Archive of Our Own

The coffee was warm in her hands. The couch was still cold, even as the heat lamp hummed on the side table, the astrophage inside glowing softly, pulsing with energy. She stared at it for a moment, taking a long-drawn-out sip from the mug, her hands covered by her sweatshirt.

Stella had to admit that these quiet mornings were nice. When Ryan would sleep in, and Mom and Dad would be recovering from their filming schedule. Leaving her alone, with a coffee that her mom would probably scold her over, worried for her caffeine intake. Snow fluttered to the ground outside, typical for early November, at least during her lifetime. Apparently, once upon a time, Los Angeles hadn’t experienced more than light jacket weather during the winter season, but that had been a long time ago.

That peace, however, was fleeting, as she heard a familiar yawn echo through the hallway. “Morning, Stells,” Ryan called, rubbing at his eyes as he squinted at the weather outside. “Snow day?”

“Not enough. Just two inches.”

“Two inches got me three days off from school once,” he grumbled, plopping down next to his younger sister. He scanned the room, trying to find the remote as Stella looked at him, eyebrow raised. “What?”

“I come here for peace and quiet in the mornings and-”

“You aren’t keeping up with the NASA broadcasts, are you?”

“I have a test today. Unlike you, I like keeping a somewhat coherent sleep schedule,” she jabbed, frowning as Ryan’s brow furrowed. “What? Did I miss something?”

“The beetles are back.”

She nearly choked. “What part of wake me up when important things happen do you not understand?!”

“Nothing has happened yet,” he protested. “That’s why I’m looking for the remote. They’re doing a special broadcast to show all the messages on them. The leader of the Petrova Task Force is giving a speech.”

Stella flinched, watching the TV as it flashed to life. “Didn’t she go missing?”

Her brother chewed on the inside of his cheek, finding the news broadcast and watching intently as the anchors face was replaced with the emblem of the Hail Mary. “I mean, we’ll see,” he muttered, trying not to glance at his sister, who was sitting on the edge of the couch.

There was a beat of silence, and then Stella spoke again. “Do you think they found it?”

He flinched, voice dying in his throat.

Yes, should have been his immediate answer. Of course they found it. Best minds in the world, remember? And that’s just who they sent up there. Remember who trained them?

Not that either of them remembered. That name hung over their house like a thick fog, threatening to consume the two people who did. Their father more often than their mother.

He swallowed, blinking back a foreign pressure as he tucked his little sister against his side, an arm protectively slung around her shoulders. I don’t know, were the words that he probably should have said. Honesty was important, wasn’t it?

Honestly, he had no idea what he’d do if the mission failed. Even with the inevitable doom of the human race on the horizon, high school was still miserable at preparing teenagers for a life outside of school. Much less a life outside of a semi-functioning society. Even the dystopian novels hadn’t been able to do much for him.

“I hope they did,” Stella whispered. “They have to, right?”

His baby sister is fifteen, not five, like a part of her will always be in his mind. She doesn’t look it. She looks scared in a way that hurts a part of him because he knows it’s out of his control. He can’t fix it. He inhaled sharply, looking back at the TV silently, holding her tightly.

 The holding screen faded away, revealing a podium branded with the seal of the United Nations in front of a larger banner with the Project’s logo. The flags of the countries lined the rest of the wall, all perfectly professional and orderly like it didn’t matter that they could be announcing the decimation of the human species.

Whatever microphones there are in the room pick up on a hushed murmuring as a woman enters the stage. Her hair is gray, but there’s just a hint of red at the ends, and he feels Stella flinch beside him. “No fucking way,” she whispered, standing up.

“Stella?”

“That’s not- that’s- is that-” she gestured to the broadcast desperately, running a hand through her dirty blonde hair. There was a horror and shock in her eyes that set him on edge as the woman cleared her throat, holding up a hand that silenced the room immediately. Stella swallowed, rubbing her arms nervously as the gears began to turn in her head.

“I don’t need to waste my time explaining why we are here, I’d imagine,” the woman began, and Stella let out a shaky exhale.

“Stells?”

“I know her.”

She paced nervously, drumming her fingers against her arms as Ryan looked at her incredulously, gaze flicking between her and the woman on the television. “Stella, what the-” he tried to ask, interrupted by her holding a hand up.

“As the director of the Petrova Task Force, and Project Hail Mary, I am here to confirm the reports that the Beetle probes have returned from Tau Ceti. We are actively working to make sense of the findings sent back to us and begin implementing them immediately,” the woman continued, her tone measured and even, as if this was just another presentation and not the fate of humanity on the line. “Additionally, we received video logs from the science officer that will be broadcast after this message-” she swallowed- “though it is with a heavy heart that I announce that Commander Yao and Cosmonaut Ilyukhina did not survive the trip to Tau Ceti. Regardless, their heroism and sacrifice will be immortalized long past our living memory. Their bodies have been condemned to the stars as seen fit by their surviving crewmate.”

“I swear to God, I know her, Ry,” Stella whispered. “I- I met her. Dad and I met her.”

“You met the missing director of the Petrova Task Force?”

She turned. “Remember that trip we took a few years back? We drove up the coast and we were camping on the beach?”

“Kinda?”

“Well, Dad and I were up early one morning and you and Mom were still sleeping so we went to this coffee shop to get breakfast, and she was- she was there. I know it was her. Same voice, same face. She- she even thought Dad was-” her voice died in her throat as she gestured vaguely. “She called Dad Grace, Ry.”

His brow furrowed slightly as the woman answered a few questions from the room’s eruption after the announcement. “Seriously?” He breathed, shifting uncomfortably. “She actually called him-”

“She said she was one of the superior officers on the Project. That she knew him.”

“Did she say anything else?”

“Didn’t hear,” she muttered. “Dad, uh, Dad made sure I couldn’t hear whatever they kept talking about. He was crying afterwards, though. She uh, she said something about how he- about how Uncle Ryland thought he was dead.”

“Sydney?”

She nodded. “Sydney.”

“So you fully believe-”

“She was reading a book in German. She had a German accent. She was one of the superior officers on Project Hail Mary.” Stella pointed at the screen. “Do the math.”

There was a silence, nearly suffocating, that settled over the room. Stella shook her head, returning to sit next to her brother on the couch and he instinctively rested his arm back over her shoulders. He chewed on the inside of his cheek as the woman answered another question.

“Director Stratt,” one of the journalists asked. “Are you saying that Dr. DuBois woke up alone and completed a three-person mission alone?” 

Some sort of emotion flashed across Stratt’s face, and Ryan felt like a detective ready to pounce as he watched it–somewhere between grief, regret, and panic. She cleared her throat. “The science officer aboard the Hail Mary did manage to complete most of the mission as the only human on the ship-”

Stella’s brow furrowed. “Why’d she say it like that?”

“Like what?”

“She said ‘the science officer’ not Dr. DuBois,” she pointed out. “Why would she say it like that? Everyone knows the Hail Mary crew. Yao, Ilyukhina, and DuBois. We wrote reports on their lives when I was in sixth grade.”

Ryan nodded, tilting his head to the side. “Why did she specify that he was the only human on the ship?” He asked, glancing down at Stella, who looked back up at him, blue eyes wide. “Is she saying that aliens are real?”

“Not out of the question, I mean, we’ve been sending signals to Tau Ceti and 40 Eridani for years,” she said, bouncing her leg nervously. “I think there was a copy of the Golden Record up there, too. And then like, astrophage is technically aliens and-”

“Director Stratt, why did you specify that Dr. DuBois was the only human on board?”

She took a breath. “It has come to our attention that the science officer on board made contact with an intelligent alien species from the 40 Eridani system. He dubbed them Eridians.” A shout rang out through the room, quickly devolving into a series of calls and questions that became a singular wall of noise pushing out from the speakers. “They are capable of interstellar travel, and within the logs we have discovered that Dr-” she hesitated again, taking a deep breath to correct herself- “that the science officer on board was able to develop a rudimentary translation system to make communication simpler. The science officer and the Eridian, whom he dubbed-” she held up her fingers- “‘Rocky’ were able to find a solution, and we imagine that he was sent back to the Eridani system with the intent to save his star as well.”

There was a silence that settled over the room, that probably settled over all of Earth. Ryan held his little sister tighter as Stratt shifted, adjusting the microphone. “That is all. We are continuing to work on the solution and more will be announced about launch schedules to Venus in the coming weeks. The video logs from the Hail Mary will now be broadcast.” She took a breath, stepping back. “Believe in the Hail Mary.”

The video feed cut back to the logo of the project, and the two siblings froze, looking at each other. Stella leaned her head against his shoulder, muttering something under her breath as they both turned back to the television, trying to brace themselves for…whatever the hell they were about to watch. 

Neither of them were prepared to see their father’s face staring back at them.

“What the fuck?!”

Stella jumped up first, followed quickly by her brother. Her jaw would have probably dropped to the floor had it not been for basic biology holding it in place. Her hands found her hair, yanking on it tightly as she looked at her brother. “What the fuck, Ry? What the fuck?”

“I didn’t know you swore this much and it’s-”

She pointed at the screen. “I don’t give a shit, Ryan. Who the actual fuck is that?”

He swallowed, turning back to the screen, feeling his heart drop into his stomach. It was definitely not Dr. Martin DuBois. It couldn’t be. The man staring back at them had all to familiar blond hair, slight messy in a way that seemed both natural but completely intentional, Ryan was all too familiar with it. He’d been wearing his hair the same way since middle school. His dad had frozen the first time he’d styled it like that, looking almost haunted by something he refused to talk about.

It took him three days to look at Ryan again after that. He’d asked his mom why, and she just hugged him tightly like she was scared of him disappearing. Never saying a word. He didn’t ask again, he knew why.

The man on their screen was wearing (a strong word; they were hanging off one of his ears) a pair of gold-framed glasses. Their dad didn’t wear glasses. He had at one point, when he was much, much younger, but he’d switched to contacts around the age of nine. Made it easier to distinguish him from someone else. Someone who-

“That’s Uncle Ryland,” Stella whispered in horror. “It- it has to be. The hair, the face, the glasses, it’s-” she shuddered- “that’s-”

“That’s impossible Stella, you know that. He-” Ryan looked pointedly at the ground- “He died, Stells. The explosion killed him and Dr. Shapiro and-”

“Then why is he in space?”

“I don’t know!” He shouted, rubbing at his eyes. “I don’t-” Ryan finally looked back at the screen, a cold shiver running the length of his spine. He’d never understood why his father had always denied Ryan being his twin, always claiming that there were small differences that meant that you could tell them apart. He’d always taken it as a gentle but firm reminder that his father did actually have a twin, that Ryan was not a replacement. He realized now, looking at the face that was so identical but so different from his father, that he hadn’t been lying.

He fell back onto the couch, hands threading through his hair as Stella came to sit next to him. She grabbed an old quilt, wrapping it around both of their shoulders. “Mom and Dad are gonna freak.”

Ryan breathed. “Mom’s gonna freak. I don’t-” he blinked back the tears- “I don’t know what Dad is gonna do. I mean he’s-” his voice trailed off as Stella tightened her arms around him. “I don’t know what he’s gonna do, Stells.”

A noise echoed from down the hall, and the two of them froze. It was a fifty-fifty chance of who it could be, but regardless, Ryan held his sister tightly, protectively. At least one of those fifties was going to be incredibly unpredictable, but he could control the small things. He could control the fact that he could still protect his sister.

Jody yawned as she walked into the kitchen, glancing at Ryan and Stella, already dressed and ready for school, sitting on the couch with their eyes glued to the TV. Part of her, the mom part, wanted to say something, but as a director herself, she couldn’t blame them. They’d grown up going to premieres, clutching Colt’s hands as they stood behind the scenes of her interviews about her biggest projects. She shook her head, starting up the coffee maker with a yawn. “When did you two start watching movies before school?” She asked.

Instead of the long-winded explanation she’d expected from them, with an equal amount of interruptions, they both turned and stared at her with wide eyes. Jody glanced over her shoulder as the coffee maker hummed. “What?”

“Mom,” Stella began hesitantly. “This is the news.”

“Yeah, because the news is telling me that aliens are real.”

Ryan swallowed as Stella looked at him to say something. “It’s from the beetle probes, from the ship that we sent to Tau Ceti, to save the Sun-”

Jody raised an eyebrow, “The Hail Mary? It’s back?”

“The findings are back, and- and the video logs of the crew-” He swallowed. “Well, the science officer. Apparently, the captain and engineer died during the trip. They’re back.”

She nodded, taking her cup out from under the spout, the brown liquid steaming inside. “I can’t imagine how his family must feel,” she murmured. “Seeing your loved one for the first time in twenty-six years only to remember they aren’t coming home.” She shuddered. “Wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”

“Mom,” Stella called again, and Jody hummed in response, taking another sip of her coffee. “You might wanna see who the science officer is.”

Jody blinked. “Isn’t it Dr. Martin DuBois? That’s who all the memorials-” she cut herself off as she looked at the video playing on half the screen.

There was, apparently, an alien. At least that’s what she assumed based on the fact that there was a moving pile of rocks enclosed in some sort of ball, but the person next to him wasn’t Dr. Martin DuBois. In fact, the person next to him, wearing an official jumpsuit that did not have the name “DuBois” embroidered on it, had sandy blond hair, piercing blue eyes, and an all too familiar smile. If she had to be honest, the scientist aboard the Hail Mary was the spitting image of Colt.

Except that Colt didn’t wear gold-framed glasses.

“Holy fucking shit,” she whispered as the name on his jumpsuit finally registered. Grace.

Dr. Ryland Grace.

Her mug was abandoned on the counter as she rushed to sit next to her children, mouth open in shock. “What the fuck?” She whispered, running her hands through her hair. “What the actual fuck? How the fuck? When the fuck? Where the fuck-”

“Tau Ceti, technically,” Ryan interjected, wincing as Stella smacked him in the arm.

“Why the fuck is he in space?!” Jody whisper-screamed, watching as Ryland exchanged some sort of ritual with the apparently sentient pile of rocks that was an alien. “He- I saw- what the fuck?”

Ryland was alive. Ryland was in space. Ryland Grace, who had died in an explosion at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan twenty-six years ago, was both alive and in space. Ryland Seavers-Grace, who had left his twin brother to mourn him, was alive and in space and had apparently just saved the world. Ryland Sebastian Seavers-Grace, who had a family back on Earth that made space for him in every family picture, was alive, in space, the apparent savior of the planet, and was never coming home.

Jody felt like she was going to throw up.

She reached out, wrapping each arm around her children, and squeezed her eyes shut. She looked up, only to be met with the brother-in-law who never was staring back at her, explaining some scientific jargon that maybe Stella or Ryan would understand.

“Mom?” Ryan asked quietly as she rested her chin on top of his head. “Is Dad-”

“He’s-” she shuddered, looking back up as Ryland smiled at the camera. “Oh sweetheart, I don’t- just, just stay here, I’ll- I’ll talk to him and it’ll-” she held Stella tightly as she pressed a kiss into her son’s hair- “it’ll be okay, I promise.”

Ryland continued talking, explaining something she still didn’t understand, holding up a chunk of metal that was apparently supposed to be his ship. Jody stared at him, mouth open as the horror settled in her chest. He’s too young.

Colt hadn’t aged poorly by any standard. He was in his fifties now; there were the inevitable grays that poked through his blond hair. Jody was no different.

Ryland barely looked any different from when she last saw him, nearly twenty-eight years ago. There were bags under his eyes, and he looked utterly exhausted, but in a situation as stressful as that she could understand that.

The problem was that she could tell identical twins apart with little more than a cursory glance because one of them looked so much younger than the other.

A yawn echoed through the room and the three of them froze. Jody inhaled shakily, looking over to see Colt walking out into the kitchen, blond hair messy, bleary-eyed, and dressed in an old MetalStorm stunt crew shirt and old sweatpants. “Mornin,” he yawned as he made his way to the coffee maker, taking out a mug stamped with the hands of the kids from years ago. A Father's Day gift from when Ryan was six, and Stella was four. He’d cried for longer than he liked to admit after they’d handed it to him.

She felt her heart drop into her stomach as he stole a glance at the TV, his brow furrowing slightly as he turned back. “Damn, this AI shit is getting good,” he muttered, lifting his mug. “You’ve got something in your contracts with focusing on practical effects, right? Something about grounding the stories you tell with a human element and-” he waved a hand as the coffee maker hummed- “using the sfx to, ya know.”

Stella and Ryan glanced at each other as Jody nodded. “Yeah. Creative direction and such. You know that. Dan’s my stunt coordinator, you’re his backup, and my choreographer when you aren’t doing the stuntwork yourself,” she said, shakily as Colt hummed something, tapping at the counter.

“What’s up with the movie?” He finally asked, and Jody finally stood up as Stella chimed in.

“Dad,” she said quietly. “We’re watching the news. The video logs from the Hail Mary are back. It’s the science officer, because the uh-” she swallowed- “the commander and the engineer passed during the trip.”

He scoffed. “Yeah, nice try, kiddo,” he laughed. “I met the family of the science officer, Dr. Martin DuBois. That is definitely not him.” Colt paused, glancing back over his shoulder for a second as Jody felt her stomach do flips. “Kinda looks like Ryan, honestly.”

Her blood ran cold as her husband continued to hum along like nothing was wrong. She glanced at Ryan, who shifted uncomfortably. “Colt,” she whispered. “This- this is real.”

He glanced at the screen, brow furrowing, and then looked back at her. “Jody-”

“It’s real, Colt.” She repeated, watching as his grip tightened on the mug. She took a deep breath, bracing herself for whatever he was going to do next. “That’s Ryland. On the Hail Mary. He’s- he’s alive.”

The crash of the mug shattering into millions of microscopic fragments echoed through the silent house. Ryan held his breath, holding his little sister tightly as Colt stared at the TV. Ryland stared back.

“No.”

Time stood still for a moment as Colt pressed his hands to the countertop, ignoring the ceramic shards digging into the skin of his feet. The face on the screen was undeniably his. Same jaw, same eyes, same sandy blond hair. And those gold-framed glasses that he still wasn’t wearing properly. Ryland.

“Colt, I need- I need you to pick up- I need you to call me back, Colt, please.”

“That’s not-” he choked, his voice barely above a whisper. “That’s not possible. He- Ryland- they told me-”

He stared again at the screen, watching as Ryland glanced at a pile of rocks. And then the pile of rocks moved. Colt shook his head again. He’d committed the Hail Mary manifest to memory. Yao Li-Jie. Olyessa Ilyukhina. Martin DuBois. He’d met their families, exchanged condolences. He’d stood in front of monuments to the three heroes of humanity being unveiled in LA, before driving the six hours to San Francisco to sit in front of the small headstone that had been erected for his twin brother so he wouldn’t be alone. Colt would tuck his knees against his chest, his eyes tracing his brother’s name over and over again as the fog settled in around them. Ryland always loved the fog.

He pressed his forehead to the cool granite countertop, hot tears rolling down his cheeks as his throat ran dry. Colt slammed a fist against the counter, glancing up to see that Ryan had instinctively put Stella behind him, even trying to put an arm in front of Jody. “Fuck,” he whispered, face burning with shame. “He’s- I can’t- I-”

“Colt,” Jody began, taking a step closer.

“Don’t,” he warned, though his voice came out rough and strangled as he choked back a sob. “Don’t- don’t come any closer. There’s- there’s shit all over the floor and I don’t want you to hurt yourself and I-”

“I want to-”

“Jody, please,” Colt begged, looking up at her through the hair that had fallen over his eyes. He sniffled, wiping at his eyes. “I don’t- I don’t want you getting hurt. Please.”

She stared at him, chest tightening as Ryan and Stella turned to her, their expressions painfully different. “Colt, love, I-”

Colt covered his ears, curling into a ball as the voice in his head grew louder, and louder, and louder. It wasn’t his voice. He knows whose voice it is.

“Colt I- I love you, just please pick up the phone so you don’t- so I don’t- Oh God, Colt please just pick up.”

Jody sucked in a breath, watching Colt thread his hands through his hair. “He’s- God, it’s been- it’s been twenty-six fucking years. I have been in hell for twenty-six years and I- and I find out that my brother isn’t dead and then- and then I’m just- I’m just expected to be okay with the fact that he’s in space and I-” He took a deep breath, slamming his fist down again with a scream that cut itself off as he heard a yelp.

Stella had moved slightly away from her brother, her eyes wide, scared. Fucking hell, his own daughter was scared of him. Wasn’t he just the father of the year? 

He cleared his throat, looking back at the kids, sucking in a breath as he watched Jody brace herself like she needed to put herself between him and his own kids.

And he couldn’t blame her. 

“Listen I- if anyone asks you anything about him, you say nothing. Understood?” They both nodded. “And if you see anyone coming by your school with cameras or looking like they’re affiliated with the government. With any government, you call me immediately, and I will come get you. Okay?”

Ryan narrowed his eyes, putting himself in front of Stella. “Dad, I can-”

“Do not fight me, Ryan,” he warned. “I am serious as a goddamn heart attack. If you see anything out of place, you do not do any investigative bullshit. You will call me immediately.” And then, so quiet that he hoped he was the only one who heard it. “I can’t- I can’t risk anything happening. Not again.”

Stubborn as he was, he opened his mouth one more time. “I can protect-”

“You can’t. Not when we’ve just become the most interesting people on the fucking planet. So, if you or Stella see anything that isn’t right, you call me. You call me,” he repeated as Ryan yet again opened his mouth to protest. “This is non-negotiable.”

“Dad-”

Jody finally stepped in. “Ry, listen to him. Please.”

“I-”

“Mom, we’ll be-” Stella tried to say, voice small, fragile. God, I’m such a piece of shit, Colt berated himself, pressing his forehead against the granite countertop once again.

“Ryan Daniel and Stella Grace Seavers,” she warned. “Listen to your father. You don’t-” she glanced back at Colt, who’d buried his head in his hands, and chewed on her cheek. She put a hand on both of their shoulders, shifting so their backs would be to Colt. “Ryland’s- he’s not supposed to be on that ship. He died twenty-six years ago in a freak accident. I held your father when he found out after we got back from Australia. And-”

“All hell’s breaking loose,” Ryan whispered, glancing past his mother as his uncle, a man that he’d never met yet felt impossibly familiar with, continued talking at the camera. “It’s a massive government conspiracy.”

Jody swallowed hard and nodded. “You two are going to go to school and act like everything’s normal while your father and I figure out what the hell we’re going to do. But I am so serious-” she looked at her son, her stomach churning as she saw the small features in his face that made him damn near identical to Ryland in a way that even Colt wasn’t- “if anything suspicious happens, you call us. We will come get you, we promise.” She let Stella go, turning her full attention to Ryan. “I know you want to protect her but the most important thing right now is that nothing happens to either of you. Do not take any risks about it okay?”

He finally nodded, and Jody brought both of them in for a tight hug, kissing the tops of their heads as she whispered a few more warnings to both of them. And, of course, a quiet I love you. Stella however, like she tended too, lingered. “Is Dad gonna be okay?” She whispered, clinging to Jody’s shirt.

Jody’s throat ran dry, an uncomfortable feeling settling in her chest. Try as she might, both of them had always been…more perceptive than they should have been. When Dan had brought Ryan into her hospital room, after she’d woken up and Colt had been assured that she was stable enough that he could watch Stella from the NICU, the boy hadn’t left her side. He’d gotten Dan to lift him up, and he promptly cuddled up against his mother’s side, and cried into her hospital gown, clinging to her desperately.

“He’s- he’s gonna be okay,” Jody whispered, thumb tracing the lines of Stella’s cheek. “It’s gonna, it’s gonna be a while but he loves you both more than anything. Okay?” She nodded slightly. “This is really hard for him, and it’s hard for me too, but he’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.”

Stella seems to believe her because she does pull away. Ryan was still glaring at where Colt had been standing and Jody swallowed. “Stells, Ryan’s gonna meet you outside, kay?”

Ryan turned to watch his sister leave as Jody cleared her throat. “I know.”

“But-”

“Ryan, if that was Stella, you’d be doing the same thing and you know that. He’s not-” she swallowed, glancing over at the kitchen island where Colt was tucked behind- “he’s not in control of himself right now. At least not as much as he wants to be, and he-”

“I don’t want him to hurt Stella.”

The words landed like a punch Jody was both expecting, but still wildly unprepared for. “He won’t-”

“You just said-”

“He would never hurt you two. You know that, Ryan. He carries spiders out of the house with paper and a cup because he wants to let them live. He slept in the nursery for a month after we moved you into it, and he did it again with Stella. I know you’re scared, but I need you to trust me at the very least if you can’t trust him.”

He eyed her before shaking his head. “Okay,” he whispered as Jody pulled him into a tight hug. 

“It’ll be okay,” she whispered, running her fingers through his hair. “It’ll be okay. It might get worse before it gets better but I promise we’ll be okay. He loves you so much, Ry. He loves both of you so much more than you realize.”

He murmured something against her as she released him. He glanced one more time at where Colt had been standing before turning, grabbing his bag by the door, and slinging an arm over Stella’s shoulder as they walked out, leaving Jody staring at the small tuft of Colt’s blond hair that she could still see.

He can’t breathe.

His ribs are squeezing against his lungs, constricting them. They hurt. Are they broken? His head hurts. Did he hit it? His back hurts. His back always hurts. His back never isn’t hurting. His eyes are burning. From tears or gasoline? 

His stomach churned with the memory of the oily sludge burning on his tongue, seeping into his wounds, in his eyes, in his hair, in his clothes. It’s everywhere. Even twenty-six years later he still feels it all on his skin. No amount of scrubbing his skin raw will ever get rid of it and he doesn’t know why.

There’s a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eyes and he curls in on himself. “Don’t come any closer!” He snapped, baring his teeth like a wounded fox. He doesn’t know who it is. He doesn’t know where he is. All he knows is that everything hurts and his brother–Ryland–isn’t coming home.

Someone else’s breath hitches, and he flinches away until he hears a voice. He knows that voice. That voice is safe. That voice belongs to someone who isn’t going to hurt him, who just wants to help him. It’s a voice that his body knows to trust, filed away next to others like Dan’s, like his mother’s, like Ryland’s. It’s a voice that he doesn’t want to hurt. And he’s not sure if he can control himself well enough to make sure that won’t happen.

“Colt,” Jody whispers as he looks at her, eyes wide in terror.

“Don’t,” he begs, voice hoarse. “Please, Jody, I don’t- I don’t want to hurt you.”

Her body itches to ignore the warning, to run over and pull him from the shards and clean him off. Hold him tightly. Tell him that everything’s going to be alright, even though they both know it’s a lie. But as she stares at him, the blue in his eyes barely a faint ring around his dilated pupils, she swallows her pride and sits cross-legged at the edge of the shards, expression soft as she looks at him.

“Your hands are bleeding,” she said softly, looking at the reddish ends of his hair, dyed by the blood. “I need to clean them out, Colt.”

“I don’t wanna hurt you,” he repeated, though his voice was barely a whimper. 

“You couldn’t hurt me.”

He shook his head. “No. No I don’t- I don’t wanna hurt you. I- I can’t hurt you. I can’t- I’m not- I don’t know what I’m- what I’m going to do and I-” he tucked his head between his knees, squeezing his eyes shut. “They’re scared of me. And I don’t- I don’t wanna hurt you. I don’t wanna hurt them, I-” he flinched away, like a fox with its leg caught in a trap, hissing at anyone who would come near it. Friendly or not.

“They’re not scared of you, Colt. I promise. They’re worried-”

“I saw them, Jody. Ryan-” he choked back a sob- “he looked at me like I was a threat. He looked at me like I was gonna, like I was gonna hurt Stella and I-” he shook his head- “and she looked scared of me too, and-”

“Five things,” Jody interrupted, tone even, comforting, gentle. Everything Colt didn’t deserve. “Five things you can see.” He opened his mouth to protest, but she shook her head. “Colt, please do this. For me. For them.”

After a moment, he stilled, bringing his head up. He turned to her, blinking back tears. “I see you,” he murmured. Jody nodded approvingly and held up a finger. She was going to hold him to this. “I see, I see the coffee maker. I see the uh, the towel, on the oven.” He snorted. “I see the oven.” He looked back at Jody, eyes catching on the small golden necklace around her neck. It was a simple chain, no stones or charms; he smiled at it, meeting Jody’s eyes. “I see your necklace. The one I got you for our anniversary that the kids picked out.”

Jody grinned for a moment but shook her head. “Nope, still at four.”

“Come on!”

“First thing you saw was me. Pick something else.”

He grimaced, almost forgetting for a moment what was going on around him until his hand slid over a few ceramic shards, and pain shot up his arm. He yelped, watching as Jody flinched, calling out for him as his breath quickened. He looked around frantically before his eyes settled on Jody’s mug that she had abandoned. He made some sort of strangled noise, before he finally got intelligible words out. “Mug, yours, I-” he sucked in a breath, though let out a strangled warning as Jody tried to shift towards him, and she recoiled.

She hesitated before she got to the next number. “Four things you can-”

“Shards, hair, shirt, pants,” he listed off quickly, not looking at the slightly concerned face she was making at him.

“Three things you can hear,” Jody recited. “Describe them. Don’t just list them.”

“I hear you. You’re uh, you’re angry with me.” Jody winced, and Colt corrected himself. “You’re…you’re trying to help me. ‘M not being a good patient.” He looked around, trying to find something else before he shut his eyes. “Uh, stupid heat lamp. Makes noise.”

“The astrophage?”

He nodded. Jody tilted her head to the side. “What does it sound like?”

“Humming. Bad frequency. It drives Stella nuts sometimes; she just never says anything.”

Jody swallowed. She hadn’t noticed that before. “One more.”

“Don’t make me say it.”

“Colt-”

He flinched away, covering his ears, ignoring how the glass scraped against the sensitive skin of his earlobe. “Voice. His voice. I can’t- I can’t do this, Jody.” He whimpered. “I- I can’t.”

“Colt, they’re going to- I’m going to- You can’t let them do this, Colt, please.”

She shushed him gently. “You can, Colt. You can do this,” she murmured. “Two things you can smell.”

“Coffee creamer. The nice stuff that you get outside of rations. It’s like vanilla and-” he shook his head. “I uh- smell…I smell-” Gasoline- “smells like clean laundry. I- I dunno why but-”

“Last one. What can you taste?”

“Coffee. Burnt the shit out of my tongue,” he said, sighing as he tilted his head back against the cabinet. Jody nodded, standing up wordlessly. Colt’s eyes followed her as she reached for a broom, slowly sweeping up the shards around him. He lifted himself up slightly, pushing the shards underneath him out so Jody could sweep them up.

Once she finished, she knelt down beside him, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “I gotta clean your hands, okay? No infections on my watch,” she ordered. “I’ll get the first aid kit, don’t move. Don’t touch your face either.”

He nodded, making a noise as she left, but thankfully, she returned quickly, a bottle of rubbing alcohol in one hand and a bright red kit in her other. She tapped his arm and he obediently held out his hands, wincing as he watched her dab a cotton ball in the alcohol. She raised an eyebrow. “You’re a stuntman,” she deadpanned.

“Still hurts.”

She shook her head, reaching out for one of his hands, but he pulled it away. “I- I know I get twitchy when you patch me up and I-” he stumbled, but leaned into the hand that Jody rested on his face.

“You’ve never hurt me before, Colt. You’re not-”

“You don’t know that,” he whispered. He didn’t want to hurt her. But he’s seen her wince when he squeezes her hand too hard. He’s watched her flinch when he lets out a yelp that’s too loud or too high-pitched. Colt shook his head. “I don’t- I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what’s happening. My- my brother’s dead but he’s alive but he’s dead now probably and I- fucking shit I dropped-”

“They’ll forgive you,” she whispered, kissing his cheek.

“But it was-”

She shook her head. “They’ll forgive you. They love you.”

“They’re scared of me.”

“They’re worried about you,” she reminded him, wincing as Colt hissed in pain. She dabbed the cotton ball over his trembling hands. He stared down at them, eyes still wide like he was scared of them. Scared of himself. She continued her work silently, bringing out a pair of tweezers, flinching at the yelp that escaped him as she tugged out the first shard. “I know, baby,” she whispered as he leaned forward, burying his face in the crook of her neck.

Save for the fact that there was Ryland’s voice talking in the background, a fact that Jody still hadn’t fully wrapped her head around, it was normal. Colt coming to her, begrudgingly letting himself be patched up. She laughed a little as the memory of Ryan watching his dad’s first stunt came flooding through her brain. Stella had been tucked away in a wrap against Jody’s chest as she sat back in her director’s chair, and once she’d called for action, Dan had picked up Ryan to keep him from running onto set as Colt fell.

Afterwards, of course, he insisted that his dad needed a full checkup and had grabbed a small doctor's kit that Dan had gotten for him. Colt had gotten the works. His heart had been checked, his ears had been looked at, his eyes had been looked at, his temperature had been taken, all with the intense seriousness that only a three-year-old could muster. All of it finalized with a bandaid on a scrape Colt had on his arm, and a feel-better kiss.

She sat beside him, after she finished, gently wrapping his hands and pressing kisses to the backs of them. He tucked himself against her, wrapping his arms around her tightly as she rested her chin on top of his head, rubbing lazy circles over his spine. He stiffened slightly as she ran her fingers over a painful spot.

His voice was hoarse when he finally spoke. “They- they told me-” he took a shaky breath as Jody pressed a kiss into his hair- “they told me there was- there was nothing left. That he was- that he- God I tried. I tried so hard to get anything and they told me no. And he’s- he’s been dead but he’s-” he shook his head. “Why the fuck would they send him to space? I- Ryland gets sick on elevators, I- He would’ve- he would’ve told me. They should’ve told me. Why did they- what happened to- how did he-” 

His breathing came out in short punches as Jody pulled him impossibly close, shifting so his head was resting against her heart. She ran a hand through his hair as he pressed himself closer against her, trying to time his breathing with her heart. She murmured something to him, but all he could hear was his voice. The voice of the ghost that had been haunting every moment of his life for the last twenty-six years.

“I’ll turn it off,” she whispered. “I know-”

“Don’t,” he pleaded, muffled against her shoulder. “I- I just- I want to-” he looked up at her through his lashes, eyes shining with tears. “What the fuck am I saying? I don’t even know-” Jody wiped away a tear with her thumb, and he cuddled against her- “I- God, I- I miss him so much, Jody. It hurts. It always hurts. And it’s- I thought I’ve been okay for a bit and I- just- please don’t leave.” He whimpered into her shoulder as Jody gently shushed him.

“I’m not going anywhere, Colt. I promise.”

He’s young. He’s too young. He can’t be that young. Colt’s not that old, early fifties at most. Ryland, God, he can’t be older than thirty-two. He’s so young. It’s like Colt’s looking back in time. Part of him takes that image and tries to place him into a memory that he’d haunted for years. But even as he imagines this Ryland in those moments: by his side at his wedding, holding Ryan, holding Stella, it seemed wrong. He’s too young.

“I wonder what his skin care routine is up there,” Jody chuckled, trying to draw a smile out of Colt as he pressed himself against her, wrapped tightly in his quilt. “I just- he looks so young, I don’t-”

“Einstein had a theory about it or something. The uh, the twin paradox. Ry tried to tell me about it. If one is traveling away from Earth at light speed, less time passes for them for some stupid physics reason. Basically, uh, when the one that left comes back, he’ll look significantly younger. It’s uh-” he wiped at his eyes- “it’s the only way for twins to be different ages, he said. So it uh, God, he really is my baby brother now, isn’t he?”

“Colt-”

“He asked me once if I uh- if I ever thought about what we’d be like if we weren’t twins,” Colt whispered, sniffling lightly. “I told him- I told him I didn’t wanna talk about it. Told him it wasn’t possible. We were twins,” he sobbed. “We- we had to be. There was no other way to be. I told him that there could be an infinite amount of universes and the one thing that they have in common is that we’re twins. Not just brothers, twins. And looks like-” he let out another broken sob as Jody kissed his cheek- “looks like I’m wrong. We aren’t- we’re not even the same age anymore. We’re not, he’s not- he’s not my twin anymore, Jody.”

“He’s still your twin,” she reassured him as he fumbled with the binding of the quilt. It was worn, old, and it had swaddled both Ryan and Stella when they were babies. She knew Ryland had a matching one, but Colt had been told it was locked away in a warehouse, and now here they were, staring at him, talking at a camera with the same one, near pristine, draped over his shoulders. “You two-”

“I never felt it,” he whispered. “Everyone always says that twins are supposed to sense stuff. Like when one of them is hurt or something big happens or- or when one of them dies or some bullshit but I- I’ve never felt it for Ry. None of that twin telepathy bullshit. I always, I always thought there was something wrong with me but maybe, maybe this universe was the exception. We’re not supposed to be twins. This universe just- just had to fix that somehow.”

“Don’t say that,” she whispered, pulling him against her desperately. “Don’t ever say that. That’s not true, Colt, you know that. That’s Ryland, that’s your twin. None of this-” she looked down at him, he was still clinging to her desperately, like if his grip loosened for a second, she’d disappear into space alongside his brother- “none of this should have ever happened, Colt. You, God, I am going to sue the shit out of every government in the goddamn world until they tell me why they did this to him. Why they did this to you.” She held him tightly, burying her face in his hair. “I swear to God, Colt, I will figure this out. I will figure out why they lied to you, I will figure out why they didn’t tell you if it’s the last thing I fucking do, I promise.”

His arms tightened around her, impossibly so. If it were possible, Colt would probably just merge into her at this point, become so intertwined with her that they were utterly inseparable. He’d only had that bond with one other person. One other person who had been sent across the galaxy, ripped away from him, regardless. He sobbed into her shoulder. “He’s not coming home, Jody. He’d- he’d be home by now if he could I just- Why didn’t he say goodbye? Why didn’t he tell me? Why didn’t- why didn’t they let him say goodbye to me? I-” he sobbed- “I wonder if it’s some karmic revenge. I uh- I lied to Ry about getting to say goodbye to Mom and I- I’ve been punished by never getting to say goodbye to my- to my baby brother and I-” 

“Colt-”

“He’ll never know if he did it. He’ll- he’ll never know Ryan and Stella. He’ll never- He’ll never know that I got my head out of my ass and got you back. He’ll never know that we got married. He’ll never know any of it. And he should have. He should have been there for all of it and I- I never should have let him go on that stupid boat.” He pressed his face against her shoulder. “The kids will never know their uncle and I was okay with that- I was okay with that when I thought- when I thought that there wasn’t any possible way for that to happen but now-” his fists clenched- “they took him from me. They took him from his family. They sent him to space to die and he woke up all alone, Jody. He must’ve- God, he must’ve been so fucking scared.”

“I swear to God if you don’t pick up the phone Colt, I am going to be in some deep shit. So please, please, please, I need you to pick up the phone or call me back- oh fuck it. I’m running out of time.”

He looked up, his damp hair falling in his eyes as he watched his brother banter with the alien beside him. Rocky, real creative Ry. “And I- I’m just- I can’t explain it but-”

“You don’t need to,” Jody soothed, like always. God, he loved her. He loved her so goddamn much.

“I wouldn’t do it and I feel-” he swallowed as Jody tilted his chin up, the silent question in her blue eyes as he blinked- “I don’t- if- if I could save him, if I could save him but it would cost me- it would cost me you and Ryan and Stella and this,” he gestured weakly to their home, “I wouldn’t- I wouldn’t do it. And I feel like that means I’d abandon him but I-”

“First off,” she said gently, stroking his hair. “You’re getting tangled in a “what if”, love. Hypotheticals. And second, that doesn’t mean you would abandon him. It means- it means that you did what you promised me you would. You lived for him, and I need you to keep living for him. Ryan and Stella need their dad. I need the love of my life.” Her thumb brushed a few tears off his face. “You didn’t abandon him. You never abandoned him. You wouldn’t abandon him. They- they took him from you. They took him from us. That thought shouldn’t even cross your mind. He should, he should be sitting right here. Explaining all this science bullshit and telling us that our kids, his niece and nephew, are gonna be alright. They’re gonna be alright because he made sure they were going to be okay.”

He slumped forward. “I miss him, Jody.”

“I miss him too, Colt.”

He leaned against her shoulder, feeling the gentle pressure of her head on top of his. Her fingers intertwined with his, and she pressed a kiss to each bandaged knuckle, murmuring softly between them. Colt stared at the TV.

Ryland stared back.

Ryland stared back.

Colt had covered nearly every mirror in the house at one point in his life, trying to avoid accidentally reminding himself of the gaping hole in his chest shaped like one Ryland Grace. He hadn’t looked at photos of himself in years. It even took an almost embarrassingly long time for Jody to convince him to put up pictures of their wedding, and even then he tried not to look at them.

He shuddered, looking away, burying his face in Jody’s shoulder for a moment before a phone started ringing. She glanced at him, grabbing her phone. “It’s Stella,” she murmured, seeing Colt’s eyes widen with panic. “I’ll get it.” She held the phone to her ear. “Stells? You okay?”

Colt sat up as Jody stiffened. “Hey,” she soothed over the phone. “Hey, you’re okay.” She took it down from her ear, tapping the speaker button as Stella’s panicked breathing filled the room.

“I-” she gasped, “Dad, Mom, you- you need to come get us. Ry’s- he- he’s in AP Bio, I can go get him but we- we have to go, now.” She let out a small panicked noise as they heard the thudding of her footsteps echoing through the school hallways. “Please, we-”

“Get your brother,” Colt ordered, already jumping up and moving towards the door with Jody following close behind. “We’ll be there as soon as we can. Stay safe. Okay?”

The stares burned. They followed him more than they followed Stella, at least. But they weren’t subtle either. Everyone looked at him weirdly, even his teachers, all studying him with an odd expression of shock and grief. He had no idea if it had gotten out that Dr. Grace, who was definitely not supposed to be on the Hail Mary had a brother and a family, but regardless, the family resemblance had always been strong. His mother always joked that her genes didn’t even try for him, and only barely tried for Stella.

He moved through the day with his head down, unless he was scanning the halls for Stella in between classes or watching the outside closely, looking for unfamiliar or blacked-out vehicles. His phone weighed heavy in his pocket as he tapped his fingers against the desk incessantly. AP Bio was a haze, though the questions were easy and he was able to keep his teacher happy with his answers until midway through class, when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He waited for a lull, and then silently slipped out, only to be grabbed tightly by the wrist and dragged away. “Stells, what the-”

“We’ve gotta go, I already called Dad. They’re coming. We have to go, now.” She ordered, dragging him along. Before he could even respond, she was explaining. “Blacked-out vans, guys in suits, outside. Right now. I think they’re looking for us.”

“You think?” He whisper-shouted as he tugged his arm free, running beside her.

“At least three of them looked directly at me. Not looked in my direction, at me. You can’t hide that well with our mom.” She hissed, her sneakers squeaking against the linoleum floors as they sprinted through the main atrium and slammed themselves into the doors, pushing them outwards to escape.

As soon as their feet crunched against the snow, he heard a shout, glancing over his shoulder to see a group of suited people start running towards them. He muttered a curse just as he heard a squeal of rubber against the shoveled out driveway, and from the momentary glimpse that he spared himself to look up at the driver. His father wasn’t looking at them, instead looking at whatever agents were chasing after them. Jaw tight like he was prepared for this to really start going south. 

He barely registers the two hands pulling him into the backseat as Stella slams the door behind him and the car starts moving. He fumbled for the seatbelt as Stella recited the information. “Blacked-out vans, suits. They looked directly at me and started moving.”

Their mother reached back, taking his sister’s hand in hers. “Good call, sweetheart.”

Ryan sat up, staring at the back of the driver’s seat, catching a glimpse of his father’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Where are we going?”

Colt’s jaw tightened for a moment. “I don’t know. Doesn’t matter. I just need to make sure we lose them before we think about where we’re going.”

“There’s like seven vans-”

“And I’m a goddamn stuntman.”

“That’s a closed set!”

“He knows what he’s doing!” Jody shouted, turning around to glare at him. “Ryan, I love you, but you do not know what else happened in Sydney. Trust him.”

He scoffed. “Dad got framed for murder-”

“I also got drugged, had to chase after some dudes in a car-” he turned sharply, muttering under his breath- “nearly got set on fire, and faked my death for a few hours and then your mom stabbed me in the thigh with a pen because I snuck up on her in an alien costume. And then I jumped a car over a 250 foot gap and fell out of a helicopter.”

Stella let out a yelp as they turned sharply and Ryan glared at him through the rearview mirror. “Dad, what the hell are you-”

“Don’t ask,” he and Jody shouted in unison. Colt cranked the wheel the other way, tires squealing as he drifted around a corner. He glanced up, watching two other vans make the sharp turn. “Damnit,” he muttered. “Never thought I’d say I fucking miss those stupid goons.”

“Oh my God, hell must’ve frozen over,” Jody teased, eyeing the speedometer as Colt raced down a few side streets towards the highway.

“Dressler wasn’t a fucking government agent,” he growled, slamming on the brakes as he cranked the wheel once again, wincing as he heard the thud of one of the kids slamming against the door. “Dressler wasn’t going after my fucking family. Ryder wasn’t sending people after the only people I have left.”

She couldn’t fight the shiver that ran down her spine. It wasn’t a fear without merit. Jody herself had had plenty of nightmares where Gail came after her kids. Colt wasn’t immune to them either. He would check locks on doors more than necessary, and he’d insisted both kids should do martial arts if for no other reason besides learning how to land a solid punch.

Jody reached out, resting her hand on top of one of his. He finally spared her a glance, his eyes wide with panic. “We’ll be okay, Colt,” she assured him, even as he pressed his foot nearly to the floor. “We’ll be okay.”

He glanced back, chest tightening as he saw the widened eyes of both of his kids. He felt his jaw clench as he saw the vans still following them as he weaved through the thankfully light traffic along the highway. He swallowed. “I can’t-” he whispered- “I can’t lose you too.”

“You’re not going to.”

His hands tightened on the wheel, knuckles turning white. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to say anything. She knew him well enough to know he didn’t believe her. She rested a hand on his leg, squeezing gently as she turned to look around. “We’re gonna be okay,” she repeated to the two of them. Both of them nodded slightly, though Stella was turned to keep one eye behind them.

Colt sucked in a breath, drawing Jody’s attention back to him. “Hold on.”

The cabin was quiet, secluded. A spot near Yosemite. He finally let out a breath as the engine cut out, the headlights darkening, leaving them in the twilight of the Sierra Forrest. Jody’s fingers intertwined with his as soon as his hand left the wheel and he leaned over, pressing his forehead against hers. She traced her thumb over his stubble. “We’re okay.”

“Phones?”

“Disconnected from cellular, turned off. Same with everything else.”

He sucked in a breath. “Okay.”

She pressed a kiss to his forehead, murmuring something soft against his skin as he finally allowed the tension to flow from his muscles. He pulled back, looking back at Ryan. “Stella-”

“She’s asleep,” he interrupted. There was still an unease in his gaze, one Colt knew all too well from his own childhood. Watching some people get suspiciously close to his other half without the best intentions. It hurts a bit, but he can’t blame him. He’s trying to protect his sister, just like Colt always wanted to protect his brother. And hadn’t he just done a fantastic job at that. Ryan cleared his throat, pulling Colt out of his thoughts. “I can wake her up.”

“Don’t,” Colt said gently. “She- she needs to sleep. You should sleep too once we get inside. I’ll carry her.”

Jody opened her mouth to say something. Probably scolding him about his back. Reminding him that Stella is fifteen now, not a little kid that he can carry around, but Ryan says something before she can.

“Can’t sleep,” he whispered. “It’s like my body won’t let me.”

Colt turned to Jody, squeezing her hand tightly three times. “I’ll get Stella. Ryan and I will meet you inside, kay?”

She nodded, pressing her lips to him one more time before slowly slipping out of the car and into the darkness. Colt reached back, holding his son’s hand tightly. “It’s the adrenaline,” he explained. “You’re gonna feel wired for a bit, like there’s an engine inside of you that’s running hard. Once your body breaks it down and gets it out of your blood, you’re gonna crash really hard, okay? Out like a light.”

He flinched at that, and Colt squeezed his hand. “She’ll be okay,” he whispered. “I’m wired too, and my body doesn’t clear it as quickly. All of you are gonna be okay; I’m making sure of it.” He smiled softly. “Probably gonna be up all night like I was when you were babies.”

Ryan nodded, slowly slipping out of the car as Colt also opened the door, walking back to unbuckle his daughter and pulling her into his arms with a grunt. He bumped the door closed, and Ryan finally spoke up. “Mom always said you did that for both of us,” he murmured. “I just, don’t really-”

“I did it for the first month we had you in the nursery,” Colt explained, shifting Stella’s weight in his arms. “You slept in our room for a while, but I just-” he shrugged- “Couldn’t shut my brain up. Grabbed a few blankets and pillows and set up in the nursery, and your mom came and joined me. You were two when we did the same thing with Stells, so I wouldn’t expect you to remember.” He smiled to himself. “You came in and slept with us a few times too.”

“It didn’t hurt?” Ryan asked, eyes flicking to the base of his father’s spine.

“It did,” he admitted. “Your mom made me use my crutches more than I wanted to. I also was strictly prohibited from lifting either of you above my head.” Ryan let out a snort as Colt nudged him gently. They walked up the stairs of the porch, standing in front of the darkened entrance.

“Keeping you safe,” he whispered, looking between his son and daughter, “was and is the most important thing in my life. Your mom’s too. And, I’m sorry if I-”

Ryan wrapped his arms around him wordlessly, holding him tightly. Colt smiled softly, “I love you kiddo,” he whispered, barely hearing Ryan’s response, muffled in his jacket. They stayed like that, their small family, still down one person, for a moment before Ryan stepped forward and pushed open the door.

Jody had gotten to work, setting up a small camping lantern on the coffee table, spreading out blankets on the couch like small, makeshift sleeping bags, each of them complete with a pillow. Colt’s expression tightened as he checked the windows, all covered in blinds, but the vast majority of them still stretched from the floor to the ceiling.

“Might wanna be on the floor,” he said quietly, watching her turn around, titling her head to the side.

“Is that okay for your back?” She asked softly.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Colt.”

“It doesn’t. If we’re on the ground, we’re lower. Less chance for someone to see us.” He shifted Stella’s weight in his arms. “I don’t wanna know why they’re coming after us. I don’t want to take any risks. You’re safer down lower.”

Jody’s brow furrowed but she nodded all the same. She waved Ryan over, the two of them quickly setting up a barrier of blankets and pillows for the four of them as Colt gently set his daughter down. Ryan followed beside her, closing his eyes nearly as soon as his head hit the pillow and drifting into sleep. He laughed slightly as he tucked himself against them, holding Jody against his side. “Told him he’d be out.”

She leaned against him. “You slept almost for a week after we got back from Australia. I’ve never seen your adrenaline crash that hard.”

“To be fair I had just found out that my brother died. I was having-” he snorted- “an unfathomably shitty week. This week might be the second worst.” He rested his head on his knees, looking at Stella and Ryan, and sighed. “I’m the reason we’re-”

Jody frowned, holding his face in her hands and tilting his head down to look at her. “None of this,” she said, quietly but with enough force behind her words that Colt knew to shut up and listen, “is your fault. I know that’s where your head is right now, but I promise you that none of this is your fault. You’ve- you’ve done nothing wrong, Colt.”

He sniffled. “They came after our kids,” he whimpered. “Our kids. What if- what if I’d been too late? What if something happened to them? To you?” Colt pulled her tighter, burying his face in the crook of her neck. “They took Ryland from me and I don’t- I can’t let them take you too.”

As the tears streamed down his face, he realized she didn’t jump at the chance to tell him that they were going to be okay. And as he felt the speed of her heart pounding inside her chest, he held her tighter, realizing why. She was okay at lying to him; she didn’t like doing it, especially since Colt would see through it eventually. “‘m so sorry, Jody,” he whispered. “I’m so so sorry, you don’t deserve this. None- none of you deserve this, it’s all-”

She pulled him up, pressing her forehead against his, feeling his hands come up to hold her wrists. “Don’t you dare say that this is your fault,” she ordered, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “This is not your fault. This isn’t your fault at all. You are doing exactly what you should to protect them. We’re- we’re going to be okay.”

“You don’t believe that, Jodes. You’re scared, I know and I-”

“I may not believe it right now but I do believe that when this all blows over, we’re going to be okay. Our kids are going to be okay. I’m going to be okay. We are going to be okay. We’ve been through worse like you just said, we have been through so much worse.”

She ran her thumb over an old faded scar, barely visible if someone didn’t know where to look. Colt let out a shaky breath. “That was my fault too, technically.”

“You did nothing wrong, Colt! They tried to frame you for murder,” she whisper-shouted. “They tried to kill you! Because their fucking egos were so big they thought they could bury a homicide like a cheating scandal.”

He leaned into her touch, looking up at her through his lashes, laden with tears. “They wanted- God, he wanted to hurt you too, if I wouldn’t cooperate-” Jody swallowed, nodding slightly. She knew this, of course. Colt had told her, and when that information had been relayed to Dan, they had both come very close to murdering Ryder and Gail themselves- “and I just- I couldn’t be the reason you got hurt. I put you through so much already, I don’t- God, I don’t deserve you, and I just- I keep putting you through this bullshit, and you could get hurt and-”

“I’m not leaving, Colt,” she whispered. “I’m not. I’m staying right here. We are going to do this together. We’ve handled everything together for almost thirty years-” she kissed his forehead again- “I’m not interested in doing this alone ever again.”

“You’re forgetting the sixteen months after I broke your heart,” he jabbed, smiling softly as Jody leaned forward to kiss him on the lips, tasting the salt from his tears.

“Well, I did those sixteen months without you, and that sucked,” she laughed softly. “I try not to think about it too hard. Not when I’ve got you here, not when we’re together.”

He smiled, leaning down, finally bringing him and Jody to lie on the ground. His back was to the door, a silent barrier as he pulled Jody against his chest, his fingers running over her wedding ring. “Don’t deserve you,” he murmured, eyes fluttering closed. “I love you so much.”

She smiled, interlacing her fingers with his as he buried his face into her hair. The lantern had been flipped off earlier, bathing them in small shafts of moonlight slipping through the blinds. Colt’s arms tightened around her, but she wasn’t sure if he was just shifting in his sleep or if he’d sensed something she hadn’t.

Jody pushed the thought out of her mind, trying to focus on the kids, sleeping as peacefully as they could, given the circumstances. However, both of them had clearly inherited her tolerance for adrenaline, crashing as soon as they were safe. Colt, however, chased the stuff, lived on it, and could stay alert for days. In fact, when she thought about it, he probably was still wired, watching over them as best he could while trying to keep his own mind from spiraling into the hell that they’d been dragged into again.

The parallels to Australia weren’t lost on her. And if they set her on edge this much, when she’d been detached from it all aside from the final confession, she shuddered at the thought of what might be going through Colt’s head. She let out a shaky breath, feeling his head shift as he pressed a kiss to her shoulder. He might’ve said something, but she couldn’t hear him as the tired ache in her body finally dulled her senses. Her eyelids felt heavy as she looked over, watching the gentle rise and fall of Ryan and Stella’s chests, both of them curled into blankets like caterpillars in cocoons.

It was almost domestic. Almost. To such an extent that Jody could almost let herself relax against Colt and sleep through the night.

And then something crashed through the window, and Colt is moving before she even registers the noise.

“Stay down,” he ordered, eyes wide as Jody moved to pull both of them, groggily looking around, into a tight, protective hug. She watched the muscles in his jaw tense as he tracked the shadows moving across the windows. “Fuck,” he whispered as he heard something slam against the door.

“Colt-”

“Dad-”

“Just-” he pushed his hair out of his eyes, swallowing down the bile in his throat- “I’ll do what I can. Jody,” his voice cracked ever so slightly as he saw the fear in her eyes, in Ryan and Stella’s eyes. “I’ll try to keep whoever the hell is here distracted. You take them, and you run. Find somewhere safe, I’ll- I’ll try to find you later.”

“Colt-”

“Please.”

Jody pursed her lips, slowly standing up, only to return right back to kneeling as something crashed through one of the back windows. Colt whipped around, muttering a string of English and French curses almost interchangeably. “I can-” he started, flinching as something slammed against the front door as pounding grew louder near the back of the cabin.

Jody shook her head. “No.”

“Jody, please,” he begged. Please get out of here. Please get yourself and the kids to safety. Please do not make me lose more of my family to people in vans and suits. “I- I can-”

She held up her hand, and he stared at her, mouth open in both shock and horror as she continued to argue. “I’m not leaving. We’re not leaving.” Stella and Ryan, braver than they should be, nodded in agreement. “Colt, I can’t lose you either. I need you.” Alive, is what she wanted to add, but based on his slow nod, she figured the message got across.

There was another crash from the other end of the cabin, and in the second they all took to look, the door was kicked down. Colt jumped up, fists already clenched and knuckles white. Jody stood up behind him, tucking both of the kids behind her,

Men and women in suits poured into the living room, and Colt turned, spreading his arms as his upper lip curled into a snarl. Jody pulled Stella and Ryan closer against her, covering their faces as Colt backed up to be closer to them. Minimize the chance that someone could get between them and split them up. Rip his last family away from him without giving him a proper chance to say goodbye

One of the men stepped forward, and Colt’s brow furrowed with a vague recognition. “Colt Seavers,” he said, crossing his arms.

He spread his arms in front of his family. “Who the fuck are you?” He snapped, scanning the group of people surrounding his family. Like the paparazzi, but so much worse. The paparazzi were just invasive in public, not actual home invaders.

The man cleared his throat. “We’ve met before, actually,” he announced as Jody’s brow furrowed. He gestured to himself. “Carl. Petrova Task Force.”

Colt blinked, sucking in a sharp breath. “Why the hell are you here?” He demanded, forcing back the pressure behind his eyes as he continued. “Taking my brother from me wasn’t enough for you assholes?” He laughed darkly, reaching back to grab Jody’s hand tightly. “Had to come after me too? My wife? My fucking kids?”

“I promise we are not here to harm you or your family-”

“Fuck off!” He seethed. “Ryland was my fucking family. The only family I had left, and you sons of bitches, actually-” he pointed at Carl- “you looked me in the goddamn eye and told me my brother was fucking vaporized in a goddamn explosion.” He tilted his head to the side. “So why the fuck is he in space, Carl? Why the fuck did it take twenty-six-” he choked, angry tears building up behind his eyes- “twenty-six goddamn years for you- you wastes of carbon and oxygen to tell me you shot my fucking brother into space, Carl? I feel like that’s something I should have known, Carl.”

He shook his head, glaring with all of the wrath of an oldest sibling and a threatened father. “Don’t you dare come in here, break down the fucking door, and tell me that you human shitstains, the ones who sent my fucking brother to fucking space and fucking lied to my face about it, aren’t here to hurt my fucking family.”

Carl flinched, holding up his hands in surrender and looking past Colt to Jody, who was glaring at him with an even more intense, burning fury. “No one here is armed,” he explained. “We’re just trying to talk.”

“Talk, huh?” Colt scoffed, crossing his arms. “You fuckers wanna talk? Fine, let’s fucking talk. Let’s talk about why the fuck, why the fuck my fucking baby brother-” tears burned hot on his cheeks, but Colt couldn’t care less- “my twin fucking brother is in fucking space! Let’s talk about how apparently I wasn’t allowed to know that, Carl! Let’s talk about how I was lied to for twenty-six goddamn years, Carl!”

“It’s not me that is trying to talk to you,” he said softly, in a way that made Colt’s blood boil. How fucking dare he. “Actually,” Carl continued, “Director Stratt would like to speak with you. In person.”

Stella flinched, looking at her brother who looked between her and Colt. There was a beat of silence before Jody spoke. “Why didn’t she come here herself?” She demanded, narrowing her eyes and holding her kids closer, feeling their racing hearts against her body.

“She is considered an international fugitive.”

Colt stiffened, “Then why the fuck would I-”

“Dr. Grace left behind a message on the Beetle probes. We elected not to include it in the broadcast as it was personal. Addressed to a specific person.” Carl tilted his head to the side, and Jody felt her blood run cold as he locked eyes with her. “A Jody Moreno. Your wife, if I’m not mistaken.”

Jody’s hand tightened around his, her breath sharp as she inhaled. He finally tore his eyes away, turning around and pulling his family close. Jody pressed her forehead against his. “Colt,” she whispered quietly, almost between a question and just gentle reassurance.

He made a small noise in the back of his throat, and she pulled him into an embrace. “Jesus, Colt,” she whispered before turning her attention back to Carl with a murderous glare. “You sound incredibly suspicious, you know that, right? You aren’t doing yourselves any favors either by, you know,” she tilted her head, raising her voice, “showing up at our children’s school. Following us all the way here. Breaking the goddamn door down. Not exactly the indication that you’re not lying to us.”

“I can assure you we’re-”

“Oh, go to hell,” she scoffed. “You lied to everyone for twenty-six years. You lied to a grieving man who had his brother ripped away from him after the worst fucking seventy-two hours of his life,” she continued, pulling away and stepping around them. Colt stopped her from going too far with a hand wrapped around her wrist and eyes wide with panic.

“You took my brother-in-law from me,” she snapped. “You- you took their uncle from them,” she continued, gesturing at Stella and Ryan. “You took his twin brother, and you break down the goddamn door, scare the shit out of our children, and expect me to believe that Ryland Grace’s last message after apparently saving fucking world, which you-” she pointed at Carl, her vision starting blur- “fucking lied about, isn’t to the twin brother that I watched him do everything short of move literal mountains for? Bullshit!”

She opened her mouth again, but Colt took a step forward, pulling her back against his side while Stella and Ryan were tucked on the opposite side. The arrangement was familiar, so familiar that for a moment she forgot where they were before Colt wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “And you just expect me to trust you?”

“Dr. Grace did.”

Colt shook his head, fists clenching at his sides. “Can you people just fucking-” he choked on a sob- “For the love of God, he’s not just Dr. Grace. His name is Ryland. He-” he squeezed his eyes shut, voice cracking- “he was a person. A teacher. A brother. A person. He wasn’t just some figurehead. Some martyr. Some tool for you people to just…shoot into space without telling anyone. He was my brother. His name was Ryland.”

Was.

The word felt like a knife twisting in his heart, and had Jody not been there to steady him, he probably would have collapsed to the floor as he had in LAX. When that godforsaken news broadcast had ended his life without actually killing him. The shock still hadn’t worn off, not helped by the fact that part of him had been so ready to feel something terribly, horrifically wrong when it happened. He’d always heard that twins could feel when the other one died, like a tether being snapped. 

Selfishly, he felt that the tether being snapped would be kinder than knowing it was stretched across interstellar space. And the fact that Ryland could be alone, in space, when it snapped, twisted the knife even deeper.

“What kind of message?” He finally asked, hoarsely.

“We’re not sure. Out of respect for the privacy, we haven’t watched past the moment he explained that the message was for your wife.”

Jody narrowed her eyes. “Kicking the fucking door down in the middle of the night. Fantastic example of respecting privacy,” she muttered under her breath as Colt swallowed hard, holding his family tighter.

“Nothing else?”

Carl shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

He looked around at the room, still filled with people in uniform black suits. True to Carl’s word, they weren’t armed, but there was a reason that they sent so many as to be considered overkill. Colt cleared his throat. “And if I don’t want to meet with Director Stratt?”

“I’m afraid she doesn’t take no for an answer.”

“And that means?”

“Believe it or not, this is an olive branch from her.” Carl folded his hands in front of him. “Dr. Grace was her second in command. And as her personal security, she would not have sent me if it weren’t critically important that you be brought to see her and the message. She,” he glanced off to the side, and for a second Colt could have sworn he saw the familiar shine of tears in the man's eyes, “she has quite a lot of things she would like to speak to you about.”

Colt squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the familiar warmth of Stella and Ryan wrapping their arms around him. Jody followed suit, her head resting against his shoulder. The three of them created a barrier of sorts around him as he let a tear slip. “Okay,” he whispered hoarsely.

“You don’t have to do this,” Jody whispered.

“If his last message is addressed to you, it’s gotta be important,” he resolved, pressing his forehead against hers. “I- I want to hear him on his terms. Not- not about the stupid project, I just- I wanna hear Ryland be- be Ryland. Not just Dr. Grace.”

She nodded slightly, glancing back over her shoulder. “If anything-” she threatened- “and I mean anything happens to my family, I swear to God-”

“We understand,” Carl agreed before nodding to a group of agents. “Wheels up in five.”