Title: Immolation, Alternative Ending

Rating: R

Warnings: plot alternative to canon, death, grief, angst

Author's Note: To me, the "real" ending of this story was the one originally posted, with all its implications intact. But I did write this alternative ending at the same time, and I wanted to offer it to anyone who may be interested. It follows immediately after the original ending.

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When he woke, there was sunshine.

Only, no, of course he couldn't see that, he was still in a spaceship. It was just a yellow bulb blaring light down on him. The shape of the light and the feeling of padded vinyl under him told him he was in the medical bay.

Oh, god. Capa.

Mace made sense of what must have happened while he was unconscious, and a sound escaped him - a wet breath and a choke. For an instant he resisted, No!, but the truth was inexorable.

He covered his face and turned onto his side, a painfully tight curl, and he didn't give a fuck who might hear him. The beautiful body and eyes and smile and arms wrapping around him and whispers to each other while they were supposed to be asleep and just Capa, it was all gone.

"Mace, it's alright."

Searle's voice by his head. "Just leave me alone!"

"Open your eyes, Mace."

Mace just curled up tighter and didn't speak, trembling.

Searle sighed at him. "Just open your eyes."

Mace's eyes cracked open to glare up at him, but they didn't make it there. Capa was on the second medical bed, a few feet away from him.

"How?" was the first word Mace managed.

"Kaneda insisted I give him a sedative syringe as well, just in case it was needed," the doctor explained. "At the last moment, he suddenly said he needed to speak with Capa. He went down there, drugged him, and went into the Payload himself. He was able to detonate it successfully."

"So he's... gone?" Mace's feelings were very confused. He had always respected the captain, it saddened him to learn of his death, but at the same time, he was just so overwhelmingly relieved.

Searle nodded. Mace dumped himself off of the bed, still unsteady with the drug, and persisted in making it over to Capa's bed. It was wide enough for him to crawl onto it and pull the prone physicist into his arms.

"He'll be out for a while. The dosage was meant for someone your size," Searle said.

Mace stroked Capa's face, and Searle knew he was only half being listened to, at the most.

"You know what Kaneda did was incredibly wrong," he continued regardless. "He risked the mission and the entire human race doing what he did. It could have gotten complicated - if the interior conditions had been anything but ideal, he wouldn't have known how to detonate properly."

Mace knew he should have cared, but he couldn't feel anything but extremely grateful for what the captain had done. Capa was still here, safe in his arms.