Archive of Our Own

Grian arrives only a little early, but still early enough that the receptionist instructs him to wait outside until he’s needed. There’s a guard at the entrance to the conference room, one in full military tactical gear with an alarming looking gun, and so Grian chooses a seat as far as possible from him and that door. 

He supposes that may have been on purpose, to keep him from overhearing anything he shouldn’t. This whole thing has been very hush-hush, and he still doesn’t know exactly what this meeting is about, only that it wasn’t very optional. He has some suspicions, he wasn’t brought in in cuffs or anything, so they probably want him to do something for them? 

Grian’s an astro-engineer, a literal rocket scientist. His specialization is more theoretical though, long term space craft for longer voyages they don’t have the budget for yet. It's his hope that, some day, he gets to see at least one of his ships built in his lifetime, but even if he only paves the way for future humankind he’ll take solace in that. 

He twiddles his thumbs and bounces his knee, jostling the folders of blueprints he brought at their request (who is “they”? Grian isn’t sure. He thinks this is a UN building, or maybe NATO? Is the UK a member of NATO?) and watches the clock. He tries to keep himself from glancing nervously at the intense looking guard at the door with the scary looking gun. 

On the other side of the room, the door Grian came through opens again, held open by the receptionist. An american voice pleasantly says, “oh, that works, thank you very much!”  

A neat looking man wheels himself in in a shiny looking wheelchair, nodding to the receptionist as she lets the door fall shut behind him. Without a glance at Grian, he wheels himself over to the scary looking guard, and says politely, “Hello there! My name is Scar GoodTime, I was summoned?” 

“Take a seat.” the guard instructs without inflection, just scary intensity, “they’ll call when they’re ready for you.” 

“Oh! Sure thing, I’ll just-’ he turns the wheelchair around, and mumbles to himself, “take a seat, hm, funny.” 

He seems frozen where he is, looking awkwardly side to side, and terribly enough Grian doesn’t realize the problem until it hits him that with both walls lined with terribly uncomfortable plastic chairs, there’s nowhere for Mr. GoodTime to park his chair. 

“Oh!” Grian launches himself to standing, nearly throwing his folders everywhere, only catching them at the last second, “here, let me-” 

He hastily grabs one of the chairs across from him, stacking it atop another. On second thought he clears another, opening up a space wide enough for the wheelchair to fit. 

“Why, thank you sir!” Mr. GoodTime thanks him, wheeling himself over, “very considerate, really, very appreciated.” 

“Of course, do you need help-?” he jerks his hands forward, towards the man’s wheelchair, but is immediately waved off. 

“No! No, no thank you,” Mr. GoodTime laughs awkwardly, “I’m fine, I’ve got it, please.” His smile grows a little strained, “Please don’t touch my wheelchair, I can push myself.” 

“Oh, sure, no problem.” Grian slowly lowers himself back into his own chair, “I didn’t mean to imply…” he trails off, unsure how to end his sentence. 

Mr. GoodTime, now positioned in the gap Grian made for him, waves him off, “oh, don’t worry, lots of people make that mistake. It’s just, my wheelchair is kind of an extension of me? So for a stranger to grab it and move me without my permission, well it's not pleasant.”

“I can only imagine,” Grian commiserates, “Still, for what it's worth, I’m sorry.” 

Mr. GoodTime’s smile is warm as he replies, “Hey, no harm, no foul.” 

The guard still stands stoically at the conference door on the other side of the room with no sign of calling them, and so Grian decides to make small talk, “so, what do you do for work?” 

The other man seems to brighten as he explains, “I’m a large-scale life support architect. Right now I design theoretical colonies for other planets and moons, the types of infrastructure you’d need to support life long-term on a large scale, you know? It’s really interesting stuff.” 

Grian gives an encouraging nod, and so he continues, “Well, first you have the basics, the very bottom of the pyramid of needs, you know? Oxygen, heat, those things. And really, that’s the easy stuff, and let me tell you it's not that easy to make perpetual sources of heat and oxygen, but then you need to step it up and consider well how are you getting perpetual food? Water? What about comfort? If everything is gray utilitarian, it’ll be lord of the flies within a decade!” 

“Sounds generous to me,” Grian chuckles, “Lock me in a Walmart, and I’m turning to cannibalism in a week, tops.” 

That elicits a delighted chuckle from Mr. GoodTime, “Exactly! So, you need privacy quarters, you need soft colours and harsh colours, you need to conserve space without making everyone claustrophobic, it's a…” he smiles, in a satisfied way, “it's a never ending puzzle that I love trying to solve.” 

“Wow, that’s some really impressive stuff.” Grian remarks. 

“Sorry, I’m being rude. What do you do for work?” 

“I’m a theoretical astro-engineer,” he explains, “I design long-haul spaceships for when we’re eventually ready to make those first steps into the larger universe. None of it’s viable yet, but still, it's like you said, a very fun puzzle to solve.” 

Mr. GoodTime gets a funny looking twinkle in his eye, and leans in, “so if you design long haul spacecraft, and I design long-term space colonies, what do you think they’ve brought us in for?” 

Grian feels an excited jump in his chest, and leans in to meet him, “do you think we’re colonizing the moon?” 

“What about Mars?” Scar whispers conspiratorially, “or the moons of jupiter? Do you think your ships can reach there?” 

Grian leans back in thought, rubbing his chin, “If I’m being honest? I have no idea.” 

His stuff, it's very theoretical. He wasn’t kidding when he said he hoped one of them would be built in his lifetime because if he was being honest, it didn’t seem very realistic. But Mr. GoodTime was right, the two of them being summoned for this meeting did seem to be painting a very specific picture. 

The meeting door opens, and a suited man with a goatee opens the door, “we’ll have you now.” 

Mr. GoodTime meets his eye, “well, let’s go see shall we?”

So it turns out- they weren’t quite right. They weren’t being brought in for humanity’s next jump in evolution, or for the next great step for mankind. They weren’t there to make theoretical plans for the next generation, or pitch for funding for a project. 

They have been called in because, as the leading experts in space travel and survival, they are humanity’s last hope because in 5 years time, the moon is going to crash into earth. 

“ What, ” he’d said at the time, because, what? 

An asteroid is on a collision course for the moon, one big and powerful enough that it will knock their lunar neighbour into earth’s gravity well, causing it to then make impact on earth, and likely destroy all life. The world is soon going to be over. 

This isn’t like the movies, they’d said. There’s no team of oil drillers they can send up, no missile they can launch, for all their terrible warfare earth has nothing powerful enough to stop it. Their only hope is an ark. 

“And that’s where you come in.” Mr. Ren Dog had told them last year. 

An ark. He and Mr. GoodTime (Scar to him now, after a year working together) were to together design a spacecraft that could support life long enough to safely reach another planet they could call home, or barring that, live on the craft indefinitely. 

“Hold on, hold on, hold on,” he’d said at the time, “just wait on a minute.” 

This isn’t a movie. They don’t yet have viable cryofreezing technology. Nothing even on a theoretical level is capable of even getting close to touching light speed, and the nearest star system they suspect of being capable of supporting life is- is too far away to reach within even generations. 

“You’ll figure it out,” Mr. Ren Dog had told them, “all of humanity is counting on you.” 

And they didn’t even have 5 years to design the thing. They still need time to build it, so it was without question that he and Scar moved into the facility, working around the clock to solve the puzzles they’d previously called fun, with humanity’s survival hanging over their heads. It was a better threat than any gun could accomplish. 

They’re- they’re getting close. Grian can feel it, but for every problem they solve it feels like three more pop up to take their place. Though they have the world’s resources at their disposal, they’re limited by secrecy, meaning they can’t bring more people on to help for fear of it all leaking, and the world descending into chaos before the moon even has a chance to land. 

Grian drops his head onto the table, “This is impossible,” he moans, after the formulas in front him start floating around his eyes for the third time in as many minutes. 

He can hear Scar beside him yawn, “we’ve probably hit our limit for the day, we’ve earned some shut eye I think.” 

“No, no,” Grian denies, lifting his head, “I can keep going I can-” he muffles a yawn into his hand, “I’m good,” he declares. 

Scar’s disapproving look pierces him through. His eyes are ringed with red, shadowed by deep and dark circles. He looks almost worse than Grian, “we’re not getting anything done like this. We’ll be of more use well rested in the morning.” 

“No, I can, I swear, I’m so close,” He whines, though once more upon looking at his diagrams the numbers just keep swimming. 

“Grian,” Scar says, and Grian slumps in defeat, “Come on, lets go to bed.” 

“Fine, fine,” he acquiesces, standing from his chair, not bothering to put anything away. They’ll be back here first thing in the morning anyhow. 

The two go together back to their side-by-side dorms, Grian carefully not touching Scar’s wheelchair as he’s now learnt, though he does occasionally bump Scar’s shoulder to be funny, and to hear his dramatic affronted noises. 

He doesn’t make any noises tonight. Just leans away from Grian as they walk. 

“Scar?” he asks carefully as they move through the empty halls. He has no idea what time it is, there aren’t even any windows to see if it's dark outside. Grian wouldn’t put it past the two of them to have totally ruined their sleep schedules. “You okay?” 

Scar shrugs best he can while pushing the wheels of his chair. “I’m fine.” 

Grian gives a little scoff, “Right, cuz that was convincing. Try it again, this time: with feeling.” 

Scar’s head rolls to stare at Grian, his exhausted eyes pinning Grian where he stands, “I’m fine?” 

This time they both laugh. “Scar, that was even less convincing. Come on, what’s up buddy? Share with your old pal, Grian.” 

Scar’s face seems to sober at that, clouding over once more. “I went out today to the grocery store.” 

Grian nods, “yeah you were gone for… lunch? I think it was lunch.” The past few days are all melting together in Grian’s exhausted mind. He noticed Scar’s absence, is what he meant to say, but his tongue is clumsy in his mouth right now, his words not quite what he wants them to be. 

Maybe Scar is right, he does need to sleep. 

“While I was at the store…,” Scar continues, voice sombre and slow, “I saw a woman. Nobody I knew, no one important, we didn’t even-” he gives a little laugh, “we didn’t even interact.” 

Grian stays quiet, letting Scar finish. 

“She was pregnant.” Scar says in a hush, like he’s afraid for the words to escape him, “Huge, probably due any day. She was positively glowing, rubbing her belly, her husband there with her helping her pick out diapers, and all I could think was-” 

Scar chokes on a sob, and Grian leaves over to give his back a gentle rub as he collects himself. 

With a sniffle, he continues, “that baby isn’t going to grow up. That’s all I could think about. That baby probably won’t even start school. And then I got to thinking how many babies there are out there in the world right now who will never get to grow up, and how many people who are planning for a future they have no idea they’ll ever see, and I just-” 

Scar stops in the hallway, frustrated tears streaking down his cheeks, “It just hits me sometimes, that even though we’ll live, there’s so many people out there who won’t, and it’s not fair, but there’s nothing we can do.” he shrugs, dejected and sad, “that’s just how the dice fall sometimes.” 

Grian doesn’t know what to say. He can admit, at least to himself, that he hasn’t thought too much about everyone else at this stage, too caught up in his own problems, and god does that sound terrible now that he thinks about it. Here’s Scar, considering the world at large, and Grian here is mad because he can’t solve his formulas on 36 hours without sleep. 

“What we’re gonna do,” he finally says, because Scar looks terrible and he can’t leave his best friend looking like that, “is we’re going to build the best space ship we possibly can. We’re going to fit as many people aboard as we can, and maybe just maybe, some of those babies will get to grow up, yeah?” 

Scar sniffles, and gives a dejected nod. 

“So to do that,” he says, because they’re both completely wrung out, “we’re going to go to bed, like you suggested, and then tomorrow we’ll be fresh as daisies, ready to solve one problem after the other until,” 

“Until there’s no more problems,” Scar says with a tired smile, “we lose and we lose, until we’re ready.” 

At Grian’s confused look, Scar just chuckles, “Star Wars Quote, don’t mind me.” 

“You’re so right,” he marvels, “we do need more Star Wars in the lab. First thing tomorrow, I’m putting in a request for, for all the Star Wars merchandise they can afford.”

That finally elicits a real laugh from Scar, “you do that, let me know how loud Ren yells at you when you do, in decibels if you don’t mind.” 

“Excuse you, I’m humanity’s last hope for survival,” Grian replies in fake affrontage, a hand on his chest in mock disbelief, “he damn well better give me whatever I please,” 

“Right, well let me know how it goes,” Scar says as they start moving again, “I requested a lift for my bathroom, and got a very resounding no, so, you know.” 

“Excuse me?” Grian asks, jogging to keep up, “that sounds a lot less frivolous than my Star Wars idea. That sounds like something super necessary, actually.” 

Scar just shrugs with a defeated sigh. “It’s fine. I’m not paralyzed, you know? I can stand for short periods, so it’s not a big deal.” 

“But it’s not safe, ” he points out, “Believe it or not I was listening when you explained the whole, part time wheelchair user thing, and I do distinctly remember you telling me it's not safe for you to stand for long periods like that.” 

“Grian,” Scar says, and oh that’s his serious voice, “trust me, I know. I know better than anyone my limits, and I’m making it work, okay? I’m not going to give you my, my bathing details because you’re all offended on my behalf, okay? Just, just drop it.” 

They walk in awkward silence like that for some minutes through the empty halls, accompanied only by the sounds of their echoing footsteps. 

Grian hates this. Hates the tension between them, and especially hates how Scar is just willing to roll over because this project is bigger than both of them. If anything, the administration should treat them better for it! 

When they finally reach their doors, it looks like Scar is going to disappear into his room without a word, and so Grian stops him with a hand on his shoulder. Thankfully, he doesn’t shrug him off, and so Grian says as flatly as he can, “you can share other bathing details, if you want.” 

Scar looks up at him, confused, so Grian gives a silly little eyebrow wiggle, still keeping his face flat as he can. That gets through to him, and Scar first widens his eyes in surprise, then breaks into hysterical little giggles. 

“Get out of here, mister, or I’ll have you, have you reported to HR,” he says through his giggles. He’s smiling now, and that’s what matters to Grian. 

“Okay, okay!” he lifts his hands to his chest, “hands to myself, got it, got it.” 

They part to their respective doors, and all Grian can think of now is getting his head on his pillow, but right before he falls through his door Scar stops him with a: “Grian?”

He pauses, one foot in his room, to look at him, “hm?” 

Scar seems to be blushing, and with a cheeky smile manages to get out, “you don’t have to keep all your hands to yourself.” 

And while Grian is stuck gaping in shock, Scar disappears into his room, the bastard. 

Flushed red, Grian too goes into his room to rest up, and to think of ways to get him back.

The next morning, Grian puts in a request for enough Star Wars posters to absolutely cover every spare inch of space in the lab. 

To his surprise, Ren says nothing about it, and within a month the lab is plastered in Star Wars.

“No you see, right here, if that pipe is too close to those wires-” Grian points out, head tucked close to Scar as they go over what could tentatively be their final plans for the craft. 

Construction on the frame started six months ago, to make sure they’d have enough time to build the damn thing, so now they’re working with space constraints. Every day more and more of the ship gets built, and they can change less and less. They’re plain and simple running out of time. 

“You’re right,” Scar agrees, “but we can’t put it here, because then it’ll be too close to the living quarters, and trust me that pipe will be noisy, ” 

Grian leans back in his chair, rubbing a hand over his face, “they might just have to put up with it, I don’t see where else we can fit it now.” 

Scar too has no solution to this, and so above the living quarters it goes. “We’ll get foam between the pipe and the quarters,” Scar offers, “muffle it a little bit.” 

“The foam will break down, probably within a year or two with the vibrations. Anything that won’t-” 

“Will carry the noise.” Scar sighs. “Yeah, and we won’t exactly be able to get more.” 

They sit with that for a minute. They’re at constant war with space being a premium, and that they won’t be able to replace anything that runs out or breaks. Do you stock extra first aid supplies, or make room for one more family? Which is more valuable, steel or human lives? 

There’s no good answer. Every decision they make has human lives in the balance, and Grian can feel the blood on his hands. 

“We’ll request our rooms to be in a different block,” he jokes, trying to lighten the mood, “one close to a sauna, or something.” 

It’s a given, at least to Grian, that their rooms will be near one another. Two years on this project, and Grian can say without a doubt that Scar is his closest friend he’s ever had. Being trusted with humanity’s life and terrible government secrets together will do that to you. 

Scar though, he doesn’t laugh. If anything his expression grows darker, even more scrunched and distressed. 

“Scar?” he asks, worry creeping into his voice. 

“I, uh-” Scar asks, not looking at Grian, “Have they, you know, asked you about things like that yet?” 

Grian’s eyebrows too now scrunch together, proper worry setting in. “Yes? A few weeks ago, they dropped off a packet of papers, asking me my preferences for a few things you know. Wall colour, room size, location, things like that.” 

He’d only written near Scar for location. He wonders now if that was presumptuous. 

Scar’s face darkens further, “I didn’t get anything like that.” 

Grian’s eyebrows immediately unscrunch to instead shoot to his hairline in disbelief, “excuse me? 

Scar immediately waves a hand dismissively, “I’m sure it's- I’m sure it's nothing. Clerical delay, or something like that…”

He doesn’t even sound like he believes himself. Grian really doesn’t like the picture this is painting. 

Still, he nods sharply, “you’re right, probably just a mistake.” 

Scar slumps in his chair, “Right, yeah, nothing to be worried about.” 

Grian stands from his chair, “Oh I wouldn’t go that far, after all, mistakes need to be corrected,” 

“Grian?” Scar asks, first confused, then again more distressed as he marches from the room, “Grian?!” 

Grian was sick of this. Sick of them pushing around Scar because they knew they could, because they knew he was nice and wouldn’t fight back. Grian had enough with their bullshit, and he was going to make sure they knew. 

After two years living in this facility, Grian has the place memorized, and he knows exactly where Ren’s office is. A guard stands outside, not the same one from his introduction, but dressed in the same tactical military gear, scary gun in his hand. 

Grian isn’t scared of them anymore. They need him. 

“Sir!” The guard lifts one hand, “I need you to stop right there!” 

“Ren!” he shouts down the hall, “I need to see you!” 

The guard quickly says something into the radio at his shoulder, and Grian doesn’t care. Just keeps marching to the door he knows holds Ren. 

“Sir,” the guard says again, planting a hand on Grian’s chest, “I’m going to need you to stop here.” 

“Tell Ren,” he says through gritted teeth, “that I need to see him.” 

“Just, just give us a moment,” the guard says, before his earpiece erupts into chatter, and he replies quietly into his radio without taking his hand off Grian, “no, he’s right here, sir.” 

Grian doesn’t dare move a step back, fury and rage pumping through his indignant veins. He alternates between glances at the door he knows holds Ren and the guard preventing him from going through. 

Just as he’s starting to debate the merits of whether they’d really shoot him, the guard removes his hand, “He’ll see you now,” he says, stepping aside. 

Grian makes sure to get one last petty glare in, before stepping through the now open door. 

Ren waits for him behind his desk, elbows sitting on important looking paperwork, fingers steepled and holding his chin. He looks disgruntled and annoyed, which is great for Grian’s blood pressure. 

“Grian,” Ren says, sounding somehow bored and annoyed. “Normally I would ask you make an appointment for matters like this, but as you are clearly agitated I’ll make an exception this time, but for future matters please consider going through proper channels.” 

“I do, ” he points out, “I do go through the proper channels, for everything! Every time I want to leave campus, I file a mountain of paperwork. I put up with your frankly illegal levels of surveillance, because-! ” he lifts a hand to stop the interruption he can see coming from a mile away, “ do not interrupt me right now, Ren, so help me god.” 

Ren quiets down, and so Grian continues, “I get it, this is all very necessary, for the good of humanity. You have hammered that into our heads quite well. ” 

Ren spreads his arms, “then why all the dramatics Grian, get to the point.” 

“Scar!” he snaps, “I am sick of you pushing around Scar just because you can. I know you’ve denied his requests for accommodations, I know you’ve been ignoring his suggestions to make the ship more accessible, and now with construction started you still haven’t given him the request packet for his quarters, and as you keep reminding us, we are running out of time.” 

“You couldn’t do this without us, either of us.” he reminds him, “so I think it’s time you start treating Scar with the respect he deserves, or maybe the press would like to hear about this little project.” 

As he pants with the rage out of his system, Ren lifts one unimpressed eyebrow, “Is that all?” 

“I can keep going.” he offers sarcastically.

“I’m sure.” Ren replies, “to answer your inquiry, Scar was meant to have received the same packet as you at the same time, so thank you for bringing it to our attention that it must have been lost in transit. We’ll rectify that as soon as possible.” 

For some reason, Grian doesn’t believe him. They work and live just down the hall. “How about right now? Get it all printed out, I’ll bring it myself.” 

Ren only sighs, then leans over to his microphone to request a copy of the packet for Grian. “Take a seat,” he instructs, “we’ll have it up in a minute.” 

He does, refusing to leave Ren’s sight until the packet is in his hands. For several, terrible, awkward minutes Grian glares at Ren, and Ren ignores Grian. 

Eventually, a tight lipped secretary comes into the room with the packet. She hands it to Ren, who then hands it to Grian. He pages through, just to make sure it's the real thing. 

It looks like the one he filled out, best he can remember. Still, he makes sure to give Ren one last glare before he takes his departure. 

Right as his foot crosses over the threshold, Ren stops him, “Oh, and Grian?” 

He turns to see what he has to say. Ren somehow still looks bored and annoyed as he says, calmer than ever, “don’t underestimate your usefulness. There were others before you, and we can bring in others. You are the best, but if you prove to be too much trouble…” 

A chill goes over him, his skin erupting into goosebumps. Somehow, he doubts he’s talking about a layoff. 

He doesn’t reply. Just turns and marches out. The guard says nothing as he goes past. 

Walking back through the empty halls, Ren’s threat echoes in his head. Others before him…? 

Grian is one of the leading experts in his field, but Ren is right. There are others, and he can be replaced. It shakes Grian to his core to think about losing his spot on the arc, of dying on earth in a fiery crash as the moon comes down, all screaming and chaos and pain. 

He shivers. That’s the fate that awaits- billions. And there’s nothing he can do about it but lock his spot in on the last ride out. 

He arrives back in the lab to Scar’s worried face, “Grian!” he cries out, “what did you do?” 

He plops the papers down in front of Scar with a smile, “got you your paperwork, buddy. Just a clerical error, like you said, but I wanted to make sure you got these A-S-A-P. Time is of the essence, you know?” 

Scar blinks at him, awe and wonder in his eyes, “really? You did that for me?” 

“Of course!” he takes a seat, bumping shoulders with him, “here come on, let's get them started now. The architects are going to want these as soon as possible.” 

“Right, yeah, of course, and I’m really going to need some special accommodations if I’m living here for the rest of my life, gotta make sure they get all the right gear and such.” he mumbles to himself. 

“Well come on then,” he says passing over a pen, “no time like the present, chop chop!” 

“Right, right,” Scar takes the pen, but before it touches the paper he turns to face him, “Grian?” 

“Yeah?” he asks. Did he mess something up, were the papers wrong after all? 

But Scar just smiles brightly, “thank you.” 

He turns back to his paperwork while Grian’s heart feels like it's going to beat out of his chest.

“So this will be the cockpit,” he instructs, “I know it feels a little small, but only the actual pilots are to be in here. Behind you is where the support staff will be, navigation, maintenance readouts, everything you could possibly need will be right there.” 

“Right, right,” the astronaut, Tango, replies, “it's not a one man show in here, is it? This ship is huge!” 

“God, no.” Grian affirms, “there’ll be at least three of you in here at all times, never starting or finishing your shift at the same time. I think the final team is 12 people strong, Scar? Do you remember?” 

“Hm?” Scar looks up from his tablet, where he's still putting the finishing touches on the greenhouses, “15, actually, just in case.” 

Tango whistles in disbelief, “that’s a hell of a crew,” 

“You’ll be the captain of the pilot team,” Grian assures, “it's a huge honour,” 

“Don’t need to tell me twice.” Tango replies, “Humanity’s last hope,” he marvels, looking around. 

It doesn’t feel real to Grian either. Like they’re in a theme park ride, and not what will inevitably be his home for the rest of his life. He might not even ever see the cockpit in action, that won’t be his job once this thing is in the air. 

“Is that her name?” Tango asks, and Grian gives a clarifying “hm?” 

“Humanity’s last hope.” Tango reiterates. “Is that the ship’s name?” 

“Uh,” Grian turns to Scar, who still has the tablet, “I don’t… I don’t think so?” 

“She doesn’t have a name yet.” Scar confirms, “I like the sound of it though.” 

“Eh,” Tango shakes his head, “the poets will come up with something nicer.” 

They’re putting the finishing touches on the ship now. With only two years to go, most of it is built, though construction crews are still working around the clock. They’ve even started furnishing it in some places. 

Grian knows his room is finished, but he can’t bring up the nerve to go look. That will make it all- too real somehow. 

The final thing is- it's huge. Objectively Grian knew it would be, they designed the damn thing after all. It will fit thousands of people aboard, and all the systems needed to keep them alive, hypothetically. Hopefully. There just plain isn’t the time to test it. 

To actually see it though, sitting there mostly assembled in the top-secret government hanger, is insane. Grian isn’t sure he can really comprehend how large it is. 

And yet, when he considers spending the rest of his life aboard it, how it will carry the last of humanity, it feels remarkably small. 

They leave the cockpit. There’s a shuttle waiting for them, because the walk from here to a port complete enough to handle people leaving through it isn’t feasible for them to walk. Grian is secretly thankful, he knows Scar’s health has been on the rocks these last few weeks, and he’s glad they don’t have to push him without saying anything. 

The upper brass have been touchy about Scar’s health, especially since Grian’s blow up last year. They’ve been carefully respectful, but there’s also been lots of side eyes, a lot of whispering behind closed doors they likely thought Grian couldn’t hear. When he helped Scar fill out the request form for his room, the accommodations he needed were- extensive.

Grian insisted he put down every single one. He’d be living there the rest of his life. A lift for his bed was not an unreasonable request. He doesn’t care what they say, without Scar, none of this would have ever happened. 

They part from Tango with a wave once they exit the ship. They take a moment, the two of them, to look upon their creation. 

“She’s beautiful,” Scar says wistfully, and Grian couldn’t agree more. 

“You know I…” Scar trails off, and Grian looks over to give him his full attention, but he only shakes his head, “no, it's not important.” 

“You sure?” everything Scar says is important to Grian, even his half-awake Star Wars ramblings; maybe especially those. He loves when they can talk about anything other than this project that’s consumed their lives for the last three years. 

“Yeah…” Scar says, still sounding sad and distracted, “it doesn’t matter, come on, let’s make sure they don’t miss anything in the lab.” 

While he and Scar aren’t quite finished the designs, still polishing the last little bits and putting on the final touches, they’ve agreed to move their equipment on board now, while time is still in their favor. Grian insisted on them bringing the Star Wars posters, and while it was another battle with Ren, he relented in the end. 

He knows there’s a different team, headed by someone he’s never met, who’s deciding which art and media to bring aboard and preserve. He wonders if Star Wars made the cut, or if the posters they bring with them will be the only evidence left of the franchise. 

He makes idle conversation as they walk back, “So, have you decided where you’ll move when we’re done?” 

Scar snorts, “you’re leaving? For just two years?” 

They’ve been offered the chance to live off site for the last couple years, once they’re finished with the plans. Grian supposes Ren trusts them now not to go running to the press, now that it's down to the wire. 

“You’re not?” Grian asks incredulously, “we’ve got two years left of, of earth! And you want to spend it here?” 

Scar rubs the back of his neck, “It just seemed like a lot of work, buying a house, packing again, moving, just to come back so soon, but when you put it like that…” 

Grian nods, “I’m gonna travel the world, experience everything I’ll never get to again.” 

He contemplated climbing Everest, before deciding the effort wouldn’t be worth it for someone as inexperienced as himself. Still, he’s going to visit cenotes in Mexico, black sand beaches in Iceland, Niagara falls, and who knows what else. All the natural wonders of Earth, everything he’s ever wanted to see that he never got the chance to before now. Funny how a ticking down clock suddenly makes you appreciate everything even more. 

Scar says hesitantly, “I’ve… I’ve always wanted to visit Disneyland. Never got the chance to, with all-” he waves to himself, his wheelchair and the oxygen he’s had to use these last few weeks, “-this. But I’ve always wanted to.” 

Grian considers that. He’d been so focused on the natural wonders of the world they’d lose, he never stopped to consider the man-made wonders that would be just as gone. The sprawling cities, the historic monuments, the feats of human engineering, and everything else they might never manage to build again. 

“Well,” Grian decides, “then I guess we’ll just have to fit that in.” 

Scar blinks, “We?” 

Grian, too, blinks in turn, “Yeah? Duh?” unless… “unless I’m not invited?” 

“No, no!” Scar flounders, waving his hands frantically, forcing them to stop in the hall as he takes them off his chair, “That’s not what I meant at all! I just wasn’t sure if you’d, you know, want to…” 

Scar is blushing. Grian is too. There’s been lots of little moments like this between them over the years, little comments, little looks, small tensions and flirtations before they inevitably back off. Grian can feel there’s something between them, something that maybe given the time could flourish, but under these stressful circumstances has instead stalled and stagnated. 

Grian would still like to maybe give this thing between them a chance. Maybe when this is all done, when they’re on the ship and the remnants of earth are behind them, maybe then Grian will say something. 

For now, all Grian says is, “Disneyland, and then who knows what else? Let’s travel the world, and buy houses near the beach. Won’t need money in space will we?” 

Scar gets his hands back on his wheels, and they start moving down the hall to their lab again, “I don’t know, will we? Has anyone decided? How will currency and trade work on the ship? Surely a team has been assigned to figure that out…”

The text comes almost a full year early. 

PLEASE REPORT TO FORT OCTAGON FOR IMMEDIATE BOARDING. PROMETHEUS LAUNCHES IN TWO HOURS

Two hours. They were supposed to launch in 10 months, a full month before the moon was predicted to collide with earth. 

Grian scrambles to get his things, throwing all his clothes into suitcases, trying to grab all the mementos he’d wanted to bring, the photo albums of he and Scar’s travels over the last year, the little souvenirs they’d picked up, the one potted plant he’d been caring for and somehow keeping alive. 

He feels frantic and panicked. They were supposed to have more time. He was going to start moving into the ship in six months. He was going to carefully pack his things, decide what to keep and let go of, and take his time deliberating. Go and pick out whichever books and art he personally wanted to preserve. It was going to be a weeks-long process specifically so he could avoid this. 

He doesn’t know why they’ve decided to launch early. This is- this is going to mess up lots of plans. Not just his and Scar’s (they were supposed to visit New York in a month, and had gotten tickets to loads of broadway shows, including Hamilton), but many of their planned passengers, too, are of the international sort. If any of them, like Grian and Scar, chose to live off base once their duties were fulfilled, they likely won’t make it in time. 

It’s only luck that he and Scar didn’t move far, and weren’t on vacation when this happened. His hands shake as he runs outside to throw his bags into the van. He wants to go over his house one more time, to see if he’s missed anything, but he can’t. He doesn’t have the time. 

He doesn’t bother locking his door. He gets behind the wheel of his minivan, and it takes him three tries to turn the engine over. 

“Come on!” he shouts, smacking the wheel, and finally the engine starts. He stops for one moment, gives himself one second to take a deep breath, before pulling into the road. His tires squeal at how fast he starts. 

He needs to get to Scar’s house. Scar, he knows, lost his driving license last month after he had a seizure. Never mind he felt it coming on and managed to pull over in time, it was decided it was too dangerous for him to be on the road anymore. Scar had accepted it quietly, just like he’d accepted all the mistreatment at Ren’s hands in the facility. 

It doesn’t matter now. At the time he’d been indignant and furious on his behalf, but now all he cares about is getting to Scar’s house to pick him up. He curses their decision to live apart now, wishing he were closer. 

As he exits his neighbourhood into the busier commercial district, the streets are in chaos. Riots have broken out, random fires burn sporadically, shop front windows shattered as looters take everything. 

And everywhere, people stand staring up at the sky. 

Grian pokes his head out his window. It’s a sunny clear day, and so Grian can see the moon without issue. 

Is the moon… big? 

Grian steps on the gas. He swerves around random gawking pedestrians, though what does it really matter if he hits them? They’ll be dead in hours, if what Grian suspects is happening to be true. Still, he can’t bring himself to do it, and so he drives on sidewalks to avoid those on the streets, and once he’s cleared the area steps on the gas hard as he hits Scar’s neighbourhood. 

It’s quieter here. He imagines people are sharing their grief inside, privately, rather than taking it out in a public space. No matter, it makes the drive easier for Grian as he whips around corners, avoids honking cars, and finally pulls up in front of Scar’s place. 

He half expected him to be waiting outside for Grian, but he supposes that’s Grian’s fault, he didn’t call ahead. He takes the keys from the ignition, slams the driver’s side door shut behind him, and sprints up the path to Scar’s house shouting, “Scar! Scar!” 

He slams on the door, “Scar! Come on, buddy, I’m here! We gotta go!” 

He doesn’t wait. When Scar doesn’t immediately show, he tries the door, finds it unlocked, and charges inside. 

“Scar!” he shouts to the house at large, “Scar!” 

What if he isn’t here? What if Scar had gone to the coffee shop, or the bookstore, or the beach down the block? What if he was out there in the chaos, no safe way to get home, phone lost in the riots, unable to call Grian for help? 

What will he do if he can’t find Scar? Will he waste precious hours trying to find him, what if he misses the launch? At what point does he give up to save his own skin? 

He can’t. He can’t imagine doing it, driving to the fort without him, never knowing what happened. He can’t do it. He will find Scar. 

“Scar!” he screams into the house, voice cracking in desperation and panic. 

“Grian!” Scar’s voice comes from the back of the house, followed quickly by Scar himself, flooding Grian with a relief so powerful he drops to one knee clutching his chest. 

“Grian!” Scar repeats, “Grian, are you okay? What are you doing here?” 

“The moon, Scar!” he says tearfully, eyes flooding with wetness he can’t hold back at the sight of his friend, alive and well. “Something’s happened, it’s coming down early, I don’t know how! They’ve summoned us-” he gets up, pulling out his phone to show Scar, “they’ve summoned us now, we’ve got two hours, less now. We need to-” he looks around to Scar’s house, littered with personal belongings, “we need to pack your things, we need to grab you anything you might need in your room, and your medications! We’ll bring all you’ve got, because it will probably take time to get distribution on board up and running, so hopefully we can bridge the gap-” 

“Grian-” Scar tries to say, but Grian’s mind is going a mile a minute. 

“If we really need to, we can break into a pharmacy, but it's chaos out there, Scar, and it wouldn’t be safe. No, we’ll just bring what you have and-” he starts grabbing things at random, dvds and books off the shelf, a star wars figurine he knows Scar likes, “-and I’ve got space in the van for lots, so don’t worry about that, here help me pick out what you need best-” 

“Grian-” Scar tries again, to no avail as Grian barrels on. 

“-and I really don’t care if they say we don’t have the space because we definitely do and they don’t have time to fight us on it, so don’t worry about that, here let’s grab this-” 

“Grian!” Scar finally shouts, breaking Grian’s concentration, and grabbing his attention, “I didn’t get the text.” 

For a moment, Scar’s words don’t process, so preposterous and ludicrous he can’t parse the meaning. “What do you mean?” he asks dumbly. 

Scar’s voice trembles as he holds out his phone, the one Grian knows he’s had the last 5 years, the same number for 10. “There’s nothing,” he whispers. “No summons, no instructions, nothing.” 

“That, that doesn’t make sense.” he shakes his head in denial. “You- you’ve got a spot on the ship, you helped build it, none of this would have existed without you, I-...” he paces away, hands on his head in shock and betrayal. 

An idea comes to him, “It’s a clerical error.” he declares, “A mistake, that's all it is. None of this was supposed to happen this early, and it was a mistake.” 

“Grian,” Scar shakes his head. 

“No,” he holds up a hand, “There is, there is no reality in which they make you dedicate the last years of your life to building their last hope, and they don’t even invite you onboard. ” 

Scar is crying now, tears streaming down and around the oxygen tubes he hasn’t been able to be without for- for some time now. He shakes his head again, “They were never going to bring me aboard, Grian.” 

“Think about it,” Scar rolls over, taking Grian’s hand in his as he continues, “it was- it was always clerical error after error, and every time you called them on it was always oops! Sorry about that! But it just kept happening and-” 

Scar closes his eyes, even more tears escaping, and Grian is back to crying now too, “and my health’s been getting worse,” Scar admits in a shaky voice, “I’ve been needing- more and more medications and interventions, and-” he sucks in a breath that sounds hauntingly like a sob, “and they can’t support me, not out there where every resource needs to be dedicated to the needs of the many.” 

“They don’t want to,” Grian corrects, furious and heartbroken, pain cracking in his chest as it all comes crashing down. 

“They don’t want to.” Scar agrees, devastated and downtrodden, “they don’t want people like me in the new society they’re building.” 

And then, for whatever reason, Scar is looking up at him with his beautiful tearful eyes, and he says, “They want people like you. ” 

“What?” Grian whispers, afraid to raise his voice for fear of this becoming real. 

“Look at you,” Scar says. “You’re beautiful, you’re smart, you’re healthy, ” his voice cracks, and he swallows before continuing, “They’re going to build museums dedicated to how you saved humanity, and I’ll be- I’ll be a footnote in the biography of your life.” 

“Don’t you dare,” Grian tries to growl, but it comes out wet and broken so he isn’t sure the effect is achieved, “imply you’re anything less than the most important thing in my life.” 

Scar squeezes his hand, closes his eyes, and says, “You need to go.” 

It's like the breath has been punched out of his chest. “What?” 

“Two hours, you said, right?” Scar doesn’t open his eyes, “so you need to, you need to go, if you’re going to make it. The ship’s at least half an hour away, more with traffic so-” Scar shudders as a sob escapes him, “you need to go.” 

He can’t imagine it. He can’t imagine letting Scar’s hand go right now, and never holding it again. He can’t imagine never looking into his beautiful eyes, hearing his laugh, or staying up late talking nonsense with him. He can’t leave him. He can’t do it. 

He can’t stay. In- in who knows how long the moon is going to crash into earth, taking all life with it. His ride out of here leaves, leaves soon. He doesn't know how long he has now, how long he’s spent here, but he has to go. He has to go. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, like that covers the injustice Scar is suffering right now, like any words can convey the heartbreak he feels. 

“I won’t let you be forgotten,” he says instead, and Scar nods with his eyes still closed. 

“Thank you,” he says, and lets go of Grian’s hands. 

It takes immense willpower not to reach up and grab his hand just one more time, but he needs to leave. If he’s going to make it he needs to leave. 

He wants to grab some of Scar’s things to preserve, but it feels perverse to take the items and not the man himself, and so he leaves them behind. He has his photos to remember him by, it will have to be enough. 

Scar keeps his eyes closed as Grian leaves. He doesn’t blame him. 

He gently closes Scar’s front door behind him. Walks down the path, gets behind the wheel, and starts driving away.

He doesn’t get far.

He gets to the end of the block, turns off the road towards the fort, but then at the next lights he finds himself turning again, and again, away from the fort, back to Scar’s place. 

It feels right. It feels natural, and when he pulls up in front of Scar’s house all he feels in his heart is relief. 

This time, when he walks up the path, it's at a much calmer pace. He doesn’t bother knocking, just opens the door softly and lets himself inside. 

Scar is where he left him, crying into his hands, but at Grian’s entry he perks up incredulously, “Grian?” 

“I’m not going.” He says like the chiming of a funeral bell. 

“What do you mean? ” Scar almost spits, “they’re waiting for you, they built a room for you, you have to go!” 

Grian scoffs, shaking his head and shrugging, “they’re not waiting for me though, are they? Sure they’ve got the room, but they’ll give it to someone else, and besides.” 

He meets Scar’s eyes with his own, to make sure he understands clearly when he says, “I don’t want anything to do with the society they’re building out there, if it would leave people like you behind.” 

Scar, it seems, doesn’t know what to say to that. They’re both crying now, facing one another, the reality of what’s about to happen really hitting them for the first time. 

They helped build the Prometheus, but they will die with their mother here on earth. 

“The moon,” Grian says, jerking a thumb over his shoulder back towards the front door, “It looks- really weird in the sky. Bigger than we’ve ever seen it.”

“It’s crashing down here? ” Scar marvels. “I thought it was supposed to hit western Russia.” 

“Something must have happened,” Grian replies, “for it to be coming down this early. Messed up the whole plan. Want to go see it? The moon?” 

Scar, after a moment’s hesitation, nods. “Let’s.” 

Scar bought this place because it had a ramp leading to the front door, so the trip to the sidewalk is easy enough. Scar hasn’t been steady enough on his feet to go without his wheelchair for- for a while, so Grian pulls over a lawn chair from the neighbour’s yard, and the two of them set up in Scar’s front garden to enjoy the view. 

The moon does look strange. Normally the size of maybe a marble, it’s easily a baseball now, or maybe even a football. It’s actually quite beautiful.

Eventually, the chaos finds them here too. People stumble down the street sobbing hysterically, crying into cell phones apologies and declarations of love to those they can’t reach. One man carries with him a stolen television he ditches in the road after glancing up and seeing how much closer the moon has gotten. 

He and Scar hold hands, and don’t say much at all. 

One woman stops in front of Scar’s home, dazed and in shock, staring off into nothing. On an impulse, he offers to her, “Care to join us?” 

She startles, turning to look upon them. Her accent is Australian as she answers, “what?” 

He gestures to Scar’s beautiful garden, a little overgrown, but well loved, “You look a little lost. Wanna watch the moon crash into us from the comfort of this garden?” 

She blinks at them, “the world is ending, we’re all going to die, and you’re relaxing in the garden?” 

Scar shrugs beside him, “Would rather spend my last moments like this than crying and screaming, if it's all the same to you.” he gestures to the grass beside him, “grass is soft.” 

She wanders over in a daze, and plops herself down into the grass. After a moment, she lies down to stare up at the sky. “Huh,” she wonders, tears drying on her cheeks, “the moon’s big.” 

“Right?” Scar replies, “it's so strange, but kind of beautiful too, you know?” 

They end up inviting more passers-by to join them. Not everyone accepts, citing family they’re trying to reach, or places they want to see before the end. They wish them well on their way. 

One of Scar’s other neighbours ends up joining them, a heavyset man by the name of Impulse who, it turns out, Grian stole the lawn chair from. They have a good laugh about it. 

“Not like it matters now,” Impulse says, “Not like, any of it matters now, really...” 

They all politely give him a moment to gather himself back up. Not like the rest of them haven’t been crying on and off for the last however long. 

The Prometheus might have launched by now. Grian tries not to think about it. 

Another man joins them, wearing a sharp business suit and a funky moustache, he brings with him a bottle of nice whisky he confesses he stole from the liquor store for the hell of it. This prompts Impulse to grab the flat of diet coke he has sitting in his place, and Pearl pulls all the snacks she can from her fridge, and together they have a picnic. 

It’s- it's really nice. They all laugh and joke with each other, like old friends, shoving each other and roughhousing for the hell of it. They pass the bottle around, and gorge themselves on charcuterie. 

He and Scar end up on the grass eventually, wanting to feel the nature on their skin for their final moments. They don’t let go of each other’s hands. 

Occasionally they glance up at the moon. Sometimes it prompts flinches as it just keeps getting bigger, other times they stare up at wonder as more and more details start coming into focus. Craters and pockets he’s never seen outside a telescope, visible to the naked eye. 

It’s incredible, in a horrifying way. 

During a lull in the conversation, Scar mentions offhandedly, “You know, I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid?” 

It prompts a series of polite hums from the group, but to Grian it pings a chord of interest in him, knowing what he knows about Scar, and so he asks, “Really?” 

Scar nods, looking up at the moon. “Yeah, I wanted to go to space, touch the stars, maybe even walk on the moon? We haven’t done moonwalks in, gosh in decades I think, but yeah, I wanted that.” 

“Instead the moon is coming to you,” Pearl jokes, and Mumbo releases a scandalized Pearl! in response. 

“And then..?” Impulse politely inquires. 

Scar shrugs, “then my health turned, and kept turning for the worst, until it was clear there was no coming back from it. I’d actually started the training, believe it or not? Very preliminary, teenage stuff, nothing even close to official, but that all fell apart when I got sick. So i pivoted into-” 

“large-scale life support architecture,” Grian fills in, remembering that conversation all those years when they first met. “Habitats for space colonies.” 

Scar nods. “I wanted a piece of me to maybe make it into space, even if I never did.” 

“My buddy, Tango,” Impulse offers, “he’s an astronaut. He had some big spacewalk coming up in, a year? I think? Said he was gonna try to bring me along, which,” Impulse blows out a puff of air, “I told him no way he’d manage that, but he really wanted to make it happen. I was considering it.” Impulse, too, looks up at the moon, “would have been cool, I guess.” 

Grian meets Scar’s eyes in silent conversation. Do they…?

In the end, they come to an agreement, and Grian pipes up, “He’s piloting humanity’s last hope off of earth right now.” 

This makes all eyes turn to them in startled shock. Mumbo asks, confused, “Mate, what?” 

Scar nods. “We helped to design it. Grian here is the leading expert in theoretical astro-engineering, which is the fancy word for space ships that can go very far. We spent the last four years working on it in secret.” 

“And Tango is captain of the pilot crew.’ Grian gives a mournful nod Impulse’s way. “Sounds like he was trying to get you a seat, but well…” 

“But I’m a city planner with type 2 diabetes.” Impulse fills in. “Which, not exactly what they need for their new society, huh?” 

“Wait,” Pearl chimes in, “Hold on, hold on, hold on, you’re telling me you two, ” she points to Grian and Scar, “ designed the ship that is taking the last of humanity off this god forsaken rock, and you aren’t on it?” 

Mumbo blinks at that, “Wait, yeah, hold on a minute! What’s up with that? That’s not right!” 

Scar is busy blinking tears away, and so Grian replies, “They wouldn’t let Scar aboard, and I wouldn’t go on without him.” 

“ Fuck. ” Pearl whispers, and yeah, Grian can commiserate with that one. 

She whips out her phone, points it at the two of them, and commands “smile!” 

Grian doesn’t question it. Just slings an arm around Scar’s shoulder with a merry grin, leans in, and tries not to blink when her flash goes off. 

“I’m uploading this,” she explains. “To twitter, because I think the world deserves to know about this.” 

“Are you kidding?” Scar asks, but if the way Mumbo leans over to help her with the caption is any indication, she’s dead serious. 

They let them see it before they post. 

Are you mad you didn’t get a spot on the ship leaving earth right now? Well these two DESIGNED it, and they didn’t get a seat either! 

The picture looks nice, he and Scar leaning into each other, smiling. They give their approval, and up onto the internet it goes. 

“I can’t believe the world is ending and Twitter is still up.” Grian says, disgusted. 

“Don’t you mean X?” Impulse asks, and thankfully all other parties give equal noises of disgust, to which Impulse frantically replies “that was a joke!” 

They pass the bottle around some more. Grian absently scrolls twitter for a bit, but he has to put it away after the posts leave him too teary to see the screen. People saying goodbye to those they can’t reach, uploading videos of riots taking over cities, begging for help, begging for it not to be true, begging for someone to save them. 

There’s some nice ones too. Whole parks turned into parties, a pizza parlor in Harlem working away thanklessly to hand out free pizzas, someone releasing an entire shelter’s worth of dogs onto the beach. Those ones make the tears even worse. 

Pearl, too, is sniffling where she sits. “It’s not fair,” she whines, “I just got accepted into nursing school. I’d been waitressing for years to save up for it. I wouldn’t have- would have done something else, if I’d known this was it, you know?” 

Grian tries not to think of how lucky he is. The last year that he got to spend travelling the world with Scar, seeing the sights and wonders of the world because he knew. He knew, and no one else knew, and she’s damn right that isn’t fair. 

“Where would you go, if you could?” he asks, not even sure himself where he’s going with this. 

“What?” Pearl asks, confused. 

“Say you,” he says, mind scrambling through the light buzz the alcohol has left with him to sort this out, “say you graduate, top of your class, and, and you can go anywhere in the world. Live and work wherever the hell you want. Where are you going?” 

Pearl blinks, but catches on and replies, “Australia. I’ve always- always wanted to go back. I’d get-” she smiles, building on this dream of hers, “a beach house, cuz I’m top of my class, right? They offer me a huge signing bonus, and I get a beach house in Australia, and I learn to surf.” she sniffles, “always wanted to learn to surf.” 

“And what about you, Impulse?” Grian turns to their new friend to ask, “perfect world, everything goes right for you, what are you doing?” 

“I’m-” Impulse smiles warmly, “I’m starting a radio show with my best friend Skizz. We’re bringing radio back in style, baby! And it’ll be such a huge success, I’ll be able to move him over here, so he can live in the same neighbourhood as me. We’ll get to see each other every week, just like in highschool.” 

“I’d bike across europe.” Mumbo says wistfully. “And I’d vlog the entire thing, and it would make me so much money that I’d make it my full time gig. Biking, and hiking, and all sorts of travel videos, and I never have to worry about any bills.” 

“What about you, Grian?” Pearl asks. “Perfect world, everything goes right, what are you doing?” 

He almost says I’m boarding that damn ship with Scar, but this is a perfect world. There’s no moon crashing into earth, and no ship to escape on, but in this perfect world he and Scar still somehow meet. 

“I’d marry Scar,” he says tearfully. “I’d say something, something more direct a lot sooner, and we wouldn’t waste any time faffing about, and we’d get married.” 

He nods, and Scar whispers sadly next to him, “I’d have liked that.” 

They squeeze each other’s hands tightly. Scar leans his head on Grian’s shoulder, and Mumbo looks like he’s crying again. They all are, really. He doesn’t think they ever properly stopped. 

A shadow falls over them. They look up, and despite the mid afternoon time, the sky is dark. The moon has gotten close enough to block out the sun. 

“Oh god,” Impulse whispers as the streetlights come on one by one. Grian shudders as the temperature dips, and tries not to think about how hot it’ll get when the moon enters their atmosphere. 

“Hey, you lot!” a man shouts from the street, “what you doing there?” 

“Crying, mostly!” Pearl shouts back. 

“Well that sounds boring! Come on down the block! We’re throwing a party at the beach!” 

And well, that does sound better than crying in the garden doesn’t it? 

They collectively help Scar back into chair, and walk down the street together. Scar lets Grian push him so they can keep holding hands. 

Down at the beach the shouting man was right. It looks like the whole town and then some are down here. Some local band has set up, playing a boppy enough tune everyone can dance to. Trucks upon trucks are parked on the sand, flatbeds loaded up with enough booze and soda for everyone to enjoy. Bonfires burn all around, filling the area with soft flickering light and tepid warmth. 

At their knees, children run free, enjoying the music and good spirits. Grian can’t help remembering the woman Scar saw all those years ago, wondering if her 4-year-old is somewhere among them, having the time of their life. 

“Well this has been nice,” Pearl declares to their little group, “but I want to die in the ocean. I’m going in the water. See you in the next one.” 

“See you- see you in the next one,” Grian manages to choke out. 

With a wave, she’s gone. Impulse is next, telling them he’s going to get on the drums for this band. Mumbo tells them he’s going to find a spot a little further from all the music. 

And then there was only Grian and Scar left. 

“Let’s dance,” he suggests. 

It’s a little tricky at first, managing the sand and Scar’s wheelchair, but they figure it out and soon they’re swaying to Impulse’s beat of the drums, Pearl’s shrieking laughter in the ocean, and Mumbo’s smile further away. 

“Think they made it safely off the ground?” Scar asks. 

“Who knows?” he replies. “We did the best we could, rest is in their hands.” 

“Tango’s hands.” Scar adds. “He’s got good hands.” 

“I was jealous of him,” Scar confesses, “when we met him that day in the cockpit. He was exactly everything I’d wanted to be before it all went tits up.” 

“I remember that.” Grian replies.

“You know what’s crazy?” Scar asks, “They wouldn’t let me aboard because I’m disabled, but the only reason I started studying was because I got sick. I was all in on being an astronaut before that.” 

“So if you weren’t disabled,” Grian extrapolates, “they never would have gotten their ship.” 

Scar nods. “Kinda messed up, right?” 

Grian nods. Something about this moment, the dark sky, the bonfires and amateur music, their incoming inescapable death, makes him want to confess everything he’s ever held secret in his heart.

“You remember when I lost it on Ren over the room request paperwork?” 

Looking back, it's so obvious they were never going to accommodate Scar. With every step of the way they disrespected him, turned their back on him, ignored his requests and pleaded innocent when Grian called them on it. He feels stupid now, knowing what he knows. 

Scar laughs, still swaying to the music. “Hard to forget.”

Grian chuckles, “Yeah, well, I may have implied I’d go to the press if they didn’t get the problem fixed.” 

Scar’s eyes widen, “really?” 

“Yeah. Ren didn’t like that. Told me not to overestimate my usefulness, and you know what else?” 

“What?” 

“He said there’d been others before me, and there could be others after me.” 

“Ominous.” 

“Well I looked it up.” Grian sucks in shaky breath, “a month before they contacted me, the professor who sponsored my thesis died in a car accident.” 

Scar whispers sadly “Oh Grian…” 

“And you know, maybe that's a coincidence, but it sure feels like a huge coincidence you know? And I could never say anything, because I didn’t want to jeopardise my spot, and in the end,” he laughs tearfully, a little hysterically, “none of it mattered anyhow. I gave it up anyway. I cost everyone the chance to properly appreciate their final years, and got nothing in return. ” 

“You got this.” Scar says, “We got, we got our last year together, and you know what maybe nobody else did, but there’s no reality where they would have. Just the one where you die in a car accident, ” 

“And we built the Prometheus.” Scar continues, “and we didn’t even get to board it, and we’re never going to get married, but we get this, this moment right here.” Scar cries, “so I say it mattered, because it gave us this.” 

“Scar,” Grian asks, getting down on one knee “Can I kiss you?” 

He manages to smile through his tears, “I thought you’d never ask.” 

As their lips meet, Grian feels the air around them heat up just the tiniest bit. As they part, Scar starts to look up at the sky, but Grian puts a gentle hand on his chin to keep his gaze pointed down. “Don’t- don’t look at it, just look at me.” 

Behind him, Grian can see the sky has started to lighten. It starts to get uncomfortably warm. The music stutters for a moment, before picking up a solemn tune. Somewhere in the crowd a baby starts to wail. 

“I don’t want to die, Grian.” Scar cries. 

“I know, I know,” he’s crying too, “It’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna go together, okay? You and me, we’ll go together.” 

He lunges into Scar’s arms, wrapping his own around him, practically sitting in the wheelchair with him. Scar, too, embraces him, holding him tight. 

In the end, death feels like a hug from an old friend. 

Doc finds Ren staring into the empty bedroom, his phone in one hand, a screencap of a twitter post saved to the screen. 

“We’ve cleared the atmosphere successfully,” Doc tells him, “Moon’s making touchdown in about an hour, Tango says there’s no issues so far. She runs like a charm.” 

Ren nods silently, not like himself. “Sir?” Doc asks. 

“Grian never made it aboard.” he explains, looking into the Star Wars poster plastered room. “Chose not to, from the looks of it.” 

He hands over his phone to Doc, displaying a photo and a twitter post. Pictured are two men, one with an oxygen tube feeding into his nose, the other with an arm around his shoulders. The caption reads: 

Are you mad you didn’t get a spot on the ship leaving earth right now? Well these two DESIGNED it, and they didn’t get a seat either!

Doc sucks in a sharp inhale. “That could have caused problems.” 

Ren waves him away. “She posted it fifteen minutes before takeoff. Nothing she could have done.” 

They leave the room, walking side by side down the metal hall. Thanks to Scar’s design, their footsteps don’t echo much. “I want to- print this out maybe. The picture, not the caption. Hang it up somewhere to honour them.”

Doc nods along, “With Grian’s absence we have enough empty rooms to accommodate the stowaways.” 

Several construction crew members who hadn’t been assigned seats managed to sneak their families aboard. Lucky for them, with the schedule getting moved up so last minute, enough designated seats didn’t arrive in time that there shouldn’t be any issues. 

“Good, that’s good,” Ren says. As they turn the corner, they come across the arboretum. Unlike the rest of the ship, it's lit with a soft yellow light, and butterflies flutter freely in the warmer air. Already a family has found shelter in here, their little toddler bouncing around in the grass. 

Ren breathes in the air, “This here was Scar’s design you know? He said people would need spaces to remind them of earth. Managed to pitch it to the brass in a way that made it sound like, you know, it’d be necessary for sanity and stuff, so they couldn’t say no.” 

Doc breathes in the air. It smells fresh, like soil and life. Like home. 

“Wish I could thank him,” Doc says lightly, and Ren, predictably, sighs. 

“If we’d had the time-” he tries, sighs again, “I wanted to make it happen. We had a room picked out for him, but he just needed so many accommodations, we, we ran out of time. It wasn’t anything personal.” 

Doc rolls his shoulder, the one holding his prosthetic arm. “You got my accommodations in just fine.” 

“Well, of course!” Ren says, affronted, “You’re my best friend, dude, it was a priority! I wasn’t gonna leave you hanging!” 

Doc nods, and carefully doesn’t say anything else. 

If the world was ending, I'd wanna be next to you
If the party was over and our time on Earth was through
I'd wanna hold you just for a while and die with a smile
If the world was ending, I'd wanna be next to you

- Die With a Smile (Bruno Mars & Lady GaGa)