We’ll Meet Again

“Who throws sand?!”

The Captain sprints for the control panel, hesitating. They don’t know how to work this thing, Mark didn’t even know how to work it before he built the damn thing, or-or after, or in-between? No, no, they need to focus, what did he do when he turned it on-

“NO!”

The go flyingback, the breath knocked out of them by Mark throwing his entire bodyweight against them. they knock over a small table of tools, the sounds of metal falling against metal rattling around in their head as it hits the ground hard.If they didn’t already have a concussion from the fire hydrant, they certainly do now.

Mark gets up first, straddling over them and stopping them from being able to get up. They try to go for more pocket sand, but he pins their hand. “Don’t you get that I’m trying to help?!”

They nod, trying to free their hand with their other one-

“I’m trying to save everything!”

They nod again, but they don’t think he can tell, because they look into his eyes and see nothing but frantic desperation.

“I have to fix it! You understand, right? You’ve been through all of this, you-you know what’s at stake!Why are you trying to stop me?!”

They dig their nails into his arm but his sleeves are thick, and when they look back into his eyes they knowhe’s not seeing them anymore, they know he’s just seeing A Traitor, A Monster, A Problem-

Mark sees The End Of Everything, laying right beneath him, trying to end all of existence. And they are clawing at him, trying to get up, trying to destroy the thing he’s spent lifetimesrebuildingjust to stop them and they’re trying to stop him but he needs to stop them they’re trying to stop him but HE NEEDS TO STOP THEM-

“I’M GOING TO GO BACK!”

Blind, blind rage, one goal, one goal at the end of the tunnel, Stop The Captain, Stop The Captain, Stop The Captain, STOP THE CAPTAIN

His hands find something to the side, that something goes somewhere, The Captain lurches beneath him and their eyes go wide, a gurgling sound coming out of their mouth but all Mark can hear is the roaring in his ears and the roaring of that stupid wormhole and all he can see is the end of the tunnel the goal the determination the red-

He pulls his arm back hard and feels something warm splash his chest but it’s such a distant feeling and it doesn’t matter, none of this matters, but he’ll make it matter, he’ll fix it and things will matter again because he can fix everything he can fix everything he can fix he can fix and The Captain The Captain The Captain-

“I’M GOING TO FIX THINGS AND YOU CAN’T STOP ME!”

Shng

Squrp

Ghssh

Their hand doesn’t make it to the gaping hole in their neck before it goes limp.

Mark stays over them for a moment, panting, eyes wide and wild, waiting for the retaliation but they don’t make a move, not one, they-

They… aren’t…

“Captain?” His voice shakes, adrenaline still pumping. He goes to slap them in the face, wake them updon’t wake thecaptain don’t wake the captain don’t wake the captain- and as he pulls his hand away something comes with it-

BLUP

Bloodshoot out everywhere.The stench makes Mark reel away, gagging, jostling the still-unmoving Captain as blood- blood- blood-

Blood on his hands.

He drops the pliers, chest heaving as they clatter to the floor and bits of flesh and muscle and tendons fall off from the impact. They’re open, wideopen, they-they ripped- the hole in The Captain’s neck, ripped open wide-

He ripped their throat open.

Mark stumbles back another few steps. The wound stops spraying blood. Now it just… blurblesout, big fat globs rolling down and pooling, pooling, around The Captain, around their-their-

Mark throws up.

He sits there, surrounded by blood and vomit, staring at the cor- The Captain. They… they’re so… still.

So still.

With all the chaos around them, Mark’s forgotten that he and they could be still.

He doesn’t know when he gets up to kneel by them. But when The Wormhole opens, that’s where he is. Kneeling in the blood, holding their hand as he shakes.

They’ll be back. They will. He’ll go through The Wormhole, and they’ll be there too, getting aboard the ship. They will. He’ll see them again.

He’ll look them right in the eye and shake their hand… knowing he drove a pair of pliers through their ribs and their throat. He’ll shake their hand, having never actually washed his own of their blood.

… He can’t think of another life he’s lived where he did something like this.

Not to The Captain. Not so… brutal.

…

“I’ll see you soon, Captain. I’ll stop you. I promise.”

He gets up, climbs on top of the core, and throws himself in.

He wakes up. He gets aboard, and waits.

And… waits.

… Waits.

…Waits.

He stops Celci in the hall. “Hey. When’s The Captain coming aboard?”

“Captain? Mark, stop messing around.”

“What?”

“Are you just looking for a way to brag about your autopilot system again?”

“But-”

Celci walks away.

Mark goes to the docking bay and waits.

Waits.

Waits.

Waits.

The Captain never arrives.

The Captain.

Never.

ARRIVES.

But The Wormhole does.

And when Mark gets back to the Warp Core… there they are.

Laying still in a puddle of long-dried blood.