Work Text:
It takes a while for Prax to realise that he misses Amos. It doesn't hit him at first. Not on the trip back to Ganymede or in the flurry of getting settled into their new apartment. Prax still can't believe he gets to have this. To have Mei back safe and sound, to go home and work and make dinner and live again. And yes, it was hard to leave the Roci. Hard to walk away from the people who had picked him up at his lowest, given him a safe place when everything seemed lost. A place where he had dared to feel hope. But when Prax feels the gratitude and sadness rise in his throat, he only has to look down at Mei. Mei with her hand warm in his, with her sweet smile and her eyes that are still brown, not blue.
Once the work of rebuilding Ganymede began, Prax still didn't have time to dwell on the people he'd left behind that airlock door. There are plans to rebuild his ag-dome and Avasarala had made sure that Prax was on the regeneration committee. And also the fact that he was the only survivor of the original dome. He thinks of Doris, of her desperate gasps, and plunges his hands into the topsoil with new fervour.
Life is suddenly full of new challenges, exciting applications for all his hitherto-untested irrigation systems and experimental lines. It's overwhelming and Mei is in three types of therapy but Prax maintains forward momentum. Keeps going because he knows that if he stops, he might have to think about everything that they've been through. Might once more dream of Mei in the dark, coming towards him with cold blue eyes. In his dreams Mei stands much too tall, limbs spindly and her eyes icy bright in the gloom. She lurches forward and the world goes sideways the same time as he watches Amos fall. Prax starts forward but the engineer's blood is already sliding across the metal floor and his legs don't work. That's usually when Prax wakes up. Wakes just as Mei leans down quizzically, long fingers smeared dark, her face twisted in confusion as the tears start to land on his cheek.
Prax wakes gasping, shirt stuck to his ribs and his mind askew. He stumbles to check on Mei, gapes at the soft rise and fall of her chest before gulping water and dropping back on the bed. It's then, with his heart racing in the eerie quiet of the fancy new flat that Prax wants nothing more than to pad down to Amos's cabin. To wake him up and share a drink or listen to the man talk coolant systems until he drifts to sleep on the crash couch. Prax tries not to think about how easy it was to fall asleep in Amos's room. To feel that welcome in someone's space. Safe and cared without any of the usual weirdness. Prax knows he was never good at that part, not before Nicola and certainly not after. Not used to having someone at his back, someone who could handle it and trusted him and was always there. You're better with plants.
Prax pulls up Amos's details on his hand terminal before wondering what he's doing. He has no idea where the Roci is now. Did they decide on Tycho in the end? Even with a delay, Prax could shoot off a quick message and be able to hear Amos's voice when the reply comes in. He flushes warm at the thought of that voice, the way it never failed to flick back a switch in the anxious centre of his chest. And Amos probably wouldn't even mind. He did say stay in touch. I've always got your back, you're always welcome on the Roci, Doc.
It should be easy, but instead Prax thumbs at the terminal lock. What would he even say? Hey Amos, I dreamt we were too late and Mei killed us and it was awful and now I can't sleep but you always make it better. Please make it better. I miss you and it feels strange that you're not here I want you here, I dream about you here. Prax can't say those things. So he gets back into bed. Lies there in the dark and fails to not think about Amos's hand on his shoulder. Of his solid warmth and the washed roughness of his coveralls. Of his soft mouth and how it felt to just fall into his unique gravity. Prax tries and fails, but at some point sleep takes him and soon Mei is clambering onto the bed, her singsong voice much too loud for the hour.
“Come on Daddy, your alarm is ringing! Can we have eggs? You said we could have eggs.”
Mei kneels on the bed, brown-eyed and rumpled, tiny as ever and Prax thinks that maybe he's ok. All he has to do is wash his face, make some eggs and they can start a new day. But when Prax picks up his terminal and the message function is still open, he wavers. He waits until the coffee is brewed and Mei's lining up her toys for breakfast before he looks at his terminal again. Then Prax takes a deep breath and brings that message back up.