This is my interpretation of how Eli dealt with Ginn's death, which we didn't see a lot of in the show. This is the first instalment in a series of works; part two of Glass will be posted on the 1st April. I've been working on this and the follow up works for months, and finally had to tell myself to just let it go and post the thing. Flashbacks and thoughts are in italics. Any feedback is much appreciated, hope you enjoy! :)

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Stargate Universe: Glass

Part One: Lost.

xxxx

x

"This is Rush, I need help. Ginn's quarters – now!"

x

He knows as soon as he hears Rush's voice over the radio. He's not sure how. But he knows.

He's on his feet and pushing away from the console in a matter of seconds, the equations and diagrams on his screen instantly forgotten. Brody is calling after him but it doesn't register. The sound of his sneakers hitting the floor, hard, echoes loudly off the corridor walls but that doesn't register either. Nor does the fact that he collides with several people as he sprints, nearly sending Camile flying. He doesn't notice because he's seeing her, crimson hair and hazel eyes and soft pale skin and he's feeling that awful feeling deep in his chest and every time someone calls his name he's hearing her voice and he's running but he's still not there and it's taking too long and his lungs won't work and he can't breathe because he knows.

And then he is there, suddenly, with Colonel Young. He's standing there and even though his heart is thundering in his ears, the second he sees her everything stops. The world collapses in on itself. Nothing exists anymore.

x

xxxx

Ginn takes the stone nervously from the box; the surface is cool and smooth and she wonders briefly what this is going to be like. From what the Colonel and Rush have told her, she will be swapping…bodies…with a woman who requires a great deal of assistance just to live her day-to-day life. Just to breathe. She will not be able to feed, move, dress or care for herself, and as Camile has just pointed out, she may have to be on Earth for a while. She refuses to admit it out loud and she assures Eli that she's fine, but she's terrified.

Her hand hovers hesitantly in mid-air as she looks up at Eli one last time, searching his face for that look. His eyes are soft, full of reassurance and that Something Else. A small smile turns up the corner of his mouth. He sees the fear and the longing in her eyes and it makes his chest hurt; he has to fight with himself to not reach out and take her hand quickly, to kiss her, to do something to comfort her. To let her know how badly he is going to miss her for this short time they'll be apart. But Homeworld Command isn't going to wait around, not for the information they think Ginn has. So he only smiles, and tries to communicate all of the things he feels for her in just that one look, and tells her gently, "See you soon."

x

xxxx

See you soon. Those three words. The last words he said to her. Not, "You'll be alright." Not, "I'll be waiting," or, "I'll be here." Not, "I'll miss you." Not, "I love you." See you soon. He hates himself.

Everyone else is gone now. It's just him. And her. He knows something bad is happening on board the ship but he doesn't care. Why should he care anymore? She was his reason for caring. And now she's…

Gone. Ginn is gone. Forever.

He's been staring straight at her for the last ten minutes, every word spoken by the others having bounced harmlessly off his numb mind, but it's that thought that breaks him. Makes it real. "Ginn…." It chokes out of his throat, strained and raspy and painful, like he's coughing up razor blades. "Ginn." The metal floor is freezing even through the knees of his jeans, but he's already so cold – icy, trembling, all over – that he can't feel it. But this, this is a different kind of cold. The kind that starts inside, right in the centre of his being, and spreads out like a slow-burn to every single cell of his body. For a moment he can only kneel there, staring. Her flaming red hair is fanned out around her head, spread-eagled on the floor. Someone – TJ, he realises – has closed her eyes. If it weren't for the large, purplish bruises staining the porcelain skin of her neck, she could be sleeping. His hand is shaking violently as he reaches out to touch her – slowly, like he's afraid she'll suddenly jolt awake. In reality he's terrified that she won't. He stops breathing when his hand makes the barest, briefest contact with her face. But nothing. Nothing.

She's so cold.

His fingertips brush, gently, over her cheekbone, down to her chin, cupping her beautiful face in the palm of his hand and ghosting the pad of his thumb over her lips. Lips he'd kissed only this morning, right before Camile's unintentional interruption. "Ginn? Sweetie?" Even his voice is shaking. Badly. He knows that it was Amanda in Ginn's body, but when he looks at her he could care less about the other woman's consciousness. Oh, God, why hadn't he told her? Why hadn't he just told her how he felt instead of being so damn afraid?

See you soon.

He doesn't realise he's crying until the first warm droplet of saltwater splashes onto the apple of her cheek. Another. And another. He swallows, hard, to try and dislodge the lump stuck in his throat as he moves, stretching out his legs and pulling her so gently onto his lap. Because she has to be in there, somewhere. She has to be. She can't just be gone, just like that. Not like this. Not this way. She can't be. She can't be because just this morning she was fine, more than okay, just this morning. She can't be gone because they have plans. She's supposed to come back to Earth with him. He's going to introduce her to his mom – Ginn came over all nervous when he suggested that. What if Eli's mom doesn't like her? But of course she will. The two of them are so alike, it would be impossible for them not to get along like a house on fire.

He's supposed to show her everything worth experiencing on Earth, even the things he hasn't seen yet. July sunshine. Snow. Christmas – the tree that goes up in the centre of his hometown, the lights strung and lit up all around town every year without fail. New Years' in Time Square or London – he would like to see that. Would've. With her. Flash mobs. Fireworks. The beach. The sea. Everything, right down to the littlest, stupidest things. Hell, even pizza is on the list. Anything and everything, he's supposed to show her it all.

Was supposed to.

Because she's gone. She can't be, part of him is insisting. She can't be. But she is.

He struggles to stifle a sob halfway through, so that the noise wrenched from him is quieter, less embarrassing, but no less painful. It's no use pretending. Stupid. Prolonging the agony. Idiot. Ginn isn't here. She's not in her body. Not in Amanda's body. She isn't anywhere, isn't anything, except gone. She's –

His mind stumbles, stammers over the word.

D – d –

Sobs. Recoils. Can't. Too harsh. Too soon. Too final.

He's Eli the Boy Genius and he can't even –

He can't stop the sobs after that.

x

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Sometime later, he's finally numb. His eyes are red. His breathing is slow. Everything is silent. He's not sure what's happened in the last….how long has it been? Twenty minutes? An hour? Either way, he still doesn't care. No point in caring anymore. It's just a passing thought, really – he wonders if the others even care enough to feel something, anything, about Ginn's…or if they're relieved another Lucian Alliance member is gone – but it makes him remember. Simeon. And just like that, red-hot rage is bubbling in his veins, clouding his vision, shocking his blank mind into life. He'll kill him.

Then a hand, firm but gentle, on his shoulder. The rough but unmistakeably sincere tones of Greer's voice. Greer, who has stayed behind to check on him before going after Simeon. "I am so sorry, Eli." It's enough to bring him, temporarily, back to the present. Calm him down. The anger protecting his mind evaporates. The agony comes rushing back. Broken thoughts. Cradling her to his chest. He didn't get that gun he asked for.

He tries, honestly tries, to hold it together in front of Greer – he can't afford to go to pieces with someone else watching. He's supposed to be the collected, unfazed Eli Wallace. The one with all the answers. Then it occurs to him that Greer probably just witnessed the whole thing and that, for the first time, he has no answers, and he stops trying to be strong.

How badly he wants to be numb.

x

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He's lying on his bunk staring, unseeing, at the metal ceiling above him.

There's an insistent gnawing in the pit of his stomach; guilt or hunger, but he can't tell which one. Probably both. He should get up, go to the mess hall and get something to eat. Should. But won't. Just the thought of food makes him feel sick.

They've been attempting to get him to eat for days now, taking it in turns to show up at his room and try, really try, to make him interested in the bowl of not-so-nice whatever they bring with them. Once it was Chloe, who kept her composure as she took in his tired, pale face, dark circles and distant, red-rimmed eyes, and then burst into tears when he refused to look at her and told her, bluntly, that he wasn't hungry and to leave him alone. He felt so awful afterwards that he's been forcing himself to eat a spoonful of whatever they bring him. Sometimes it's Scott, who wheedles the odd comment or two out of him, who tries – and fails – to make him smile and who reassures him that everything is going to be okay. Mostly, though, it's Greer, who informs him that it's not.

He comes in and sets the bowl of Whatever down on Eli's chest, leans against the wall and tells him, "I'm not gonna pretend to know how you're feelin', Eli. But when you feel like draggin' your ass outta this room, we'll be here."

The brutal honesty after nothing but false reassurance is like a slap in the face. It stings, it hurts like a bitch. But, for a few minutes, it wakes Eli up.

And because there's a bowl of something incredibly nasty-looking right in his face and moving is the only way to get it out, Eli sits up on his bunk. And he eats the spoonful less reluctantly, whenever it's Greer. The soldier is the only one he can talk to normally now, in full, feeble sentences. Greer's the only one who saw him go to pieces, who knows the full extent of what this is doing to him. He's the only one who knows that what little Eli eats he mostly just throws back up again, in the middle of the night when the nightmares drag him under and he relives the bruises, the limpness in her limbs, the silence that her heartbeat should have filled. Greer's the only one whose presence actually helps. Eli can't talk to other people without losing his temper or his composure. If Rush needs him and he has to get up, has to go to the bridge, then he usually ends up snapping at Dale or Brody or Park over some little thing, some tiny error that isn't even really their fault.

He shouldn't have yelled at Brody earlier. That wasn't right. That's part of the guilt twisting away in his empty stomach. Next time he sees Brody he'll apologise. But until then he'll just lie here, waiting for Greer's next visit, for the next shot of reality. When Greer leaves, he'll slide back into the aching void of Empty somewhere between Acceptance and Denial.

Despite all that genius you couldn't save the life of the woman you loved.

Rush's words are still ringing in his ears, the truth behind them overshadowing his hatred of the man's cruelty. Because Rush is right. He couldn't save Ginn. He's supposed to be a genius but he couldn't even save her and he should've been there and he wasn't and now she's –

Eli's breath catches.

He's been counting every second since...since. He's hardly slept – too many nightmares of watching…It…happen. He stands helpless and watches it all, but it's not Amanda in Ginn's body. It's Ginn herself. She tries to fight until the end but he has the feeling that Perry was more inclined to run. He can't decide which is more agonising, the nightmares or the dreams. Watching It or the flashes of hazel-brown eyes and crimson hair, touches that still linger on him and tear at the gaping wound in his chest. Warm lips on his, sparks shot to every nerve in his body, his heart racing erratically and no more, no more warmth no more spark no more life no more touch no more want no more love because she's de –

Eli swipes at his eyes and forces himself to breathe.

x

xxxx

There's not much to do aboard Destiny on a normal day. There's Brody's Bar, or yoga with Chloe, and they're right in the middle of the Destiny Poker Championships in the mess hall. Scott, of course, is winning. If you're one of the science team then Rush will probably throw some work at you to get you out of his hair. Or just swat you away like an annoying fly. The latter tends to be the most common.

He supposes that's why he messes around with the kino so much, recording videos for his documentary. He's got some pretty good stuff so far, like explanations of how everything works, from the showers to the control panels, and a couple shots of Scott and Greer training in the armoury. There are protocol breakdowns and system descriptions, procedure lists. But it's not all technical stuff. In amongst all the heavy, serious film he's captured some of his favourite moments on board this ship – the prank he and Riley pulled on Brody that one time in the showers, turning him purple. The first time they figured out how to play music on the speaker system, and organised something of a party in Brody's Bar using the man's iPod: Brody still claims to have had no knowledge of the Britney Spears album they found on there, something they relentlessly tease him about whenever the opportunity arises. They were halfway through a Michael Jackson classic and a 'customised' version of Texas Hold'Em – involving a shoe, a cup of Brody's moonshine and a list of very interesting forfeits drawn up by Dale – when Rush burst in, ranting and raving about 'trying to work' and 'no respect for authority' before shutting the music off and locking them out of the speaker system for a month. Those moments, the minutes where (nearly) everyone is laughing and they can forget that they're billions of lightyears from home, are his favourite. Those are the moments he cares most about capturing. And besides, his documentary keeps him occupied when he's not working. It gives him a form of distraction and something to focus on when, as any member of the crew will complain, there really is not much to do.

And that's just on a normal day.

On a day when you have a date with a certain redhead who makes your voice die and your limbs turn to jell-o just by being in the same room, there are even fewer options.

But he is, after all, Eli the Boy Genius. His experience with women is far more limited than he'd like to admit, but he managed to come up with an idea. When hours of careful thinking and elaborate planning failed him, he went straight back to basics. He didn't care what they did, as long as he got to see her again. And Ginn asked to know more about him. Where he was from, what he did before he was trapped here – what, who, he left behind. He has a whole list of things he wants to know about her, and she about him, and this seems like the perfect way.

The short stretch of corridor outside has been declared a No-Go Zone, the door firmly shut and manned by Greer while Scott keeps a look out for Rush. Brody, Dale and Park are working as best they can to make sure Rush won't need to summon Eli for any reason.

On the observation deck, shut off from the rest of the ship and the crew, Eli sits on the little bench in the centre of the room. Ginn is beside him, close but not quite close enough. The FTL stream continues to shimmer, blurs of blue and purple and white, casting soft, flickering shadows over the room; it usually never fails to amaze, but tonight he could care less about the view. All of his attention is focused on the woman next to him, on her smile and her presence and on every word she speaks. She's laughing as he recounts the prank war that developed between Riley and Brody, a matter taken very seriously by both men, and he decides right then and there that there's no more beautiful sound in the universe. He grins before he can help himself, committing her laughter to memory, and continues. "Riley knew he had to get Brody back after the incident with Rush's work, so he came up with this idea. It was pretty brilliant actually – he was going to record a video pretending to accept defeat, give Brody a few days to be pleased with himself, and then trick him into thinking that he was poisoning people with his moonshine. Kinda like the time he made him think he'd activated Destiny's self-destruct sequence." Eli laughs, imagining the look on Brody's face that day as, horrified, he'd begun pressing every single button on his control panel in an effort to stop the sequence before yelling for Dale and Park and radioing Rush for a solution, then been too busy having some mild form of panic attack to listen as his friends burst into hysterics and the angry Scot cursed his incompetency. If only he'd been there to see it first-hand.

Ginn's laughing so hard her stomach hurts, and she's already had to wipe away tears. She hadn't expected Eli to be so funny. "And how was Riley going to do that?" she asks, trying to regain some of her composure – something she's been attempting to hold onto all night, because if he were to find out that being so close to him is making her lose her train of thought and her heart beat unevenly then she thinks she might die of embarrassment. So Ginn tries to act as close to calm as possible, burying her nerves under the light, warm feeling in her stomach.

She looks up just in time to catch the way his face falls and his smile fades. His whole body seems to deflate, the ease and happiness evaporating from the atmosphere. Eli's eyes drop to the floor and it only takes her a moment to realise why:

Riley died, less than a week ago.

"I don't know," Eli murmurs, his eyes fixed on a spot near his feet. "He said he'd explain it all to me when we got back from the supply run, said he'd need my help." He lets out a breath that isn't quite a sigh. "Only...he didn't come back." For the first time, he realises he'll never get to find out just how Riley was going to pull off that prank. The thought stops him short, and makes that niggling feeling of loss in his chest start to ache. Ginn watches him with something between sympathy and sadness in her eyes; she knows loss. She's seen it. Caused it. Felt it.

"You miss him," she whispers softly, and it comes out as more of a statement than a question. Eli nods, once, not trusting himself to speak for a few moments. He does miss him, more than he's willing to let on to the others. He's had very few close friends in his life, but Riley was one of them, and he knows it's a wound that'll be sore for a long time.

Beside him, Ginn looks out at the FTL stream, her heart sinking as she thinks back to just last week when the young Sergeant had been alive and well. "He was a good man," she finds herself saying, quietly, and the corner of her mouth turns up in a hint of a smile. "He always smiled at me, whenever we saw each other in the mess hall. Even though I was Lucian Alliance...every time. He must have been very kind." Her words make a smile suddenly appear on Eli's face, despite the sadness that fills him inside. Typical Riley. Being the one to spot the good among the guilty first.

"Yeah," Eli replies, and surprises himself with the small chuckle that he lets out. "That sounds like something he would do." Ginn continues to smile as his face visibly brightens. She's known him for a matter of days, but it's already clear to her that Eli Wallace carries a lot on his shoulders. He has that look, sometimes, in his eyes. That uncertainty of himself, that weight of the pressure on him to step up and be the genius, the one with the answers; the responsibility he feels for the lives of those he loves. She knows that look. She's seen it several times before, in the mirror. "I wish I could have told him how much I appreciated those smiles," Ginn adds. Eli nods again, and finally lifts his gaze to watch the steady FTL stream glow in front of them both.

"I wish I'd told him how much I appreciated him." For a few moments she simply looks at Eli, studying. He's still only young, but there are moments when – just for a split second – he looks so much older. Worn out. She knows it's because he misses his mother, because he's lost people. Like Riley. She knows that feeling, too. So when she turns to the FTL stream and murmurs,

"It's okay to miss the people we love when they're gone," it's not a lie, not a false reassurance. Just the tone of her voice is enough to make him look at her.

Ginn hadn't intended to tell him yet. Her past isn't something she usually shares with people, and there's barely a soul she's known in the past few years that she's told of the things she experienced on her homeworld, of the suffering the Lucians caused. Just mentioning the burnings and the abductions to Camile had been hard enough. Not knowing if the woman would understand, reliving memories that she's spent the whole of her adult life trying to forget. Eli, though...Eli's different, from the others. This isn't an interview.

She can feel his eyes on her, can feel him waiting for her to explain. Her heart is hammering in her chest – not just because Eli's here and his presence does that to her, but also because she's about to tell him the truth about herself. She's not some hardened thug from Lucia, she's not a murderer, a thief or a bandit like most of the rest of the Alliance. She's never been those things. Never willingly. "I lied," she finally admits, offering him a small smile. "To Camile. I'm not from the Milky Way. I didn't know if you could be trusted." Ginn pauses for a moment, her eyes on the FTL stream but seeing something else entirely. "My home planet, Patria...it was beautiful. My parents were crop-growers. They worked the land, all year round, growing produce and raising livestock to be sent off to the City. We were always wanting, all the farmers and labourers were. Patria's never been an easy planet to live on, especially for the born-poor like my family, but we were happy. Others, like Simeon, they..." Ginn hesitates, wondering exactly how to describe it. Her father had known Simeon, growing up. They were never friends. Simeon's family had owned the land a few fields over from Ginn's grandparents, and her father regularly saw him around the village and when helping his own father with the harvest. Simeon had always been cold and calculating, had had no friends among the village children. His family were poorer than most, their crops regularly failing, constant trouble between relatives. When the Alliance came, he was one of the few who voluntarily joined. "They suffer, and they go bad," Ginn finishes, rolling the description around in her mind for a second before deciding that, yes, it's pretty much the truth. "Simeon was from my village."

Patria? Eli wracks his brain, trying to remember if he's ever heard of such a planet before, but draws a blank. Where is it? He wants to ask but doesn't want to interrupt; it's obvious she's sharing something important with him, and if he's honest with himself he's hanging on her every word. As he watches she continues to gaze ahead, but he can tell that she's seeing something other than shimmering FTL colours. There's a smile forming on her lips that stops his heart for a second, and a distant, fond look in her eyes. "When I was a little girl, things were better. In the summer season, Auga, the fields would be rich and green, the crops ready for harvest. The sun would rarely stop shining, save to let a little rain come for the fields." Ginn's smile broadens as she remembers how beautiful her home planet once was. No measure of suffering could ever ruin those memories of Patria as it had been. "My sister and I chased each other through those fields all day, when we didn't have school. Our older brother would help my father with the land-work until the afternoon; then he'd come and find us, and chase us halfway to the next village before dinner."

It's impossible not to notice the way her face lights up as she talks about her childhood. She's grinning at memories he can only try and imagine, and when she laughs it runs straight through him and into his soul until he's almost laughing with her. She grins and looks down at her lap, crimson curls spilling over her shoulders, shaking her head in amusement at whatever it is that she's remembering; Eli makes a mental note to see this planet someday, to take her home – assuming that everything goes well between them, which he seriously hopes it does because he can't stop thinking about her, can hardly even concentrate sometimes when she's near, and he knows without a doubt that there is something different about her, about this. And then he realises that she has been speaking in the past tense.

It's okay to miss the people we love when they're gone.

As if they're sharing the same train of thought, her grin gradually fades from her face. Ginn swallows to try and dislodge the lump stuck in her throat, but she's not about to cry: it's been too long for it to still drive her to tears. It's an older pain, a dulled pain, now. No, she just doesn't like to talk about it. But this is Eli, and Ginn wants him to know the truth about her, because he's different and she more than likes him. So she takes a breath and forces herself to find the words to talk about it all, properly, for the first time. "When I was ten, the Alliance came," she begins, her voice steady. "They'd started spreading their control to galaxies beyond the Milky Way, extending their power – Canis, Felis, Oria. Patria is in the Felis Galaxy, one of the first they tried expanding their control to. One day everything was okay, and then the next they showed up in their ships and...that was it." Eli listens, his heart heavy and settling somewhere around his navel as he begins to understand what happened to her home planet. "They took Patria by force. At first, some of our Governors tried to resist them and demanded they leave; they were executed, as was...as was anyone who protested. They took control of the schools, changed our lessons to focus solely on the sciences, on technology, on war. The Alliance forced the Developers, in the City, to work on new technology for them. Weapons, ships, I'm not sure. They started burning our farms so that we had nothing to eat but the food they gave to us, to keep us dependent. Some villages were burned to the ground. Some starved. Some were all executed to teach us discipline. They said you could see the smoke all the way from the City."

Ginn feels surprisingly composed. Her words don't tremble and her hands are still in her lap instead of shaking. The only thing that isn't calm is her heart, which is currently throwing itself against her ribcage. "Two years ago," she continues, the words tumbling out faster as she rushes to finish explaining, "I was taken from my village and told, at gunpoint, that if I didn't join the Alliance then my family would be murdered. I didn't have any choice. My brother had already been conscripted. I don't know if anything happened to my sister. I haven't seen my family since."

Anxious, she risks a glance over at Eli to see his reaction – she finds him watching the FTL stream intently, hurt plain on his face, and she curses herself. She hadn't meant to make him more upset. In a heartbeat she reaches out and touches his hand on his leg, taking it in both of hers as if she's known him for years. In a lot of ways, it feels like she has. The second she touches him Eli looks up, the pain slipping for just a second at the shock her hands on his sends through him. Her skin is soft, her grip firm but gentle. His stomach is twisting and his heart thuds heavily, aching in his chest. Her story has turned him so cold. It's because of her, he realises. It's because he has feelings for her that he's never had for anyone, not even Chloe, and the idea of someone hurting her makes his blood freeze in a way he'd never known was possible."I wanted you to know that you're not alone, Eli." She doesn't allow herself to pause, doesn't give her words a chance to squeeze her heart with a yearning for home. "It's okay to miss Riley. And it's okay to miss your mother," Ginn tells him sincerely. "We love people for a reason. And we lose those people for a reason." Eli opens his mouth to speak, but her smile causes the words to die in his throat. He swallows, looks at her in something close to awe; she's...she's like no person he's ever met before. She can have him laughing and smiling one moment, and then furious on her behalf the next. She can make him forget his own name and how to speak, make him blush and his limbs refuse to work, make him powerless. And then just by smiling at him she makes him feel like he can do anything. He's hooked.

He's in love with her and it's the single best feeling he has ever, ever felt.

x

xxxx

He should have told her. He should have told her the moment that he realised he was in love. But he didn't, and now he'll have to live with that for the rest of his life, however short that may turn out to be.

He wonders if it would have made a difference if she'd known. Maybe she'd have been more reluctant to leave him to go speak to Homeworld Command. Maybe the extra time it would've taken Camile to persuade her would have caused a delay. Maybe someone else would have had to switch bodies with Perry. Maybe someone else could have died, instead of Ginn. It's a cruel, cold thought and he knows it, knows deep down that it would have been James or Park or Chloe instead and he wouldn't have wanted them to die, but it's been a persistent idea in the back of his mind for days now. If only he'd just told her, then she might still be alive. It's not just Simeon's fault, or Homeworld Command's. It's his fault, too. And it makes him sick to his stomach.

If he closes his eyes and focuses, he can almost convince himself that he can sense her sitting beside him again. If he tries, he can remember the feel of her hands, the light weight of her as she moved closer and leant against him. He can picture her face that night, see the joy in her smile, hear the longing in her voice as she spoke of her home. Later, when he'd walked her back to her quarters, she'd confessed that she'd never told anyone those things before. Not a soul, not in that detail. Eli can't quite describe how it feels to know that he's the only one she ever opened up to about it, aside from a strange sort of relief that she trusted him. He wishes he'd told her about his ruined childhood. The day his mother had been stuck by that needle. How his father had left, just cracked under the pressure and walked out on them both. How he's spent the entirety of his adult life so far trying to be a better man than his father was. Eli wishes he'd told her, because it seems unfair that she laid her past bare for him to see and he didn't do the same for her.

He wishes. He wishes.

Because that's all he can really do now, isn't it? He can only wish and hope and long for things that will never ever happen, will never become a reality because she's not here anymore. Ginn isn't here. She's gone. She's dea –

He still can't say it. Can't think it. Every time he tries it's agony and, if he's honest with himself, a large part of him doesn't ever want to acknowledge it. Because until he does, she's just...Gone. Not Here. Until he says it, forces out that single word, it's like it's not permanent. Like at any moment, any minute, she could come back. She could just walk right in, turn up right here on the observation deck out of the blue. He'd be able to see her and touch her and hear her and he'd take her into his arms and hold on and keep her there forever and he wouldn't ask questions wouldn't yell at her because the joke wasn't funny and she'd driven him half-mad with grief and hurt wouldn't shout wouldn't cry wouldn't sob wouldn't speak wouldn't even breathe because he'd give anything anything at all you name it he'd give it just for her to walk through that door and for this all to have been some dream some joke some trip some awful nightmare and for her to be here and okay and breathing and Not Gone.

Anything. But that doesn't matter; what he would give, what he would exchange is meaningless now. Why? Because of that one word, that one syllable that he still can't bring himself to think or say. It's a constant weight on him, stooping his shoulders, squeezing his heart, choking the air from his lungs. It's a cloud that hovers not just over his head, not just above but also inside him, consuming his thoughts and feeding the pain until he's sure he'll either lose his mind or suffocate under the torment. That word is the reason why he spends almost all his free time lying on his bunk staring up at the ceiling. Why he still doesn't sleep, still can't stomach the thought of food, why tonight he actually left his quarters to come here, to what he feels like is – was – their place. He can't say that word. He can't say it, and it's killing him.

But it's okay. It's okay.

Here, now, he feels like he can sense her again. Like she really is still here. It's a nice change from the constant feeling that she is always just out of sight, just out of his range of vision – nothing more than a flash of crimson or hazel that he glimpses from the corner of his eye. He always turns, always looks. Is never fast enough, never catches her. She slips through his fingers every single time.

x

xxxx

The ship is near-silent. Only the steady thrum of Destiny's systems prevents total quiet. He's been sitting here for hours; it must be the middle of the night, which means the rest of the crew are almost all asleep. No one's come looking for him yet, and he hopes it's because nobody's noticed he's gone from his quarters. He wants to be alone for as long as he can. He wants this chance to pretend that everything is going to be okay. But what he really wants, more than for this pain to go away, is to disappear. He wants to sit on this bench on this deck on this ship until age and decay cause the shields to fail and she's vaporised and he along with her. He's weak and broken and he wants to disappear, to reduce himself to nothingness and cease to exist, to feel, to breathe. He's damaged and frayed around the edges, just a tangle of stitches and string, but grief has taken those threads and it's pulling and pulling and pulling and it's going to unravel him until there's nothing left but buried memories and an empty space where a boy named Eli Wallace used to be.

He wonders how long it will take. Surely not much longer; he's already at his wit's end, whether or not the rest of the crew understand that yet. TJ, he thinks – judging by the long, searching looks she keeps giving him – is beginning to notice that he's only getting worse. There's no way to fix this. It's all downhill from here.

Eli has no idea what the time is, not that Earth time really exists out here no matter how much they pretend otherwise, but he aches. His head, his eyes, his chest, his limbs – sleep won't provide him with any relief, but at least it'll subject him to a different kind of torture. Without so much as a sigh, Eli slowly gets to his feet, feeling like an old man with the way his exhausted body hurts. He really should start eating properly again, but every time he tries it only comes back up or chokes him on the way down.

He's halfway across the room when he hears the footsteps, growing louder as their owner comes down the corridor. Too light to be Scott or Greer, too casually slow to be someone going anywhere with a specific purpose. This means it's almost definitely not someone who's looking for him, which fills Eli with an immediate sense of relief. He's too tired and too upset to deal with questions tonight. If they're not looking for him, then it's probably James. He's seen her up and walking around some nights, when she can't sleep. Back Before...back Before It they'd sit and talk sometimes, about things. Things that had happened. Things that hadn't happened yet. She's a good friend, and he appreciates the concern she's shown for him lately. But he doesn't have words for anyone tonight. Knowing James will understand if he brushes past her with a nod and a half-hearted smile, Eli keeps going and moves out into the corridor to silently slip back to his quarters. The false, not-quite-genuine upturn of the corner of his mouth is already in place as he lifts his head to look at her.

Crimson. Hazel. Porcelain. Not James.

His heart stops in his chest. His mouth drops open and closes again. The air leaves his lungs in one short whoosh as the sight of her hits him like a freight train square in the chest. For a long, long moment Eli can only stare at her, shock sparking across his brain – and then he chokes, cold air forcing its way down his throat, the blood throbbing double-time in his veins, and he bursts out, "Ginn?!"

It's her. Her eyes are warm and her cheeks are flushed and it's her, standing right here in front of him, as flesh and blood as the day they met. There are hot tears rolling down his face now but he can't even feel them, would barely be able to wipe them away with the violent trembling that has taken hold of him. He reaches out to touch her, grab her and anchor himself to her so she can't ever leave again; she smiles sweetly at him – thud thud thud his heart is battering itself against his ribcage – and steps a graceful millimetre from his grasp. Eli's hand moves uselessly through the air, familiar eyes boring into his through long lashes. And then in the blink of an eye Ginn vanishes, nothing more than a flash of curls and black Lucian uniform. His feet take him after her with hardly a second's hesitation, throwing him down the corridor. He can't think of anything other than the fact that she is here, Not Gone, and that awful suffocating fear that if he doesn't catch her now he'll lose her all over again, for real this time. He reaches the end of the corridor and jerks to the left so fast that later he wonders how he escaped without whiplash. Nothing. "Ginn?!" Eli desperately calls her, whole body wrenching to the right – just in time to catch another glimpse of her rounding the next corner. He doesn't think. He just moves.

x

xxxx

He's panicking, breathless, when he collides with another solid body coming in the opposite direction, almost crashing to the floor with the impact. For a fraction of a second he thinks it's her, and his hurting heart gives a great leap in his chest – and then plummets back to somewhere around his navel when he realises that it's not. Expression bewildered, his face pale with lack of sleep, Colonel Young reaches out to steady himself against the wall. Eli, still out of breath and his thoughts beyond distracted, rights himself quickly. There's a more pressing matter, a bigger problem, than having almost knocked the Colonel off his feet. "Eli," Young gasps, a little winded and more than a little concerned as he takes in the boy's haggard, haunted appearance. He looks as if he's seen a ghost. "What's – "

"Where is she?" Eli cuts the Colonel off mid-question, twisting first left and then right. The corridors intersect here; she could have gone left, right or maybe even straight ahead, and if Young hadn't come round the corner and gotten in the way, he would've seen which one it was. "Which way did she go?!" he demands, looking back to the Colonel impatiently. Every second that passes she's getting further away from him. For a few moments, Young can only stare at Eli in utter confusion, wondering what the Hell has got him so worked up. The desperation in his eyes is almost frightening, his voice louder and more frantic than Young has ever heard it: it's the biggest outward display of emotion Eli's shown since It happened and that worries him.

"Eli, what are you talking about?" he manages to get out, his eyebrows drawing together. The frustration is clear on Eli's face, and he's pacing, something Young has never seen him do before. At least, not as frantically as this.

"Ginn," Eli answers, not pausing to look at the Colonel as he peers down the possible corridors anxiously, in the hope that she'll appear. That she'll come back to find him. That she'll wait. "I saw her outside the o-deck and I followed her but I don't know which way she went, Colonel, which way?!" He stops pacing, but he keeps looking down each passageway again and again, over and over. She'll come back for him. She will. He just has to calm down and wait here for a minute until she comes to find him. Because she will. She always comes back. Colonel Young watches the boy carefully, his heart sinking rapidly. He thought that maybe, just maybe, this burst of emotion might be a sign that Eli is getting better. Instead, he tries not to show it on his face as his fleeting hope turns to an almost painful combination of pity and concern. He'd had no idea that Eli was getting this bad. "I'll just stop here and wait," Eli is muttering to himself with a distant look in his eyes, quiet but still audible enough for Young to hear, "until she realises I'm not there and comes back for me. She's just playing. She likes teasing me, she says that I – "

"Eli," Colonel Young begins firmly, clearly. Reluctantly. The tone of his voice makes Eli look over at him, an almost startled expression on his face. The Colonel's face is unreadable, but his posture is the one he adopts whenever he has to deliver bad news; hands clasped in front of him, shoulders drooped, and Eli knows that stance. He's seen it far too many times since they were all trapped here. The older man meets his gaze evenly and wishes, not for the first time, that he knew how to set everything right again. For everyone. "Ginn's dead."

An infinite second of pure, heavy silence passes between them.

Then, finally, Eli chokes out: "What?" He doesn't understand what the Colonel is telling him, can't process it, can't – and she's going to be back any minute, he doesn't have time for this – "Colonel, I can't really talk, she'll come back soon and – "

"No, Eli," Young interrupts him slowly, steadily. He's trying to be gentle but God, there's no such way to do this. "She won't. She's dead." More silence. Eli stares blankly at the Colonel, the words reverberating in his mind like echoes. A cold knot begins to form in the pit of his stomach.

"No," he breathes out, visibly struggling to comprehend what he's being told. "I just... just saw her, I..." He trails off, casting another glance down the corridor to his right. Where is she?

"I'm sorry," Colonel Young continues, surveying the boy with sympathy as his form begins to noticeably wilt. The energy, the panic, the desperation – it all slowly fades away before Young's eyes. Eli becomes absolutely still. And then he murmurs under his breath, as if to himself,

"No." Then again, louder this time, "No." Eli looks back at the Colonel and begins to shake his head. "No, you're wrong," he tells the older man, and his eyebrows come together in a frown – but it's agony, not anger, on his face.

"I'm sorry, Eli," Young repeats. "Simeon killed her...he strangled her and Amanda Perry to death. She's gone."

Gone. Ginn is Gone. An icy chill is spreading through every cell of Eli's body. Dead. D-e-a-d.

But he continues to shake his head, becoming more distraught by the second. He licks his lips, looking around for her again, looking at the floor, the wall, the ceiling, anywhere but at this man who is trying to tell him that – trying – trying to – "No, she's not," Eli insists. There are new tears brimming in his eyes now. "She wouldn't leave me here alone." Sighing deeply, Young tries and fails to suppress the guilt welling up inside him for what he is doing. He feels like the cruellest soul in the world, but Eli can't torture himself like this. It'll send him over the edge, and they need him. They can't lose someone else. Wanting to offer the boy the little comfort that he can, Young steps forwards and reaches out to put a steadying hand on Eli's shoulder; but before he can make contact Eli flinches and recoils out of reach.

"No!" he snaps, the tears on his cheek revealing his agitation to really be pain. "Don't, you're lying, you're wrong, she – she, no – " And with that Eli turns away and starts off down the passage behind him, running a hand through his tousled hair, his heart pounding furiously in his chest. His tears are burning but he's so cold, so cold inside that it hurts. She can't – dead, no – liar – can't be Gone, not her, not her please she can't –

x

xxxx

Brown eyes are staring at him. Big, sunken, exhausted brown eyes.

They're gazing out from a face that's startlingly thin and too unnaturally pale. If Eli saw that face and those haunted eyes anywhere else on board this ship he would do a serious double-take, would be more than concerned. Would be. Might be. He turns away from the mirror, silent; he's not sure he can feel anything anymore. He doesn't see why he should. She's dead and he's dead inside so it would be pointless to feel at all.

Dead. He can think it now. Say it. Dead. That's what he is. That's what she is. Ginn is dead and that's it, that's reality and there's never going to be a way to fill this deep, empty hole inside him.

But that doesn't stop her. Being Gone doesn't stop her from being Here. It only took that one moment outside the observation deck, that night, and since then she's been everywhere. Even now she is watching him, perched on the edge of his bunk; if it weren't for the fact that the crimson of her hair is a little dulled, her eyes a little cool and her skin nearly as washed out as his, This Ginn could be alive and breathing. That, and she's dead.

He's been repeating it over and over like some sort of sick mantra, these past few days. The stab of agony that came with it every time was the only thing left that he could feel. Now, though, he feels nothing. He runs his dry tongue over even dryer lips and gazes right back at her, numb. She blinks, once. This Ginn doesn't speak. It used to frighten him, but not anymore. "Why'd you have to leave me?" he whispers into that suffocating void of silence between them, voice hoarse with lack of use. "Why did you have to go?" This Ginn doesn't answer. Eli continues anyway. His voice is shaky and uneven, whether from thirst or some emotion he can't feel, he doesn't know. But it makes the words tremble as they come out. "I don't know why you left. There's supposed to be a reason, right? That's what you said. So why? Why did you leave me?" He's wasting away, he can feel it. Every day a little more of him disappears, vanishes, like it was never there. "I can't do this."

TJ is getting worried about him, even more so since Colonel Young told her about the 'hallucinations'. He heard them whispering about it as he passed TJ's quarters yesterday on his way to help Rush. She wants to give him something but 'there's nothing for that kind of pain.' "I can't, not alone," he murmurs, wanting to feel something, anything. Wanting her to talk. Wanting her to live. "You're everything. You made this...being here...bearable." A memory of her hands, her lips, a sucker punch to the stomach, a sharp breath from his lungs, a pain, a Feeling. "How am I supposed to do this without you?"

This Ginn doesn't speak.

x

xxxx

The next planet they gate to is beautiful. Rolling green hills, meadows rich and golden stretching as far as the eye can see. They stumble into forests that seem like something out of a dream, beneath blue sky brighter and purer than any Eli has ever seen before. Earth as it would have been, without the poisons of humanity. As it should be. It saddens him to think that he had to come so far from home to find such untainted beauty. He feels – feels, memorises, savours – an aching in his chest as he recalls the look on Ginn's face and her words that night as she spoke of Patria.

In the summer season, Auga, the fields would be rich and green, the crops ready for harvest.

Eli looks out over a clear, quietly rippling brook; on the other side emerald grass waves lazily back and forth in a warm breeze, and beyond that corn-yellow fields go on and on for miles, until they touch the doorstep of woodland on the distant horizon, trees he would defy even skyscrapers to match in height. Something out of a dream.

My home planet, Patria...it was beautiful.

Scott is directing the off-world team to a selection of several safe water sources, but Eli's mind is elsewhere. Here, he decides. It should be here. There's a meadow close to the gate, thick with unknown wildflowers that none of them can name in more colours than Eli knew existed. They bury her in a blanket of soft, sound earth, kind words under dazzling sunshine. Colonel Young leads the service, praising her bravery and her strength of heart. Varro manages a few words before he chokes. Eli can't speak at all. He cries. Of course he does. But he also smiles. It's weak and weary, but in his heart he feels that she is, now, a little closer to the home she lost. In his heart he is in his quarters with her hands at his collar and her lips meeting his for the first time, with a sheepish smile and a burst of nerves. In his heart she is safe.

x

xxxx

The next time Greer comes to see him, Eli eats the whole bowl. It sticks in his throat like glue and threatens to choke him, but he forces it down one spoonful at a time.

x

xxxx

"I thought the angle had to be off – the numbers just weren't adding up." Lunch, the two of them in the mess with Brody, Park and Dale. The usual rations, the usual day working at the Apple Core, the usual faces. But always laughter, since she arrived. The five of them sit together every lunch, without fail; before her they wouldn't find much to laugh about, sometimes not even something to smile about. All the playful joking and ribbing had stopped. The monotony of their routines and their failure to return home, or even to make any significant progress towards getting back, were taking a toll. Riley's death and the emptiness that followed had cast a black cloud of sorrow over all of them. But then Ginn came. "I mean, I ran them five times, and it still wasn't working." The smile on her face is as bright as ever as she sits beside him, close enough that their shoulders touch and her hair brushes his arm. Eli finished eating at least twenty minutes ago, and he hasn't spoken in nearly ten, but he doesn't mind; he's more than perfectly happy to just sit here and listen to her talk math with the three scientists, watch her face light up with interest, hear the enthusiasm in her voice. He loves it when she talks math. He loves it when she talks about anything, really, but especially math.

"Did you try that other equation, the one we were working on the other day?" Dale asks, looking a little confused as he tries to figure out how she might have solved the problem. He rubs his bristly chin in thought, eyebrows drawing together in a slight frown, and Brody doesn't miss the chance for a joke. Spooning the last of his rations into his mouth, he states matter-of-factly,

"You look like an old man when you do that." Dale looks over at the engineer on his right, even more confused.

"When I do what?"

"Stroke your beard," Brody replies, managing to keep a straight face as he pushes his empty canteen away from him. Comprehension dawns on Dale's face; he opens his mouth to retort, but Ginn is faster.

"You remind me of my grandfather," she says, scooping up some of her rations as she speaks and keeping her eyes on her food. Her tone is innocent enough, but Eli can still make out the amused smile that she's trying hard to suppress.

Brody leaps on the opportunity again quick as a shot, grinning and slapping Dale on the back. "Alright gramps?" he asks him, and as they all chuckle to themselves Dale indignantly tries to defend himself, the tips of his ears beginning to turn red with embarrassment.

"So someone like Rush grows a beard and it's okay, but I do it and it's hilarious?" The look of genuine offence on his face only makes it funnier, and Eli can't resist joining in.

"Careful, you might get mistaken for the Missing Link," he warns as he sips his water, sounding serious but quirking a joking eyebrow at his friend.

"Maybe you and Rush could get together and plait your beards sometime," Ginn suggests helpfully, and this mental image has all four of them cracking up, while Dale just sits there wearing an expression of incredulity.

"Why am I even friends with you guys?" he asks, shaking his head slowly at their behaviour.

"Because you scared all the other villagers away?" Park suggests, trying and failing to stifle her laughter behind her hand.

"No animals at the table!" Brody fake-admonishes as he wipes at his eyes. Eli's laughing so hard his stomach hurts, and they're starting to attract some funny looks from the other tables.

"You're clearly just jealous of my manliness!" Dale tells them all defensively, frowning in hurt, but it does the exact opposite of shutting them up – they all dissolve into hysterics at his words, now so loud and disruptive that half the mess is peering over or rolling their eyes at the science team. Brody doubles over and lays his head on the table, unable to sit up straight; Eli has one hand over his eyes and the other round Ginn's waist as she leans against him, her forehead on his shoulder and laughter wracking their frames so badly that they're both shaking. Park's giggling goes silent behind her hands before bursting out again when Greer walks past, looking just a little frightened.

"Villagers!" Brody gasps into the metal surface of the table, desperate for air but too hysterical to breathe. None of their jokes were even particularly funny, but Dale is still sitting there looking wounded and it's more hilarious than any of them can handle.

"My grandfather used to plait his beard!" Ginn half-sobs with laughter, and they're off on another round of hysterics before they can stop themselves. Eli can't even get any words out, tears in his eyes. In amongst all the hysteria, he is indescribably grateful to whatever force in the universe brought Ginn to him. Not just because he loves her – and he'll tell her, he will, soon – but also because of the effect her presence has had. Her smile, her laugh, her excitement; it's all contagious, infectious, and it's brought some much-needed positivity to everyone she's gotten to know. At first he thought he was the only one who felt it, and put it down to his feelings for her – but he realises now that Ginn is just one of those people. She can put you perfectly at ease, can make you feel lighter, happier, with whatever she says. Sometimes she doesn't even have to say anything. Just her presence is enough. She's been a breath of fresh air and thanks to her, he and the science team have laughed more in the past few days than they have in the last month. She's something close to a miracle, and she's his.

Ginn's words about her grandfather send more uncontrollable laughter round the table – then a small smile begins to appear on Dale's face. A grin. And then all of a sudden he, too, collapses into hysterics. They eventually calm down, and Ginn goes back to explaining her math problem to the others. Eli goes right back to watching her, memorising her smile, laughter like sunshine.

He savours the ache in his abdomen, and promises himself he'll never let her go.

x

xxxx

The mess is pretty much the same as it always was. All the tables are full of talking crew members, all eating and chatting about the more than mundane things they have to discuss on this ship, just like normal. There's a low hum of voices and noise, a slight buzz of activity. Life for these people has gone on just like always; it didn't stop, didn't lose meaning, wasn't broken or ruined by Ginn's death. The world didn't end for them.

It feels so unreal as he crosses the room, as if he's trying to relive someone else's life, go back to a time that never happened. Eli can feel eyes on him the whole way. They watch him as he waits in the short line, as Becker fills a canteen and hands it to him with a sincerely sympathetic smile. It's not until he turns around that he finds Scott, Chloe and Greer staring at him from their table on the other side of the room. They all smile at him, too, before looking away. He doesn't understand why people feel the need to smile. It's not going to make him feel any better, isn't going to fill this gaping hole inside of him. But he's not an ass – he knows it's a reminder from them that they care, that they're relieved to see him out of his quarters and amongst other people, finally. He knows that they will all have heard about his 'hallucinations' by now. The fact that he's been seeing his dead girlfriend everywhere he goes. He knows that there is a fraction of pity, however big or small, behind those smiles. He hates being pitied.

Eli's on the verge of deciding to go eat in his quarters away from all the staring – because there are other eyes on him, now – when the closest table catches his attention. Unlike the others, there are no voices coming from this table. No grins. No laughter. He can feel the heavy blanket of silence and misery that covers the occupants from where he's standing. Dale, Brody and Park are all eating wordlessly, and before he knows it his feet are carrying him over. But this still doesn't feel real. Very few things feel real anymore, especially his life, Before. Especially the person he used to be. His memories. So when he reaches them, he pauses. He hesitates for a few long moments, and then he asks something he's never asked them before. "It alright if I sit here?" It comes out rough, hoarse. He doesn't even sound like he thinks he used to.

Brody and Dale both freeze when they look up and see that it's him. Park is the one who finds her voice, wipes the surprise off her face and answers softly, "Yeah. Sure." He sits down, in his usual spot, and starts spooning his rations into his mouth. They go back to doing the same. None of them stare, none of them smile. He's incredibly grateful for that. Silence is resumed, at least in this little bubble of despondency. As Eli eats his gaze travels around the room, studying the rest of the crew, the rest of his friends. How comforting it must be, he thinks, not to have part of you missing. Not to have this crushing, permanent weight pressing down on you constantly, the way he does. To know who you are, and remember who you used to be. It must be an invaluable feeling.

She's standing at the doorway when he sees her. Just standing there, smiling at him. Like always, it's a kick in the gut. Eli had thought it would stop after the funeral. That she would be Gone, and stay Gone. Except he's seen her three times since then. Three times. In his quarters, in the hall, and now here. She won't leave him alone. Eli closes his eyes tightly and looks down, counting to five slowly in his head –

– notrealnotrealnotrealnotreal notreal –

When he opens his eyes and glances up again, she's no longer there. But she'll be back, later.

He returns to his food just as Dale breaks the silence. "Rush wants to see us on the bridge in an hour," he murmurs, and Eli knows he's talking to Brody and Park. Eli hasn't seen Rush in days. Dale doesn't even look up from his canteen as he speaks, scraping around the bottom for the last couple of spoonfuls. No one says anything for nearly a minute, until Brody quietly replies,

"Sure thing, gramps." It's a mutter, a less than half-hearted attempt at a joke, at retaining some semblance of the way things used to be. A jolt of pain tears through Eli's chest as he remembers that day, sat in this very place. His stomach aching, tears in his eyes, the warmth of her body pressed into him and her laughter echoing in his ears; the look on her face when Dale and Brody applauded her for the algorithm she'd thought to use to solve that math problem; the shy way she'd reached for his hand under the table, the blush that crept onto her cheeks. It all hits him in an instant and all of a sudden the space beside him feels so, so empty.

The words obviously tumbled out before they could be stopped, because Brody has gone completely still, his face ashen. As Dale and Park both pause, realising what Brody just said, Eli carries on as if nothing has happened. If he stops now, he'll either choke on his food or he'll start thinking about her and Before and then he'll cry. If he gives in to the despair welling up inside him and constricting his throat, he'll ruin all the effort he's made to hold himself together for the past 24 hours. So he keeps going. One small spoonful at a time, and after a moment or so Dale and Park both follow his lead.

Brody doesn't. He stares at his canteen, still half full, for a few moments longer. And then he just straightens up, throws his spoon down in the tin and sits there, his eyebrows drawn and his lips pressed tightly together; but he looks far from angry. It's not long before Dale pushes his own food away, resting his elbows on the table and lacing his fingers together, hiding half of his near-unreadable expression behind them. And then Park stops, too. The sharp tap of her spoon as it hits the table seems deafening in this new silence that immediately engulfs them all, and it's this that makes Eli waver. His determination slips just enough for him to glance up and notice the intense sadness in Dale's eyes, the way Brody looks sick with himself. My grandfather used to plait his beard! Eli tries to remain firm, reminding himself that he cannot break – but even as he tries to scrape another spoonful a light rattle draws his attention to his trembling hands.

Laughter like sunshine.

He gives up before the spoon can even leave his canteen, letting go of the shaking utensil. Eli can't bring himself to look at any of them, embarrassed by his inability to carry on, to keep it together. His gaze falls on the floor a few feet to his left and remains there as more painful thoughts consume him; memories of her, only memories now, all he has left. He needs to stop doing this. Gotta get it together, Eli tells himself. Gotta be a man. Can't afford to keep hurting. He feels so weak – and not so much in the physical sense. He's been eating properly for a few days now, and since she started haunting him in his waking hours instead of his dreams he's been sleeping a little more. He still looks ill, like he's sick with something – and maybe he is – but he doesn't look as plainly awful as he did before. No, he feels weak in the mental sense. The emotional sense. She would have wanted him to carry on and be happy; but here he is blubbering and shaking like a frightened little girl at the mere memory of her because he's not strong enough, because he's too scared to face it all without her. He should be stronger. Braver. More mature. He should have stopped acting like a boy and started being a man a long time ago, and if he had he would have been able to save her. But no, he's weak and a coward and now she's –

The hand on Eli's arm brings him crashing back to reality in a heartbeat. He doesn't jump, but his gaze shifts sharply from the floor to the limb on the table that is now being touched. It's a colossal effort not to tense up and snatch his arm away immediately. No one's touched him since she died, not since Greer. They've tried, sure, but he's always recoiled, always flinched away; it's her touch that he wants to remember, the feel of her hands on his skin. No one else's. Only hers.

The hand belongs to Park. She's reached across the space between them, bridging the gap, and as he watches she moves up his arm to his hand. She stills the trembling fist with her much smaller fingers. She doesn't say a word. Although his left hand is still shaking somewhat the gesture is not lost on him – Eli looks up at her, meeting dark, glassy eyes full of a deep grief he's never seen there before. Park holds his gaze for a few moments before she looks away, swiping at her cheek with her free hand. It takes him several seconds to realise that she's crying, and when he does he lifts his head and his gaze flickers to the other two scientists: Dale's eyes are on his canteen, white as a sheet with the lower half of his face still hidden behind overlapped hands, but his thoughts are clearly far away from this moment. Brody hasn't moved, looking the picture of misery with his pursed lips and low eyebrows. They all look miserable. They all look about as pained as he feels. And it hits him then that for these people things have changed. For Brody and Dale and Park life hasn't just gone on the same, not after Ginn died. They are hurting just as much as he is. Thinking the same thoughts. Wanting to say the same thing. And then before he can stop himself the words crawl up his throat from deep down inside him and tumble out like word vomit, three words that he hasn't yet spoken to anyone: "I miss her."

His voice still doesn't sound like his own, too weak and unfamiliar. For a few moments no one else speaks, his confession hanging almost awkwardly in the air. Then Brody moves, just a fraction – his expression softens, the corners of his mouth moving slightly upwards – and says, "I miss her smile."

x

xxxx

She comes to him one evening, appearing silently in his quarters as usual. One moment he is surveying the room with a heart that feels just a little less heavy since that day in the mess. By the time he has turned and sat down on the edge of his bunk she is there, standing still as a statue in the corner. The colours have faded from her now; her once-bright copper hair is no longer vibrant, instead closer to brown. Her lips are colourless. Her eyes are cold and devoid of emotion. This is not his Ginn. This isn't her. This is a figment of his imagination, a defence mechanism created by his brain to protect him from the ugly truth until he was ready to face it. Until he was ready to live with the agony, to truly feel it, work through it and learn to cope. Eli knows he will never be the person he used to, not now that Ginn is dead. He knows he can never love anyone like her again, that she will be the first and last. But he wants to remember her as she was, as they were, without this faux ghost haunting him everywhere he goes. He wants to feel, really feel, even if the only thing he can is grief. He wants to live because that is what she would have wanted.

Eli stares right back at the Not Ginn, and sees neither love nor warmth in her eyes. It's time to end this. "I know you're not real," he tells her, slowly and clearly. She doesn't even so much as flinch. "My Ginn is gone, now, and so my brain created you to replace her. But you could never do that. Never." There is still no reaction from the Not Ginn, so Eli sighs, and shakes his head. "I've been holding on to her, to you, because I was too scared to face everything alone. Being stuck here on this ship, being billions of lightyears from home – I got along okay before, but the moment I met you it all changed." There was never going to be any way back. "This is killing me," Eli continues, and he has to take a deep breath to say what he says next. "So I'm going to change things now." Unable to look at her any longer, he tears his eyes away from the Not Ginn and hangs his head, elbows on his knees and his hands in his hair. He closes his eyes, his heart pounding in his chest, his mouth dry. He has to pull his voice up from where it retreats deep down inside him to murmur, "I have to let you go."

A minute passes. Then he moves, slowly lifting his head and looking towards the corner. The Not Ginn is no longer there.

She stops haunting him after that.