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Hera was cleaning. Sorting through the endless amounts of files from both the Hephaestus and the Urania, deleting information regarding station systems that she no longer had any access to, saving anything that could be used against Goddard, but for the most part, simply trying to make the entirety of her brain as small as she could. Moving her anywhere was already going to be a challenge, and she didn’t want to be stuck wasting away on the Urania in Goddard’s Canaveral hangar for the rest of eternity. The sooner she could be ready to go, the better.
She spent more time visualizing, especially after the battle in Eiffel’s mind. Without needing to devote her processing power to running every system on that crumbling station, she could find herself on that beach again, where she and Maxwell had stood, combing through her memories.
Alana was still there, sometimes.
Hera stood, watching the waves of her memory crash onto the shore. Eventually, she heard the soft rustle of feet in the sand behind her, and she turned to see Doug Eiffel, as he had appeared on the Hephaestus , looking at her with interest.
“You shouldn’t be here.” Hera growled.
Eiffel hid his eyes beneath his hands. “Sorry, but I’ve seen you like this before, you know, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“No, I mean. You… can’t be here.”
“Why not? You’ve done it before.” He gestured down the beach. In the distance, a woman sat by the waves, wearing a large sunhat. “You keep her around, too, huh?”
Hera looked down. “She helps me.”
“She hurt you.”
“So did you!” Hera snapped, and instantly regretted it. “Just leave, Eiffel. You’re gone.”
Eiffel moved to stand in front of her line of vision again. “You know that’s not how this works. Someone might be out of reach, sure, but in here?” He waved a hand at the cloud-splotched sky. “You can have anyone you need in a thought.”
“It’s not really you.” Hera said, quiet and cold.
“Of course not, we’re just in your head, that doesn’t mean--”
“No!” She cut him off. “I don’t mean here, I mean. Out there. On the ship. He’s not… you.”
Eiffel stared. “He’s more me than who’s standing in front of you. He’s a body, a person, I’m just a memory.”
“Memories are important, Eiffel.” Hera pleaded. “And some go so deep that they define who you are! Without them… can you ever be the same person again?”
Taking a long moment, Eiffel looked back down the beach at the distant figure. “You would have let her rewrite one of yours if it would have stopped the pain.”
“Yes.” Hera admitted. “But things were very different, then. Now, I know how to fight it.”
“To fight Pryce.” Eiffel specified. “And you fought her just like this, in my mind, and we won. ”
Hera looked out at the ocean and sighed. “But why did it have to end like this? Because I’ll never be able to look at him, without thinking of you.”
“You’re not getting it. He is me, you can’t get away from that.” He struggled for her attention once more. “Hera, look at me.” he said, grabbing for her arm.
She let him take it, but it didn’t feel like anything. She didn’t know what it felt like to have her arm held like that. Instead, it felt more like the gentle pressure of when Eiffel would press his hand to a section of the station wall, it felt like his heat signature appearing on scan, like his breath drifting back into the air cycling system.
She could feel him even now, curled in his cot on the Urania, no sound besides his quiet breathing as he slept.
“I know.” Hera admitted after a while. “I know that this,” she gestured to him, “Doug Eiffel only exists here. In my mind.”
“Then you know I’m not gone. Not from here, or out there.”
“But he’ll… you’ll… ugh.” Here let out a frustrated sigh. “He doesn’t know me like you do. Like you did.”
“Does that matter?”
Hera was silent again, turning away from Eiffel to watch the waves lap against the shore.
“What do I do here on Earth?” she asked quietly. “We’ve been here for weeks. Minkowski has her husband, Lovelace and Jacobi are content to take a needed break. But all I get to do is babysit my best friend, and the most evil woman in the known universe. And neither of them have any idea just how much they’ve made me who I am.” She looked down at the sand. “They may have sent me to the Hephaestus because I was too disobedient, but the station was… everything. Now it’s gone, completely--”
Eiffel stopped her. “Not everything is gone. We still need you, Hera.” he said, gently. “And if I’m here saying it, we both know that you believe it’s true.” He caught her eyes again. “We still need a mother program to take care of us. Who’s gonna keep Minkowski and Lovelace in check?”
Hera let herself smile. Both women needed someone to tell them what was what every now and again.
“Who’s going to remind Daniel of his best friend?” Eiffel said, a bit muffled by the wind.
Hera choked and turned, watching as Eiffel glanced down the beach at Alana’s distant figure.” What did you say?” she asked, knowing anyway.
He looked back at her. “None of us can deal with loss on our own. And you knew her, better than any of the rest of us.”
Alana turned to them, gripping her hat to keep the strong ocean breeze from carrying it away. She waved briefly.
Eiffel waved back, then looked to Hera. “Aren’t you angry with her?”
Hera sighed, long, still watching Alana down the shoreline. “It’s not about being angry, Eiffel. I’m angry about a lot of things. But… some things are more important.”
“Like bigger fish? What’s a Maxwell when you’ve got a Dr. Pryce?” Eiffel asked. “What’s one little backstab to a lifetime of chronic self-doubt?”
“No, it’s not that.” Hera shook her head. “Jacobi said some things to the Colonel and Ms. Young. About making mistakes, but still doing the right thing. I wish she could have heard him.”
“She betrayed you after she helped you, though.”
“She was protecting her family, Eiffel. Like any of us would do. That’s what makes us human, in the end.”
“To love?”
“To love.” Hera sighed, watching as Maxwell began walking away from them farther down the beach. Hera still wasn’t sure what love meant for her. Perhaps now, without the station to worry about, she could spend a lot more time dwelling on understanding feelings.
But what she had felt for Alana was different than for anyone else. Sure, Minkowski and Eiffel would always support her but somehow… Alana had understood her in a way she feared no one else ever really would. And it was all too short: Hera was given so much time to love Eiffel, to love the person he grew into, but Maxwell had been there for only a fraction of their time on the station. Yet, Hera could say she loved someone that she barely knew. Someone who had given her so much time and attention, someone who was brilliant, someone who had proved more than once she was willing to put one loyalty aside for the sake of standing up for who she cared about.
Hera missed her, and knew she was going to miss her, probably forever. Even without Eiffel being really gone, she knew she was going to miss him forever, too.
As Alana faded from view, Hera sat down in the sand, beckoning Eiffel to sit down beside her. “I learned something very important that day she first went into my head. The memories we have… they’re fundamental to who we are. Take something out, you change the story. Become someone different.”
“So will I ever be… me, in your eyes?
“No! I mean… yes! I mean… It’s complicated.” Hera put her head in her hands, another gesture she enjoyed imagining she could express. “Who you are now is… certainly different. But I’m realizing what hasn’t changed: my memory of you. As long as that remains, the story hasn’t stopped. It just continues.”
“You’re coming around from earlier.”
“I’m not.” said Hera stubbornly. “You, at least, the way you are in here… you’re not him. The real Doug Eiffel is out there. Alana… she can only live on in a memory, but you… us, we get to make new ones.”
“I thought I was the one giving the pep talk today.”
Hera rolled her eyes. “It’s all me, anyways. You’re not really here.”
Eiffel shrugged. “Nah. Just here to facilitate what you already know.”
She knew it wasn’t the end of the frustration. What happened to Eiffel was going to break her heart (as much as such a thing could happen to someone who technically didn’t have one) every single day. And yet… perhaps heartbreak and healing could exist simultaneously, the same way she could overcome self-doubt with the truth of her worth.
“So. Are you going to tell him? Er, me?” Eiffel asked.
Hera tried to avoid it. “Tell you what?”
“How you feel. About me. Us.”
“You never did.” But then, she recalled some subtle displays of affection, and feeling a bit unfair in her judgment, tried to explain. “I mean, you did, but… I wish it was clearer. At least once.”
“I tried. You know me. The whole communication thing has been a bit of a journey.”
“I don’t know if it will ever be the same again.” said Hera, sadly.
“It won’t. You know that.” He looked over at her with a gentle gaze. “But that doesn’t mean it can’t be good.”
“I’m not sure I’m ready for things to be so different. Trying to figure out what to do with myself. Trying to figure out how to take care of you.”
“We’re not alone. We figured it out before. Learning how to make each other better.”
“And will you stay?” she asked, quiet.
Eiffel looked around. “Here? Only if you want me to.”
“I don’t actually think I have a choice.” Hera said, recalling the other voices that lived in her mind. “When something is… important, good or bad… you can’t get rid of it without changing the story. If I don’t remember who you were, I’ll never be able to love who you are.”
He smiled. “And do you love me?”
Hera sighed, a little flustered. “I guess so? Whatever that means.”
“It means we’re going to be okay.” he said. “Hera, our lives… they’re going to be so different. But we’ll adjust. We’ll learn to live, we’ll learn to be happy.”
“Despite everything?”
“Despite everything.”
Hera looked out across the water for a moment, sitting in silence with Doug beside her in the sand. “I like it here.” she said softly. “It makes me think of how Alana helped me. And looking like…” she gestured to herself, “This, well, it makes me think of helping you, there at the end.”
“Important memories. You’re lucky to have them.”
“Yeah.” She sighed in time with a wave that washed across the sand. Then she stood up. “I think… I think I need to go. Talk to some other people. Who are… actually real? No offense.”
“None taken.” Doug laughed, staying in the sand. “I’ll always be here when you need me.”
“I know.” Hera told him, warm. She stepped into the water, closed her eyes, and let the vision fade.
Then she called Minkowski’s phone. It rang only a few times before she answered.
“Hi, Hera.” Minkowski sounded sleepy. Hera remembered it was only five thirty in the morning. Still, Renée always picked up when she called.
“ Renée?” Hera asked, “When we move, can we move to the beach?”