Archive of Our Own

Katie hated being alone.

She sat alone every day in class, ate lunch alone every day in the cafeteria, and when she finally came home at the end of her day, she had to play video games alone because Matt was off in space without her.

She spent most of her time alone since the launch. It’d been a little over four months, and though her mother pushed her to start talking to people and find a friend, no one at her school gave her the time of day. So Katie was glad when Spring Break rolled around. She wouldn’t have to spend her time being ignored by the other kids in her class or trying to defend herself to them.

She was actually excited to stay home and do nothing but stargaze and translate any messages Matt sent.

But on the first day of Spring Break, her mother had her up early, getting ready to go out for the day. “We can’t be late,” she kept saying, though she didn’t answer any of Katie’s questions as to where they were going or how long they would be there.

When they were finally in the car, Katie couldn’t take it anymore. “Tell me something,” she begged, bouncing a little in her seat, half out of anxiety and half out of curiosity.

Her mother chuckled and pulled onto the freeway. “I would get comfortable. We’re driving all the way to the Garrison today.”

They didn’t live too far from the Garrison, but the traffic was usually bad enough on the outskirts of Plaht City that it took forever to get onto the long stretch of road that led out into the desert where the base was built. And though her mother was employed by the Garrison as a botanist, she did most of her research from home, so it was rare that they drove out anymore, especially since Dad and Matt were gone now.

Katie contented herself with her handheld video games in the backseat as her mother drove, but perked up when she finally saw the Garrison. “Do they have some sort of news about the Kerberos mission that they couldn’t tell us over the phone?” She hadn’t heard from Matt for a week, but it wasn’t all that strange to go a few without hearing from him depending on how busy he got.

“No,” her mother said, and Katie caught the little frown that appeared in the rearview mirror. She quickly changed it into a smile and glanced back over her shoulder. “But we are on a mission of our own.”

Katie’s mind latched onto that, forgetting about her mother’s brief worry. “Oh? Now you have to tell me.”

Her mother was busy scanning her ID at the gates, but when she finished, she nodded up ahead. “You’ll see in a few minutes.”

Keith reread the letter again and groaned. Shiro was adamant that he get out of the Garrison for Spring Break, but it’s not like he had anywhere to go. Now that the Garrison had taken him on as a student, he had no foster family to go home to--and home was a broad term for Keith. His only other option was escaping to his childhood home in the desert.

But it looked as if he didn’t have a choice in the matter. According to Shiro’s note, he’d set him up at the Holts’ house for the week.

He knew the Holts through reputation, and one brief introduction, only. He’d heard more about Commander Holt and his son, Matt, since they were also en route to Kerberos, but Doctor Holt and her daughter were more of a mystery to him. Shiro had spoken of them, but not nearly as much as the men of the family.

Keith didn’t feel much at ease spending a week with two women he didn’t know, despite Shiro’s glowing recommendation, all written out in his neat script, and he wasn’t entirely convinced it didn’t beat staying at the Garrison, even if that meant extra work. Still, he didn’t want to disappoint Shiro, so he packed his small bag of extra clothes and waited near the front of the building as Shiro had instructed.

He gripped the letter in his hands, sure he’d forgotten something or he’d screw this up somehow, until a small white car pulled up beside him. He quickly shoved the paper into his pocket and looked up at Doctor Holt as she got out of the car. His palms were sweating when he reached over to shake her outstretched hand.

“Hi, Keith,” she said, smiling. “I’m Colleen Holt. I don’t know if you remember, but we met once at the launch site.”

He nodded, somewhat distracted by the movement in the corner of his eye as her daughter climbed out of the car. “I remember.”

Doctor Holt nudged her daughter forward and the girl reluctantly smiled. “I’m Katie.”

“I know.” He said it a little too quickly, and when she gave him an odd look, he hurried to explain himself. “Shiro never stopped talking about you guys.”

She watched him for a bit, as if trying to puzzle him out right there under the hot sun. He was thankful when Doctor Holt spoke, drawing Katie’s attention away from him. “Are you ready to go?”

“Go?” Katie asked as Keith nodded.

Doctor Holt glanced between the two. “Keith’s staying with us during Spring Break since we have the room.”

Keith didn’t miss the flash of annoyance that crossed the girl’s face or the way it made his anxiety flare up. He shouldn’t have cared. He didn’t know her and he didn’t want to. She was just another person who’d rather forget he existed.

Her mother elbowed her and she turned back, smiling. “You can sit back here with me,” she said, pulling the door open again.

He followed her in, placing his bag between his knees, and once they were well on their way, Katie tilted the screen of her tablet towards him. “Do you want a turn?”

He shook his head. “I’ve never played before.”

Instead of another annoyed expression, she was back to studying him. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who’s never played Killbot Phantasm before. What, were you raised by a pack of wolves?”

“Katie,” her mother admonished from the front seat.

Keith was too busy comparing the various foster families he’d had to wolves and deciding the assumption was eerily accurate. “No, but I did grow up in the desert without even a can opener.”

She sighed overdramatically and he found himself laughing. “Are you kidding me, Mom? Shiro sends us the one person on this planet who’s more shut-off from technology than the Amish?” She turned a skeptical eye on him. “Don’t tell me you were born before the Industrial Revolution. No matter how cool time travel or immortality or whatever would be, I literally think it would kill me to hear that right now.”

He inclined his head with a high-pitched hum and she slapped him on the arm, all in good fun.

“Well, I’m going to teach you,” she said seriously, back on the topic of Killbot Phantasm as she shoved the tablet in his face. “It’s not that hard and you have to have played at least once if we’re going to get along at all.”

She talked him through the basic controls and premise of the game, then let him try his hand at it before giving him any more advice. Keith’s anxiety had faded back a bit by the time they made it to Plaht City, and when Katie leaned over to get a better look, her shoulder brushing his, he didn’t want to curse Shiro’s name so much.

Despite Katie’s initial reflex to hate Keith, she couldn’t keep it up for very long. They had a lot of things in common, it turned out, when they got to talking about school and the Galaxy Garrison. They were both interested in machines; he liked hover-bikes and she liked robots. And they both preferred animals to people, though Keith said he’d never had a pet of his own. She couldn’t even fault him for admitting hippos were his favorite animal, though she did get a good laugh and a glare out of it.

But it didn’t stop Katie from grumbling about the surprise of it to her mother.

“Katie, he has nowhere else to go,” she said, and Katie wondered what exactly that meant. “Shiro asked this of us, so we’re going to do it, and I don’t want to hear you complain.”

And she couldn’t, much, once she learned he was the best cadet in the piloting program. She’d always wanted to be a pilot, to follow her father and brother into space and learn of everything that was out there, just beyond reach. Keith seemed to feel the same way, even though he kept his excitement and passion a little more in control, but Katie decided she’d been wrong about him.

At her mother’s request, she spent the week showing Keith the park and the biking trails where she and Matt rode their hover-scooters when they were younger. They raced a few times, and though Keith won all three, he didn’t rub it in her face like the kids at her school would have. Instead he complimented her on her technique and chalked his own up to all the hours he spent training in the Garrison simulations.

When her mother had some free time, they took Keith to the aquarium and space museum, and by the end of the week, she’d nearly forgotten about all of her projects in limbo.

She took Saturday night to climb out onto the roof with her laptop and Matt’s codebook, even though she’d memorized it by heart already. It’d been another week of radio silence, and Katie started to worry. Were they too far out? But their father had gone out before, not quite so far, but far enough, and they’d heard back from him.

“What are you doing?”

Katie jumped at the sound, ready for a scolding, but it wasn’t her mother who’d found her. It was Keith’s face visible through the open hall window.

She sighed and turned back to her computer, shutting it when there was nothing new. “I’m not supposed to be out here,” she said instead of answering him.

He looked back inside, then crawled out to sit beside her. “I won’t tell.”

She grinned up at him, setting her equipment aside. “Matt and my dad have a secret code to communicate with me when they’re away. It’s against Garrison policy, but I come out here almost every night to check for any new messages.”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “And?”

She frowned. “Nothing new. It’s been two weeks, but it’s not abnormal, so I’m not worried.” Even as she said the words, she knew they were a lie.

Keith must have realized it too, because he shifted uncomfortably, turning his gaze to the stars. “At least you’ve heard from them. Any news I get about Shiro is strictly from the Garrison and you know how stingy they are.”

She’d met Keith only once, just before the launch, and she’d wondered who he was to Shiro, since they only allowed family at the launch site and she didn’t remember him having any brothers. But that’s what he must have been, because he talked about him with the same tone of voice she used whenever she talked about Matt.

“You must miss him a lot.”

He nodded, his hair blown across his forehead by the breeze. “I do.”

She straightened out, remembering Matt’s last message, and reached for her computer to pull it up. “Well, as far as two weeks ago, everything was going smoothly and Shiro was just fine.”

Keith looked over, glancing down at the screen when she tilted it his way. He read the brief message, smiled, and looked back up at her. “Thanks, Katie.”

She beamed at him. “Any time,” she said, even as she realized he would be leaving the next day. She didn’t know why, but she was a little bummed by the thought of Keith going back to the Garrison. But if Katie was right, he’d have nowhere to go during the summer either and he would end up staying in Matt’s room across the hall from hers.

So when they drove him back to the Garrison and said goodbye, she wasn’t too worried about never seeing him again. She had a pretty good feeling she would.