Chapter Text
They still found traces of him around the lab, even years later. Some broken instrument, set aside in a fit of absentmindedness, accidentally kicked under equipment. An opened can of saltuna set atop one of his tall consoles when an alarm went off, discovered ages afterwards, though thankfully empty.
The most visceral were always the notes. No matter how much they searched, there seemed to always be one more, tucked away in a dusty corner. It had been ages after he passed, longer than they had known him by that point, when they discovered one he had made apparently not long after sending the captain to Edgewater all those years ago. It simply read: "put mat out, make note for Jay to wipe feet?".
Jay had teared up, then laughed at it. They could still hear his voice whenever they read the scraps he'd written for himself, recalling how he muttered to himself as he would write them down, trying to drill down the contents into his short term memory.
Though it was sad, they still smiled as they put the note with the rest of their collection. It was a modest scrapbook, filled with the odd scribblings and other notes he left for himself, along with the very rare picture, usually taken from far off, by someone else while they were both in the middle of something.
With a sigh they fondly regarded the small frame on the console, an old inside joke between them, if he was so against having a decent picture taken, they'd have to save one of his wanted posters to remember him by. His shrunken down wanted sketch looked out over the desk, silently watching them as they worked now that he couldn't anymore.
"Still miss you, asshole," Jay fondly murmured to the frame. "Wake me up earlier next time, you jerk, I missed out on too much of it."
Jay sighed as they threw out the garbage they'd collected, deciding that was enough cleaning up of the lab for one day. It wasn't like the mess was going anywhere. Well… the non-sentient parts, anyways.
"The colony is finally looking like it'll thrive now, I wish you could have seen it, Phin'," Jay murmured aloud as they glanced back at the frame again. "We made it through everyone in the strictly science section, and now thawing everyone else is going ridiculously quickly. A few old friends of mine I didn't even know were on the ship are up and about already. I wish you could've met them. I'm sure you would've hated them, but it would've been nice for everyone to meet each other."
Jay paused for a few minutes, thinking back to some of the grimmer conversations they'd had late into the night and early in the next morning with the older scientist, about what he'd done, how he'd made costly mistakes. "Had another colonist help me wire up a system so people can find each other again. I managed to make it ping me whenever somebody looks up someone who didn't make it. I like to deliver the news myself." Jay sighed. "I know you wouldn't believe it, but honestly? I've seen people more upset over the cannibalism than your fuckups, they know you were trying to revive them, not use them for food. Ass," Jay muttered the last part, glancing at his picture. "Always knew people would be weird enough to not get as upset as you assumed they would. You were always one of your worst critics. Not that you don't have your critics, you definitely have a couple."
Jay looked off into the distance for a moment as the thought struck them. "I should probably change the notice message though… "ALERT: report to the captain regarding your query" might be coming off as a little… intimidating, I suppose."
Jay sighed and wandered back into the sleeping quarters, feeling the signs of exhaustion settling throughout them. Years ago those quarters had belonged to Phineas, and though time had passed, they still felt more like his than theirs. "Accidentally helped bring back dopey weapons competitions, like axe-throwing. Few people are working on archery again too. I'm sure you would have found that amusing at the least. Don't worry, I don't let anyone try anything without following basic safety." Another sigh escaped them. "Remember when I got you out of Tartarus? You could barely stand afterwards, I ended up carrying you back to the Unreliable. You wanted to get right to work and got so pissed off when I wouldn't let you do anything until you could stand on your own for longer than five minutes. You said it was a waste of a week. I… didn't think you could get any more frail, when I carried you out, that's what I kept thinking. But I was certainly wrong there…"
Silently Jay crawled into bed, absently curling up as small as they could be. "Things just aren't always fair, are they?" They murmured, tears welling in their eyes. They could almost feel his weight on the mattress beside them, like they used to. They tried to remember how it felt when his arms would snake up to hold them close to him while he slept. They imagined they could still feel his breath tickling the hairs on the back of their neck as he snored. Jay wiped their eye and peered out the distant window, asteroids drifting by in front of a backdrop of stars, Terra 2 looming in the distance. "Guess we just gotta make the best with what we've got now, huh?" Jay mumbled to themself as they drifted off.
They could almost swear they heard him whisper to them, from immeasurably far away. "You're doing fine Jay," whispered into their ear, from some unseen source.
"You're doing fine."