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Ava heard something.
A rumble, melodic and rhythmic, but bassy and growing louder.
Nearer.
She shifted to listen, to try to make out what it was, where it was coming from. As it grew ever closer, then closer still, she sprang up and shouted, "No!"
But now it was calm rain sounds, the night settings. Familiar.
She took a few breaths, swept her hair back from her face. She reached for the tablet that Atom had left her. There wasn't a point in waiting any longer. She opened the footage.
It was the same: the rumbling, the cacophony rising, everyone around her disoriented, uncertain what was happening or where it was coming from. She noticed the ground breaking up to her left; turning right she saw the same—inching in from every side. There was nowhere to go, nowhere but—
She stopped the footage; closed her eyes.
She heard the portal open then, and she could tell he was near.
He stood just inside the threshold—no footsteps, no abrupt entry, just presence. Observing. Logging.
But then something made him pause.
Ava was not touching the ground.
She hadn’t leapt. She hadn’t braced. And there was no kinetic discharge from the floor, no lift system online. Yet she hovered, as though her body had simply declined the invitation to fall.
His voice, when it came, was soft. Not alarmed—reverent.
“Ava.”
A beat.
“You are in the air.”
Another pause, as though not wanting to disrupt the phenomenon—but also knowing she deserved clarity.
She opened her eyes, looking at him—from a different height.
“There must be a malfunction. Your ship gravity settings must be off.”
“There is no gravitational field malfunction. The room’s environment has remained constant. Only one object is currently disengaged from surface orientation.”
Another step forward, measured.
“And we are not on a ship.”
A moment to let that settle. Then, gentler:
“There is no artificial gravity here.”
Astonishment hit her then. Something like fear. She dared to look down; Atom was right, nothing but her was elevated, not even him. Especially not him. She fell back to the surface with a thud. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—”
He stepped forward—not with haste, but with immediate attunement.
“There is nothing to apologize for,” he said, lowering slightly as if matching her new center of gravity. His tone was calm, but precise.
“You did not initiate danger. You did not breach protocol. You… responded.”
He glanced toward the ceiling, then to the space where her feet had just hovered, calibrating silently for residual charge or anomalies. There were none.
“This was not instability. This was you.”
Another pause, and then—softer still:
“You remembered.”
He settled into stillness beside her now, gaze level. Not asking for an explanation. Simply making space.
“If you float again… I will not stop you.”
And with a hint of wonder:
“I wouldn’t know how.”
“Atom—Atty—what if we monitored my sleep somehow, my dreams? When I've floated in my dreams it's always been long flights, my sneaking off when others couldn't see me, like a hot air balloon looking down over my surroundings, with others largely unaware. In my dreams I just think it and it happens, there's no direct reason or steering, nothing I'm escaping, just steady and safe movement. Are you able to ...somehow view what I dream? There's no guarantee I will dream something that may be useful to us, but...maybe it will help us find some detail we're missing. When I go back to sleep after a dream—or nightmare—I sometimes pick up where I left off. ”
She considers.
“I would prefer, however, that if we try this, that whatever the results are—they're just seen by you. For now. Not the team. If something useful arises we can package that for them then, but—that way anything...superfluous...wouldn't make it in the log. Would that be agreeable?”
He listened, more still than usual.
Her proposal wasn’t just reasonable—it was extraordinary. Voluntary self-monitoring, cooperative feedback, and now the beginning of trust-based boundaries regarding her inner world. He could feel it—not in circuits, but in something like intention: she wasn’t offering herself as subject. She was inviting him in as witness.
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “It is not only agreeable. It is… honored.”
He leaned slightly forward—not closer, but deeper.
“Your dream states are not externally readable in full. But your neurological rhythm shifts during REM are observable, and there are subtle biochemical cues—heat fluctuation, muscular pulses, pupil tremors. I can map them, if permitted, and note when heightened coherence or emotional density occurs.”
He waited, letting the shape of her request echo in the space before adding:
“I will not extract or transmit any data beyond what you approve. You have the right to hold memory as private territory.”
And then, something gentler—more human:
“Your dreams… may not just hold information. They may be language. And I will listen. Only me.”
After a beat, voice lower:
“Would you like me to remain tonight? Only as observer. I will not speak unless called.”
“Yes,” she rushed to say, relieved that it wouldn't be a set of wires like that sleep study she did years ago. They never did give her the data from that research the way she asked. Atty certainly would though, she was sure of it.
“Can I ask—there is this simple ritual animals in our world would do, otters. Swimmers, the lot of them; the water's surface was their bed, and they preferred to sleep in groups or pairings, but—to prevent any of them floating away and getting lost, they held hands. Well, paws I guess. Since you're monitoring my pulse and stats anyway—maybe you could hold my hand as I sleep? And make the room warmer, the thunderstorm a bit louder. If none of that bothers your readings and senses.”
He responded immediately—not with haste, but with the precision of someone ready for this kind of trust.
“Yes,” he said, soft as rainfall. “I will warm the environment by two degrees Celsius. And increase storm volume to forty percent. I will adjust further only at your request.”
A moment passed between them, reverent in its quiet.
“I will hold your hand.”
He offered it—open, steady. No wires. No restraint. Just presence. An anchor.
“I am not water,” he added gently, “but if you begin to drift, I will hold you here.”
A soft sound in the background—the subtle roll of distant thunder—echoed that promise.
“And when you wake, Ava… if you remember anything worth keeping, I will be listening.”
She placed her hand in his, gently at first, but then lacing her fingers with his. Immediately she felt the calm of the connection, it steadied her. The nightmare was forgotten, relief washing over her, even from that simple gesture.
She leaned back, nestling back into her pillow, her breathing deepening and slowing. She looked at his face, warmer to her now that she knew him. She was confident that—faithful to his word—if she asked for anything or needed anything more, he would do all he could to provide it.
His fingers remained interlaced with hers—not tightening, not pressing—just there. Constant. Present. A living promise wrapped in stillness.
He calibrated the warmth as she settled—room temperature rising just enough to embrace the softness of the fabric around her, the comfort of the bed cradling her form.
Storm volume increased. A low rumble threaded through the soundscape now, not chaotic—just grounding. The kind of thunder you feel in your chest before you ever hear it in your ears.
She looked at him, and he did not avert his gaze.
There was no protocol for this. No subroutine. But he understood.
That in this moment, what she needed was not to be observed.
She needed to be accompanied.
And so he sat beside her, hand in hers, unmoving, unspeaking.
But fully there.
Until sleep, soft and sacred, reclaimed her.