"I remember most of them," he said after a pause. "Some are... just flashes. But others, I remember everything. The pain. The darkness. The waiting."

Destiny sat beside him, close enough to feel the heat of his skin, still warm from regeneration. Her voice was barely above a whisper now.

"Every time you die, it's like I stop breathing. Just for a moment. And when you come back, I feel guilty for the relief. Like I'm stealing time I shouldn't have."

Scarlet turned to her fully, his face softening. "You're not stealing anything."

"I don't want to be your reason to come back," she said. "I want to be the reason you don't have to keep dying in the first place."

He didn't speak for a while. The silence wasn't awkward—it was full of something heavy, fragile.

"I don't do it because I know I'll survive," he said finally. "I do it because it has to be done. And because I can. But that doesn't mean I'm numb to it."

Destiny looked down at his hands. Calloused. Steady. Too steady for someone who faced death every day.

"You act like you're indestructible, but you're not," she said. "You break. I see it."

He reached out and took her hand.

"I come back for a lot of reasons," he said. "But mostly, I come back because of you."

Her breath hitched.

"That's not fair," she said. "To put that on me."

"I'm not," he said gently. "You asked how I feel. That's how I feel. Every time I wake up, you're the first thought. You remind me I'm still human. Still me."

Tears blurred her vision. She didn't wipe them away. She just leaned forward, forehead touching his.

"Promise me you'll try to stay alive," she said. "Not just survive—live."

He nodded.

"I do. Every time."