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"Can you excuse us please?"
Eva Stratt glances around the room, and the others dutifully push back their chairs and head to the door.
The security guards remain until she nods her head. After a pause, they also turn and leave, closing the door behind them, waiting just on the other side.
Stratt stands, heading towards Ryland Grace and sitting in the chair next to his. His eyes are red and he is staring blankly at the wall. The scuff of her chair breaks him from his reverie.
"Really, I can't," he begs. "I can't. You have to get someone else."
Stratt looks down, takes a deep breath, and then rests her hand on the table, gently grazing his. Grace looks to their hands then back at her, pleading.
"Please."
"You are the only one who can do this. Our survival depends on you."
"I'll train someone else."
"There's no time."
"But that's not the way it is supposed to happen. There is supposed to be time!"
He clenches his hands into fists and belligerently crosses his arms. Her eyes never leave his, and the power of her gaze is too much. Her stare has intimidated governments and pacified generals. With her stern but understanding gaze, she has gathered the whole world for this one moment.
He is as powerless against it as the first day they met.
So he scoffs, unfolding his arms and reaching his hand across the table to touch her fingers with his.
"We were supposed to have time," he repeats, so soft she can barely hear him. But she knows his words. They are the same as her own.
"I know." And she shifts her chair closer, palming his hand tightly in hers.
"I had a plan, you know," he laughs through his tears. "For after the ship left. I was going to ask you to dinner. Real dinner. And we were going to talk until our voices stopped working and..."
She squeezes his hand, pulling their joined fingers to rest on her knee. And she scoots even closer, their legs intertwined.
"I know," she repeats, not daring to say anything more, not daring to feel anything more. Not while they are being watched by the team and guards outside the door.
"Then how can you ask me to do this? If this.... If this is real, why can't I stay?"
"Ryland," she begins, and he squeezes her hand at the sound of his name from her lips. "We all knew that this mission would involve sacrifice."
"Sacrifice. Yeah. Except I have to sacrifice my life."
She takes a breath, willing her tears not to betray her.
"There have been so many sacrifices. By so many people. And I know others look at me and deduce that I am unfeeling. That nothing is a sacrifice for me because I am beyond emotion." She bring her other hand forward, clasping his in both of hers. "But the greatest sacrifice for you is also the greatest sacrifice for me."
He looks at her, meets her eyes, and she finally allows her walls to crack, just a fraction.
"I had plans as well," she confesses. "Plans with you. And getting to know you beyond these walls. And letting you know me. Which scared me more than anything in this mission because I never let anyone know me."
She reaches up and presses her palm against his cheek. He leans into her like his life depends on it.
"I don't want you to go," she breathes. "But if you don't, then we all die. And all of this will be for nothing. And we can't be so selfish to want that."
He nods against her hand, then pulls her close and his arms are around her and her arms are around him and it feels like life. He rubs her back, cradles her head.
"I can't do this," he breaks.
"You can."
"I don't want to."
She holds him tighter, squeezing her eyes. She knows they are being watched but she doesn't care, doesn't care about anything at the moment except the man in her arms and the life they will never get to have.
But they both know it has to end.
He leans back first but still holds onto her arms, still close. He leans forward and presses a kiss to her forehead.
"I barely got to know you."
She pushes hair back from his eyes. "You know me better than anyone."
He chuckles. "That's not saying much." He sniffs, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his sweater.
Finally Grace looks around, almost as if only now noticing that even though they are alone, there are others pretending not to watch. He sits up, and Stratt does as well.
"I guess I better go over a few things with Yao and Ilyukhina then."
He rubs his face, then touches Stratt's knee briefly before standing and turning toward the door.
"Grace," she calls before he can get too far, before she loses her nerve.
He turns around, resignation and exasperation and sadness in his eyes.
"Come to my room tonight," she says, and it doesn't sound like a request.
He chuckles but it isn't quite genuine, isn't quite real. "I said I'd go, Stratt. You don't need to bribe me with sex."
Later, she will wonder if that was her intention all along. For now, she looks surprised and even a bit embarrassed, for sex hadn't even crossed her mind at that point.
"I just meant to talk," she finally says after an awkward silence.
He nods, then turns and leaves.
But he does as she asks. And as he stands outside her door, he makes a deal with himself. If she offers sex, then she is manipulating him, just trying to get him to go by any means necessary. If she doesn't offer sex, then maybe, just maybe, she actually feels something for him.
Taking a breath, and telling himself he doesn't care, he knocks on the door.
And when she opens the door, his breath stops for a little bit. Because what he said earlier was true. He did have plans for the future for them. And no matter how beautiful he thought she was, he has never seen her more beautiful than this moment.
"Ryland," she says, opening the door wider. She's in the same clothes as earlier, covered from her chin to her toes. Her hair hangs partly over her shoulders and he remembers their arms around each other.
"Eva," he responds, like it's a secret joke. And she smiles and the tension is gone and they are the same they always were. Like any other time they met together. Easy and natural.
They don't have sex, even though several opportunities to do so present themselves. But they do spend a long time holding each other. Just hugging. They step into each other's arms like it's gravity, and they speak more to each other in their embrace than they ever had in words.
And when they are too tired to stand, they help each other out of their sweaters and he stands behind her, his hands pushing aside her hair as he kisses her neck.
She turns in his arms and tugs him to her bed. It is small, utilitarian, and tangled together, they talk. And laugh. And he even gets her to laugh at a joke. They hold hands and hold hearts and Grace has never felt as close to anyone in his entire life.
He asks, "What did you think about me when you first met me?"
She is laying against his neck, eyes closed, her hand just barely tucked under his shirt. "That you were an intelligent man hiding behind a group of children and not living up to your potential."
"Ouch!" She grins against his chest, lifting her head to look at him.
"I guess I deserved that," he says, but she shakes her head.
"You don't deserve any of this."
He hums, leaning to kiss her hair. "And what do you think of me now?"
She grins, takes a breath and shuffles to sit up.
"That you are an insecure man..."
"Hey!"
"...with the most extraordinary brain of anyone I have ever met."
He smiles, putting his hand over hers on his chest. "That's my main feature? My brain?"
"It's definitely an attractive feature."
"And the rest of me?"
"I just had to get used to that." She smiles, and he laughs as he pulls her down against him again.
"Why do you never let anyone see you like this?" His fingers trace her ear and she lifts her head to gaze down on him.
"This bed's hardly big enough for everyone."
"Hey, a joke! Good for you! But I mean seriously. Why do you hide it? You are beautiful. And radiant. An absolute genius. You think my brain is attractive? I've never met a brain like yours."
She sighs, her face holding back so much as she searches for the words.
"I made a decision a long time ago to always be the best. I accepted nothing less from myself. And this.... This mission is everything. Absolutely everything. And I needed leaders, governments, everybody to do exactly as I said without question if we were going to accomplish our goal. They wouldn't do that if they saw me as an emotional female."
He twirls some of her hair around his finger. "I'm sorry you have that responsibility."
"I'm not. It is something I am good at. Making the hard decisions. Doing what others can't do."
"And now I have to do it." Grace clenches his eyes and sits up, swinging his legs around to rest his feet on the floor. Behind him, Stratt sits up, hesitating before shifting to lean against his back and wrap one arm around his waist.
"I can't, Eva," he gasps, and he feels his tears start before he can hold them back. "Please, don't make me go now that I finally have you."
She buries her head between his shoulder blades, both arms tight around him to hold him steady. Shifting to rest her chin on his shoulder, she kisses just below his ear.
"You have to let me go."
He turns, curling his body so he can hide his head in her lap. He wraps his arms around her waist and cries. She rubs his back, slow and steady. Softly, so softly, she sings.
"Remember everything will be all right. We can meet again somewhere. Somewhere far away from here."
Twisting up, he turns and crashes his lips against hers. She meets him full force, arms and hands and teeth and lips. She drinks him in as he runs his hands up and down her body, commiting everything to memory.
Exhaustion builds, physical and emotional and mental, and he gathers her in his arms as they both succumb to sleep, her whispered, "I love you," echoing through his head.
Morning isn't awkward. She wakes before him and coaxes him from sleep with her fingers dancing on his cheek. Groaning sleepily, he pulls her back to his chest.
She allows herself to be distracted for a few precious minutes before tearing herself from his arms and into the bathroom. When she emerges a few minutes later, dressed and teeth brushed, he is sitting up in her bed, staring with a silly grin on his face.
"What?" she asks, self-conscious.
"I wish we had a thousand more mornings like this. Wait!" He scrambles out of bed, looking around. "They took away my phone years ago. Do you have a phone? I need a picture of you like this."
She smiles shyly as he uses her phone to take a few pictures of her, then turns the tables as she takes a few of him. Finally, they gather close together for a few selfies. He makes silly faces and nuzzles her neck and she feels light, so light.
"Can you make sure I have some of those with me? When I go?"
"Of course."
He pulls on his sweater and toes into his shoes. "Time to save the world, I guess."
She fidgets with his collar, smoothing imaginary wrinkles. "I wish loving you didn't mean letting you go."
He nods, holding her hands in his. "I'll be in touch." He grins. "Who knows? Maybe we will meet again."
She nods knowingly before squaring her shoulders, armor back in place. With his hand on her back, they face the end of the world.
Fin