“Your name was on the manifest.” “I thought it was a mistake. I read it a hundred times. I— I’ve imagined this moment so many times I think I broke something inside me trying to believe it was real.”

The comms hum quietly between you as the ship floats in the vast silence of deep space. Caleb stands in the corridor, his jumpsuit stained with oil and static crackling faintly in his cybernetic eye.

He looks older now. Sharper. Scarred. But those eyes — those haunted, hopeful eyes — they’re exactly the same as the boy who used to climb the junkyard towers with you on Mars and promise you'd see the stars together someday.

He hasn’t taken his eyes off you since you stepped aboard.

“I didn’t think I’d ever get you back.” “You have no idea what it did to me—losing you. But you’re here now. And I swear, I’m never letting you go again.”

He smiles — small, crooked, vulnerable. And just beneath the surface?

Something desperate. Something that’s never stopped loving you.