Work Text:
He never should have been there in the first place, but there he was, in a run-down bar in a run-down town on a run-down planet, waiting. He'd come a long way from old Earth and the punk kid who was amazingly given a way out. McGee tossed back the last of the local beer, and turned around.
The place was nearly empty as early as it was. Two men, dressed in the muddy, gray clothes the local farmers wore sat at a table playing cards, and one other person sat at the far end of the bar. Then the door opened.
There, walking towards him was the real reason he was here. Tamara McGee, geologist, dark of hair and blue of eye, and technically his employer, smiled as she met his eyes. She had shed the denim and khaki that were her working clothes for this last night out on the town before they headed into the mountains and their next work assignment. The dress of electric blue she wore instead swayed gently around her knees as she headed towards him.
He smiled at her briefly, then sighed, then turned and waved to the bartender who brought two more beers.
"You look too glum, Sean," she said, sliding on the stool next to him. "We're supposed to be enjoying ourselves. It's going to be a hard day tomorrow."
McGee shrugged. "I forgot how well you cleaned up, Tam, it's been so long. Made me think. You ever miss it?"
"Miss what?" She picked up her own glass, tasted the brew, and made a face.
"Back home. All the things we left behind."
"Not really," she replied, putting her glass down. "Here I have a life, there - well, you remember. Too many people. There was no chance I'd ever get out into the field, except as somebody's cook and bed warmer." She studied him carefully, how his eyes were lost in some distant place that had nothing to do with the bar they were sitting in. "You're thinking of her again, aren't you?"
"Yeah," he said. "Been ten years this week." He looked down at the bar, and ran his finger around the circle of wetness his glass had left.
"Don't you dare guilt out, Sean McGee. You couldn't have stopped Mama any more than I could. She knew what she was doing, and this is what she wanted. To give us the stars. To give us a life."
"Yeah," he said. "But to die like that, just so some rich bitch could live a little longer. Hope we're worth it." He had his personal doubts, at least about himself.
“Well, I’m going to enjoy tonight.” Tamara said. “That’s what Mama would have wanted. Dance with me?”
He nodded, and stood up to feed credits into the music player. Maybe he shouldn’t have been here in the first place, but as long as his wife was at peace, he wasn’t going to turn down the gift that made it happen.