Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Long, deep breath. First one. First time it doesn't hurt in what feels like an eternity. Everyone around him is screaming, but it comes into focus slowly… 

"...Can't even check a fucking pulse! It's a miracle no one's died from a papercut infection in the last two years because you can't -"

"I swear to you! I swear to you he was dead!"

"Guys?"

"We've got bigger problems, the star is -"

"Guyyyys?!"

He takes another breath. Yes. Yes, this is breathing. He still has to do this. Don't forget to breathe. In, out, in, out. Have to keep doing that.

"What?" An older man - gruff, fatherly. The name is on the tip of his tongue, but….wait. Yes. He still has that. He didn't before. Cutting it out because he'd bitten through most of it was the only option. Or maybe some kind of penance.

A younger voice answers him. Reminds Curly of tropical flowers. Wait…are hibiscus tropical? The voice is bright yellow, though today it feels more muted. Sadder. Maybe a greyish yellow. Still saturated, but muddied. "Look at his eyes, they're…not right."

A long silence. Should he be trying to look too? He feels like his eyes are open, but its too bright to even see. The woman's voice - the only one - oh, her voice makes his chest hurt. "Oh. Oh my -" 

Someone throws up, presumably the woman. She has a weak stomach, but she does her best. He knows this, but he can't help be a little annoyed, anyway. His chest hurts again. 

"Fuck." Oh! He knows this one. That's Jimmy. That's one of his favorite expletives. Definitely top three. Why can he remember Jimmy, and his too-greasy dark hair, but nobody else? "That's not - Fuck. Anya, what the hell is wrong with him?!"

"What? How should I know?" Comes the woman's soft voice again. "That's not - that isn't normal. None of this is normal. He was dead, and now he isn't and his eyes are glowing!"

Anya. That's right. Anya is her name. Two syllables of pure and total guilt. Two syllables of broken promises and something he couldn't fix - or refused to fix? He doesn't remember anymore. Both feel equally bad. 

And Daisuke, with the flowers, who is sputtering in what sounds like at least three languages further away than he was, and Swansea, who's getting closer. Curly feels someone poke his face, then pry at his eyelid, and finally ,things come into view. 

But not like before. No, this is like he has new eyes. New optic nerves. New brain. "Was it always this bright in here?" He asks, wrinkling his nose. 

"The star," comes Daisuke's answer. He stands by the big bay windows, bathed in blue light. Hm. When did that start? It used to be red. Stars don't just change color. Well, they do, but if it had done so in the usual way, they wouldn't be alive. "It started glowing when…when…"

Curly nods. "Very blue. Very nice." 

"Same color as the star too," says Swansea. He can't help but feel that he's being at least partly ignored. Like he's in the room, but he isn't really. "Related?"

"Didn't know you believed in aliens, Swansea." Jimmy sits across the bay on one of the railings, feet on a crate as he stares at Curly almost vacantly. Something in his eyes is distinctly un-Jimmy-like. Jimmy doesn't get backed into corners, but that's how he looks right now. Like a cornered rat. A wet rat, greasy rat. Scared rat. 

"Didn't say anything about aliens," Swansea counters. "Although if anyone can come up with something better, I'd love to hear it."

There's a long silence. Long, uncomfortable. Like those first few weeks at breakfast. "Hey. Why's my tongue back?" Curly asks, runs a hand through his hair, and finds that it's back, too. 

Anya wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand. "We aren't - we're not sure. You were…dead. And now you're not. And you're…mostly healed. And it looks like you've even healed some since…waking up."

He reaches up, feels his face. Yes. Most of a lip, only some scar tissue, eyebrows mostly grown in. Much better than it was. So much less pain. He almost forgot what that was like. And his memory…still fuzzy. Mostly there but not quite. "I can't remember how I got hurt. I can't remember how I died."

Jimmy is, as ever, quick to jump in. "You threw the station out of orbit! We would have fallen into the star if the autopilot hadn't kicked on!"

That doesn't seem right. He frowns, but doesn't argue. Would he have done that? Curly has always thought that a good captain went down with his ship - and the Hephestus WAS going to go down if Goddard Futuristics had any say in it, but…at the expense of the rest of his crew? No, no. That didn't feel right.

Jimmy scrambles to his feet and leans over Curly in a way he figures is supposed to be menacing but doesn't really hit in his sort of addled state. "It would've been right for you to die, you know? Selfish bastard."

Another of Jimmy's favorite words, especially where Curly has always been concerned. Selfish, not Bastard, though Curly supposes he easily qualifies for both. He blinks up at Jimmy.

"Probably. If that's what happened, I'm sure I did deserve it. I'm sure it would have been right. But I'm alive." 

Swansea laughs, though it doesn't really sound amused. "Alright, you know what? I've had enough of this farce. Anya, Take Cap to the clinic. Jimmy, I know you like to pretend you're in charge, but right now let's use some of that energy to avoid the new gravitational pull of our 'blue dwarf'."

Chapter Text

"Mouthwash," Isabel says, scowling at the bottle of blue in her hand and then at the rows upon rows upon rows of boxes of the stuff. "We're carrying mouthwash? Seriously? Who the hell needs this much mouthwash?!"

There's a pause. Everyone looks at Doug, as if expecting a quip or reference. Instead, he's just deathly pale. Can't think of a word to say as he looks at the advertised 15 percent alcohol on the bottle. Kills 99.9 percent of bacteria. Seems to haunt him.

Renée leans over and looks at the bottle a little closer. "I don't even know if this stuff qualifies as mouthwash. It just seems like alcohol and sugar." She turns to Hilbert. "As much as I hate to even ask, can we make it usable?"

He shrugs. "Might be able to boil out the alcohol and utilize the sugar. Nothing guaranteed, of course."

Minkowski sighs, pinches the bridge of her nose and breathes out for three or so seconds, sighs again, and nods. "Well. That's something at least. Maybe not starving to death is better than definitely starving to death. Eiffel, you help Hilbert in whatever way he needs. Lovelace and I are going to see what we can do about the foam blocking the engine room. Hera, make sure we don't crash in the meantime. I know you can't do anything about the course correction, but just keep us out of any asteroid belts for the time being."

This is said a little dryly. There was a close call with the autopilot. Very close call. A scrape, really, with the foam deploying and this whole mess starting. Hera seems a little more nervous than usual when she replies. "Aye A-aye, C-Captain."

Poor Hera. Poor him. Obviously he knows pity doesn't get them anywhere, but it seems appropriate. Seems fair. It's not like he's just pitying himself. He's pitying everyone else, too. At least Hera doesn't have to worry about what to eat. 

Everyone splits from the cargo bay. Eiffel follows Doctor Horrible back to the lab, and sits as far away as possible. 

It's not at all helpful that Hilbert seems to know more about his pre-Pony Express life than anyone else, for reasons Eiffel doesn't really understand. "You don't, like, actually need help with this, right? 

"Help? No. Sit in corner, away from instruments," Hilbert grumbles, not really even looking at him as he waves a hand towards a corner of the den of evil. 

Doug nods enthusiastically and plops himself onto the floor, as far away from that mouthwash as he can possibly get. 

There are a series of frightening whirrs. Hilbert crosses the room and turns on some of his mad scientist machines. Something bubbles. Doug doesn't pay all that much attention until Hilbert speaks again. "You will not relapse."

His heart freezes. Skips one beat, then two. "Uhm…"

"Health record would not be wiped for doctor, no? Actually. That is a lie. No need to lie if we are to die up here, da? Have high, high clearance in company. Probably why was sent out here on this mission. Know about car crash, daughter, court case, prison time."

"That is…actually incredibly terrifying, thank you." He lets his head fall against his knees, and his voice goes squeaky. "Wait. High up in Pony Express? So what do you know about that they're willing to actually kill you over?"

Hilbert shrugs nonchalantly, and leans over a bubbling solution, blue slowly fading from it. "Medical experiments, poor hiring practices - convicts like you for little pay and no training - things like that."

"Why do I feel like you're grossly oversimplifying it?"

He shrugs and doesn't say anything else.

It takes Hilbert all of sixteen hours to drag Doug into the common room and have Hera gather everyone there, one cracked open mouthwash bottle and a red solo cup for everyone. He carefully pours a small amount into each cup, and gives Doug a little look before announcing. "Fifteen percent alcohol to zero percent."

Lovelace is the bravest. She raises the cup in a little toast and swallows it down before sputtering. "How - what? Why does it taste like seaweed?" Minkowski follows this with a skeptical look and downing her own drink, her face twisting into a surprised look.

Doug finally takes a swig, and almost spits it across the room. "Oh! Wow! It tastes almost exactly like that 'coffee'."

Hilbert has the audacity to look proud of himself. "Yes. Figured mint would get tired very quickly. Seaweed, on other hand…"

Lovelace blinks, unimpressed. "I think I'm gonna have to disagree on that one. I guess calories are calories, though."

Doug isn't totally sure about that one yet. 

"Well. That's one problem solved," Minkowski sighs, sounding like at least a little of the weight off her shoulders is gone. "That leaves the other obvious problem. The one cryopod. Whoever's in there has the best chance of making it back to Earth."

"You or Isabel should take it," Doug tells her. "You have your husband, and Isabel -"

"Nope! Count me out," counters Lovelace. "Minkowski can have it, or Eiffel. You've got something to go back to, right? Like. The Dr. Who Finale or something."

Doug winces, for about a thousand different reasons. "We don't talk about that anymore, and no."

"Nobody thinks I should have cryopod?" Hilbert asks dryly, though he's clearly neither surprised nor offended. This prompts a chorus of people telling him to shut up, including Hera. "Eiffel should have cryopod, or Captain Minkowski."

"Oh, no. Oh, don't you start!" Doug shakes his finger at Hilbert. "That's - that isn't your business!"

"What the hell are you two talking about?"

Doug turns to face Minkowski. "Nothing! We're talking about nothing. In fact, Doctor Robotnik was just going to close his -"

"Eiffel has daughter."

"What?" Minkowski's eyes widen into saucers, and she grips at her dark hair with one hand. "You have a what?! And when was this going to come up, Eiffel?" She's gritting her teeth as she talks, in the way that tells Doug he's really in for it this time. 

"Uh. Well. Never? It's a complicated situation!" Understatement of the millennium.

Hera's voice pipes up, crackly in the speaker that had been impacted by the almost-crash. "Your Pony Express personnel file doesn't say anything about a…family."

"No. It wouldn't. Uh. They offered to take all that stuff off my record. I guess we know why that was, right? They didn't expect us to come back. Well! Does anyone else have any incriminating secrets they want to share? Just me?"

The screen on the wall flicks to a new scene, from a sunset on a beach to a giant, glitching Polle, doing the closest thing a horse can do to a salute. Don't be daft!

A little late, Polle. 

"Look. Someone else take the cryopod. Someone other than me."

"No," Minkowski snaps. "This isn't a vote. XO?"

Lovelace nods. "No vote. Eiffel gets the cryopod."

"Guyyyyys!"

"And no arguing, either! That's an order, Officer Eiffel." Minkowski sighs, and runs her hand through her hair again, a little less aggressively. Her voice softens, too. "Look. I know it's not the ideal situation. But someone's got to get back to Earth if this mouthwash thing doesn't work out, and hold Pony Express responsible. Do you understand?"

"Uggghhh. Yes, Captain."