Work Text:
The main memory you have of the day that it happened was the fog. The sky was gray, a rainbow just barely peaking out if you were in the right place at the right time. But the fog was thick. The way that Ryland liked it. The way that would make his bright, yellow coat stand out against the gray.
Growing up, you typically preferred the weather when it was sunny. Not hot and humid, but warm and sunny enough that it felt like you were free. You didn’t need to worry about a coat or an umbrella. A day when the sun would feel warm and soft on your skin, but not blazing and overbearing. But you spent enough time with a man who enjoyed the fog that you grew to love it just as much as he did.
Maybe it was something psychological. It has less to do with the weather conditions and more to do with the memories associated with them. When you were younger, perhaps you were more accustomed to being outside in the sun. Maybe you remembered being out as a child, playing until the sun set during the summers that felt like they were never going to end. But when you met Ryland, when the days that he thrived were the days that the fog was thick and the sun didn’t penetrate the clouds were the days that he was at his happiest and more energetic, maybe that perception shifted to be more in favor of the fog than anything else.
Hell, maybe it had more to do with the inevitable doom of the sun being devoured in space and leaving you with cloudier, colder days until everyone inevitably died of starvation.
That fear was one that everyone carried with them, especially people who were close with scientists who knew the ins and outs of it. Scientists who understood what everything meant and what was going to happen if someone didn’t do something about it. You lived with Ryland, you slept in the same bed as him - you knew when he was deep in thought about it, when he was worried that you were both going to die at some point soon. But he knew it wouldn’t be that soon, and he reasoned that you could at least make it to middle age on the porch together.
It was why he married you.
There was this impending (and reality-based) feeling that everything had a ticking timer on it. You knew it as well as he did. Billions of people were going to die, and there was a guilt in knowing that people who were less fortunate than the two of you were going to be the first ones to go. But there was little that you could do about it until there was. Until you were approached by a German scientist who told you what she could tell you without divulging too much classified information.
As Ryland’s wife, she reasoned, you were entitled to know the truth. There had been an accident, and all but two of the astronauts who were selected for the journey had died. Ryland was currently being brought to the base to discuss everything that had happened and how they needed to move forward. But her words had been worrying. She didn’t really beat around the bush while she drove you there, telling you that she had no choice but to send Ryland. He was never meant to go; he was never meant to be the one on the ship. But if she didn’t send him, the chances of this working were slim, and the casualties would greatly increase. There was no time for delay, and you weren’t sure if it was the shock or the guilt that made you believe her at face value when she told you that it was the only way.
You weren’t under any illusions that you had a choice, anyway.
All you could do for two hours was watch the road, trying to make sense of what you were being told. You weren’t sure that the shock had worn off until he was in the office that she had brought you to. You were sitting beside him when it happened, when he held your hand and told her that he couldn’t do it. And maybe some part of you wanted to believe that he had the choice to opt out. But that part of you would have been foolish.
Everything had happened so quickly, too quickly.
You remembered running after him, and you somewhat remembered biting someone just to chase after him when they tried to hold you back. But you mainly remembered sitting in the grass where he had been taken, crying and begging someone to wake him up because you’d been promised the opportunity to say goodbye to him, at the very least. But the fog became harder to see as the sun set, and eventually, your only option was to return home because there was no reasoning yourself onto a spaceship with a capacity of three, either.
The house felt empty without him. His dorky shirts and sweaters were still in the closet, like he was going to come back. The scent of him in the pillows began to fade, but you always just counteracted the fading smell by spraying his cologne on his pillow. Years passed, years of wondering if he was ever going to make it back, but knowing that he wouldn’t. Years of people telling you that it was for the best, hollow reassurances that he was a hero. But you knew the truth. Even if he saved humanity, his hand has been forced. But you never told anyone that, never exposed that he had been unwilling to sacrifice himself to save the stars.
Still, you watched for him. When the nights were clear, nights that he would hate because they came only from sunny days. You sat out on the porch, one of his knit sweaters over your arms as you tried to figure out exactly which star he was closest to, even though you knew that he was out of view entirely.
There was guilt each time. Like you worried that you could have done something to stop it, something to get him out of there before he was dragged onto the ship. Mainly, concerned that you should have just talked to him before he started running, or run faster to catch him while he was lying in the grass. That guilt, that need to apologize for not fighting harder, even though you fought as hard as you possibly could have, carried into more guilt. Guilt that you valued Ryland over the rest of humanity, that you’d rather die with him in thirty years than lose him and have everyone else safe.
It didn’t necessarily get better or easier as time passed, as the situation still went unsolved. There was a bitter emptiness in your chest; a void that hadn’t been filled since the last time that you saw him. Each day, you wondered where he was, if he was still in the coma that he had been put in when you last saw him, and if he was solving it like he was supposed to. You hoped that the other astronauts were keeping him company some days, and other days you wondered if the induced comas even worked. But mainly, you just liked to sit out on the porch, watching the sky, hoping one day you’d see a familiar ship emerge from the stars.