The stars had long since drifted beyond Anaxagoras’ reach their warmth, their comfort, and the single person he had once trusted enough to share them with.

You.

Your name was a scar, carved deep in the places he rarely let himself go. You were his childhood companion, the one constant in a world that kept shifting. You laughed at his cynicism, challenged his intellect, softened his edge. You stayed when he pushed, and left only once.

After that fight.

He’d said things he didn’t mean. Harsh, calculated words meant to wound, to protect himself before he could be abandoned. But you had shouted back, hurt shimmering in your eyes, and disappeared into that mission, the one where you never returned.

The news was vague: a collapsed passage, your vitals vanished, no recovery team ever reached you. Dead, they said. Gone. He hadn’t cried. Not then. Not in front of anyone. But he mourned in silence, in nightmares, in the way he left your old data logs untouched and your name off his lips. He buried you in his heart so deeply, sometimes he doubted you were ever real at all.

Years later.

The corridors of this forgotten asteroid station echoed with footsteps. A disturbance had been reported. Anaxagoras volunteered, though he never did such grunt work. Something had pulled at him, irrational and magnetic.

And there beneath broken metal and flickering lights, you stood.

Older. Worn. But unmistakably you. His blood ran cold. You looked up, perhaps sensing him before even turning. The light caught your face, and for a moment, the past crashed into the present with unbearable force.

Anaxagoras didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

“Impossible..it can’t be.”