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Tom was already having a bad day. No- not bad.
Horrible.
This was the fourth manager he’d been through since firing Gail, and at this point, Tom was beginning to wonder if the universe was personally punishing him for finally getting rid of her. She’d been getting worse and worse over the years, and while Tom had tolerated and gone along with her high-and-mighty attitude for far longer than he probably should have, her little plots against Colt had eventually started to pile up. One thing here. Another thing there. Trying to control him more and more. Nothing quite big enough to justify firing her on its own, but enough that Tom had finally snapped.
So Gail was gone.
And, other than her tendency to act like she personally owned every room she walked into and him as a person, she had actually been a pretty damn good manager.
Everyone he’d hired after her, however, had been the absolute worst.
This latest one had snapped at him one too many times that morning, and Tom had finally decided that this would be the last movie he ever worked with them on. He didn’t care how good the script they found was, how much money the studio was offering if he brought them along, or how many awards they promised would be attached to his name afterward.
He was done with them.
Completely and utterly done.
He let out a long sigh as the makeup room finally came into view, dragging one hand down his face as he walked. If Colt wasn’t in his trailer, he’d probably be in here. They only needed one more stunt from him before Tom could finally call it a day, go home, shower, and collapse face-first into his bed.
Preferably without speaking to another human being for at least twelve hours. Unless it was for a special phone call.
“Come in.”
The words were muffled through the crack in the door. Tom knocked anyway before pushing it open.
“I am so fuckin’ done, man,” he groaned the second he stepped inside, relieved to find no one else in the room.
Colt looked up from his phone, one eyebrow slowly raising as he took in the exhausted expression on Tom’s face. “And what happened this time?”
Tom dropped heavily into the chair closest to his stuntman.
For the next five minutes, he proceeded to huff and puff about everything his latest manager had done wrong, only occasionally stopping long enough to take a breath before immediately finding something else to complain about. Colt listened with the practiced patience of someone who had heard this exact rant in at least seventeen different variations over the years, his attention occasionally drifting back toward whatever he was watching on his phone.
“And they don’t even-”
Tom flinched.
Something from Colt’s phone had caught his attention.
“-Grace as the science specialist. He is going in place of Dr. Martin DuBois and Dr. Annie Shapiro after their unfortunate accident in Kazakhstan.”
Tom went completely still. For a second, his brain refused to make sense of what he’d heard.
Grace.
There were plenty of people named Grace. There had to be.
“Today marks a new dawn as the Hail Mary begins its journey.”
The newscaster gestured toward three photographs on the screen, one for each member of the Hail Mary crew.
Tom knew the face in the middle immediately.
Dark blonde hair. Glasses that didn’t sit quite right. That familiar expression that somehow managed to make Ryland look mildly inconvenienced even in a photograph.
His stomach dropped.
“I-I’m sorry- WHAT?!”
Tom lunged forward and practically yanked the phone out of Colt’s hand. That couldn’t be right. Ryland would never volunteer for something like that. Saving the world or not, a suicide mission is the last thing he would ever even think about, let alone do.
Colt didn’t even react. That was the first thing that should have scared him. Normally, stealing Colt’s phone would have earned him a shove, a complaint, or at least a ‘dude, what the fuck?’
But nothing.
Colt just sat there.
His hand remained half-raised where the phone had been a moment before, his eyes no longer focused on anything in front of him. He wasn’t looking at Tom. He wasn’t looking at the phone. He was staring straight ahead at the wall.
Tom barely noticed. He turned the volume up as high as it would go, his eyes locked onto the screen as the newscaster continued talking.
“Dr. Ryland Grace, world’s leading expert on astrophage, former member of the Petrova Task Force, and the scientist responsible for humanity’s earliest research into astrophage-”
“No.”
Tom’s free hand was already digging frantically through his pocket.
“No, no, no. What the fuck? What the fuck is this?”
His fingers caught on the edge of his phone twice before he finally managed to pull it free.He nearly dropped the damn thing trying to unlock it, hands shaking hard enough that he mistyped his passcode before swearing and trying again.
Ryland’s contact was near the top.
Of course it was.
Tom hit the call button.
“C’mon.”
He pressed Colt’s phone against his chest for half a second as he brought his own to his ear, eyes flicking frantically between the livestream and Colt.
The call rang.
“C’mon, Rylie.”
Nothing.
“Pick up.”
Another ring.
“Pick up, pick up, pick up.”
Voicemail.
Tom hung up before the message could even start and immediately called again.
“C’mooonnn.”
Nothing.
Again.
“Ryland, pick up the fucking phone!”
Again.
Nothing.
Tom started pacing.
One phone was pressed tightly against his ear while the other remained clenched in his hand, the livestream continuing beneath the sound of Ryland’s unanswered ringtone. Every few seconds, his eyes darted down toward Colt’s screen, as though he expected the newscaster to suddenly laugh and explain that there had been some horrible mixup between the actual astronauts.
That wasn’t Ryland Grace.
They had the wrong photograph.
The wrong name.
The wrong fucking person.
But his face stayed right there.
Dr. Ryland Grace.
Science Specialist.
Tom called again.
And again.
By the sixth call, he was breathing too fast.
By the ninth, he’d stopped swearing.
By the twelfth, all that came out was a quiet, broken-
“Please.”
Colt still hadn’t moved.
“Colt?” Tom finally looked at him properly.
His eyes flickered. Just barely.
Tom stared at him for half a second, his own panic momentarily colliding with the realization that Colt looked like someone had reached inside of him and switched everything off.
Because that was his stuntman’s twin. His baby brother by eleven minutes, as he never failed to remind the scientist whenever it suited him. And it looked like Colt hadn’t known either.
A sudden burst of noise from the livestream made Tom’s attention snap back to the phone.
The countdown had started.
Ten.
Tom stared at the screen.
Nine.
His phone was still against his ear, still ringing.
Eight.
“Colton!”
Seven.
This time Colt looked at him.
Six.
Tom didn’t know which one of them moved first.
Five.
Colt shot out of the chair and grabbed Tom’s arm.
Four.
And they ran.
Three.
They tore through the building, Tom nearly losing his footing as Colt dragged him around a corner. People shouted after them. Someone yelled Tom’s name, but neither of them stopped.
Two.
They slammed through the doors and into the daylight.
One.
They kept running.
Across the lot. Past trailers. Past equipment. Past people who turned in confusion as two of the most recognizable men on the entire set went sprinting by like their lives depended on it.
They didn’t stop until there was nothing above them. No roof. No props. No tents. Nothing between them and the cloudless sky. Just the freezing winds sweeping around their temporary filming location in Kazakhstan’s Kyzylorda Region
And there it was.
A brilliant white streak climbing higher and higher into the atmosphere.
The capsule taking the astronauts to The Hail Mary.
Tom stopped with Colt beside him. For several long seconds, neither man even breathed. His phone slowly slipped away from his ear as the call went to voicemail again.
He didn’t notice. He didn’t notice the people gathering around them, either. Crew members had begun spilling out from the buildings and trailers to watch the launch, dozens of faces turned toward the sky as humanity’s last hope disappeared into the atmosphere.Phones were held overhead. Someone somewhere behind them cheered before more people joined in.
Tom couldn’t understand how anyone could be clapping.
That white streak wasn’t history. It wasn’t humanity’s last hope. It wasn’t the Hail Mary.
That was Ryland.
His Ryland.
And he was leaving Earth.
Tom stared until his eyes burned, until the white trail began to thin against the blue, until it became harder and harder to tell where it ended.
“R… R-Ryland?” Colt’s voice was quiet and beyond broken.
Tom’s head snapped toward him.
For the first time since they’d run outside, Colt wasn’t staring blankly anymore. His eyes were fixed on the trail in the sky, wide and glassy, his mouth hanging slightly open like he’d forgotten what he was supposed to do with it.His chest finally moved with a shallow breath, then another, each one coming a little faster than the last.
“RyRy?” It was louder that time.
Not much. Just enough that Tom heard the question in it. Like maybe Tom knew something he didn’t. Like maybe his brother wasn’t actually up there. Maybe there was still some other explanation for why Ryland’s face had been on that screen, why the newscaster had said his name, why his phone had rung twelve times without an answer.
Tom swallowed and opened his mouth though nothing came out.vWhat the fuck was he supposed to say?
Colt looked at him then, finally dragging his eyes away from the sky, and whatever Tom had been trying to force out died somewhere in his throat because Colt looked terrified. Not stunt-gone-wrong terrified or the wide-eyed adrenaline-fueled kind of fear Tom had seen on his face more times than he could count after a wire snapped wrong or a car flipped one too many times.
This was different.
This was the face of a man who had just watched the person he loved most disappear into the sky and didn’t understand how the fuck the world was still moving.
“He wouldn’t.” Tom’s lips parted, but Colt barreled on, “he wouldn’t do that.”
“I know.” The answer came quietly and automatically. Because Tom knew. Ryland hated flying. He hated heights. He hated rollercoasters because, in his own words, ‘trusting some underpaid teenager to make sure the metal death trap was properly secured was fudging stupid.’ Hell, he didn’t even like elevators!
Ryland Grace would argue with anyone, about anything, at any time, but he was not brave in the way people thought someone volunteering to die for humanity should be brave.
He liked Earth. He liked his classroom. He liked his stupid little apartment and the ugly chair in his living room that Tom had been trying to convince him to throw away for years. He liked pancakes on Sunday mornings with Tom, and old science fiction movies that he complained were scientifically inaccurate the entire time he watched them. He liked annoying Colt. He liked stealing cups of Jody’s tea and then insisting he hadn’t wanted any when she offered to make him his own.
He liked his life.
Their life.
He was supposed to come home after the launch.
Tom’s breathing hitched.
“He wouldn’t,” Colt repeated again, but there was something desperate in his voice now. “Tom, he wouldn’t fucking do that.”
“I know.”
“He wouldn’t just fucking leave.”
“I know.”
“He wouldn’t without at least telling me!”
“I know!” The words ripped out of Tom harder than he meant them to.
Colt flinched, and Tom quickly looked away. His phone was still in his hand, but the screen had gone dark.
For one stupid second, Tom stared at it and thought about calling again.
Maybe Ryland would answer this time. The thought came so naturally that his thumb actually moved toward the screen before he stopped himself.
He couldn’t answer.
Of course he couldn’t answer.
He was-
Tom refused to finish the thought. Instead, he unlocked his phone. Ryland’s contact was still open.
Tom stared at the little photograph beside his name. It was a terrible picture. Ryland didn’t always like having his picture taken when he knew about it, said he was too dang awkward in front of cameras, so most of the good ones Tom had were candid. In this one, Ryland was half-asleep, glasses crooked on his face, glaring at Tom over the top of a coffee mug after realizing what was happening.
Tom had always loved that picture.
His thumb hit call again as Colt made a strangled sound beside him.
The phone rang.
Once.
Tom pressed it tighter against his ear.
Twice.
“Please.”
Three times.
“Please, Rylie.”
Four.
He knew. Somewhere underneath the panic, underneath the disbelief, underneath the part of him still insisting that this could somehow be fixed, Tom knew.
Ryland wasn’t going to answer.
But he couldn’t stop.
“Please pick up.” A small whimper escaped him.
Voicemail.
Tom hung up.
Called again.
“Tom.” Colt’s voice barely registered.
Ring.
“Tom.”
Voicemail.
Again.
“Tom, stop.”
“He might answer.” The words came out so quickly that Tom almost didn’t recognize his own voice.
Colt stared at him.
Tom kept his eyes on the sky.
“He might answer. Maybe they still have- maybe they got it wrong. Maybe he just has his phone on silent, right? Maybe-”
“Tom.”
“-maybe he forgot it somewhere. He does that shit all the time. Maybe it’s sitting in some room back there and somebody will hear it ringing and pick up.”
“Tom, he… he’s gone.”
“No.”
“They launched.”
“I fucking saw it, Colt.”
“Then stop!”
Tom looked up. The shout seemed to tear straight through Colt. For a second, neither of them spoke.
Colt’s face twisted, anger flashing across it so quickly Tom barely had time to recognize it before it collapsed into something else entirely. “He’s gone.”
Tom stared at him. “No.”
“H-He’s fucking gone.”
“Shut up.”
“He left!”
“SHUT UP!” The words ripped through the parking lot, and the cheering nearby faltered.
“He left us, Tom…” Colt’s voice broke completely. Not cracked. Broke. His entire body seemed to curl around the words. One hand came up over his mouth as his face crumpled, shoulders jerking once as he tried- and failed- to pull in a breath.
Tom had never seen Colt cry like that, he’d seen him tear up when their mom died, seen him battered and bruised and furious and terrified and in so much pain that Tom couldn’t understand how the bastard was still conscious, but this- this was different.
“He left me,” Colt whispered again through his hand.
Tom’s anger vanished.
“H-He didn’t even say anything…I-I talked to him a week ago.” Colt laughed, causing Tom’s mouth to snap shut. It was a horrible sound. Wet and broken and completely devoid of anything even resembling humor. “Seven fucking days ago. He- he called me because he wanted to know if I remembered where mom got that stupid waffle maker so he could get one when he got back.”
Tom felt something inside his chest crack.
“He called me about a fucking waffle maker…and I didn’t even-” His breath caught. “I didn’t even tell him I loved him.”Colt squeezed his eyes shut, tears spilling freely now. “I just told him I’d look for it.”
The crowd around them disappeared. The capsule disappeared. The entire fucking world narrowed down to Colt standing beside him in the middle of a parking lot, crying because a week ago his twin brother had called him about a waffle maker and neither of them had known it would be the last conversation they ever had.
Except-
Ryland had known.
The realization landed so hard Tom physically recoiled.
Ryland had to have known. Seven days ago, when he’d called Colt, he probably knew exactly where he was going. He had to have known what the Hail Mary was, known he wasn’t coming back. And he had called his brother to ask about a waffle maker.
Tom looked down. The chain around his neck caught the sunlight, the golden metal of the ring on it shining brightly. It was a simple band. Nothing special. Ryland would’ve murdered him if he’d bought something extravagant. Tom just stared at it, and suddenly he couldn’t remember how to breathe.
Colt had gotten a phone call.
Tom hadn’t. His mind immediately began searching backward. The last text. When was the last text?
Four days. Ryland had texted him four days ago.
Don’t forget your chiropractor appointment Thursday. I’m not answering a call in the middle of work just to hear you complain for three hours when your back starts hurting again.
Tom had sent back:
yes mom
Ryland had responded with a heart emoji.
That was it. That was the last thing his fiancé had ever sent him. A fucking emoji.
Tom made a sound. He didn’t know what kind. He only knew his feet suddenly weren’t underneath him anymore. The pavement hit hard on his knees. Somewhere beside him, Colt said his name, but Tom couldn’t answer. His phone and Colt’s slipped from his hands and clattered against the asphalt, but he didn’t reach for them.
He just stared at the ring.
Four days ago. Ryland had known four days ago. He’d known when he reminded Tom about his appointment. He’d known the Hail Mary would launch. He’d known Tom would eventually find out. But he hadn’t even said goodbye.
A sob tore out of Tom before he could stop it.
Then another.
He curled forward, one hand braced uselessly against the pavement while the other clutched at his chest, fingers clutching at the coat directly over his heart as though he could physically hold the damn thing together while the ring dug into his palm.
“Why?” It barely came out, rough like he had swallowed gravel. Tom looked up at the sky again. There was almost nothing left now. Just the faintest white scar against the blue. His crying restarted and only got louder even though he was trying to hold back. He tried to swallow it, to force air into lungs that suddenly didn’t seem to remember what they were for, tried to clamp his teeth together hard enough to keep the sounds trapped somewhere inside of him, but there was no stopping them now.
His fingers closed around the ring. The thin chain dug painfully into the back of his neck as he pulled it tight, curling his fist around the little golden band. His other hand was still planted against the pavement, barely holding him upright as his entire body shook with each broken breath.
It didn’t help. Nothing fucking helped.
Colt stood beside him for only a few seconds. Long enough to stare down at the actor. Long enough to look back toward the sky. What had been a brilliant streak cutting through the blue only minutes ago was breaking apart, thinning into wisps that looked almost like clouds if Colt didn’t think too hard about what had made them.
Then his knees gave out. He hit the pavement too.
Tom barely had time to lift his head before Colt was reaching for him.There was nothing careful about it. Colt grabbed him and dragged him against his chest, one arm locking around Tom’s shoulders while the other wrapped around the back of his head, fingers tangling into his hair as he pulled him close.
Tom shattered completely. His fist twisted into the back of Colt’s jacket as he buried his face against his shoulder, the ring trapped tightly in his palm between them.
And then Colt broke with him. The first sob tore through him so violently his entire body jerked. He ducked his head, pressing his cheek into Tom’s hair as another followed, until he couldn’t breathe without choking on them. His arms only tightened around Tom with every one, holding him hard enough that on any other day one of them probably would’ve shoved and complained.
Neither cared. They just held on. There were no words. Neither of them had any left. There was nothing Tom could say that would make the stuntman’s brother come back down from the sky. There was nothing Colt could say that would put the actor’s fiancé back in his arms.
So they cried.
Ugly, broken, gasping sobs that neither of them could control. The kind that physically hurt. That made their chests ache and their throats burn, and left them struggling for breaths that never seemed deep enough. For once, there was no teasing between them. No insults thrown.No shoving each other away because one of them had gotten too close. No carefully maintained bullshit for everyone around them to see.
Just two men on their knees in the middle of a freezing parking lot trying to hold each other together when neither of them had anything left to give.
Around them, the world slowly began to notice.
The cheering had died away.
Tom didn’t know when. Maybe when he’d screamed at Colt. Maybe when Colt had screamed at him. Maybe when one of them had dropped to his knees and the other had followed.
The excited voices around them had quieted into murmurs, confusion spreading through the crowd as attention gradually shifted away from the sky and toward the two men collapsed against each other on the pavement.
A few phones lowered.
Others didn’t.
Neither of them noticed the people staring at them, or the whispers beginning to move through the crowd. They didn’t notice the crew members looking at one another, silently asking questions no one had answers to.
All Tom knew was the weight of Colt’s arms around him.
All Colt knew was Tom’s fist digging into his ribs where it was trapped between them, holding the simple ring.
And somewhere above them was Ryland.
Getting farther away. Every second.cEvery breath. Every beat of their hearts carried him farther from Earth. Farther from the life they thought he was coming back to. A future they planned. Until the faint white overhead finally disappeared altogether.
Colt saw it happen. He wished he hadn’t. One second, there was still something there. Barely anything at all, just the palest streak against the blue, but it was there.
Then it wasn’t.
The sky was blue again. Completely, horribly blue. Like nothing had happened. Like it hadn’t just swallowed his brother whole.
Colt’s eyes squeezed shut, and another sob ripped through him as he buried his face harder against Tom.
Tom felt it. His grip tightened. The chain around his neck pulled tighter with it.
Neither let go. They couldn’t. Because Colt had already lost one half of himself that morning, and Tom had just watched his entire future disappear into the sky.
*~*~*
“Colt!” The shout came from somewhere behind the two men.
“Colt!” Jody shoved her way through the crowd, barely slowing enough to keep from running directly into someone as she squeezed between two crew members. Her phone was still clutched tightly in one hand, the livestream playing loudly enough that the newscaster’s voice followed her through the parking lot.
She already knew. She’d been halfway across the set when she’d heard the name.
Dr. Ryland Grace.
For one horrible second, Jody had thought she’d heard wrong. Then his picture had appeared.
Ryland.
Their Ryland.
The same man who stole her tea and complained about the way she made scrambled eggs. The same man who had spent an entire Christmas trying to convince her that Die Hard was technically a Christmas movie only to switch sides halfway through the argument because Colt agreed with him and annoying his brother was more important than maintaining his own position.
Colt’s twin.
Tom’s-
Jody swallowed hard. She ran and nearly slipped when she stopped.
Tom and Colt were on the ground.
There were already tears on her cheeks. She didn’t remember when they’d started. Maybe while she was running. Maybe the moment Ryland’s photograph had appeared on the screen. It didn’t matter, though. Nothing mattered right now except the two men kneeling in the cold. Two men who were very emotionally dependent on a man that wasn’t on the surface of the planet anymore.
Colt had Tom wrapped so tightly in his arms that there was barely any space between them. Tom’s face was completely buried against his shoulder, both shaking from more than just the cold.
Jody’s face fell. For one second, she let it.Just one. Her mouth trembled as she pressed her lips together, a quiet sob catching somewhere behind them. More tears spilled down her cheeks as she stared at her husband.
She wanted to go to him.
Every part of her wanted to cross those last few feet, drop down beside them, wrap her arms around both of them and never let either one go.
Then she saw the phones. Her expression changed. There were dozens of them. Some were still pointed toward the empty sky. Too many weren’t.
They were pointed at Colt and Tom. At two men who were so completely destroyed that neither had even realized they were being watched.
Jody wiped roughly at her face.
“No.” Her voice was quiet. Nobody heard her. She looked around again. “No. No, absolutely fucking not.” This was not the time or place for cameras. Their grief wasnt a fucking movie for someone else’s future entertainment.
Someone near the front of the crowd shifted closer, phone raised just slightly higher.
“Put it down.” Jody stepped directly in front of them.
“What?” The person blinked.
“Your phone.” Her voice shook, but there was nothing weak about it. “Put it the fuck down.”
A few heads turned.
The phone lowered.
Another didn’t.
Jody turned toward it.
“Seriously?” Her voice carried farther this time. That got people’s attention. “Can everyone stop fucking filming them?!”
The murmuring around them quieted.
Jody planted herself between the crowd and the two men on the pavement, arms spreading slightly as if her body alone could somehow block every camera pointed their way.
“They’re not a fucking show. Put your phones away!”
Most did. Some immediately. Others slower. But not all of them. Of course not all of them.
Jody looked over the crowd, jaw clenched so hard it hurt, and caught sight of several familiar faces near the back.
Colt’s stunt crew. They had come outside with everyone else to watch the launch. Now none of them were looking at the sky. They were staring at them.
One of them looked down at the stream still playing on his phone. Then back at Colt.
Jody watched the realization hit him.
“Was that-” His face went pale.
Jody couldn’t answer. She didn’t need to.
“Grace?” The name traveled between them. Quietly. Almost disbelieving. Because they knew that name. They knew Grace. Not Dr. Grace. Not the scientist whose photograph had just been broadcast around the world.
Just Grace.
The science teacher who had shown up on set a handful of times over the years and somehow always ended up getting dragged into whatever bullshit the stunt team was doing. The guy who complained about their complete disregard for basic physics while simultaneously getting far too invested in figuring out whether one of their stunts was actually possible. The guy Colt never shut the fuck up about once someone got him started.
They knew him.
And suddenly the Hail Mary wasn’t carrying three distant strangers anymore. One of their own was on that ship.
Jody looked at them, then at the phones still raised around her. She didn’t have to ask. The first stuntman moved immediately. He stepped through the crowd and stopped beside Jody, turning his back to Colt and Tom.
Another followed. Then another. Within seconds, the rest of the team understood. They spread out, shoulder to shoulder. A wall of bodies formed between the cameras and the two men on the ground.
There was no shouting. No threats. They didn’t need either. They simply stood there. A solid wall between the men and the rest of the world.
Jody stared at them for a moment, another tear slipping down her flushed cheek.
One of the then glanced back at her and gave the smallest nod.
Go.
That was all she needed. Jody turned, and for the first time since she’d arrived, there was nothing between her and them. She made it three steps before whatever she’d been using to hold herself together finally gave in.
A quiet sob escaped her.
Colt heard that before slowly lifting his head.
His face was red and wet, his eyes swollen, and for a moment he seemed to stare straight through her.
“Jodes…” he whispered in recognition.
It was barely a word, but one that finally broke her. Jody dropped beside them, her phone forgotten on the pavement as she reached for Colt first, one hand finding the back of his neck before her other arm stretched around Tom.
Colt leaned into her immediately.
Tom didn’t let go of him.
So Jody wrapped herself around both. Three bodies tangled together on the icy pavement, arms crossing over shoulders and backs, nobody quite sure who was holding who anymore.
Jody pressed her cheek against Colt’s head and squeezed her eyes shut. She could feel Tom shaking beneath her arm and Colt’s fingers clutching at the back of her shirt.
Her own tears slipped silently into Colt’s hair. She didn’t tell them it was going to be okay, didn’t tell them Ryland would be okay, didn’t tell them to breathe or calm down or that they needed to get somewhere private out of the weather.
There wasn’t anything to say.
Everyone knew what the Hail Mary was.
Everyone knew where it was going.
And they knew what it meant that Ryland was on it.
So Jody just held them, and let herself cry too. Behind the wall of stuntmen, the rest of the world kept moving.
People whispered.
Phones buzzed.
The livestream continued somewhere on the pavement beside them, the newscaster talking about humanity’s hope for survival, about sacrifice, about bravery, about the three extraordinary people aboard the Hail Mary.
Jody couldn’t listen to it anymore. She reached blindly toward the sound until her fingers found her phone. The screen was still showing Ryland’s photograph beside two other souls.
She stared at it as her thumb shook before she silenced the stream.
The newscaster disappeared.
And for the first time since the launch, everything around the three of them was quiet.Jody put the phone back facedown, then wrapped her arm around Tom again.
The rest of the world could have Dr. Ryland Grace.
For the next few minutes, they just needed Ryland.
*~*~*
Jody had no idea how long they stayed like that. It could have been two minutes or twenty for all she knew, time having stopped meaning much of anything the second she’d seen Ryland’s face on her phone. She kept one arm wrapped tightly around Colt while the other held Tom against them, her fingers occasionally moving through the hair at the back of her husband’s head in a mindless, repetitive motion. Neither man had lifted his head. Colt was still tucked against her shoulder with Tom curled into him, the three of them tangled together so tightly that she could feel every shuddering breath that moved through them.
Movement at the edge of the wall eventually caught her attention. Dan had turned around and was looking at them, his eyes lingering on Colt before moving to Tom and finally settling on her. Jody had seen him serious before, had seen him focused and pissed off and worried after a stunt went wrong, but she had never seen him look quite like this. There was something lost beneath the concern on his face that reminded her that he knew Ryland too. Maybe not the way the three of them did, but enough. Enough to know that Dr. Ryland Grace wasn’t some stranger whose photograph had appeared on a livestream. Enough that he was probably trying very hard not to think about every time Ryland had shown up on set and complained that they were all going to get themselves killed. Though that was a bit hypocritical now.
Dan stepped away from the wall and approached carefully before crouching beside her. He didn’t try to touch Colt or Tom, didn’t interrupt whatever fragile little world the three of them had disappeared into. He only leaned close enough for Jody to hear him over the murmuring crowd.
“I called Tom’s driver,” he whispered. “He’s coming around.”
For a moment, Jody just stared at him. She hadn’t even thought about leaving. Hadn’t thought about where they were supposed to go after this or what happened when they got there. She hadn’t thought about the fact that they were still kneeling in the cold, surrounded by over a hundred people, or that some of those people had undoubtedly already uploaded videos somewhere despite her attempts to stop them. There would be questions. There would be reporters. There would probably be a million notifications waiting on all three of their phones before they even made it to their rental.
Not now.
She couldn’t think about any of that now.
“Thank you,” she managed, her shaky voice barely above a whisper.
Dan nodded before looking at Colt again, and for half a second, something in his expression cracked. His lips pressed tightly together before he stood and turned away, returning to the wall without another word. Jody lowered her head again and pressed her cheek against Colt’s hair, tightening her arm around him as his fingers remained twisted into the back of her shirt.
It wasn’t long before the low growl of an engine could be heard somewhere beyond the bodies surrounding them. The sound grew steadily louder until a horn gave a single short warning, followed by the shuffle of dozens of feet as the crowd reluctantly began to move. A large black SUV slowly pushed its way into the parking lot, barely moving faster than walking speed as people stepped aside to let it through, and almost immediately more phones began rising into the air.
Jody felt Colt tense against her.
“It’s okay,” she murmured automatically, rubbing her hand over the back of his head as she sucked in a breath. “It’s just the car.”
The stunt team reacted before she had a chance to ask for anything. Their wall shifted as several of them moved toward the approaching SUV, creating a narrow path through the crowd while the others stayed planted firmly between the cameras and the three people still sitting on the pavement. Any gap that appeared was filled almost immediately, and when someone tried to lean around one of them for a better angle, another body moved into the way without hesitation.
The car stopped only a few feet from them and the back door opened.
Jody stared at it for a moment before looking down at the two men wrapped around her. Neither seemed to have noticed that their ride had arrived, and the thought of making either of them move made her stomach twist. She wanted to let them stay exactly where they were for as long as they needed. She wanted to keep holding them until somehow, impossibly, this stopped hurting.
But they couldn’t stay here. Their lips were turning blue and their trembling had only gotten worse.
“We need to go,” she said softly, her voice scratching in her throat.
Neither responded.
Jody swallowed and brushed her fingers through Colt’s hair. “Colt.”
He slowly lifted his head from her shoulder.
The sight of his face nearly shattered whatever fragile hold she still had on herself. His eyes were unfocused, his cheeks soaked and red, and his whole face blotchy from crying. He looked completely empty, like whatever part of him usually made Colt Colt had disappeared somewhere into that blue sky with his brother.
“We need to get out of here, okay?”
Colt stared at her for several seconds before giving the smallest movement of his head. Jody wasn’t even sure it qualified as a nod.
Dan had come back over with another member of the stunt team, but neither of them immediately reached down. Dan waited until Colt finally noticed him before holding out a hand.
“C’mon, buddy.”
Colt looked at it for a long moment before slowly taking it.
Between Dan pulling and Jody keeping an arm around his waist, they managed to get Colt onto his feet, though his legs nearly buckled beneath him the second he was upright. Jody tightened her hold immediately while Dan caught his other side, both of them keeping him steady until he managed to find enough strength to stand.
Tom seemed barely aware that any of this was happening until Colt began moving away from him.
Another member of the team crouched beside Tom and carefully slid an arm beneath his, helping him to his feet while Colt held onto his hand. Tom’s knees immediately threatened to give out, and for one horrible second Jody thought both men were going straight back to the pavement when Colt tried to catch him. Dan grabbed Colt around the waist while the other crew member steadied Tom, and somehow, awkwardly, all of them stayed upright.
The few feet between them and the SUV might as well have been a mile. Jody stayed pressed behind them as they slowly moved forward, Colt’s hand locked around Tom’s arm while the actor’s free hand remained curled tightly around the ring hanging from his neck. The stunt team closed around them as they walked, bodies shielding them from every angle they could manage while phones continued to rise beyond their shoulders. Jody caught flashes of faces between them, some concerned, some confused, some simply curious, but she looked away before she could recognize anyone.
When they finally reached the car, Jody helped Colt climb inside first. He made it halfway through the door before realizing they weren't immediately behind him and stopped completely, refusing to move any farther until Tom climbed in after him. The second Tom was within reach, Colt grabbed his jacket and pulled him close again, and Tom went without resistance, the two of them collapsing into the seat together as if the few seconds they’d spent apart had already been too much.
Jody got in and turned back just before the door closed, giving a nod when one of them handed her all of the dropped phones. The stunt team was still there, still standing shoulder to shoulder between them and the crowd. Dan stood closest to the SUV, one hand resting against the open door as his eyes met hers. Jody couldn’t manage a smile or even another thank you, so she simply looked at him and hoped he understood before she climbed over laps to sit on Colt’s other side.
Dan gave her a small nod and gently pushed the door shut.
The outside world disappeared.
The sudden quiet inside the SUV was almost deafening after everything outside despite the occasional left over shiver. The dark tinted windows reduced the crowd to vague shapes pressed around the vehicle, their voices little more than a muffled hum through the glass. Jody could still see phones raised toward them and the random flash of a camera, but for the first time since she’d run into the parking lot, there was something solid between them and everyone else.
The SUV began to move slowly through the crowd. Outside, the stunt team parted only enough to give it room before closing ranks again behind it, several of them walking alongside the vehicle for a few yards to keep people from pressing too close. The driver never sped up or honked again. He simply eased through inch by inch with professional ease, waiting for people to move until the crowd gradually began to thin around them.
Inside, nobody spoke.
Colt and Tom were pressed together. Jody sat against Colt’s other side, watching as the last of whatever strength he’d managed to find drained away. His head slowly dropped onto her shoulder, and a few seconds later Tom leaned into him, his forehead coming to rest against Colt’s shoulder.
The crying started again, but it was different now. There was no strength behind it anymore, no sobbing as or desperate gasps for air. Just quiet, exhausted tears that none of them bothered trying to wipe away. Colt’s shoulders trembled against hers while Tom continued clutching the little golden ring around his neck, his thumb rubbing over its edge again and again as if he needed the reminder that it was still there.
The movie set slowly disappeared behind the tinted windows as the SUV finally broke free of the crowd and turned onto the road. Jody watched it vanish for only a few seconds before looking away and giving the driver their rental address.
None of them looked back.
*~*~*
By the time the SUV pulled into the driveway, none of them had spoken again.
Jody thanked the driver quietly before climbing out and walking around to the other side. Colt managed to get himself out without help, though Tom took longer. He sat staring blankly at the floor of the SUV until Colt reached back inside for him, and that seemed to be enough. Tom took his hand and followed.
They shuffled toward the house together.
There was no other way to describe it. Neither man seemed to have the energy to properly walk anymore. Colt unlocked the door on his second attempt, pushed it open, and they made it as far as the living room before giving up.
Tom collapsed onto the couch first while Colt dropped beside him seconds later, neither bothering to remove their shoes or coats.
Jody stood in the doorway and watched as Colt leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, face buried in his hands, while Tom simply stared at nothing. The chain around his neck had left an awful, raw line where it had been pulled. At some point during the drive, he’d stopped clutching the ring, but it remained resting against his chest in plain sight.
Jody went into the kitchen. She needed something to do.
Two glasses of water.
That was manageable.
She could do water.
She filled them, carried them back into the living room, and managed to get Colt to drink half of his after pressing it into his hands. Tom took his when she offered it, but after several minutes Jody realized he was still holding the glass between both palms.
“Tom.”
His eyes slowly moved toward her.
“Just a little.”
He stared at the glass as though he’d forgotten what it was before finally taking a few small swallows.
That was good enough. Jody wasn’t going to ask for anything else.
She took the glass from him before it could slip from his fingers and carried it back to the kitchen. By the time she returned, Colt had shifted sideways on the couch and Tom had followed without either of them seeming to realize it.
Colt’s head rested against the back cushion.
Tom’s rested against Colt.
Their shoulders were pressed together, Colt’s arm loosely curled across Tom’s stomach as though even unconscious- or nearly there- some part of him still needed to make sure Tom hadn’t disappeared too.
Jody stood there for a long time.
Eventually, Colt’s eyes closed.
Tom’s followed.
Their breathing remained uneven for a while, interrupted by the occasional hitch or shudder, but exhaustion finally won where nothing else could. Within twenty minutes, both men were asleep leaning against each other still fully dressed in winter clothing.
Jody managed to at least pull off their shoes, then stood there looking at the two of them.
Then she turned and went to the bathroom, closed the door, slid down against it, and finally let herself fall apart where neither of them could hear her. She’d lost him, too, but someone had to hold everything together.
Tom and Colt wouldn’t be okay for a while. Ryland had been their main anchor for a long time. Too emotionally dependent on the most important person on the planet- well… he isn’t on the planet anymore now, is he?
*~*~*
A week later, they had arrived back in the states and Tom had taken over their guest room.
Nobody had ever actually discussed it.
The first night had turned into a second. The second into a week. Somewhere around the third week, Jody had gone to Tom’s house and packed several bags because he clearly wasn’t going back anytime soon, and since Colt’s stuff could only last so long between the two men. She’d brought his clothes, toiletries, chargers, the stupidly expensive face cream he pretended he didn’t use, and everything else she could think of.
She’d also brought the framed photograph from his bedside table. She hadn’t realized until she’d picked it up that it was one of him and Ryland.
Tom hadn’t said anything when he saw it sitting beside the bed in the guest room.
He’d just closed the door.
He barely came out anymore.
Some days were better than others. On a good day, Tom might wander into the kitchen around noon, drink a cup of coffee and sit silently at the island while Jody cooked. On a bad one, she would leave food outside his door and come back hours later to find it untouched.
Colt wasn’t much better.
He ate because Jody put food in front of him. Showered because eventually she would quietly tell him he needed to. Slept only when his body forced him to.
None had returned to work.
There was no movie to return to.
Production had been suspended less than twenty-four hours after the launch. Three days later, the studio announced an indefinite hiatus. Within two weeks, everyone involved had quietly accepted what that actually meant and the project was canceled.
The internet, naturally, had theories.
Jody had stopped reading them.
There had been articles almost immediately after the launch.
TOM RYDER AND COLT SEAVERS ABANDON PRODUCTION AFTER EMOTIONAL HAIL MARY LAUNCH
HOLLYWOOD SUPERSTAR DISAPPEARS FROM PUBLIC EYE
WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN ACTOR TOM RYDER AND STUNTMAN COLT SEAVERS?
Then came the photographs.
Blurry shots from the parking lot. Tom on his knees. Colt wrapped around him. Jody crouched beside them. The stunt team forming a wall around all three.
People speculated about everything.
A publicity stunt, according to one particularly disgusting article that Jody had nearly thrown her phone across the room after reading.
Nobody guessed the truth.
Nobody guessed that Colt Seavers had watched his twin brother leave Earth without even saying anything to him.
Nobody guessed that the little gold ring Tom Ryder had been clutching in several grainy photographs belonged to the man sitting aboard the Hail Mary.
And none of them corrected anyone.
They simply disappeared.
*~*~*
By the fourth month, life had begun doing the cruel thing it always did.
It kept going.
Jody returned to work first, though not to another film. She took meetings from home, answered emails, started reading scripts again. Anything that let her stay close.
Colt started eating without being reminded every single time.
Tom began leaving the guest room more often.
It wasn’t much.
Sometimes Jody would walk into the living room and find the two of them watching television together, though neither could ever tell her what they’d watched afterward. Sometimes Colt would make coffee and automatically make three cups before staring at the third one for several seconds and pouring it down the sink.
*~*~*
Six months after the launch, leaked footage appeared online.
Jody found it first. She was sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop open and a cup of tea slowly going cold beside her when her phone began vibrating against the wood. Once, then twice, then continuously until the sound became irritating enough that she finally reached for it. That wasn’t particularly unusual anymore. Every few weeks something new would circulate about Tom or Colt, another photograph from the launch or another article speculating about why she and the two men had seemingly disappeared from the face of the Earth. Sometimes an old interview would resurface and people would start theorizing all over again, and Jody had gotten pretty good at ignoring most of it.
Then Dan’s name appeared.
Don’t let Colt on the internet.
Jody frowned, but before she could respond, another message appeared beneath it.
Jody, seriously. Take his phone. Tom’s too.
Something cold settled into her stomach. She opened her notifications and found multiple messages waiting for her, a few missed calls, and links from some of the older crews she hadn’t spoken to in months. Two more members of Colt’s stunt team had sent her the same thing Dan had, and all of them led to a video with a thumbnail that made her stomach drop.
Ryland.
Jody stared at his face for several seconds before pressing play.
The footage was shaky and zoomed in from a distance, apparently taken by someone far enough away that whoever was filming hadn’t been noticed. There wasn’t much context attached to the original upload beyond a date in the corner of the video.
Three days before the Hail Mary launch.
Jody’s breath caught as Ryland appeared near the edge of the frame.
He was outside, and he was running.
Not jogging. Not hurrying to get somewhere. Not the awkward little run Jody had made fun of more than once after watching him chase Colt around. He was sprinting harder than she’d ever seen him run before, his shirt half untucked and his bright yellow rain jacket flapping behind him. He stumbled once, caught himself before he could hit the ground, and immediately kept going without slowing down.
Several men in black, military-like uniforms appeared behind him.
Jody’s hand slowly rose toward her mouth as Ryland looked back and saw them gaining on him. Even through the distance and poor quality of the footage, she could see the panic on his face before he turned forward again and ran harder.
“No…”
She had never seen Ryland afraid like that.
He made it several more yards before the first man reached him, and the tackle was brutal enough that Jody physically flinched.bThe man slammed into Ryland from behind and drove him straight into the ground, his shoulder striking first before the rest of him followed. His glasses crushed against his face as the man’s weight came down on top of him.
Ryland immediately fought back.
Before he could get his footing, another person grabbed one of his arms while Ryland twisted violently beneath them, kicking at anything he could reach and trying to wrench himself free. His mouth was moving, shouting something the recording was too far away to pick up clearly, and for half a second he managed to rip one arm loose and plant his palm against the ground like he might actually get himself back up.
They forced him down again.
Another man caught his legs while someone else pinned his shoulders. Ryland twisted beneath them hard enough that Jody could see the strain in his entire body, his head pressed into the ground as he continued trying to drag himself out from underneath the people holding him.
Then another two figures entered the frame.
Jody recognized Eva Stratt instantly with a man beside her.
Unlike everyone else, she wasn’t running. She walked toward them with a horrible sort of calmness that made Jody’s stomach turn, stopping only a few feet away while Ryland continued struggling on the ground beneath several men and screaming.
Ryland saw them.
Something changed in him the second he did. He fought harder, violently enough that one of the men nearly lost his grip, and his head lifted from the ground as he shouted something at Stratt that the recording couldn’t make clear.
Stratt and the man didn’t move. They didn’t kneel beside him or look away from what was happening. They simply stood above him and watched while the men forced him flat against the ground again.
Then someone approached with a syringe.
Jody felt the blood drain from her face.
Ryland saw it too.
He bucked so violently beneath the men that it took all of them to keep him down, one of them forcing his arm still while Ryland jerked and twisted and tried desperately to wrench himself free. The needle disappeared into his neck and his entire body flinched.
The drug didn’t take him immediately.
That was somehow the worst part.
Ryland kept fighting.
For several horrible seconds, he continued trying to get away even as his body began failing him. His movements grew weaker by degrees, every attempt to push himself off the ground smaller than the one before it. His legs stopped kicking first, then one arm went slack beneath the man holding it. He tried to lift his head one last time, barely managing to get it a few inches from the ground.
His eyes found the duo.
Then whatever strength he had left disappeared, and Ryland went completely limp beneath them.
The video ended.
Jody stared at the frozen screen until it blurred.
For six months, they had tortured themselves with the same questions. Why hadn’t Ryland told them? Why had he agreed to go? Why had he left Colt without saying goodbye? Why had he let Tom believe they had an entire future ahead of them when he’d apparently already known he was going to die?
Jody had spent six months trying not to be angry with a man she loved for doing something none of them could understand.
Except Ryland hadn’t done it.
He hadn’t volunteered. He hadn’t chosen the Hail Mary over them. He hadn’t decided that saving humanity mattered more than his brother or his fiancé or the life he’d built for himself.
He had fucking run.
He had gotten outside and tried to escape, and when they chased him, he had run harder. When they caught him, he had fought them. When they pinned him to the ground, he’d kept fighting until the drugs physically took away his ability to do it anymore.
They had taken him.
“Oh my god.” Jody covered her mouth as tears began spilling down her cheeks.
Footsteps sounded somewhere down the hallway before she had a chance to collect herself.
Colt walked into the kitchen wearing one of Ryland’s old shirts, something he’d started doing often enough over the past few months that Jody no longer commented on it. It had started soon after they managed to clean out his apartment.
His hair was still damp from the shower, a towel rubbing over the back of his head before he noticed her expression and stopped.
“What?”
Jody immediately locked her phone and shoved it between her thighs to try and hide it.
Too late.
Colt’s eyes moved from her face to the phone and then back again, his entire posture changing as whatever he’d seen in her expression put him instantly on edge.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.” It was a terrible lie, and they both knew it.
“Is it about Ryland?”
Jody’s throat closed as her jaw clenched. That was enough of an answer.
The towel slipped from Colt’s hand. “Jodes.”
The guest room door opened somewhere behind him, followed by quick footsteps before Tom appeared in the doorway. “What about Rylie?”
Jody looked between them and felt every protective instinct in her body screaming at her to hide the phone, tell them there was nothing to see and somehow erase the video from the entire fucking internet before either of them could find it.
She couldn’t.
It was already everywhere, and more importantly, they deserved to know. They deserved to know Ryland hadn’t left them willingly.
“You both should sit down.”
Neither moved.
Colt stepped closer instead, his eyes dropping toward the phone again. “What happened to my brother?
Jody gulped as she slowly pulled her phone out and reopened the video. She didn’t explain because she didn’t know how the fuck she was supposed to with something like this. Instead, she placed the phone on the table between them and pressed play.
Colt leaned over it as Tom moved beside him.
Jody couldn’t make herself watch the screen again, so she watched them instead.
She watched the confusion disappear from Colt’s face the second Ryland came into view. Tom’s hand slowly found the edge of the table and curled around it as they realized Ryland was running, and neither of them spoke when the men appeared behind him.
The first man caught Ryland from behind and drove him into the ground. Colt flinched so hard it looked like someone had struck him. Tom made a tiny sound beside him, but his eyes never left the screen. His face had gone frighteningly pale as Ryland’s glasses got crushed and more men piled onto him.
They watched him fight.
Watched their Ryland kick and twist and claw at the dirt, trying desperately to get away from the people holding him down.
Then Eva Stratt walked into view.
Tom’s expression changed first.
Jody saw recognition give way to confusion and then something much darker as Stratt simply stood there. Colt looked almost sick, his eyes locked on the woman standing above his brother while Ryland fought beneath her.
Then the syringe appeared.
“No.” The word slipped under Colt’s breath.
Tom’s hand immediately went to the ring around his neck.
Ryland fought harder, and Colt leaned closer to the phone without seeming to realize he’d moved, like there was some impossible part of him that believed if he got close enough he could reach through six months and a fucking screen and help his brother.
The needle went into Ryland’s neck and Tom’s face crumpled.
They watched his movements grow weaker. Watched his legs stop kicking and his arm go slack. Watched him lift his head one final time and look directly at Stratt before his body finally gave out beneath the men holding him.
The video ended.
Nobody moved.
The kitchen was so quiet that Jody could hear the low hum of the refrigerator behind them. Colt continued staring at the screen long after it went still while Tom stood beside him with one hand gripping his ring so tightly the chain had pulled taut against his neck.
Jody wished one of them would say something.
Neither did.
Eventually, Colt reached forward and replayed the video.
“Colt…”
He didn’t acknowledge her.
Jody watched his face instead of the screen as Ryland ran again, was caught again, fought again and drugged again. When the video ended for a second time, Colt immediately restarted it.
Tom didn’t stop him.
They watched it a third time.
Then a fourth.
By the fifth, Jody couldn’t take it anymore. She reached for the phone, but Colt pulled it away before she could take it from him.
“Colton, stop.”
“No.” His voice was barely there.
“You don’t need to keep watching it.”
“He ran, Jodes.”
Jody froze. Colt wasn’t looking at her. His eyes remained fixed on the screen, tears slipping silently down his cheeks as he stared at the frozen image of his brother pinned beneath multiple men.
“He was trying.” Tom’s whole being shattered beside him.
For six months, Jody had heard Colt say the opposite. Sometimes angrily. Sometimes through tears. Sometimes late at night when he thought she was asleep.
He left me.
Those three words had eaten him alive. Now Colt stared at the proof sitting in his hands and seemed to finally understand what it meant.
“He didn’t leave me.” The relief in his voice was more devastating than the grief had been.Tom squeezed his eyes shut, his fingers tightening around the ring before Colt looked up at him, and his breath caught somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “He didn’t fucking leave me.”
No. He hadn’t.
He hadn’t chosen to abandon his brother. He hadn’t decided that saving humanity mattered more than coming home. He hadn’t looked at Tom and the future they’d planned together and calmly walked away from it.
He had wanted to stay.
Ryland had wanted Colt and Tom and Jody. He had wanted his unexciting, civilian life back. He had wanted his family. He had wanted to come home.
And they had taken that choice away from him.
Whatever had been holding Colt upright disappeared. His knees buckled beneath him, but Tom caught him before he could hit the floor and pulled him against his chest.
Colt didn’t sob immediately.
He simply fell into Tom, fingers clutching desperately at the front of his shirt while Tom wrapped both arms around him. For several seconds he stayed there, breathing unevenly against Tom’s chest while tears soaked silently into his shirt.
Then his fingers tightened.
“He- he was trying to come home.” Tom’s eyes squeezed shut. Tears spilled faster as he pulled Colt closer, both arms squeezing tighter.
Six months after watching Ryland disappear into the sky, they broke all over again.
*~*~*
The investigation on Eva Stratt moved faster after the video leaked. Much faster than any of them expected.
Apparently, once footage of one of the Hail Mary crew members being chased across government property, tackled into the ground and forcibly drugged three days before launch was circulating across every major news network on the planet, it became significantly harder for anyone involved to pretend there wasn’t something worth punishing as quickly a possible.
The footage of Ryland was what everyone latched onto first, but it wasn’t the only thing that came out.
Once people started pulling at threads, everything else followed.
The authority Stratt had during the Petrova crisis. The laws she’d ignored. The governments she’d bypassed. The people she’d detained, kidnapped, or threatened. Every morally questionable thing she’d justified with the same argument that had apparently carried her through the entire crisis.
Humanity was dying.
Therefore, whatever she decided was necessary had become necessary.
For months, that logic had protected her. The governments who had elected her.
Then the Hail Mary launched.
And suddenly there was no apocalypse standing between Eva Stratt and the consequences of what she’d done, regardless of if she had the authority to previously.
The trial centered in France, but there was no escaping it anywhere else. Every major network carried updates. American stations ran live coverage beside French feeds with translators talking over one another. Clips from hearings circulated online within minutes. Newspapers from half a dozen countries seemed to publish new summaries every morning explaining which charges had been added and which governments had now produced new documentation of something else Stratt had done while directing the Petrova Task Force.
For the first few weeks, Jody tried to keep Tom and Colt away from most of it.
There were enough competing headlines to make her head hurt. Reporters surrounded government buildings in France while former Task Force members were interviewed from nearly every corner of the world. People who had spent months calling Ryland one of humanity’s bravest volunteers suddenly had to find different words when it became increasingly obvious that the word volunteer had never applied to him at all.
Eva Stratt’s name was everywhere.
So was Ryland’s.
That part was harder.
Colt could tolerate hearing about Stratt. He could tolerate watching governments publicly dismantle every decision she’d made and every authority she’d decided belonged to her. What he couldn’t tolerate was hearing strangers debate whether the kidnapping- and subsequent murder- of his brother had been justified because the mission might save the world.
Tom was even less patient.
Jody stopped letting him read comment sections after he threw his phone hard enough to shatter the screen.
They learned Stratt had been arrested through a breaking-news banner that appeared across the television one afternoon.
Colt had been sitting on the couch with a bowl of cereal balanced on his stomach while Tom occupied the opposite end, half watching some terrible reality show neither of them would admit to following. Jody was in the kitchen when the program abruptly cut away and live footage from France filled the screen.
She heard the room go quiet. By the time she walked in, both men were sitting upright.
Eva Stratt was being escorted through a wall of cameras toward a courthouse entrance while the reporter explained that the arrest covered far more than what had been done toRyland Grace. Charges connected to unlawful detention and forced sedation were only part of a much larger case involving abuses committed under the emergency authority she’d been granted during the astrophage crisis. The list seemed endless.
Charges connected to actions taken against governments, civilians, and members of the Task Force itself while Stratt had effectively operated as though international law was something she could suspend whenever it became inconvenient and live to never see repercussions.
Nobody spoke until Stratt disappeared through the courthouse doors.
Colt slowly lowered his spoon. “Good.” That was all he said.
Tom stared at the television for another few seconds before giving a small, humorless nod in agreement.
Jody didn’t tell either of them that it wouldn’t fix anything.
They already knew.
France could prosecute her. Other governments could pile on. Stratt could spend the rest of her life answering for every crime she’d committed and every person she’d steamrolled in the name of saving humanity, but Ryland would still be somewhere between Earth and the stars.
The Hail Mary wouldn’t turn around.
The time they’d lost wouldn’t come back.
But there was something grimly satisfying about watching the woman who had stood above Ryland while he fought for his freedom finally lose hers.
When Stratt was eventually convicted and sentenced, the coverage was broadcast everywhere.
Jody woke to alerts on her phone before the sun was fully up. By breakfast, every news channel seemed to be showing the same footage of Stratt inside the courtroom while commentators discussed the scale of the case and the sheer number of crimes tied to her. She was to serve multiple life sentences.
Tom opened a bottle of champagne that evening.
It was petty, and definitely inappropriate, but none of them gave a shit. They didn’t toast to Stratt. They didn’t even say her name at all.
Colt wordlessly raised his glass toward the framed photograph of Ryland sitting on the shelf across the room.
Tom lifted his with him. “To Rylie.”
Jody raised hers last. “To Ryland.”
They drank.
It didn’t feel like justice. Not really. Justice would have been Ryland sitting on the couch with them complaining that the champagne was overpriced, that they were being dramatic, and correcting every logical mistake the news anchors had made while covering his own kidnapping.Justice would have been him still being on Earth.
But watching Stratt disappear into the same kind of locked system she’d spent years deciding other people could be shoved into without their consent?
That felt like something.
*~*~*
One year after the Hail Mary launch, Tom woke up before the sun rose.
He knew the date before he even opened his eyes. He had known it was coming for weeks, had felt it creeping closer every time he looked at a calendar and every time another day disappeared.vAt first it had been distant enough that he could ignore it. Three weeks became twelve days, twelve became five, and then yesterday he’d gone to bed knowing that when he opened his eyes again, an entire year would have passed since Ryland left Earth.
An entire fucking year.
Tom lay there in the guest room that hadn’t really been a guest room for months, staring at the ceiling while the house remained quiet around him. His hand found the chain around his neck without thought, fingers slipping beneath the collar of his shirt until they closed around the little gold ring resting against his chest.
He still wore it every day, sometimes tucked away where nobody could see it and sometimes outside his shirt when he couldn’t give any fucks about others opinions. He hadn’t taken it off once since the launch. Not when he slept or showered, not even on the days when looking at it hurt badly enough that he’d wanted to rip the chain straight off his neck and throw the whole fucking thing across the room just so he wouldn’t have to feel its weight against his chest anymore.
He never did.
It was Ryland’s ring.
It was supposed to go back on his finger one day, exchanged for another while Ryland stood across from him probably trying to pretend he wasn’t crying and failing miserably. There had been plans attached to the little piece of metal once. A wedding they hadn’t properly started organizing because Ryland kept insisting there was plenty of time before he’d been taken by The Petrova Task Force. A house Tom wanted and Ryland claimed was unnecessarily large. Arguments about whether they actually needed more guest rooms when, according to Ryland, Colt was going to invite himself over regardless of whether they gave him somewhere to sleep.
An entire future had been attached to it.
Now Ryland’s ring hung around Tom’s neck without a finger to return to.
He’d promised Ryland.
Eventually, lying there became worse than getting up, so Tom pushed himself out of bed and shuffled down the hallway toward the living room. He half expected the house to still be asleep, but when he rounded the corner he found Colt already sitting at one end of the couch, elbows resting on his knees and his phone hanging loosely from one hand. The screen had gone dark, and judging by the way Colt was staring straight through the coffee table rather than at it, Tom doubted he’d been looking at anything in the first place.
Jody was in the kitchen making coffee and tea, moving more quietly than usual. She glanced toward Tom when he entered but didn’t say anything, and Tom didn’t either. There was no good morning, no question about whether either of them had slept and, most importantly, no acknowledgement of what day it was.
Tom crossed the room and lowered himself onto the couch beside Colt. Their shoulders bumped lightly, and Colt shifted just enough that they stayed touching.
For a while, that was all any of them did.
Jody eventually carried three mugs into the living room and passed them around without asking what anyone wanted. Tom took his and wrapped both hands around it, letting the heat settle into his palms while Colt stared down into his own coffee.
A year ago, they’d been on a movie set.
That was the part Tom couldn’t seem to get past.
The morning had been normal. Painfully, insultingly normal.
Tom had been bitching about his manager. Colt had been watching something on his phone. Jody had been working behind a camera. People had been running around worrying about lighting and costumes and stunt rehearsals while somewhere else, Ryland was unconscious and being prepared to leave the fucking planet.
Tom had woken up that morning believing his fiancé was simply busy, not knowing it was already too late to say goodbye. He swallowed around the sudden tightness in his throat and stared into his coffee for another moment before speaking.
“I think I’m gonna post it today.”
Colt looked over at him.
Jody stopped halfway back toward the kitchen.
Neither of them had to ask what he meant. Tom had mentioned it once before, months ago, when another article had appeared speculating about their disappearance. He’d said he was tired of people guessing about shit going on between the three of them. Tired of photographs from the launch day being picked apart by strangers who had no idea what they’d actually been watching. More than anything, though, he was tired of the entire world knowing Dr. Grace while almost nobody knew that Ryland had left an entire life behind.
Colt’s eyes dropped briefly toward the ring visible against Tom’s chest.
“You sure?”
Tom rubbed his thumb against the side of his mug.
“Yeah.”
He wasn’t, really. But he was as sure as he was ever going to be.
Jody came back into the room and sat on the arm of the couch beside them. “What picture?”
Tom pulled out his phone.
He had already chosen it.
