3098CE

The blaring of his phone at top volume yanks Harry out of a deep sleep. Once he gets past the shock of his instant wake up, Harry finds his phone and silences it. He stares up at the ceiling, wishing he could go back to sleep. Of course he wound up at some ancient, grimy motel. From what he remembers of the bar last night, the guy who rented the room was only in town for a day or two. It would be better if he could remember more of the fucking than just wet heat and friction, but at least he’s not hungover.

The repeated texts from Liam finally get him moving, and Harry shoves his feet into his boots, walking outside to greet the early dawn. It’s hazy and stifling hot; the dust seems to infiltrate his every pore. He’s still buttoning his flannel over his bare chest when he straddles his bike, and there's no time to search for his t-shirt according to Liam’s series of more and more urgent texts. And he wonders again why he does this—going outside the Protectorate, just for a lay. 

Though he did catch a glimpse of the Summer Triangle the previous night, despite the heavy, constant clouds, thanks to the new helmet he designed. Vega shone bright, but he got a crick in his neck staring up at the sky until he spotted Deneb and Altair. 

He slams his helmet down, kicks his bike into gear and takes off down the road. When he hits the highway, he turns left and calls Liam, listening to the buzzing ring through the headset in his helmet. 

“How far out are you?” Liam asks, all business, even at six o’clock in the morning.

“Twenty.” Harry checks the speedometer and fuel cell gauge. “Fifteen if it’s really an emergency.” 

“Depends what you think of as an emergency?”

“Please tell me it’s a ship full of puppies and kittens.”

Liam snorts into his headset and Harry rolls his eyes. “It’s never puppies and kittens, H.”

“What is it then?” Even though he has an inkling, he wants to be sure. 

“How far out are you?” Liam asks again, confirming Harry’s suspicions. 

“Ten.” Harry swerves, leaning hard to the left, and shoots around the abandoned truck taking up half the highway, speeding towards the towering walls of the Protectorate. 

He parks his bike in the garage at the storage facility by the gate, steps into the decontamination chamber, strips out of his clothes, sends them through the laundry shoot, and is squeaky clean and dressed again in the royal blue tunic, black trousers, and black boots of his Republic of Earth Navy service uniform. Once he ties his hair up in a bun, he checks his phone, and hurries to the nearest tube, only not falling because he grabs the bar before his feet hit the floor. He hangs on until he reaches the bottom, swinging out onto the pathway by the hanger. 

Liam meets him at the door. “Eleven minutes.”

“Close enough,” Harry says and follows him inside. “What’s it look like?” The holographic screen behind Liam turns on and Harry rolls his eyes. “The drama. Where’s the ship?”

“Don’t know.” Liam shrugs and points at the screen. “One of your specialties, H.”

Harry groans and pushes his chair over next to Liam’s. “Fuck. Okay, we’re probably looking at a decade, give or take a few years.”

“My first long trip,” Liam says, hardly containing his grin. It’s understandable that he’s excited, but Harry wonders what he’ll think when they return to Earth and everything’s changed.

“What’d Admiral King say?” Harry asks. Liam presses his lips into a thin line, so Harry continues, “Let me guess: ‘If he wants to go get ’em, go get ’em. But I ain’t payin’ for it.’”

“They’re taking advantage of you.”

“Don’t I know it.” 

“You really think they’d let the ship just rot away in space?” Liam asks.

Harry nods once. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

The tension in the air is palpable. The last time Harry had to travel out of the galaxy was long before Liam came to work with him. And while it’s part of the job Liam signed on for, Harry’s never been okay with it. For him, it’s a choice. For the men and women who’ve been assigned to work with him, it’s not. Not really. Because they don’t know what they’re getting into. His only consolation is that he’s usually able to convince them to resign after one long trip. Which means he’ll be saying goodbye to Liam when they return to earth, however many years off that may be. 

3098CE

“Steady. Steady now,” Niall says and the only reason Louis doesn’t smack him is because he can’t reach him. He does consider crossing the room to do it, but he’s busy. 

Maybe after they finish sending the tether through the wormhole, close it, and reverse the direction of the line. That will do one of three things: absolutely nothing, allow them to travel outside the universe and back billions of miles away in a split second, or destroy all of creation. 

Only one way to find out. 

“Got it, Tommo!” Niall shouts. Louis glances over at Zayn, who doesn’t move or look up, but whacks Niall in the back of the head as if he can read Louis’ mind. 

Zayn scowls at the screen in front of him, and Louis leans closer, lifting his hand and raising one finger. With the press of a button, Louis closes the wormhole that took them days to open, and a split second later, Zayn reverses the tether’s direction. After an instant, during which Louis experiences the most severe pain and nausea he's ever felt, the ship’s alarms sound and the emergency lights come on. According to the screen in front of Louis, the engines are dead. 

After silencing the alarms, they scan the ship for damage. Other than the engines, which supply the power to the entire ship, everything seems normal, so Louis leads the way to the engine room. 

“Fucking bullshit,” Louis grumbles hours later, kicking the access panel back into place a little harder than necessary. Head tipped back, he screams at the ceiling, “Bullshit!”

“I know, Tommo. But quit fucking yelling in here. It echoes.” Zayn squints at the screen of his diagnostic scanner. “There’s nothing physical to repair, unscrambling everything will take years, and even then we won’t be able to fix this unless we disconnect the tether, and we can’t disconnect the tether until we know where we are. But we can’t figure out where we are without more power to the scanners, which we can’t get unless we repair the engines. I… don’t know what to do.”

Zayn drops his scanner to the desktop, cradling his head in his hands, and Louis rubs gently between his shoulder blades. “We’ll figure it out. None of us have slept, we were up for days getting the wormhole started. So, we get some rest and try again.”

“Doubt it’ll make a damn bit of difference,” Zayn snaps. 

“Well, there’s nothing else we can do.” Louis straightens up and clears his throat. “Brave face and all that. I have to go… tell the entire crew it’s nap time.”

The crew takes the directive without question. Even Niall, which means he’s beyond exhausted. Louis falls into a fitful sleep, waking a few hours later at his normal time. Despite his years of space travel, his body still reverts to Greenwich Mean Time. 

There’s no reason for it, but on the way to the bridge, he checks on the wormhole. It’s closed, and the tether is still there, as it should be. Until they figure out where they are. They’ve traveled, he’s positive of it. Maybe not far—it’s possible they only moved a relatively short distance—but he’s rarely been more sure of anything. And he’s learned to trust his instincts. 

He seals the door again and scrubs his hand through his hair, reminding himself that he hasn’t showered in at least seventy-two hours, and heads for the bridge, tapping the comm on his shoulder. 

“On the way, boys. What’ve we got?”

“Nothing much, Tommo.” Niall responds immediately.

Approaching the bridge, Louis passes Shawn, who salutes, but at least he doesn’t stop and stand aside. Louis put an end to that the first time it happened when he kept walking without looking back, flipping the bird over his shoulder. 

Louis takes his place in the captain’s chair, spinning to face Niall. “Zayn's with the engines?”

“Yeah. Not like it’s helping, but it’s where he wants to be.” Niall taps his fingers on the arm of his chair. 

When he was a kid, Louis would climb to the top of an abandoned water tower a few miles out of bounds. It was dangerous, and the journey there and back was the scariest part, with hyenas and wild dogs and who knows what else roaming free out there, but it was worth it. Because sometimes he could see the stars. 

Sure, he could see them whenever he wanted if he linked up to one of the many radio telescopes. Or he could visit a holoroom and walk among them. But there’s never been a substitute for the real thing. 

Louis turns his chair again, facing the expanse of space directly in front of them. His head is killing him, probably from lack of sleep and stress, but he tries to push it aside, focusing on the pinpricks of light dotting the infinite blackness. 

3098CE

The lift tube to the hanger in the Thermosphere requires Harry’s government ID, which leads to Admiral King’s head popping out of the holographic screen. Hopefully Harry’s slight jump isn’t visible. 

“Captain Styles.” Admiral King raises one eyebrow. “When do you think you’ll stop this superhero shit and die like the rest of us?” 

Harry huffs, shaking his head at the old man. “Not sure how long I’ll be gone this time, but chances are you won’t be here when I get back.” The image of the Admiral’s face glitches when he scowls, then disappears.

Liam steps into the tube behind Harry and they stow their personal items in the locking trunk and strap themselves into the harnesses on the walls. The door spins closed and the elevator sends them shooting straight up, accelerating through the sky to the Mesosphere. Once they cross into the Thermosphere, they begin decelerating to the personal vehicle level of Earth’s bay. 

Harry’s ship is docked at the end. He pays extra for that spot because he can pull in and out without having to maneuver and almost always has a straight shot through the remaining atmosphere. It’s visible from the one way window in the locker room.

“You okay?” Harry checks with Liam, who’s halfway in his flight suit, staring at his helmet. 

Liam nods. “Yeah, man. Just a bit nervous.”

“You'll be alright,” Harry says, pulling his inky black flight suit over his royal blue tunic. He fits his helmet on and presses the comm on the side. “You ready?”

“Yeah. I mean, it's what I signed on for.” Liam chuckles and knocks his fist against his helmet. “Never gone faster than light speed before.”

Harry keys open the airlock, waits for Liam, then steps inside. “It’s really kind of boring, to be honest. And after that, other than the length of it, the rest of the trip is pretty much the same as the local rescues.”

Liam shrugs and his helmet bobs side to side. “Guess I’ll know soon enough.”

They climb up the steps and through the hatch on the side into Harry’s ship, a fairly typical vessel meant for shorter distance space travel. It's a third generation model, with a self-contained plasma core engine, the same silver as the antique Airstream campers he’s seen in movies. He saw one of them in person once, but every inch of it was covered in rust. 

Every time he does this, it blows his mind. Starting the plasma core engine with the simple push of a button. A button, and a program, of his design. The ship glides out of the hanger on autopilot, and Harry drops into the captain’s chair, resting his helmet on his knee. 

“Heading towards Alpha Centauri.” Harry leans over, checking the coordinates for the first leg of the trip. “Once we get past the moon, I can get started.”

“Shit. Sorry.” Liam fumbles with the latches of his helmet and removes it, setting it aside. “Large passenger ship sent an automatic SOS, which isn’t unusual in itself for a space bus, I know. But we’re getting nothing but coordinates. The signal doesn’t include a passenger manifest, ship’s log, identification number, nothing.”

“Interesting. Someone’s tampered with the ship’s computer, which is typical of a stolen ship and pirate activity.” Harry taps his finger against his lips. “But they’re definitely stranded?”

Liam nods. 

“You know, pirates aren’t big on signaling for help from the Republic. And they tend towards smaller ships like this one. The upkeep on a spaceliner is astronomical.” 

“Really. Astronomical.” Liam shakes his head, possibly thinking he’s in for years of bad puns ahead. “So what’s the word, Captain?”

Harry sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Chance of civilians on board is high. We check it out. Scan the ship for lifeforms ASAP. And go from there.”

“Thought that’s what you’d say.” Liam sits back, opening the screen in front of them. “How long do you need to pinpoint their location?”

Staring at the screen, Harry quickly does the math in his head. “An hour, give or take.”

Harry doesn’t need an hour for the calculations, but he takes it. Decades of experience at this, and pirates are actually something new for him. So he panics a bit. Captain’s quarters on his ship should really be called what it is—a converted closet. Thankfully he’s never been claustrophobic. It takes forever to get out of his flight suit, but they’re necessary, if only for the short time spent on deck in the thermosphere, and at least he has practice. The dozens of times he’s done this before make it easier. Poor Liam is probably still struggling out of the sleeves when Harry hauls himself up onto his bunk, narrowly missing hitting the ceiling, and sprawls out on his stomach, cradling his head in his folded arms. 

In his limited experience with pirates—mostly chatter with other ships—he’s learned that they aren’t typically the cream of the crop intelligence-wise, and stealing a ship tends to be a one-time-only thing. Lack of oxygen puts a damper on the concept of boarding another ship in space, and the chances of landing on another occupied planet undetected are laughably small. Even when pirates are successful, they steal more two-passenger ships than anything else. All of these things combined mean that piracy generally consists of the single offense of stealing a ship. And then the R.O.E. can wait them out. Sooner or later they’ll run out of food. 

Space pirates, and he hasn’t even had coffee yet. 

▒ ▒ ▒

After a short nap, Harry sits down to drink his coffee and go over the readout for the SOS. While the automatic engine alarms on R.O.E. ships send a basic set of coordinates, that set of coordinates refers to at minimum a cubic mile, but likely much more. They’re in no way accurate, but within that area, Harry’s able to follow the likely trail, so to speak. It’s just math, but dependent on more than numerical variables, requiring adjustments to formulas on the fly. And Harry’s more than capable. 

He unfastens the front of his uniform tunic, letting it hang open over his chest. It still feels like it’s strangling him. After he inputs the data and quadruple checks his calculations, Harry takes them through the first jump on the way out of the solar system, pointed towards the SOS signal from a century old spaceliner. He goes back to his quarters, shucking his civilian uniform and storing it beside his Naval Uniform. The rest of the first leg of the trip is spent in his sweatpants.

When they reach what Harry likes to think of as his own personal little bit of the universe, he changes back into his spacesuit and sends Liam off to do the same, while the ship slows enough that he can cut the engines and reroute the power.

“Okay, so I know you’ve trained for this, but there’s really no comparison and no way to truly replicate the hyperspace jump.” Harry settles in his seat, strapping himself in. “Feels like it turns you inside out. Most bizarre sensation. But it’s over in a split second.”

Liam takes a deep breath and blows it out, then locks his helmet, and secures his straps as well. “And after that, space pirates?”

“Well, I mean, it’s probably an abandoned hunk of space junk that just happened to drift through a magnetic cloud.” Harry turns his head slowly, the helmet impeding his motion. He squints one eye at Liam and, despite the infinitesimal chance, adds, “But maybe pirates?”

Harry starts the countdown, setting in motion the process of creating a wormhole that will completely surround his ship. While they watch the seconds tick past, Liam whispers along, and when he gets to two, Harry closes his eyes. 

After the fraction of a second during which Harry wonders if he actually does die every time he travels through the wormhole, he opens his eyes, blinking at the monstrous ship off the starboard side. 

“What…” Liam slowly lifts the heavy glove of his suit to the front of his helmet as if he could cover his open mouth with his hand.

It would be hilarious if Harry didn’t catch himself almost doing the same thing. “What the fuck?”

In his experience with spaceships, likely the most of anyone in the universe, he’s quite literally seen them all. And he hasn’t seen a ship like this in decades. Though this one barely resembles the originals. It looks like it’s been modified. These ships were all decommissioned once the second generation of spaceliners came along. It’s bizarre. But at least they aren’t dealing with pirates. No pirate, no matter how stupid, would steal a ship like that. 

Scanning for lifeforms doesn’t take long, the ship is only equipped with standard physical shields, and when they run a second, more in depth scan, Harry doesn’t know what to do. There are people on board, and while the ship is nowhere near maximum capacity, there are far too many to be pirates. And no weapons likely, considering that most of the ship is without power. Which is true of any ship that’s unlucky enough to travel through a magnetic cloud.

Harry sends out a call to the spaceliner to relay his standard greeting message and waits for the ship’s response. 

3098CE

A movement at the edge of Louis' vision draws his attention, but when he looks properly, he sees nothing. Still, he doesn’t turn away. This time, he sees it as it begins, and he knows what it is almost immediately. All of this—his ship, his life’s work, everything and everyone he knows—is about to get drawn into a naturally occurring wormhole forming off the port side. Louis sighs, trying to decide whether or not to warn anyone. There’s no point, really. The engines are down, they can’t escape it, and there’s no sense in sending everyone into a panic. Still, some of them might appreciate the heads up. 

The spinning emptiness expands and Louis tries not to blink, waiting to see how large it’ll grow before it overtakes them. Wild wormholes can be enormous, and Louis is curious. It’s so dark—not even black, just the complete absence of anything—that it’s hypnotizing. The darkness protrudes outward, and Louis rubs his eyes, but it continues pushing through the wormhole, stretching the darkness until it tears bright silver. Louis stands up, though the view remains the same. 

“Holy shit, Tommo! That's a ship!” Niall’s shouting pulls Louis out of a daze. He pulls up every screen he can as if their own ship will roar back to life any second. 

“Yes, that’s a ship.” The tension around Louis’ eyes is near impossible to relax and he can feel the beginnings of crow's feet when he lifts his fingertips to his temples, rubbing in circles. 

Objectively, they knew that things would be different when they stopped. Civilization would have moved on without them, and that was expected. It’s just that there’s no real way to prepare for it when it appears out of nowhere off the port side, sleek and silver like one of the sports cars he read about as a child. 

It looks dangerous, despite being minuscule next to their ship, and Louis isn’t sure what to do. The past few days have been overwhelming. He’s gone from excitement to confusion to panic to whatever he’s feeling now. A combination of relief and renewed fear. Because the wormhole—he watches it wink out of existence—isn’t going to kill him. But whoever’s on that ship might. 

“Engines still down?” Louis croaks out. 

“You know they are, Tommo.” Niall doesn’t bother to look up from what he’s studying on screen. “They’re hailing us. Got a message coming in.” 

“Read it out, Niall.” Louis sighs and grips the arms of his captain’s chair, tendons standing out on the backs of his hands. With his luck, it’s a warrant for his arrest and that tiny ship is here to bring him in. He closes his eyes to listen.

Niall clears his throat, and says, “‘Unidentified Cruiser Class Spaceship, this is the R.O.E.S. HE2994. An automatic distress signal was sent from your ship. Requesting permission to dock and board.’”

“Permission granted,” Louis snaps and Niall’s mouth falls open.

“Really?”

“Yes, really. R.O.E.S.? Republic of Earth Ship? And looking like that? Who knows what kind of weapons are on board. Better to let it dock. Then once the crew disembarks, we take it off their hands.”

“What, like pirates?” Niall asks.

Louis shrugs. “We’ll be polite about it. No murdering.” With a nod, Niall sends the message. Within seconds, the tiny silver ship starts moving closer. “Get Shawn and Bressie. Suit up and meet me at the bay.”

Not one stitch of his clothing could possibly be considered formal. Most of it’s thin and worn and patched in places. All of it’s clean, but all of it’s old. None of it’s nice. None of it’s going to be up to snuff for an officer of the Earth’s Navy. Louis changes into his engineer’s jumpsuit. If he can’t dress like a proper captain, he can blend in. Not that there can be much blending when there are only five of them. 

The other guys are waiting, just like he asked them to, right outside of the airlock to the hanger. Through the portal, Louis watches the small silver ship navigate its way on board, sinking slightly until it’s level with the walkway. The larger airlock to the outside spirals closed, and in the time that passes between that and calibrating the hanger’s oxygen levels and gravity field, Louis starts to sweat. 

“Fuck. This is not a situation I expected.” Louis blows his hair up off his forehead and shifts sideways, peering through the portal again just as the alert sounds to let them know that it’s safe to enter. 

Hopefully their matching jumpsuits will make it easy to be mistaken for low-ranking officers, or at least that they'll seem like the type of people who can be overlooked. He wishes he had time to shower, but he doesn’t smell too horribly. The five of them line up on the walkway beside the ship, waiting for the hatch to open. Louis pretends he doesn’t feel like throwing up. 

3098CE

Other than the small ships meant for flying close to the main vessel to make necessary repairs while it’s in use, the bay is empty. Harry maneuvers into the spot closest to the interior airlock and once it’s docked properly, and the exterior airlock closes, he and Liam change into their Navy Uniforms. While he waits for Liam, Harry checks the small mirror in his cabin. He always wants to tip his hat slightly to the side, but he refrains. If he wants this ship’s captain to believe him, he has to at least act the part of a Rear Admiral. Which means he can’t so much as grin when he introduces himself. It’ll make things much more difficult if he can’t keep a straight face while he states his name and rank. 

Liam steps out of his cabin looking every inch an Officer of the Earth Navy and Harry whistles appreciatively. “Lieutenant Commander Payne.”

“Rear Admiral Williams,” Liam says with a wink as he reads the name tag on Harry’s chest. 

As soon as the ship’s hatch opens, Harry steps onto the walkway with Liam right behind him. Four men in engineering officer jumpsuits that haven’t been worn by the Earth Navy in decades stand there waiting. 

The man on the far left with brown hair and sharp blue eyes, raises one curved eyebrow, smirks, salutes and says, with the emphasis on the first word, “Rear Admiral H. Williams. Lieutenant Commander L. Payne. To what do we owe the pleasure of your unscheduled visit?”

Whenever he’s been called upon to rescue a spaceship, he’s been greeted with gratitude and a sense that any verbal exchange was a formality. A few captains have met him at the hatch of his ship, all but groveling as they profusely thanked him for his offered help. Those that are more standoffish are at least respectful of his assumed rank; it's why he uses it. This is… unusual. 

“Lieutenant.” Harry says it a bit like a question, and when the man doesn’t disagree or offer a name, he continues, puffing his chest out slightly. “Your ship sent a—”

“Yeah, we got your message.”

Harry frowns at the interruption, but quickly responds, “Then you know the purpose of the unscheduled visit. Your engines are down and it’s likely that you’re unable to repair them.”

The lieutenant scowls and a little line appears between his eyebrows. “You have no idea what our engineers are able to do.”

“This is ridiculous. Please take me to the captain of this ship. I’m not here to debate the merits of your engineering crew. We are here to help.” The frown hasn’t left Harry’s face and he’s sure that it’ll be there for as long as he’s in the presence of the lieutenant. 

“Sure thing, Rear Admiral. Right this way,” the lieutenant says and turns abruptly, starting down the walkway, trailed slightly by the man who was standing next to him, but the other three stand aside and wait for Harry and Liam to follow before falling into step behind them. 

The bridge isn’t far, but it’s still a hike, and though it’s been probably half his life since he’s been on one of these, he’s sure it’s in the other direction. 

“Lieutenant?” 

Neither of the two men in front turn around. In fact, they don’t react at all. 

“Excuse me,” Harry says, putting as much authority into his voice as he can muster. 

They turn down a corridor that Harry knows does not go towards the bridge, but before he can speak up, the two men in front stand aside, a door slides open and he’s herded through with Liam right behind him. Harry spins around, starting across the threshold, but all five men block his way and the lieutenant is pointing his engineer’s multi-tool at them.

“Stay where you are,” the lieutenant commands, tilting his head to the side and aiming his multi-tool at Harry’s midsection. “Interesting thing about these tools. Turns out you can focus the welding laser and, while it’s certainly no lightsaber, it’ll burn the fuck out of someone and cauterize the wound.”

Livid and embarrassed at being tricked, Harry fights the redness climbing up his neck while struggling against the desire to rip the tool from the lieutenant’s hand. He’s sure he could do it. He’s thrown enough punches to know how to knock someone out in one, but that’s all he’d get. And there are five of them. 

“So you are pirates,” Liam says, crossing his arms over his chest and managing to look completely unruffled by the fact that they’ve just been taken prisoner. 

“Nope, just not interested in some Officer of the Republic of Earth Navy fucking with my ship.”

“Your ship?” Harry knows he probably sounds a little bit hysterical, but he feels like he has the right. 

“Mine. Crew calls me Tommo, but they’re like family, so… You can call me Captain Thomas. My fellow engineers,” he turns and gestures to each of the other four men in turn. “Commander Malik, Commander Horan, Lieutenant Commander Bresslin, and Lieutenant Commander Mendes. Not just spaceship mechanics. Everybody has more than one job on board my ship.”

Harry narrows his eyes at Captain Thomas. “I’m here to do a job.”

“Funny. I don’t remember hiring you.” Thomas steps back and looks from Commander Horan to Lieutenant Commander Mendes. “You two take first watch. I’ll send someone to relieve you in a few hours.”

Mendes salutes and Horan says, “Sure thing, Tommo.”

“Enjoy your stay, Rear Admiral Williams.” Captain Thomas gives Harry a flippant salute and heads down the hall in the direction of the bridge. Harry should’ve paid closer attention. Now that he is, he can see the air of authority that Captain Thomas so effortlessly carries. 

Commander Horan clears his throat and spins his multi-tool in his hand. “No offense meant, officers, but I’m going to close the door. Don’t feel much like having a staring contest with you.” 

He lifts his hand and presses the keypad in the hall outside the door. As soon as the door slides into place, Harry growls and bangs his fists against it, even though there’s no point. They’re not going anywhere. 

3098CE 

With his diagnostic scanner, Louis crawls into one of the access panels in the engine room, muttering, “Rear Admiral my fat ass.”  

From behind him, he hears Zayn snort. “Your fat ass? Really?” 

Louis wiggles his bum as he crawls forward and Zayn smacks him hard on the right cheek. “Ouch. Fucker.”

“You don’t think they are who they say they are?”

“They might be officers in the Republic of Earth Navy," Louis concedes. "That I could believe. But a couple of high ranking officers magically appearing exactly where we landed after our test? Something doesn’t add up.”

Though it seems like they take every section of the engines apart and put them back together, they don’t get very far before Zayn has enough and sends Louis off to shower. After so many days under high pressure and high stress, it feels like he’s coming down, even though they’re still stranded without working engines. Technically, they could live like this. The ship doesn’t have to move. It was redesigned to house a self-sufficient colony that could live indefinitely on backup power. But if they want their mission to be successful, they need to repair the engines. Louis just has to figure out how to do it without disconnecting the tether. 

One of the Captain’s perks that he kept without argument was the privacy of a cabin of his own and he’s thankful for that now. Showers on the ship are always short, due to the five minute water allowance. Louis has long since perfected the art of scrubbing head to toe in less time so that he has at least a couple of minutes to stand under the water. Today he spends those precious seconds pondering the options as far as their new guests are concerned. 

Maybe Lieutenant Commander Payne could be of some help. He looks like he knows his way around an engine room and he’s younger than the admiral by a good bit, closer to Louis’ age. Maybe he’ll come around to Louis’ way of thinking. After Louis dresses in his usual thin, worn trousers and undershirt, he relieves Niall and Shawn of guard duty, sending them back to Zayn. Hopefully he can put them to good use.

The bare floor of the corridor is uncomfortable, but it keeps him from falling asleep. And when Zayn shows up a few hours later, Louis has a plan. 

3098CE

“How can you go to sleep?” Harry screeches, but he doesn’t care. “We’re prisoners!”

Liam snorts and folds his hands together on his bare chest. “But they didn’t throw us in the Brig, so maybe we’re not? This is a standard two-man crew cabin, H, and according to my internal clock, it’s bedtime.”

With a huff, Harry drops down onto the bottom bunk, standing again immediately. All of his comfortable clothes are in his cabin on his own ship. He can either remain standing so that his uniform doesn’t wrinkle, or he can hang it beside Liam’s and attempt to sleep in his briefs. At home, he’s of the opinion that the fewer clothes, the better. But he wants to be ready for whatever circumstances they’ll find themselves in next. 

His R.O.E.S. Naval Uniform top is all one piece, so he removes it and hangs it, smoothing the fabric with his hands. He lines his boots up next to Liam’s under the bottom bunk, and steps out of his uniform trousers, draping them neatly over the hanger, and sighs. Letting his hair down, Harry shakes it out, and scratches his scalp. Sleep will be a welcome reprieve, if it comes. Reaching his arms overhead, Harry goes up on his tiptoes, then bends at the waist, letting his arms dangle uselessly while he stretches his back. 

“Rear Admir— Shit!” Captain Thomas slams his hand against the keypad in the corridor, but the door remains open. 

It’s too late to act as though he wasn’t surprised by Thomas’ sudden arrival, but at least he can lean on the comfort he feels with his own body. It’s been a long time since it let him down. Harry stands at attention, hands balled into fists at his sides, heels of his socked feet together, chin lifted, staunchly ignoring his lack of clothing. 

Harry clears his throat and salutes. “Captain Thomas.”

The captain’s eyes snap to meet his and Harry refuses to blink first. 

“The lieutenant is asleep?” Thomas leans to the side, and Harry looks back over his shoulder to find that Liam is indeed sleeping. The captain reaches for the keypad again. “Get some rest then.”

“Wait,” Harry says, gripping the sliding door with his hand. Not that he could stop it from closing. “What do you want?”

“Just wanted to chat with your lieutenant. Don’t you worry about it, Rear Admiral.”

Gritting his teeth, Harry growls. “No.”

“No?”

“You won’t take him. I don’t know what you plan to do to him, but he won’t go quietly. And neither will I.”

Slowly, the captain says, “I just wanted to talk. I’ll come back in six hours to relieve the guard. We can talk then.”

This time he hits the correct button on the first try, and Harry’s left, still standing in his briefs. 

“Fuck. What the fuck?” Harry rubs his fingertips in circles on his temples, sitting and resting his elbows on his knees. The captain is infuriating, but there's no way Harry wouldn’t notice the way his gaze traveled down and back up Harry’s body. It's something to consider, because they have to get home. Harry refuses to spend the rest of his life trapped in a tiny cabin on board a ship floating through space. Without warning, tears gather in his eyes, dripping down his nose and falling to the floor. He scrubs them away, and climbs under the blanket on his bunk. 

3098CE

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” Louis mutters to himself while he hurries down the corridor, refusing to run, but walking faster than he ever has in his life. Once he rounds the corner, he slows down, but not much. He should’ve considered that they might be asleep or... something. It’s not as if he expects them to stand at attention, waiting for his return. And the room is small and empty and— “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

“Fuck,” Shawn says with a salute as he passes. 

Louis stops and turns. “Need you on the bridge, Mendes.”

“Yes, sir!” Saluting again as he spins around, Shawn pokes himself in the eye, but he doesn’t complain loudly, so Louis pretends it didn’t happen. 

The entrance to the bridge slides open before he reaches it; Niall must’ve been watching his approach. Hopefully he didn’t watch anything else. 

With his hands resting on the back of his chair to steady himself, Louis looks around the room. “I made a mistake.”

“A new one or are we still talking about the thing where we’re holding prisoners aboard our ship?” Niall asks. He clenches his jaw and raises his eyebrows and Louis heaves a sigh. 

“No, still that one.” 

Niall nods. “Seeing the admiral in his underwear made you realize that?”

“No!” Louis’ face heats and he squeezes the back of his chair. “That was— You were watching the security feed? And why didn’t you say anything if you thought I was making a mistake?” 

“Because you were already making it.” Niall shrugs. “I wasn’t going to contradict you in front of the prisoners. Not when you were all ‘this is my ship’ and pointing a fucking welding laser at them.”

“I panicked!”

“You’re an idiot,” Zayn joins in, nodding and pointing his finger at Louis. 

“That, too. Fuck.” Louis spins his chair around and drops into it. “Sorry. Do you want to be captain?”

“Hell, no.” Still shaking his head, Zayn jerks his thumb over his shoulder and says, “And don’t ask Niall. Because we can’t have every decision going through Shawn too.”

“Hey!” Shawn pouts and Bressie rubs his shoulder. 

“You’re Captain, Tommo.” Niall snorts and says, “Captain, Tommo, Captain Tommo.”

“Jesus.” Louis covers his face with his hands, then combs his fingers through his hair. “Okay. Yes, I made a mistake. Now I have to fix it. Because I’ve managed to give them the impression that I’d have them hauled off and tortured or something.”

“What the fuck did you do to make them think that?” Niall asks, wide-eyed. Then he blinks and holds up a hand. “Never mind. Don’t want to know. How are you planning to fix it?”

“I… I’m going to sleep.” Louis stands. “The… prisoners are asleep. I’m exhausted. I’ll think of something in the morning.”

Shawn salutes and Louis returns it. He really is tired. So tired that he actually manages to forget about the prisoners until he’s standing in his own tiny cabin in his underwear, stretching. 

“Fuck me.” Louis brushes his hair off his forehead, it’s long enough that it stays tucked behind his ear for the time being. This is his own fault, and it’s no excuse, but when he watched the R.O.E. officers disembark, he experienced a moment of déjà vu so strong that he thought somehow they were fucking with his head. He panicked. He’s not proud of it.

He’s not proud of gawking at the admiral’s body either. At least he can partially blame the surprise. There was no way to anticipate that he’d be so hot with his clothes off, grey-streaked hair falling in waves to his shoulders. Even his scowl hadn’t detracted from it. 

Louis shakes his head and makes himself comfortable. If he’s lucky, his brain will work overtime while he sleeps, and figure out what to do. 

3098CE

For pirates, they’re not great at it. Harry doesn’t know how long he laid awake staring at the underside of Liam’s bunk and listening to his quiet snores before he realized that they weren’t searched. His phone is still in the pocket of his uniform. He connects to the nearest port and sets it to scan the ship’s systems. Four hours of sleep should be enough and hopefully the scans will be complete by then. 

Harry starts awake, only needing a second to orient himself, remembering where he is the instant he’s conscious. Reaching up, he whacks the side of Liam’s bunk to rouse him, throwing his blanket off and rolling out of bed. 

“Up!” Harry says, but Liam is already rubbing his eyes and sitting up.

The ship is wasting backup power. Using the same amount for a ship at full capacity when they’re only at about fifty-seven percent. His link to the ship’s computer tells him that there are two thousand eight hundred twenty-six passengers and crew onboard the R.I.M.S. Tommo. Because Captain Thomas named his ship the Republic Is My Ship Tommo. Harry snorts before he can stop himself.

With his uniform on, he feels less likely to jump the next time the captain opens the door. He and Liam take turns in the head and Harry’s in the middle of filling him in on Captain Thomas’ visit the night before, when the door slides open. 

A small wave of pride surges through Harry when he isn’t surprised. As interesting as his life might look on paper, it’s actually been quite boring. And he finds he doesn’t mind the thought of going down fighting. He squares up, still at attention, but he doesn’t bother to salute, ready to fight the second Captain Thomas and his men attempt to take Liam. Repeatedly clenching and relaxing his fists in an effort to keep himself in check, Harry breathes evenly, in and out through his nose.

“I’d like to apologize,” the captain says and Harry tries not to show his surprise. “I didn’t actually mean to take you prisoner.” Thomas holds both hands up, palm out, making it plain that he isn’t holding a weapon. Or a screwdriver. It occurs to Harry that the captain wasn’t carrying one the night before either and he frowns. 

“Are you letting us go?” Liam asks over Harry’s shoulder.

“No.” Captain Thomas shakes his head and Harry scoffs, but Thomas says, “I mean, I can’t. I think we, um, I’d like if—”

“Then what is the point in apologizing?” Harry snaps.

“Because I didn’t want you to think I’d like, torture you or something! You seemed to think me capable of it.” 

“You threatened us and locked us in a cabin under guard, Captain Thomas.” Harry takes a half step forward, thankful for every fraction of an inch of height added by his uniform boots. “And I know this ship. Whatever vulgar play-on-words you call it now, this was one of fifteen first generation spaceliners built by the Republic of Earth for the purpose of colonizing exoplanets during the first wave. It doesn’t belong to you because it belongs to the Republic, no matter which star system you stole it from.”

Captain Thomas narrows his eyes. “This is my ship.”

“I honestly don’t care.” Harry gathers his courage and says, as flippantly as he can, “Is there anything else we can do for you, Captain Thomas?”

“I’d like to speak to Lieutenant Payne.”

“Go ahead.”

“I meant privately.” 

“No.” 

“Fine.” The captain’s nostrils flare and the muscles in his jaw twitch. “Just remember I tried to be nice.”

Once the door closes, Harry turns and leans his shoulder against it, looking down at his hands with a sigh. “We got lucky. Think it threw him off, seeing me in my underwear. Didn’t know what to expect.”

Liam removes his hat and sets it on his bunk. “Why do you think they want me?”

“Not sure.” Harry lines their hats up and pulls his hair down out of the neat bun he forced it into earlier. He combs his fingers through, scratching his scalp, giving up when he just gets caught in the tangled curls. “We should try to be ready for anything. Maybe sleep in shifts from now on.”

“Shit. Haven’t done that since basic training.” 

Harry nods and takes a deep breath, sitting on the edge of his bunk. Ready is such a broad term. If he takes the first shift, maybe he can brainstorm a way to fashion a weapon of some sort. The supports for his bunk might be removable. He lifts the edge of the mattress to take a look, dropping it and jumping to his feet when he sees the door slide open in his peripheral vision.

It’s possible that Captain Thomas or one of his men says something, but Harry doesn’t hear anything over the rushing in his ears. Adrenaline floods his system and his body springs into action when they grab for Liam. He leads with a jab, expected, but none of the men have weapons that he can see, and he needs to know how well trained they are. Captain Thomas blocks Harry’s jab with his own, putting his body weight behind a left cross that Harry barely dodges. The other men twist Liam’s arms behind his back, and push him into the corridor where he stumbles and the two men on either side steady him and frogmarch him away. 

The third man—Mendes, Harry thinks—and the other stupidly tall one, join the captain, and Harry leans forward and charges, catching Captain Thomas in the gut with an uppercut, throwing his shoulder into his side, sending him staggering. Long arms wrap around Harry from behind, attempting to hold him in a bear hug, but Harry manages to keep his right arm free. 

In their haste to restrain him, they lift Harry off the ground, turning just as he puts everything he has left into a perfectly aimed right hook. His fist connects with the left side of Captain Thomas’ jaw. The stupidly tall man backs towards the hallway, shoving Harry hard enough that he’s unable to stop himself from falling after he hits the wall of the cabin. 

From the floor, Harry watches the door slide closed, and thinks he might throw up, not knowing what they’re doing to Liam, but imagining the worst. 

3098CE

“Jesus Fucking Christ!” Louis cradles his cheek in the palm of his hand as he runs down the corridor between Bressie and Shawn. “What the fuck?”

Their legs are so long that they appear to be slowly jogging, Louis taking two strides for every one of theirs. Bressie glances over at Louis and says, “I thought you apologized.”

“I did!” Louis winks his left eye. It’s swollen already, but there’s no time to deal with it. “I don’t know what went wrong. That Rear— That Williams—”

Bressie elbows him in the upper ribs, possibly the only spot on his body that wasn’t already sore. “Did you seriously call him Rear Admiral when he’s not even here to be offended?”

“It doesn’t matter! He’s fucking crazy! I didn’t even get to finish saying that we were only going to borrow Payne for a little while. He attacked me!” Louis tenderly touches his jaw, wincing when he presses too hard. 

Zayn and Niall are waiting in the engine room with Lieutenant Payne, who seems to have put up a fight despite his hands being bound behind his back. 

“Holy shit, Tommo.” Niall lifts a hand as if to reach out and touch Louis’ face, but he must think better of it. 

“I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s just…” Louis shakes his head, turns and looks at Liam, who watches him apprehensively from the chair Niall and Zayn have tied him to. “Let’s get this over with.”

3098CE

As soon as he pulls himself together, Harry starts taking his bunk apart. The metal support bars would be easily removed with proper tools, but all Harry has is the name tag from his uniform. He uses the edge of it to turn the screws. It takes hours before he gets one loose, stands and swings it experimentally. Lightweight, but strong. He could really do some damage with it. Which is why he’s thankful for his reflexes when the door opens and he stops himself mid-swing.

“Liam?” Harry stares, dumbfounded by the sight of him standing there in the corridor, apparently unharmed. When no one else appears, Harry peeks out into the hallway, and seeing no one in either direction, grabs Liam by the front of his uniform and pulls him into the cabin, whispering, “Did you escape?”

“Sort of?” Liam purses his lips and slowly tilts his head to the side. He pushes past Harry into the tiny cabin, grabs his hat, and steps back into the corridor. “Are you coming or what?”

“What?” Harry follows him, looking over his shoulder as they walk away from the cabin, back the way they came. “Did you subdue the guards? What are we—”

“I didn’t subdue anyone. Just… Come on.” Liam picks up the pace, walking faster towards the hanger.

Harry walks up to the portal and peers through. His ship is right there. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and steps up to the keypad, but Liam reaches in front of him, and enters a six digit code.

Either Liam is some sort of genius escape artist or this is a trap, but Harry climbs through anyway. His ship. His baby. He walks up to the hatch, opens it, and boards his ship, closing it behind Liam, thankful again for how truly inept Captain Thomas and his crew are at being pirates. 

If he could open the airlock, they could fly right out and go back to Earth. He opens his cabin and tosses his hat on his bunk, shucking off his uniform as quickly as he can. They’ll have to do a cold start, which he hates, but he always painstakingly checks every system before taking off, so it’ll be fine just this once. It’s never quick or easy putting on his flight suit, but he’s definitely never been more motivated, stepping his socked feet inside and pulling it up over his briefs.

“H, listen—”

“I’m going to link to the ship through the port at the keypad. You suit up and be ready to start her as soon as I give the signal.” Harry reaches for his helmet, but it’s not where he left it. 

Liam’s holding it.

“H, I want to tell you what happened—”

“Later, Liam!” 

“Look at the airlock, man!” Liam points towards the front of the ship and Harry can just see it in the view from the cameras on the stern, slowly opening. 

“Of course, you brilliant man. I don’t know what you did to—”

“Stop, H. Please! They said the airlock takes seven minutes.”

Harry freezes. “They said?”

“They said we could go. So, if you want to, we will. But let me tell you what happened when they hauled me off.”

After watching Liam for a moment, Harry nods. 

“Thanks. The two guys that grabbed me took me to the engine room, tied me to a damn chair like we’re living in the Middle Ages, and talked to me. They explained themselves. And then the captain— Fuck, H. You got him good.” Liam makes a loose fist and pretends to punch himself in the side of the head. 

Harry can’t help but smirk a little while he straps himself into his seat, keeping his eyes on the dilating airlock.

“Seriously, H. Tommo— I mean, the captain wants us to stay. Help like we said we would. He was just… I think we scared him.”

“We scared him? Are you serious?” Harry scoffs.

“Yeah…” Liam scratches at his stubble. “They stole the ship.”

“I knew it! All these innocent passengers—”

“No, no. The passengers helped.”

Harry stares at him, blinking slowly. “Passenger pirates? Pirate passengers?”

“No, H. Listen.” Liam pulls open the door to his tiny cabin and grabs his bag. “The whole ship. Everyone on board. I spoke to a number of people, actually. They came from the Anteros colony.”

“There is no Anteros colony.” Harry closes his mouth, refusing to say more. Maybe they brainwashed Liam while he was gone. 

“I know we were all taught that it was unsuccessful, but it wasn’t! That’s what’s so interesting. Something cut off their signal to Earth. Probably the same thing that cut off the signals of the probes. When the first two ships settled in orbit around Anteros, something damaged their engines, but they were already there. The captain of the third ship decided not to get close enough to orbit, in case their engines were damaged too. But the smaller ships still worked to take people to the surface. Colonizing continued on schedule, we just never knew. They didn’t have the power to broadcast a signal, but they didn’t need to. All those people. All three ships that we thought were lost in the Anteros system—”

“They weren’t lost.” It makes sense. The ship is definitely the right age. Harry feels for the wall behind him and leans against it, afraid for a second that his legs won’t support him. “They made it?”

Liam nods. 

Still feeling unsteady, Harry takes a few deep breaths. Over the years he’s learned to compartmentalize, but he’s struggling with it this time. The news of the Anteros colony is huge, but it’s only tangentially related to their present circumstances. Harry squeezes his eyes shut and inhales deeply once more. “Who is Captain Thomas and why the fuck are we here?”

“Third generation colonist. Apparently, after three generations were unable to repair the damaged engines, they decided to send the third ship to explore.” 

“Mmhmm.” Harry crosses his arms over his chest, not quite believing the story, and watching as Liam starts removing his uniform. “What are you doing?”

“Changing?”

Skeptical, Harry asks, “How do you know they’re telling the truth?”

“After I calmed down, they untied me, gave me a multi-tool and told me to keep it. Got one for you too. I think they’re serious, H. I believe them. They need our help.” Liam carefully hangs his uniform and turns to look at Harry, waiting for some sort of response.

Sometimes being a good person sucks. Harry groans. “If they’re pod people and have taken over your body or something like that, and you’re lying to me, I’ll murder you.”

“Deal.” Liam pulls Harry’s right hand and shakes it. “Wait until you see Tommo.” 

“Could you not— Why are you calling him that?” 

“Everyone does. You’ll see. Tommo’s ship isn’t run anything like a Navy vessel. They’re all on a first name or even nickname basis.”

“I’m not calling him that. It’s ridiculous.” 

“So we’re staying?”

“Yes. I mean, of course we’re staying.” Harry sighs when Liam claps him on the shoulder of his flight suit. “Doesn’t mean I have to be nice to anyone.”

3098CE

The pain and stiffness in his jaw doesn’t stop Louis from opening and closing it, testing the soreness. When he last checked, the entire left side of his face was red and swollen, gearing up for a nasty looking bruise. It was at least an hour before he was able to put ice on it. And though it was far from a perfect punch, Admiral Williams got lucky, so Louis hates him a little bit more. High ranking officers in the R.O.E. Navy are such dicks. 

A half-inch cut on his cheekbone, just under his eye, is the only broken skin. Louis flinches as Zayn finishes closing the wound. “Ouch.”

“I know.” Zayn meets Louis’ eyes, narrowing his slightly. 

“Thanks for not making me go to the med level. Really don’t want to have to explain this,” Louis says.

The comms on both of their shoulders buzz and Zayn presses his. “Go ahead.”

Niall’s voice comes through. “The airlock is closing. They’re staying. Got about seven minutes.”

Zayn steps back, watching Louis, who closes his eyes, grimacing when the movement pulls his tight, swollen skin. He taps his comm and says, “On my way.”

Louis checks his face in the small mirror. It’s as bad as he thought. 

“Captain,” Zayn says, and Louis stops. It’s rare for Zayn to address him that way, especially in private. He can’t remember the last time it happened, if ever. After clearing his throat, Zayn continues, “With all due respect, check yourself. Your impulsive reactions to the admiral need to stop. If they’re planning to stay as a gesture of good will from the R.O.E., it cannot get physical with him again. You could start a war with Earth.”

“I know. I mean, I appreciate the reminder, but I know. I’ll rein myself in. Thanks, Z.” Louis looks down at his clothes. There’s no point in pretending anymore, at least as far as his clothing goes. He’s certainly not going to wear his engineer’s jumpsuit every day for the foreseeable future. The trousers he wears most days will have to do. He pulls out a clean undershirt, gingerly pulling it over his head, and finds an engineer’s tunic underneath the rest of his clothes. Zayn follows him on his walk to the hanger. 

When the airlock finally closes a few minutes later, Louis climbs through into the hanger alone, and stands on the walkway, waiting. The hatch opens and Liam—Lieutenant Commander Payne—steps off the ship first, wearing much more casual, typical work clothing. Hopefully that’s a sign that the admiral won’t have a problem with the lack of formality around the ship. 

Payne winks as he salutes and turns, heading away quickly, leaving Louis to watch Rear Admiral Williams descend the steps of his ship alone. 

It’s absurd to be attracted to the man who punched him so hard that Zayn was worried about a concussion, but there it is. Baffling as well, because he’s never found himself drawn to older men before. In fact, every person he’s ever been involved with has been younger than him. He ignores the part of his brain that reminds him how much older than the admiral he actually is. Appearances can be deceiving. 

For instance, the grey threaded through the admirals’ long, dark hair, the deep wrinkle between his eyebrows, the crows feet and frown lines, are misleading. His body may be middle aged, but it’s strong and quick and experienced, and Louis knows he needs to stop thinking about it, but it’s nearly impossible. The admiral is no longer wearing his R.O.E. Navy uniform. His simple trousers and shirt mirror Louis’ and he can’t help but notice the flex of the muscles in his arms when he tosses his bag onto his shoulder and clenches his fists. 

“Admiral Williams.” Louis keeps his voice level and remains calm while the admiral looks him up and down, despite the twitch at the corner of his mouth when his gaze falls on the aftermath of their last meeting. 

“Captain Thomas.” 

Louis takes a deep breath. “I’d like to apologize. And welcome you on board. I’m sor—”

“Save it, Captain. You’re not sorry and I’m not here to make friends.”

Taken aback, Louis blinks rapidly. “Fine. You and Lieutenant Payne will have your choice of the available cabins. Though you’re welcome to bunk on your own ship, if you prefer.” Without another word, Louis spins around and heads out of the hanger. He tried. And he was successful enough that he didn’t punch the admiral again, so that’s something. 

The guest cabins aren’t much different than the crew cabins, but they’re slightly larger. Louis leads the admiral to the end of the hallway and gestures to the row of open single cabin hatches. 

“Lieutenant Commander Payne and I will share a cabin.” Admiral Williams turns to face him and Louis catches the slightest flinch. “Where is he?”

“He said you’d insist on one cabin. It’s right this way.” Louis leads him to the double at the end of the corridor. “Make yourself at home.”

Harry huffs and tosses his bag on the bottom bunk. “Show me to the engine room.”

“Your Lieutenant is already there.” Louis tips his head in the direction of the engines and says, “I’d like to ask you a question.”

“What?”

“What did the auto-SOS from our ship say?”

The admiral chews on his lower lip and the line by his eyebrows deepens. “Bare bones information. S-O-S in Morse Code, the sector coordinates of the ship, and nothing else.”

“That’s what I thought.” Louis nods and scratches at his beard. “What were the coordinates again?”

Scowling, Admiral Williams ignores his question and says, “Take me to the engine room.”

“Sure, just… What were they?”

“Oh!” The admiral’s face lights up. “You mean you don’t know? Should’ve at least gotten that far.”

“Fuck you, Rear Admiral,” Louis speaks without thinking. Again. He freezes, staring at Admiral Williams, waiting for his reaction to Louis’ quick temper, but there is none. 

He simply tilts his head slightly, gives Louis an appraising look, shrugs one shoulder, and makes a noncommittal sound. Louis fights not to appear affronted by the obvious insult. “I do know where the engine room is located, so I don’t actually need you to take me there.”

Louis shakes his head and says firmly, “No coordinates, no access. Two places you’re not permitted on my ship: captain’s quarters and, as long as you plan to withhold the coordinates, the engine room.”

Admiral Williams’ eyes flash, he tightens his hands into fists at his sides, and Louis braces himself. But Williams loosens his fists and jaw and says, “Bring Lieutenant Payne to me, Captain Thomas.”

Knowing it’ll irritate him, Louis says, “I’ll tell Liam you asked for him.” Anger clouds the admiral's features again, and Louis leaves before he can respond, confused by his conflicted feelings of desire and annoyance. He's having enough issues with self-control. 

3098CE

For the first few days, Harry stays in the cabin. It’s as good as a cell, in his opinion, if he’s not allowed to do what he tunneled through spacetime to do. At first, Liam is supportive, staying in the cabin with him, and listening intently while Harry complains about Captain Thomas. He even stops referring to him as Tommo and agrees when Harry says that the only good thing is that the ship runs on Greenwich Mean Time so he doesn’t have to adjust his sleeping patterns. Coincidence or a relic from a century before, he doesn’t know. 

By the second evening, Liam loses his patience. “H, I know you like your solitude, and I know it doesn’t really bother you to stay cooped up in here. But it does me. And to be honest, we’re looking at what? Eight to ten years on this ship?”

“Longer, if Thomas doesn’t let me in the engine room.”

“Hey, so.” Liam purses his lips and squints and it looks like he’s hiding a grin. Harry watches him, confused until he speaks. “I’m not sure, but I think Tommo assumes your rank means you’re just here to push paper and push people around.”

“What makes you think that?”

“He took me to the engine room. Walked me around, showed me the access panels, linked me into the ship’s computer. All but asked me to fix things. Not that I could, but… I didn’t know what he knew and I didn’t know what you wanted him to know, so I played dumb. Told him I’d need to consult with you before I looked at anything.”

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” Harry asks. It’s not something he’s encountered before. Captains step aside at the rank and the uniform and Harry’s left alone to fix things. Most of them don’t even show him to the engines themselves if they can avoid it, leaving that to someone else. He’s not used to being questioned, let alone prevented from doing his job. 

Liam shrugs. “You seemed really into being pissed off, so I figured I’d wait until you calmed down a bit.”

“I don’t get it. I don’t see the point. What’s the difference if I fix things or if you fix things?”

“Maybe he just doesn’t want to deal with you.”

Harry thinks about the swollen side of the Captain’s face, wondering what it looks like more than a day later. “Probably.”

“So then, why are you giving him what he wants?”

Harry huffs quietly. “You’re right. Okay.”

“Dinner?”

While the ship was designed with cafeterias, the officers’ deck below the bridge is where Liam takes him. He’s subsisted on basic rations, assuming that’s all they had, asking for it specifically like an idiot. Harry tries not to blush when he thinks about it. The food is nothing like what he’s had in space before, and he wonders if they stocked the ship with fresh fruits and vegetables before they left the colony. It seems wasteful. And Harry wonders how they’re storing everything when spaceliners were equipped to keep thousands fed on dehydrated rations. 

He needs to know what their destination is, because there’s no way he’s starting a decade-long journey without proof that he won’t starve to death within a few years. For the time being, he enjoys his meal, spearing what looks like a bright purple vegetable with his fork, watching Liam and the rest of the room while he chews. Thankfully, he’s able to finish his meal before he sees Captain Thomas. 

Starting at the top of his cheekbone near his eye, the bruising spreads out in all directions. Asymmetrical bands of color, from the darkest purple around the cut, lighten as they approach the edges alongside his nose, under his jaw and above his brow. It looks horrible. Harry hopes he has a headache. 

“Enjoy your meal, Admiral?” Captain Thomas asks.

“Yes, thank you.” Harry gets to his feet, uncomfortable sitting with the captain standing so close. “I actually wanted to ask you about the food storage.”

“Oh.” Obviously, Captain Thomas didn’t expect the question, but he recovers quickly. “If you’d like to follow me?” 

Harry turns to Liam to ask him to come as well, but before he can, Liam says, “I’m going to the engine room to ask Zayn some questions.”

“Sounds great, Liam.” Captain Thomas steps away from the table and gestures for Harry to follow. “Come see the kitchen.”

It’s a fairly standard ship’s kitchen. In thousands of years, they haven’t done much to improve them, though maybe they’re more efficient. Captain Thomas shows him the freezers and refrigerators and the dry storage area, explains about the automatic locks and other safety features, and Harry follows along, humming and nodding and occasionally asking a question, waiting for the captain to show him where the food comes from. 

Instead, Captain Thomas leads him back to the door to the dining room. “Of course, the kitchens in the cafeterias have all of this on a much larger scale.”

“Show me.” 

“Really?” Captain Thomas turns to face him and Harry flinches at the sight of his bruised face. 

He recovers quickly. “Lieutenant Payne said that you left the Anteros system a few years ago and that you planned to travel for ten years, so I want to know where you’re storing seven more years of food for almost three thousand people.”

“Oh!” Thomas raises his eyebrows and smiles. Even though it’s involuntary and he schools his features almost immediately, Harry feels the corners of his mouth twitch in response. “Thought Liam would’ve told you—”

“It doesn’t matter what I’ve been told, Captain Thomas. I want to see for myself.”

The captain drops his hands to his hips and narrows his eyes. “Fine. Follow me. And I know it’s been said, and you seem to be okay with it if your clothing is anything to go by, but we’re very informal around here. No one calls me Captain Thomas.”

“I’m aware of your nickname, Captain. I won’t be using it.”

“Then I suppose I’ll address you formally as well, Rear Admiral Williams.” 

“We could simply not speak to each other,” Harry offers.

“Fair. Not as though you’ll be working in the engine room with me.” 

Harry chooses not to respond. He’s always been good at giving the silent treatment. The captain continues down the corridor to the lift tube and Harry steps in behind him. A moment later, they step out into an empty hallway. 

“If you want to go in, you’ll have to take a decon shower.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep.” Captain Thomas nods and says, “But you can see everything through here.”

He takes Harry through a door at the end of the hall and Harry stands just inside the room, staring. One wall is nothing but video feeds, though it’s not clear at first glance what exactly is on screen. The rest of the room is taken up by a desk, computers, and a chair with a woman about the captain’s age sitting in it. 

“Hey, Tommo. You on crop duty today?” She spins her chair to face the captain and jumps slightly when she sees Harry standing right behind him. 

Captain Thomas moves to the side and gestures to Harry. “Admiral, this is Lucy. Lucy, I’m sure you’ve heard about the illustrious Rear Admiral H. Williams, visiting from the Republic of Earth, here to tell us everything we’re doing wrong, and to annoy me into an early grave.”

“Do you ever shut up?” Harry elbows past the captain, holding out his hand for Lucy to shake. “Pleasure to meet you, Lucy. I’m here to help get the ship fixed up and on to her destination. Unfortunately, your dear captain doesn’t see fit to let me do any part of my job. So I’m taking a little tour instead. Mind telling me more about what ‘crop duty’ is?”

Lucy shakes Harry’s hand firmly, but looks to the captain and waits for his nod before she says anything. 

“Um… Admiral Williams?” She widens her eyes and Harry realizes she’s waiting for him to tell her what to call him other than his title. 

Harry sighs quietly and smiles. “You can call me H, Lucy. That’s what Lieutenant Payne—Liam—calls me.”

“Okay, H.” She smiles and turns to face the wall of videos. “These are our grow rooms. Crop duty is just what I’m doing now. Keeping an eye on all of the levels we use for growing.”

Leaning closer, Harry focuses on the top row. Screen after screen of rooms filled with fruit trees, some he recognizes, and some he doesn’t. The rest of the wall is sorted by row as well. Bushes and vines and all kinds of plants that Harry’s never seen before. Not that he’s a botanist, but he reads.

“Some of the plants were bred on—”

“Great! Thanks Lucy.” Captain Thomas claps his hands and Lucy and Harry both jump. 

Lucy smiles and says, “No problem, Tommo.” 

The captain turns to leave the room and Harry says, “Thank you, Lucy. Nice meeting you.”

“You too, H. Like I said, it’s not a problem.” She points at Louis, then at the side of her own jaw, winks and says, “Nice shot, by the way.”

Harry sputters out a reflexive thanks, hiding his giggle behind his hand and escaping into the hallway. 

“Jesus,” Captain Thomas mumbles as the door closes behind him. 

“This might explain why you typically use as much power as if you were operating at full capacity.”

Thomas gives him a calculating look. “Do you need me to continue to act as your tour guide, or can I get back to work?”

“Yes, actually. Just need to see the engine room.” Harry presses his lips together and crosses his arms, but the captain continues to look at him expectantly until Harry huffs and says, “I’m not giving you the coordinates unless I have unlimited access to the ship.”

“That’s never going to happen.”

“Then I suppose I’ll go back to my cabin. Lieutenant— Liam is probably waiting for me.”

“Wouldn’t want to keep you any longer, then, Rear Admiral.” Thomas stalks off down the corridor and Harry has no choice but to follow since they're headed toward the same lift. They step inside together, knocking shoulders as they try to push past each other in the doorway. 

“Excuse me, Rear Admiral,” Captain Thomas says, moving aside and letting Harry through first.

“Stop saying it like that.” Harry scowls, balling his hands into fists.

The captain smirks and says, “No.”

Harry bangs his fist against the wall of the lift beside his leg, trying not to clench his teeth when it hurts more than he expected. At least Thomas is in worse shape. Harry steps out on the correct level and takes off towards his cabin, refusing to hurry, but definitely not walking any slower than absolutely necessary. 

“What’s the matter, Rear Admiral? Don’t like your rank?” Thomas falls into step beside him.

“Shut up,” Harry growls lowly.

The captain rounds the corner to the corridor where Harry’s cabin is, leading him, as if Harry can’t find his way to the correct one at the very end. But before they get there he stops and leans against the wall. Harry’s eyes follow him as the captain blatantly looks him up and down and says, “Hmm… Don’t want to. Rear Admiral.”

“Stop saying it like that!” Harry shouts, stepping toe to toe with the captain. 

Up close, Harry can see the few flecks of grey in the captain’s beard, and white hair scattered among the darker hair at his temples, scarcely enough to be noticeable. His face is still smooth, hardly a wrinkle visible, except the barely there laugh lines beside his eyes, and the evidence of worry lines in his forehead. Harry’s gaze drops involuntarily, drawn by movement in his peripheral vision. The captain licking his lower lip. 

He catches Harry watching and does it again, then says, “Why?”

“Because it’s disrespectful to speak that way to an officer of the R.O.E. Navy!”

“Oh, believe me, I know how to speak to an officer who outranks me. I know how to speak to a Fleet Admiral. I know how to speak to the Commander-in-chief.” 

“You’re ridiculous!”

“And you’re a liar, Rear Admiral.” Thomas shrugs and rolls his eyes.

“What makes you say that? And why do you insist on saying it like that?”

“Because you’re not one! No Rear Admiral would put up with even one innuendo laced pronunciation of their rank. That I know.”

“You don’t know shit, Thomas.”

“Ooh, careful there, Williams.” Thomas raises his eyebrows and Harry notices how far forward he’s leaning. If he moves any closer into Thomas’ space, he’ll have to prop his hand on the wall for support. “Don’t want anyone to hear you get informal with me. Next thing you know you’ll be calling me Tommo.”

“You’re a fucking nightmare!” Harry takes a step back, scrubbing a bruised hand over his face. 

“Really terrible one, I hope,” the captain says, widening his stance, and tipping his chin up. He rests the back of his head against the wall, looking at Harry through his eyelashes, and Harry has to look away. The captain’s bruises are truly awful looking, but his eyes are beautiful, and Harry wants to kiss him as much as he wants to kick him. 

To stop himself from combing his fingers through his hair again, Harry laces them together behind his head, and steps between the captain’s feet. It’s stupid to get so close when Liam could show up any second, but before he thinks of that, he’s already only inches away. Close enough to watch Thomas’ eyelashes flutter when he blinks. Harry looks from his eyes to his lips and mumbles, “The worst.”

The captain grabs the front of Harry’s shirt, yanking him forward, and Harry just manages to catch himself, hands flat to the wall on either side of Thomas’ head. He opens his mouth to complain and Thomas surges up, roughly meeting Harry’s lips. Harry grunts, pressing closer until Thomas’ back is against the wall. It’s hot and wet and messy so fast that it takes Harry’s breath away. His brain needs a second to catch up with his body, and by then the captain reaches around and grabs Harry’s ass with both hands. 

After that, Harry stops thinking. Thomas opens the door to the cabin that they’re practically humping each other next to and ushers Harry inside. Before the door slides shut, Harry crowds him against the few inches of available wall space. Pushing his hips forward, seeking friction, Harry’s already half-hard and Thomas groans, shoving his hands down the back of Harry’s pants, scratching his nails across his skin, and pushing his waistband down. He quickly drops his own trousers, reaching for Harry’s dick just as Harry does the same, and they jerk each other a few times before Thomas brings their bodies together again, deepening their kiss and grinding against Harry’s leg. 

Moaning into Thomas’ mouth, Harry circles his hips and slides the shaft of his dick over the head of Thomas’. He forces his hand between them, wrapping it around both of their cocks, and stroking them steadily, while Thomas sucks on his lower lip. Harry lets him lead their kisses, concentrating on making them both come by pumping his fist faster, rubbing his thumb over the heads of their dicks, just the way he likes it when he’s alone. 

Heat coils in Harry’s stomach and he gasps, pulling away from Thomas’ kisses. He drops his forehead to Thomas’ shoulder and smooths his hand over his hip and lower back, inching slowly down until the pad of his middle finger rests just above his ass. Thomas hitches his hips back against Harry’s hand, and Harry takes it for an invitation, seeking the heat of Thomas’ body, dragging his fingertip over his rim, pressing in circles while he fucks into his own hand, skin on fire where he rubs against Thomas’ cock. 

Thomas leans his head down, sucking a harsh kiss into the side of Harry’s neck and that’s what topples Harry over the edge. He comes, biting down on Thomas’ shoulder, cock spurting between them, slicking them up as he continues to jerk them off. Thomas’ orgasm hits before Harry’s is finished, and Harry shivers, cutting off a whine, oversensitive but unwilling to be the first to pull away. 

Finally, the captain shoves at Harry’s shoulder and he lets go, both of their dicks bobbing in the air between them. Harry wipes his hand on the bunk’s blanket, pulls his pants up, opens the door, and hurries down the hallway to his cabin. 

3098CE

The door slides closed behind Williams and Louis drops his chin to his chest, chewing the inside of his cheek and glowering at his spent cock. 

“Fuck.” Louis opens the head and washes his hands. He turns and frowns at his blanket. Tomorrow should be interesting. Williams is a fucking dick, but there’s no use pretending he’s not willing to overlook that for the time being. It’s not as if they’ll ever see each other again once they get the engines running. The Rear Admiral can take his little ship and go back home using whatever tech they’ve got on Earth to produce that wormhole. 

Maybe Louis can convince Williams to go along with some sort of mutually beneficial orgasm arrangement in the meantime. 

Zayn and Liam have been spending most of their days in the engine room, and though he hasn’t been there to help, they’ve got to be getting somewhere by now. He’ll stop by after lunch. 

Yawning, he stretches his arms up, pressing the palms of his hands against the ceiling. It’s not often he’s felt absolutely sure about something, but he felt that way when they made plans to leave Anteros. And he felt that way when they hit their first decade and unanimously decided to keep going. He felt that way before they tested their first wormhole, and before they tested the tether. Maybe it’s not one hundred percent reliable. But he feels positive that they’re doing what they need to, which means they’ll find a way to repair the ship.

Louis falls asleep still thinking about the engines, and dreams about pulling Admiral Williams’ hair out of the tight bun he keeps it in, and tangling his fingers in it while Williams sucks his cock. He has to get himself off before he gets out of his bunk the next day. 

It makes for an interesting morning. 

Being the captain is really boring most of the time. That’s probably why no one else ever wants to do it. The paperwork. An antiquated phrase that should’ve fallen out of favor when people stopped using paper, yet thousands of years later, Louis is staring at a screen, scrolling through the data for the medicinal crops, double checking that everything is running smoothly. He spends the entire morning like that, scowling at numbers, but while he’s focused on the paperwork, he’s floating. It’s been years since he’s gotten off with another person, so his frame of reference is skewed, but it’s possible that he’s never come that hard before. He almost feels like he still is, but that’s ridiculous. He’s just not used to the rush. There’s quite a difference between masturbating—most of the sex he’s had over the last few decades has been of the solo variety—and being brought to orgasm by someone else's hand. 

Not to mention that the hand was big enough to jerk them both off at the same time. Or that it was attached to a beautiful, frustrating, annoying man, who bit him hard enough to leave a mark. There are so many other uses for that mouth and— 

Louis pushes away from his desk and stands. He needs to take a walk because the last thing he needs to be thinking about while he’s working is the pink of Williams’ lips stretched around his dick. It takes him two tries to open the door and when it slides closed behind him, his imagination has moved on from fucking that gorgeous mouth to being fucked by that gorgeous cock. He walks as fast as he can without running and takes the long way to the engine room. By the time he gets there, he’s sweating and back to hating Rear Admiral H. Williams on principle. 

Finding that Zayn has made zero progress brings him back to the low level of pissed off he’s been at since the Rear Admiral’s ship showed up. 

“How can you have made no progress?” Louis points at the open access panel. “You haven’t even eliminated anything? Liam is supposed to help you!”

Liam snorts and Zayn says, “Tommo, Liam isn’t part of the crew.”

“I know that! I just mean, that’s why he’s here, isn’t it? He came all this way from fucking Earth to fix the damn engines, didn’t he?”

“Hmm…” Liam presses his lips together and Louis glares at him until he says, “Not really.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Before Liam can speak, Zayn holds a hand up to stop him. “Tommo, Liam is a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy. He’s not an engineer.”

“He can be both, Zayn.” Louis rolls his eyes, but when they land on Liam, he’s shaking his head. 

“I’m not though,” Liam says.

Louis frowns. “You're telling me you two didn’t come all this way to help? Which is it?”

“Oh, no. We definitely came to help.”

“Tommo, use your head, man.” 

“You’re shitting me.” Louis looks from Zayn to Liam. “He’s the engineer?”

Liam nods. “Among other things.”

“Like what?”

“Um…” Liam blanches, eyes darting back and forth. “He’s a Rear Admiral in the Republic of Earth Navy.”

“Right.” Louis tilts his head to the side, watching for Liam’s reaction. “I know that’s a lie.”

It’s the slightest tell. A tiny twitch of Liam’s eyebrow. Not that he needed the proof. But Liam is far from convincing when he says, “It’s the truth.”

▒ ▒ ▒

The hospital level of the ship is one that Louis avoids. He’s simply not interested in his vitals or anything else that may or may not be affected by long term lightspeed travel. But when he doesn’t find Harry in his cabin, he asks Niall. 

“He’s on the med level, but listen—”

Louis slaps the comm on his shoulder. “Thanks, Niall!”

“Tommo, man. Last night…I didn’t realize…” Niall sighs heavily through the comm and Louis frowns, stopping in the hallway to listen. “I thought you were fighting. Like, I thought Williams was going to punch you again. And I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but like I said I thought— Anyway, the cameras in the corridor outside your cabin are no longer recording. I assume it’s okay with you that I turned them off  and I assume you’re also fine with me leaving them that way. At least, for now.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew they were being recorded, but so far he’d managed to avoid thinking about it. “Sorry. But yeah.”

“Right. So. Med level. Admiral Williams.” Niall clears his throat. “Over?”

“Tommo out.” Louis taps the comm again and rehearses what he wants to say when he finds Williams, who’s probably getting in the way of the Medical Officers and causing problems. He’s certainly taking his access to the ship literally. No one in their right mind would want to spend their day among a bunch of sick or injured people. Shit. He doesn’t need to be around the medical records of the entire ship, not with his stupid phone able to link to the ship's computer. 

Louis runs the rest of the way. 

He searches the entire med level and is about to contact Niall when he does a double take walking past one of the break rooms. 

“Williams?” 

“Captain Thomas.” Williams pushes himself away from the table he was so casually resting his elbows on, and straightens his posture. 

“What are you doing?” Louis asks, even though it’s obvious he’s recently finished eating a late lunch. 

“Nothing now. I was about to come looking for you. As soon as I thank Shawn for showing me around.” Williams stands and starts to gather his trash but Shawn stops him. 

“You go ahead with Tommo. I’ll clean up. It was nice talking to you, H.” Shawn turns to Captain Thomas and says, “How’s the face?”

In the split second it takes him to understand the question, Louis knows he looks confused, brow furrowed as he cocks his head to the side before realizing. “Oh! No. I’m fine. A bit tender, you know. But that’s, um, that’s what bruises are like.” Thankfully he’s able to close his mouth and stop talking. Somehow he makes it off of the med level and into a lift tube.

Williams turns to him, frowning. “Does it hurt still?”

Before he thinks about it, Louis shakes his head, but then he says, “Can’t sleep on that side. It’s sore, but not too bad. How’s your hand?” 

“Been better.” He tightens his fist then stretches his hand, spreading his fingers apart. 

Louis waits, expecting him to say something more, but he doesn’t, going back to staring at his hand. “Why?”

“Hmm?” He looks up at Louis, lines between his eyebrows less noticeable without his scowl. 

“Why do you want to know if it hurts? Want to apologize or something?” Louis is mostly joking. He was a complete idiot and can’t say he wouldn’t have done the exact same thing had their positions been switched. 

Williams sniffs haughtily and says, “I’m not sorry for hitting you.”

“Well, fuck you too, Rear Admiral.” 

“Stop it.” 

“You know what? Fine. We didn’t actually do much talking about this last night after I brought it up.” Louis closes his eyes, astounded at how quickly he gets riled up around Williams. “Are you even an officer? I believe Payne is. But you? A Rear Admiral?”

“Stop fucking saying it like that!” Williams shouts, stepping out of the lift tube near his cabin.

“Why?” Louis asks, following right behind. 

“Because!” Williams stops, spinning around. “Because I know you know I’m not one, and you’re just saying it to be a dick! So shut up.”

“You’re an engineer, which is just a glorified space mechanic, right?” Louis knows it’s a mistake the second he says it and is immediately glad that Niall cut the cameras so there’s no way he’s listening to him. The last thing he needs is another punch to the head. 

“Call me what you want, Thomas, but at least I do something.” He walks past the door to Louis’ cabin and his head jerks towards it slightly, then he stops, but doesn’t turn around. “From what I can tell, you're the captain of a ship that doesn’t seem to want or need a captain. Do you have any idea how many people have congratulated me on punching you in the face? I look at you and see a third generation colonist piggybacking on the work of other people.”

“You know nothing about me!” Louis walks right up behind him and says, “I’m a good captain.”

“Yeah? Well, the one thing you should do as captain is let me in the fucking engine room so I can fix your stupid ship.” Williams spins around and though Louis takes a step back, they’re still too close. The green of his eyes seems to glow in the dim hallway light, and Louis hates the guilt he feels at the disappointment he sees there. “Instead you’re actively preventing me from doing what I came here to do.” 

“How do you know you can fix it when you don’t even know what’s wrong?”

“Of course I know what’s wrong! It happens all the fucking time. About eighty years ago, a magnetic cloud passed near Earth, scrambling the computers and shutting down the engines of every ship in orbit that it touched. It doesn’t happen daily, but it happens often enough that I know what it is when I see it and I know how to fix it.”

“That’s what damaged the Anteros ships?” Louis asks. 

“Yes! My god, you have no idea what you’re doing!” Williams gestures wildly, smacking Louis’ shoulder with the back of his hand. And while it’s possible it was accidental, Louis doesn’t give him the opportunity to apologize or explain, reaching up and shoving hard at the center of Williams’ chest. He stumbles, but catches himself, rushing forward and grabbing Thomas’ shirt with both hands, pushing him up against the wall. “What the hell is your problem?”

“You!” Louis yells, knocking Williams’ hands off of his shirt. 

“Why are you like this?” Williams shakes his head, letting his arms hang at his sides. “No. I’m not… I won’t fight you again.”

Across the corridor, Louis watches his chest heave, the bob of his Adam’s apple when he swallows. Williams' eyes dart from Louis to his own cabin at the end of the hall, and down to his hands, which he clasps together. Finally, he looks up, and Louis doesn’t care anymore. They can fight tomorrow when Louis lets him into the engine room. There’s bound to be something they’ll disagree about then, but for now… “Fuck me.”

“Huh?” Williams blinks at him, brow furrowing. It’s not cute.

“Fuck me.” While Williams stares, apparently speechless, Louis blindly reaches for the keypad beside his cabin door, opening it on the first try, which he hopes is a good sign. Tugging his shirt over his head, he steps backwards into his cabin and raises one eyebrow. “Or don’t. I’ll do it myself. You probably don’t know what to do with—”

Taunting works exactly the way Louis hoped it would. He finds himself being spun around and thrown against that same bit of wall, but this time he barely catches himself, almost smashing his already bruised face. Before he can berate Williams for it, he yanks Louis’ pants down and the hands that were so unsure—fingers twisting nervously as he stared at them only a moment ago—squeeze handfuls of Louis’ ass, spreading him roughly.

Williams grinds his still clothed crotch against Louis’ bare skin, and Louis arches into it, resting his forehead against the wall, and pressing back until he hears Williams’ breath hitch. He fumbles for the edge of his bunk, searching for his lube, silently mouthing his thanks when he finds it immediately. Flipping the cap with his thumb, Louis holds himself off the wall with his forearm, drizzling the lube into his free hand. Williams’ fingertips dig into his hips and then he grabs the bottle from Louis.

“Jerk yourself off,” Williams orders, his voice even deeper than usual, and Louis realizes then that they didn’t speak at all the last time. Other than grunts and moans, they remained silent. 

“Thought you were fucking me?” Louis lifts up onto his toes, then shifts his feet further apart. 

“Shut up.” 

Two fingers slide between his cheeks and over his rim with a perfunctory swipe, disappearing and returning again, getting him wetter this time. Williams circles the pads of his fingers and pushes one inside, not stopping until Louis feels the knuckles of his other fingers beside his rim. When he pulls back, Louis whines, choking on it when he doesn’t wait, fitting two of his long fingers inside. 

“Told you to jerk yourself off. Not doing this if you’re not hard.” Williams fucks his fingers in and out quickly, teasing Louis’ rim with his thumb. The feeling of being stretched distracted him and he’d been slowly stroking himself with a loose fist. He tightens his grip.

“I am hard. So hurry up and fuck me.” Louis’ entire body jerks when Williams brushes his fingertips over his prostate. 

“Just checking.” Williams snickers and Louis starts to turn and scowl at him, freezing when he feels Williams’ dick sliding through the lube between his cheeks. The head is hot, nudging against his rim, and a low groan escapes Louis’ open mouth. He licks his lips and tries to relax his body enough to allow the intrusion, but when Williams forces the first few inches of his cock past the ring of muscle, it burns and Louis gasps, biting down on a whimper. 

Just as the sting subsides, Williams tightens his grip on Louis’ hips and pulls him away from the wall and onto his cock, filling him completely. Shivering, Louis closes his eyes and clenches around Williams’ dick, the muscles tightening and releasing.

“Alright?” Williams mutters the question in his ear and Louis nods. 

Without another word, he pulls about halfway out and slowly pushes back in until Louis’ ass is flush against him. When he doesn’t start to fuck him right away, Louis twists his hips impatiently and says, “Come on. I won’t break.”

Possibly that’s the wrong thing to say because with one harsh thrust, Williams buries himself completely inside him again, fucking him rough and fast, giving him no time to adjust or catch his breath. Louis slaps his hands against the wall on either side of his head and Williams growls, sliding his hands down to the tops of Louis’ thighs, lifting him up onto his toes so that the rest of his weight is supported by the wall. He can’t move, leaving him to choice but to take it when he dicks in hard.

With the door to one side and Louis’ bunk and desk to the other, Williams has him pinned in place with his cock. He slams their bodies together over and over, hefting him a little higher so that his feet leave the floor completely, and on the next thrust Louis gasps, turning his head and resting his temple against the wall, watching Williams out of the corner of his eye. 

Brow furrowed in concentration, lower lip turning pale where it's caught between his teeth, he fucks Louis with quick repeated jabs to his prostate. The only noises in the tiny, windowless cabin are the slick sounds their bodies make moving together and the quiet grunts he’s unable to contain, despite biting down on his bottom lip hard enough to taste blood. 

Williams widens his stance slightly, enough that Louis’ feet touch the ground again, and releases his thighs. Wrapping his hand around Louis’ dick, Williams jerks him off with short, efficient strokes. A choked sob escapes past his bitten lip when he comes, but Williams’ rhythm doesn’t falter, continuing to fuck him faster and faster. He plants his come covered hand between Louis’ shoulder blades and pushes until he physically cannot move at all. Each thrust punches the air out of his lungs and his trembling legs barely offer enough support to keep him upright. 

Body shaking, and fingertips digging in hard enough to leave bruises on Louis' hips, Williams moans. After one last deep thrust, Williams pulls out and, holding Louis open with one hand, he comes on Louis’ ass. It slides down his crack over his rim, and Louis has to stop himself from reaching around and pushing it inside as it drips over his balls. He watches a drop fall in the beam of light from the corridor when Williams opens the door. 

“Jesus Christ.” Louis shakes his head, knocking it against the wall. Maybe he’ll knock some sense into himself.

3098CE

Just after five in the morning, at least back home it would be, Harry wakes up. He stares at the cabin door, and up at the underside of Liam’s bunk, listening to see if he’s moving around in his sleep, but no sounds come.

He rolls out of his bunk and uses the head, dressing in his regular black trousers and t-shirt, then lays back down because all of that took a total of ten minutes, and there’s nothing else to do in their little cabin. Eventually, he gives up, deciding to try the engine room. Maybe he’ll get lucky.

Though he hasn’t been allowed inside, he’s walked past the doors plenty of times, trying to sneak in. Not really. That’s what he tells Tommo —Thomas— every time he catches him. That’s not what’ll happen today. He’s going to force his way inside if Captain Thomas doesn’t give him permission. Or he’s leaving. Because there’s no purpose in sticking around if they’re not going to let him actually fix the ship. 

As he approaches the engine room door, it slides open, and Niall walks out. “Hey, Admiral!”

“Niall, right?” Harry extends his hand and tries not to show his relief when Niall takes it. “Call me H, if you’d like.”

“Ahh so we brought you around to the casual side. Nice. Well, I’m Niall, as you know. And Tommo’s waiting for you, so I’ll just…” Niall winks and clicks his tongue, sauntering off, and leaving Harry to wonder whether Thomas told anyone at all about his not being an admiral. 

Harry pokes his head around the doorway, but sees no one, so he walks in, takes a seat, and links up to the engine room’s computer. He’s scrolling through the data from the last few days when he sees feet sticking out of the access panel in the wall. 

“Hello?” It’s a stupid thing to say, but he doesn’t want to startle Zayn or whoever is crawling into the room. 

“Hello?” Zayn echoes back, standing and brushing off his clothes. “Oh, it’s you! Welcome to the engine room, um… Admir—”

“H, please. I’ve asked everyone to just call me H.” Harry meets him halfway and shakes his second hand of the day, feeling better about the entire rescue already. 

“Does that mean I get to call you H?” Captain Thomas asks, and Harry spins around to face him. 

“You— Where did you come from?” 

“Was up inside the access panel with this one.” Thomas wiggles his eyebrows and Zayn smacks him in the arm. “So, do I call you H?”

“No,” Harry scoffs. “You do not.”

“Seriously? You just said you asked everyone to call you H.”

“Yes. I did. But not you.” Harry sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. It’s too early for a headache. “You’re the captain and I think it’s important to have that distinction.”

“Right. Because ours is such an exemplary professional relationship.” Thomas rolls his eyes and shoulders past Harry, joining Zayn near the door. A moment later, they’re alone. “I’m not calling you Admiral or whatever fake rank you’re using today.”

“It’s the only fake rank I’ve ever used. Just call me Williams. I’ll call you Thomas. Easy.”

“Whatever.” Thomas points to Harry’s phone. “Find anything yet?”

Harry shakes his head. 

“Didn’t think you would.” Tilting his head to the side, Thomas shrugs one shoulder, but when he walks away, it’s with a slight limp, which makes Harry feel a little better. 

“Because of the, um… unconventional start to this rescue, I’m missing a lot of info that I’d normally get first thing.” 

Thomas scoffs. “Rescue? Whatever you say, man.”

“It is a rescue. I mean, you have to tell me your destination.” Harry looks down at the screen in front of him and frowns. “And I can’t do anything until I figure out why the auxiliary power levels are so much less than they should be. But once I do that—and you tell me where we’re going—I can get on with the rescuing bit.”

“Good luck,” Thomas mutters and Harry glances over to see him open the door, stepping aside to let Zayn through, before whispering in his ear and disappearing into the corridor. 

Zayn joins Harry at the terminal, leaning over to see what Harry’s doing. “Oh, yeah…”

“Any idea why the auxiliary power levels are so far off from where they should be?” Harry drums his fingers against his knee.

“Nope!” Zayn presses his lips together, widening his eyes. “You?”

“Well, no. Not really. That’s why I asked you.” Harry scratches the back of his neck and looks around the engine room. “Eight access panels. Two on each wall. Figured I’d take a look. Work my way around.”

“Oh? Sounds great!” Zayn hops out of his chair and walks to the furthest access panel from Harry, on the opposite wall. Watching him, Harry wonders how he’s so chipper. They’ve been running on the same schedule, so it’s still early for him as well, and in all of their previous interactions, Zayn has seemed much more reserved. 

Harry helps him with the panel and follows him inside, crawling a few feet behind. The engines on first generation spaceliners are older than he is, and take up more room than those of the newer large capacity spaceships. They slowly make their way through, checking wires and connections, testing every section of that part of the engine, and finding nothing. They keep going through lunch because neither of them realize how long they’ve been working. Harry’s always been the type to get lost in what he’s doing and lose track, and Zayn’s back to being quiet, so by the time Harry notices that he hasn’t eaten yet that day, it’s late enough that he can just have dinner and call it a night. 

He leads the way, crawling backwards. As soon as they reattach the panel to the wall, he yawns, stretching his arms out to the side. 

It’s not as though he expects an answer, but he might as well ask. “Hey, Zayn? What’s the ship’s final destination?”

Zayn studies him, spinning his multi-tool in his hand. “I’ll let you know when I find out.” 

“That makes absolutely no sense.” Harry sighs and reaches up to take his hair down. It’s been up in a tight bun for more than twelve hours and isn’t helping his headache. Neither is his empty stomach. “Dinner?”

“Yeah, Tommo will be expecting us. He probably stopped by a dozen times while we were inside the engine.” Zayn says that last part to the engineer on duty, who nods. 

“I doubt he’s expecting me, but I believe he stopped by to check up on me. Doesn’t trust me to do my job at all.”

“’Course not. You’re from Earth.” Zayn chuckles, then cuts off his laughter and clears his throat. “Sorry.”

“I live there. I know it’s awful.”

“Why stay then?”

“Well, not everyone has a giant spaceship with its own self-sustaining farm, hospital, and whatever else you have on the levels I haven’t visited. Schools? A nursery?” Harry tips his chin up, staring at the ceiling while he wonders what else he hasn’t seen on the refurbished ship. And what might work to change the subject. “I mean, I know originally these ships were built to support about five thousand young adults on rations for up to ten years, but you’ve obviously made a lot of changes.”

Zayn hums, but doesn’t ask again, which is for the best. Harry's reasons for remaining on Earth aren't something to discuss with virtual strangers. 

The food production on the ship is so fascinating, and Harry wonders if the R.O.E. might be interested in the updates the Anteros colony made to the ship. Maybe if he waits a few months after he returns home and nonchalantly mentions it as a theoretical possibility to one of the newer biologists, he can pass it off and no one will be able to trace the source of the idea. 

The last thing he wants to do is alert the R.O.E. of the existence of the Anteros colony when their interference has done nothing but harm to the other colonies. Of course, by the time he and Liam get back to Earth, it’s possible that the R.O.E. will have started researching something similar on their own. Depending on how long they’re gone, Earth might have even designed a self-sustaining ship of their own. Of course, they’ve never been interested in space exploration for its own sake. The only purpose the R.O.E. sees in long term space travel is colonization in every sense of the word. None of the other planets colonized during the first wave were intended to be independent worlds. And now, almost a hundred years after they were first colonized, the R.O.E. has given up on colonizing because there are zero returns on the expense. It’s as if they’ve forgotten the purpose completely. 

3098CE

If he wants to beat Williams to the engine room, Louis has to get out of bed an entire hour and a half before he normally does. That alone is enough to fuel the fire of his loathing. 

When he does arrive, one and a half hours early, and finds Williams already in the engine room, it doesn’t help his mood. 

“When do you sleep?” Louis asks, mouth stretching around a yawn. 

Williams ignores his question and watches him settle into the chair beside him. “Assuming Zayn filled you in on what he and I did yesterday, I’m planning to continue with that today. Hoping to get through more than one section this time.”

“Well, Zayn’s not here. And I don’t know what you think you’re going to find in there. We’ve checked and tested everything.”

“Oh?” Williams smiles and spins his chair all the way around until he’s facing Louis again. “Then tell me what’s going on with the auxiliary power.”

“Nothing.” Louis’ eyebrows shoot up before he can stop them. “It’s because of the farm levels. The grow lamps and everything pull a lot of power.”

Williams narrows his eyes and nods once. “Right. So I’m going to go ahead and start… with the panel over there.” 

Of course he points at the one access panel Louis doesn’t want him near. “That doesn’t make sense. You should do them in order. Could be something between the two sections and it’s easier to eliminate them that way.”

“Yeah, okay. Good thinking.” He pushes himself out of his chair and heads for the access panel and Louis follows right behind him. 

If he’s able to keep Williams occupied, Zayn can climb into the panel on the opposite side and take care of everything. By the time Williams checks that section, it should look exactly like it’s supposed to. 

It turns out that when they don’t speak to each other, they work well together. The tests and checks in that section of the engine go smoothly. So much so, that they finish in time to have a late lunch. Possibly, that’s where things go wrong.

“Can I ask you something?” Williams looks at him from the other side of the table. He’s halfway through a sandwich, still holding it in both hands, and there’s mayonnaise on his face, right beside his mouth. Louis nods and half listens while watching the blob of mayo move as Williams talks. “Okay. You’re the captain, but you’re comfortable in engineering. So did you start out there?”

Louis shrugs, nodding his head from side to side. “Sort of, but not really. I’ve always been mechanically inclined, I guess? Used to take shit apart and put it back together for fun when I was a kid. Drove everyone crazy.”

“But you didn’t go to school for it?” Williams sits back, eyes wide. “Can’t believe I haven’t asked you about Anteros. Like, what was it like growing up there? Did you have tutors or… What was it like?” 

He sounds so excited to hear whatever Louis might have to say that he’s actually sorry to disappoint him. “Yeah, I don’t… I don’t really like to talk about it.”

Williams rolls his eyes and sighs. “Whatever.”

“Whatever. Do you like talking about your childhood to strangers? How was it growing up on Earth? They ever fix that hole in the ozone? What about the Protectorate? Does everyone live behind a fucking giant wall now or do they still let you out occasionally? Do you—”

“Fine. You’re right. I don’t want to talk about it.” Williams looks at his sandwich and drops it to his plate, wiping his face with a napkin and cleaning away the mayonnaise. “Interesting though, that they’re teaching Earth history on Anteros. Would’ve thought everyone there would be glad to be free from the R.O.E.”

Louis taps his toe against the table leg. He didn’t mean to mention anything about Earth, really, but it’s a sore subject, and his mouth can get away from him under the best of circumstances. “They were. Probably the whole not knowing history means you’ll repeat it or however the saying goes.”

“It’s actually ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ But I suppose the sentiment still stands. Was a smart move by the first generation colonists to teach you that.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Louis chews on the inside of his cheek, remembering where the conversation started. “Oh, right, so engineering. Would you believe me if I told you I was a super genius and my focus has always been theoretical physics and engineering was just a hobby?”

Williams snorts and covers his mouth, shaking his head. “Thanks for that. Needed a laugh.”

“Right. I’m the captain. Need to know all the parts of the ship, don’t I? I learn what I can. With our smaller population, we don’t have as many engineers as we would normally, so we make do.”

Williams nods. “Okay, so I actually had a point. When you’re working with the engines, do you ever just… follow your instincts?”

“Yeah, sure. With lots of things, not just engineering, but yeah.”

“I just have a feeling I’m not going to find anything today. Like, I’ll go ahead and work my way through the next section, but I really think the problem’s elsewhere.”

“Oh? Maybe.” Louis pushes his lunch aside, no longer very hungry. “Still. Should work through in order. That’s procedure.”

“Was it instinct or procedure when you took us prisoner?”

“I— That’s not—” Louis groans and rests his elbow on the table, reaching up to rub between his eyebrows. “It was fear, okay? The R.O.E. is fucking scary and I didn’t— I still don’t want them —you— interfering. I know what they’re like. They’d take this ship and everything on it. We’ve worked hard on our farm levels and our— On everything. Don’t want them to know I exist. Don’t want anything to do with them. You.”

A loud, sputtering laugh isn’t the reaction he expected, but Louis lets him get it out. Maybe he’s losing it. Some people don’t do well in space. Finally, his laughter fades to a quiet giggle. Williams takes a deep breath and says, “You and everyone else in the universe.”

“Huh?”

“Even the R.O.E. doesn’t want anything to do with the R.O.E. There are so many layers of bullshit and bureaucracy that nothing gets done. Nothing’s changed for the better in like a hundred years or more. It’s stagnant and, to be honest, dying. I keep thinking that one of these days I’ll come back from a rescue and there’ll have been a revolution in my absence. But so far, it hasn’t happened.”

“A revolution in your absence? Too cool or too old to participate yourself?”

“I… Too old.” Williams stands and heads for the door without waiting, and Louis wonders if he’s sensitive about his age. It’s not as though he’s old. He’s forty-five at the most, with grey threaded through his long, dark curls, and a few well-placed lines on his face. Not that he cares about Williams’ feelings. He doesn’t want to get into another fight is all.

Louis trails behind him on the way back to the engine room. It’s been so long since they left Anteros that he almost forgot about truly aging and all the baggage that comes along with it. He lifts his hand to his face and traces his fingertips over the wrinkles beside his eyes, wincing when he presses too roughly on his bruise. They have to get the engines fixed and he has to convince Williams to give him the coordinates. That’s step one.

“Hey!” Louis jogs down the hall until he catches up. “You said you’d give me the coordinates if I gave you access.”

“Did not.”

“Yes, you did.”

“No. I said I’d give them to you if you gave me unlimited access.” Williams stands aside and lets Louis enter the engine room first. “As far as I know, captain’s quarters is still off limits. And…” He walks away from the access panel they’re supposed to open next, points to the one that Louis knows Zayn is working in, and says, “I want to check this one next.” 

Louis shakes his head. 

“That’s what I thought.” Williams turns and heads back towards him. “You’re hiding something, Captain. Don’t know what it is, but I’ll figure it out.”

3098CE

The two places he’s not allowed are the captain’s quarters and the part of the engine room that feeds into that section of the ship. It doesn’t make sense. Captain’s quarters on these ships are large, larger than on later models because they’re unnecessary; captains don’t actually spend a lot of time in their cabins. 

Harry stays up late, trying to think of what Thomas could possibly be hiding. When he wakes up the next day, he’s still only able to come up with two possibilities.

Skipping his shower should put him in the engine room long before Thomas arrives, so he ought to be able to get inside that access panel without trouble. 

“How—” Harry stops short just inside the engine room. Captain Thomas is waiting. 

“Great! Let’s get started.” Thomas strides across the room to the access panel they’re supposed to work in, and crawls inside without waiting for Harry. 

They work in complete silence. And when they finish the first section for the day, they take a short break to eat the lunch that Shawn brings them. Just as Harry resigns himself to another stretch of silence in the next section, while constantly wondering what the hell is going on that the captain doesn’t want him to see, Niall pokes his head into the room and says, “Need you on the bridge, Tommo.”

“Alright. You stay here with Williams.”

Harry rolls his eyes. Of course he has to have a babysitter. 

He crawls inside the next section alone, working his way along, losing track of time. Niall’s echoing voice brings him back to reality. “H, I’m out! Past my bedtime, man! You cool?”

“Yeah, I’m good. Almost done. I’ll be right behind you!” Harry flinches as his own words bounce off the walls around him.

“Good night, man! See you tomorrow!” 

Harry yells the same back and waits to see if he says anything more. Once he’s certain that Niall is gone, he crawls back down as quietly as possible and closes the panel. Somehow he’s been left unsupervised and it seems a shame to waste that. 

Once he takes the panel on the far side off, Harry checks again to be sure he’s alone. Nothing out of place. Nothing strange. Quick visual checks are all he bothers with, too consumed with the idea of finding whatever Thomas is hiding. When he gets to the end of the section, he stops and sits up, laying his palms flat against the smooth wall. Strange. And there’s definitely something out of place. But looking around, he can’t figure out what it is. 

After he makes his way out, Harry secures the panel and goes straight to his cabin. There’s a packaged meal waiting beside his bed when he gets there, courtesy of Liam, he assumes, and he eats it quickly in the dim reading light of his bunk. 

He’s almost asleep when he remembers that he hasn’t showered all day. One of the few things the R.O.E. has done right is to make sure that there’s clean water for everyone, and Harry misses his bathtub whenever he’s in space. Ship showers are never enjoyable, so he makes it fast. 

Sleep comes quickly. The past two days spent on his knees or his stomach or his back inside the confines of the different sections of the engine room have exhausted him and he wonders how tired he’ll be when he finally figures out what the hell is going on. 

▒ ▒ ▒

“Good morning,” Harry says as soon as the door slides open to reveal a smiling Zayn in his standard jumpsuit, and a yawning, messy haired, sleep rumpled Captain Thomas, wearing a black t-shirt and what look like grey sweatpants of all things. Earth clothes. In all the years he’s spent in space, he’s never seen another person in a pair of sweatpants. Even Liam doesn’t wear them and he’s from Earth. They’re indecently thin and worn and Harry has to turn away when Thomas steps inside the engine room. 

Thomas snorts quietly. “If you say so. Was trying to get here before you. Woke up late.”

A laugh sneaks up on Harry and he finds himself meeting Thomas’ gaze. Harry sucks his lower lip into his mouth and bites down, then remembers that Zayn is in the room. He clears his throat and says, “Tell me the ship’s destination.”

“No.” Thomas rolls his eyes and walks to the next access panel they’re supposed to work in and starts to remove it.

“There’s no need to open that. I found the problem.”

“You did?” he sounds surprised and Harry wonders if sleeping through his alarm will affect Thomas like this for the rest of the day. “You fixed the engine? It’s not—”

“No, but I’m getting there. At least I know where the problem is.” 

“Oh?” Thomas tilts his head to the side and Harry wonders if he’ll just let Harry into his quarters if he asks nicely. 

“This section,” Harry says and walks to the access panel that he snuck into the night before. 

Zayn shakes his head and Thomas seems to wake up a little more at that, eyes going wide. “Great! Show me.”

Not quite what Harry expected him to say, but no matter. “I’d love to. But I’m going to need you and Zayn to remove the false wall you installed first.”

Zayn doesn’t look surprised, but Harry smiles at Thomas’ obvious shock. His mouth actually drops open, but he pulls himself together rather quickly and says, “No.”

“I’m glad you’re not bothering to deny it. If you won’t take it down, I will. And you will let me enter your quarters as well. I’m tired of playing this game with you, Captain.” Harry crosses his arms and nods once. “Now, which would you rather do first?”

“Neither, to be honest.”

Harry startles himself when he yells, “What the hell is in your quarters that you don’t want me to see?” 

“Why would I tell you when I don’t want you to show you?” Thomas shouts back, and he doesn’t stop. “I told you my quarters are off limits until you give me the coordinates!”

“Whatever you’re hiding is draining the auxiliary power which I need in order to fix the engine. You won’t even tell me what your destination is and I have to have that information. You’re blocking my efforts every way that I turn and I’m sick of it!" Harry stalks closer, lowering his voice and speaking slowly. "I won’t stay here and watch you slowly kill almost three thousand people. According to my calculations, running on auxiliary power, your farm levels are going to produce less and eventually you’re going to have more people, Captain. I don’t know how many children are on the other levels, but they’re going to grow up, and they’re going to want to eat. You won’t be able to grow enough food for the population of the ship and you’re going to run out of room! And I won’t be a part of it. I won’t. You’re going to do to this ship what the entire population of Earth thinks already happened to the three ships of Anteros colonizers.”

Captain Thomas stands there silently and Harry’s had enough. 

“You know what? No. I’m done. If you’re not going to cooperate… I’ll be in my cabin. You have twenty-four hours, Captain Thomas. If you don’t let me in your quarters, I’ll explain to everyone on the ship exactly how they’re going to die.” Harry opens the engine room door and stalks off down the hall. 

“Williams!” Thomas calls, and Harry looks over his shoulder to see him jogging his way. Maybe he’s come to his senses, but Harry’s not stopping to find out. Let him run to catch up.

When he does fall into step beside Harry, he doesn’t speak, so Harry keeps walking, but when they turn down the corridor where his and Liam’s cabin is and Thomas still hasn’t said anything, Harry says, “You’re a shit captain.”

Thomas grabs Harry’s arm, jerking him to a stop. “Don’t fucking talk to me like that.”

“Like what? Honestly? Zayn heard me. And he knows I’m right. I could see it on his face. Let me do my job or you’ll have a mutiny on your hands. What could you possibly be hiding in there? A wife?”

A cackle bursts out of Thomas, sound bouncing off the walls. “What like a robot wife that plugs into the ship’s power?”

“I don’t know!” Harry knows he’s not making sense, but he’s livid. As soon as he did the math on the farm levels’ production, he felt like punching Captain Thomas in the face again.

Letting go of Harry’s arm, Thomas walks over and opens the door of the cabin they’ve fucked in twice. “I need to show you something.”

“I’m not fucking you, you idiot. If you’ll let me fix the goddamn engine and tell me where the hell we’re going, I will. In fact, we can even try to keep fucking each other for the next eight to ten years or however long it takes me to get you where you’re supposed to be going. If you’ll let me do my job!”

“Eight to ten years?” Thomas asks with a confused frown.

“Or your crew can mutiny, make me captain, and I can use my hand for the next decade. I’ve done it before.”

“Decade?”

“Are you stupid?” Harry steps closer to Thomas until he’s standing in the open doorway to the cabin. 

“How many times have you done this?”  

Harry tells a practiced half-lie. “I’ve done three long term rescues in eighteen years. Navy lets you do twenty-five. I get to retire when I get back to Earth.”

Humming, Thomas turns and sits at the desk, powering on the computer. “What if I tell you something? Would you tell me something?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, trading information. You ask a question, I answer. And vice versa.” 

“I don’t see how that’ll work. You know what I want. No point in me asking.” Harry crosses his arms and leans against the open doorway, preventing Thomas from closing the door, shutting him out or in.

“Fine. I’ll give you a freebie.” Captain Thomas sighs and turns his chair around to face Harry. “This is my quarters.”

“Captain’s quarters are clearly marked with a sign on the door, Thomas. I don’t know what you’re playing at, but—”

“Listen to me, Williams. This is my quarters. I sleep here every night. Shower here every morning.” Thomas stands and opens the head, which clearly belongs to someone. The tiny room is far from spotless. “You’ve met my crew. You’ve seen how I run my ship. You don’t believe I’d lower myself to sleep among them?”

Narrowing his eyes, Harry says, “Tell me what you’re hiding in the captain’s quarters.”

“You tell me something first. I give, you give.” Captain Thomas sits back down in his chair, legs spread wide, and Harry has to stop himself from stepping between them. Thomas asks, “Why do you think it’ll take a decade to fix my ship?”

“Not a decade to fix it. A decade to bring it back up to speed safely to make sure the engines don’t fail, and travel time to wherever your destination is. Didn’t it take you that long when you left Anteros?”

“We don’t need to travel that slowly, Williams. All we need are the engines running.”

“Eventually, you’ll need them for approaching Light Speed Travel. And if I’m fixing them, it’s my job to see it through. To make sure. We get up to LST, get you where you’re going, and once we’re there, I take my ship and Liam and go home.”

“In one of your little wormholes?”

Harry nods. 

“How many times has Liam traveled with you?”

“This is his first long distance job. Mostly, we stick close to Earth. No wormholes necessary.” Harry clears his throat and wishes he was wearing his uniform, even though Thomas knows it’s a facade. It’s still impressive to look at, and he feels like less of a presence in his regular clothes. “Captain’s quarters, Thomas. I need access.”

“Afraid I can’t grant you that, Williams.”

“You said—”

“I said trade information. And that I can do.” Turning to the screen on his desk, Captain Thomas pulls up the camera feed for that area of the ship, blocking it with his body. “I’ll show you, but you have to swear that you won’t tell the R.O.E.”

“Fine. I swear,” Harry says, rolling his eyes. 

“I’m serious, Williams. If I think you’re going to rat us out, I’ll keep you here.”

“I’m not going to tell anyone. I’m here to help you, Thomas. If it were up to the R.O.E. you’d be left to rot.”

It’s clear that Thomas is surprised by that, whether or not he believes it. He tries to school his features, but it’s too late. Harry's learning to read him, and the fraction of a second that his eyes widen is enough. Calmly, Thomas says, “Take a look.” and slides out of the way of the screen so Harry can see. 

The room glows green. Infrared cameras, then. Harry leans in because despite the image intensification, he can’t quite make out what’s on screen. It’s not a typical captain’s quarters layout. There doesn’t appear to be any furniture at all. Or walls. Spinning in the center of the large, circular room is what seems to be a tiny cloud. But with the low light cameras, he can’t be certain. 

“What is it?”

“Thought you’d recognize it, having piloted through them a dozen or so times,” Thomas scoffs and zooms in, so the cloud is all that’s visible on screen. 

“Oh my god!” Harry takes a step back, as if that could possibly save him from a wormhole forming inside the ship. “You’re going to kill us all.”

Thomas snorts and closes the screen. “The wormhole’s closed and stable. No one’s dead yet, and it’s been operational since before you stepped on board.”

“How… No. Why?” 

“Why else?” 

For a few seconds, Harry thinks about it, but the only purpose he’s found for wormholes is traveling. And that doesn’t make sense with it inside the ship. Still trying to keep from panicking at his proximity to a wormhole not of his making, he steadies his voice and says, “Explain.”

“I don’t know who designed your ship or how it produces a wormhole, but it’s not large enough for more than maybe a four-passenger ship to pass through,” Thomas says, raising his eyebrows as if waiting for Harry's confirmation. When Harry nods, he continues, “Pretty useless, if you ask me.”

Clenching his jaw to keep from biting Thomas’ head off, Harry takes a few breaths through his nose. “Works just fine for what I need.”

“Yeah? Wouldn’t it be better if you could take a whole spaceliner through? Might save some time, I reckon.” Thomas smirks and says, “Notice you didn’t correct me earlier when I said you’d made dozens of these trips.”

Harry thinks back. It didn’t register amidst the rising fear of his imminent death. “I was hardly listening to you. Besides, I don’t have use for moving spaceliners that fast or that far. And I don’t want the R.O.E. having access to anything like that.”

“Really?”

“They’d use it and abuse it. The way they did with the colony planets.”

“Except Anteros.”

Nodding once quickly, Harry closes his eyes. “Not like it matters. You can’t get a ship through that wormhole anyway.”

“I give, you give,” Thomas says again. “The coordinates.”

With his phone, Harry sends a copy of the S.O.S. message to the ship’s computer. “There you go.”

While Thomas looks over the message on screen, Harry casts his mind about. If Thomas won’t shut it down, he’ll have to work around the wormhole. And he doesn’t have an inkling of an idea on how to do that. 

“Come to the bridge?” Thomas asks. 

Harry nods. Maybe he’ll learn something there. 

It’s not a long walk to the bridge, but Thomas is silent the whole way, giving Harry the opportunity to think. Obviously he misinterpreted some things. A wormhole is the last thing Harry would’ve expected to find in Captain Thomas’ quarters. 

“You’re attempting to create a way to get this spaceliner through a wormhole housed inside the ship,” Harry says, because as soon as he puts his thoughts together he knows it to be true. 

“Not attempting, no,” Thomas says, stopping and grinning at him as he lets Harry enter the bridge first. “We already did.” He doesn’t give Harry time to react because the next second, Thomas shouts across the room, “We did it!”

“No shit, really?” Niall leaps out of his chair, punching his fist into the air, and runs across the room, jumping into Captain Thomas’ arms, almost taking them both to the floor. Harry stops them by instinctively catching Thomas under his arms and helping them both to their feet. Niall rights himself and asks, “Where’d we wind up?”

“Check the computer. I forwarded the coordinates.” Thomas swings himself into the captain’s chair and says, “Williams, pay attention. We’re opening the wormhole.”

Wide-eyed, Harry stares at the massive screen in the front of the room, the endless sea of stars blinks out and is replaced by the infrared video feed from the captain's quarters. Niall returns to his station, and Harry watches while he calls out instructions which each of the other engineers follow. 

On the screen, the tiny cloud expands, spinning in place as it grows, and Harry can just make out what looks like a line of some sort threaded through it. The wormhole dilates until it takes up most of the room, and Harry realizes he’s holding his breath. 

“Disconnect the tether,” Thomas orders.

“Disconnecting the tether,” Niall says, and Harry watches as the line leading into the wormhole goes slack. “Disconnected and reeling it back in, Tommo.” Like an anchor, a system of pulleys reels the line in, spinning so fast that all Harry sees is a blur. A large bulb-like protuberance sails out of the wormhole, locking in place with the line.

“Close it, Niall,” Thomas says, standing and shoving his hands in his pockets. He’s nervous and that makes Harry nervous. The wormhole narrows, contracting and shrinking until it’s barely visible, and then it winks out of existence. 

“Closed it, Tommo!” Niall yells, jumping out of his seat again. This time, he’s not the only one. Shawn, Bressie, even Zayn join him in screaming and whooping at the top of their lungs. They meet in the middle of the room, hugging each other, and Harry can’t stop the smile that takes over his face. He glances over at Captain Thomas, and finds him wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. It’s familiar in a way that makes Harry’s stomach hurt. 

Harry frowns. “Please tell me what the hell just happened.”

“Williams, we just closed a wormhole. But before that, we traveled faster than light speed by turning the wormhole inside out, taking the ship and everything on it from one end to the other.” Thomas doesn’t seem to be able to stop grinning, eyes almost closed with the force of his smile, and Harry doesn’t want to be the one to take that away from him.

“Does this mean I can fix the engines?” Harry asks. “Will you tell me your destination now?”

The smile doesn’t drop completely off Thomas’ face, but it does falter. “Yes, um… Yes, of course.” he turns towards the group still dancing in a circle in the middle of the room and announces, “Carry on without me! I’m going to show Admiral Williams to the engine room.”

3098CE

Louis tries to tamp down his enthusiasm, but it’s difficult. They did it. It’s groundbreaking. The entire universe is open to them now. 

“What’s your destination?” Williams asks again and Louis tenses automatically. 

“You’re not going to like it,” he says, opening the engine room and leading the way inside. 

“Try me.” Williams crosses his arms and leans against the table nearest the door. Even in civilian clothes, he’s intimidating. Not that Louis would let on. 

“We don’t have one,” Louis says, raising his eyebrows and waiting for Williams’ outraged response.

It doesn’t come. 

Shaking his head, Williams spins his multi-tool in his hand and starts towards the panel that feeds the wormhole, muttering to himself. Louis lets him go. There’s no point in starting an argument that neither of them will win. He gives Williams some time, then crawls through the access panel after him. When he finds him, he’s already removed the false wall that Zayn fabricated and is studying the power supply to the wormhole generator. Williams glances back at him, but doesn’t speak. 

Overcome with the urge to share their plan and the reason for their journey, Louis sits back against the curved wall and stretches his legs out. He can’t tell Williams everything. That would mean betraying the confidences of every person on board. But from what Williams has said and seems to feel about the R.O.E., maybe he can let him in on a few secrets. His knowledge of their wormhole generator could cause enough trouble on its own, so if he watches what he says, and keeps it hypothetical…

“Williams,” Louis says and clears his throat. “What did they teach you about the Anteros colony?”

Williams’ back stiffens, and he doesn’t turn around, but after a moment he drops his chin to his chest and says, “About five years into the journey, when the ships should've been arriving at Anteros, the R.O.E. lost contact. The ships just… disappeared. No one knows how or why. Probes were sent to the sector by each of the other existing colonies and by the R.O.E. The Republic didn’t care about the colonists.” Pausing, Williams takes a deep breath and rubs his eyes before continuing. “I mean, they made it seem like it. With their memorials and moments of silence and official government mourning holidays. But they just wanted the ships back. That’s all. When every single probe disappeared in the same way, they gave up. Tired of throwing money away, I guess. The Anteros sector is now known as the forbidden sector.” He huffs a short, derisive laugh, shakes his head, and says, “Can’t think of anything better than the Anteros colonists making it with the R.O.E. completely unaware. I won’t give you away. Don’t worry.”

“You’re not very fond of the Republic,” Louis observes, wondering if such a detailed history is taught to everyone or if Williams was given special access with his rank. “For someone who works for them. Is one of them, I mean.”

Jerking his head around, Williams scowls. “I might work with them, but I’m not one of them. I do what I have to do.”

“Okay. I get that.” Louis reaches out as if to soothe him, but plays it off by stretching and faking a yawn. “I— I want to tell you something. A story?” Williams hums in response, and Louis adds, “All hypothetical, of course.”

“Of course.”

While Williams works, Louis watches, mentally cataloging everything he does so he can replicate it, if need be. And he talks. He doesn’t tell him everything and he’s dishonest enough that the whole story would fall apart if Williams were to ask the right questions. But he tells him about the Anteros colony. It comes out like a history lesson or a cautionary tale. 

The R.O.E. designated leaders weren’t leaders in any real sense of the word. They were lackeys meant to follow orders and allow the R.O.E. to control the colony from afar. Some of the colonists—the ship’s captain and most of its crew—figured it out when the appointed mayor had no clue what to do after they lost contact. The first two ships lost their engines as soon as they went into orbit, but the third ship, because of the timing of the three separate trips, was able to orbit further out and maintain control. 

At first, things weren’t too bad. The orbit to surface ships worked even if the spaceliners didn’t, and they were able to transport supplies to the surface. So the colony started, but not as planned. 

“There were bureaucrats planetside, and at first the colony did well. There were enough scientists and laborers to begin terraforming the planet. But after a while, it fell apart. There were still small ships going to and from the spaceliners, and um… there was a revolt, of sorts.”

“Really?” Williams asks, looking pleased at the news.

“The mayor at that time wanted the working spaceliner to attempt to tow the other ships down to the planet, which—”

“Those ships weren’t meant for that,” Williams says, shaking his head.

“Almost no one with any sense wanted that. And when they were outvoted, the rest of the colonists decided…” Louis chews on his lip, trying to figure out how to word it without giving too much away.

“What did they decide?” Williams asks and Louis looks up to find him sitting cross legged, facing him. 

“To leave Anteros.”

“How?”

“Smaller ships. Like busses,” Louis says, and when Williams frowns, he realizes his mistake, quickly tacking on, “Busses are a real thing, aren’t they?”

“Oh, yeah. They are.”

“Right.” Louis nods, relieved. “The people who wanted to leave were bussed to the working spaceliner. Two of the captains wanted to stay. Saw it as completing the mission. They managed to sway a lot of opinions.”

“This is the ship? The one that refused?”

Louis nods, trying not to think about all the people on the other two ships who only wanted a better life planetside. “The others decided to tow the broken ships with the smaller ships, but they didn’t survive the landings. One burned up in the atmosphere—something faulty with the plates on the nose. The other crash landed. Fire suppression systems didn’t work.”

“What about the colonists already on the surface?” Williams asks.

“If any of them are still alive, they’re waiting for the R.O.E. to rescue them, probably.” Louis shrugs and presses his lips together to keep from saying more than he needs to. “The planet needed broader terraforming. They’d stupidly tried to land the ships near the colony, so chances are, no one survived.”

“So you’re a third generation colonist?” 

“You could put it that way,” Louis says, wondering why he’s suddenly having a hard time outright lying to Williams. “So, with this ship, our mission is more about exploration. We’ve got the people, and the technology. And now we’ve got the ability to travel faster than light speed.”

“As soon as I fix the engines,” Williams adds, nodding towards the work that he’s not doing while Louis talks. 

“As soon as you fix them and show me how, just in case it happens again.” 

Louis watches and assists, committing it all to memory. While Williams works, he talks, telling Louis about the existing R.O.E. colonies, the state of Earth now, and even sharing the science behind his own development of faster than light speed travel. Their methods are similar, but not identical, and he can poach some of Williams’ information to improve his own wormhole generator. He’s sure that Williams is thinking the same. 

“So, a couple more days and it’ll be up and running.” Williams yawns, covering his mouth, then gestures for Louis to go first and crawls after him towards the access panel and the engine room. 

Standing and stretching for the first time in hours, Louis reaches his arms up high. “Then you’ll be on your way back to Earth?”

Williams shakes his head, combing his fingers through his salt and pepper curls. “Have to stay on board, make sure the engines can accelerate to light speed. Usually, we travel to the final destination with the ship because multiple accelerations and decelerations waste energy and supplies. After the ship gets where it’s going, Liam and I head back.”

“You… You can’t do that.”

“Sure I can. Done it before and I’ll do it again,” Williams says stubbornly.

Doing some quick calculations in his head makes it easy for Louis to see the logic of it. The years added to a journey to accelerate and decelerate a spaceliner to and from light speed when a ship is only equipped with food and supplies for the journey, plus emergency rations, would mean possible starvation. Taking on two extra people for the entire trip makes much more sense. Still, the years taken away… “How many of these trips have you made?” Louis asks again.

“Three. I told you.” 

Despite the firmness of his tone, Louis doesn’t quite believe him. Not that he’s up to arguing. It’s no business of his if Williams is fine with the R.O.E. throwing his life away. Louis says, “You’ll show me how to repair them if the engines should fail in the same way again, and then you and Liam can go home. I won’t let you remain on board.”

Williams studies his face, but after a moment he nods. “Fine.”

“Listen, Williams. It’s nothing personal. Nothing to do with your work either.” Louis sighs. A little more of the truth won’t hurt. “I’ve got a theory to test before we get back up to light speed. I think, if we cut the main engines completely, supply the wormhole generator with the full capacity of the backup power, the trip through the wormhole won’t affect the engines.”

“Perhaps,” Williams says, chewing his bottom lip. “Curious to know if it’ll work, to be honest. Might want to stick around for that.”

“Of course you do.” Louis shakes his head. “I’ll tell you what. You can stay for the test, but you have to transfer all of the schematics for your ship— all of them—to my ship’s computer.”

Humming, Williams looks him up and down and says, “You’ll give me yours as well.”

“Yeah, okay.” It’s selfish, but he’s not ready to send Williams on his way. Especially when Louis knows that once Williams is gone, he’ll be alone again. Probably for the rest of his life. He’s willing to make the sacrifice—it’s not even a question—but if he has the opportunity to keep Williams around for a while longer, he’s taking it. 

They go their separate ways, Louis heading for the bridge while Williams goes to his own quarters, but with plans to meet up and discuss things over dinner. It’s the most time they’ve spent together without arguing, and when they’ve finished, Louis isn’t quite ready to let him go.

“Want to show you something,” Louis says, and when Williams nods, Louis leads him past the corridor where both of their quarters are located, to the next one. It’s mainly used for storage, since the ship isn’t at full capacity, they don’t need the rooms. He leads Williams to the very end of that hallway and keys open the door. It slides aside and Louis looks back over his shoulder, waiting for a reaction.

A frown is not what he was expecting.

“Are you telling me I could’ve been sleeping in an actual bed, Captain Thomas?” Williams crosses his arms and steps into the room. It’s not much larger than the cabin he shares with Liam, but it’s meant for partnered crew members, and has one bed instead of two narrow bunks. 

“I… I suppose so. I’m sorry.” Louis huffs quietly through his nose, then straightens his posture, and says, “You’re welcome to it for the duration of your stay on board.”

“That’s an awfully big bed for one person. Might get lonely.”

“Yeah?” 

“Yes, Captain.” Williams nods, hands clasped behind his back and says, “If you’ll send for Liam. And ask him to bring my things as well.”

“Oh, um… Of course.” Louis backs out of the room, turning around at Williams’ loud snort.

Grinning, Williams says, “I was joking. About Liam, anyway. Might be nice to fuck you on a bed.”

“You’re an asshole, Rear Admiral Williams.”

Williams scoffs. “I’m a captain.”

“Oh?” Louis smirks and says, “Equal rank then?”

“No.” Williams lifts his chin. “Because it’s your ship, Captain Thomas.”

Louis catches his lower lip between his teeth. “So formal, when everyone calls you H.”

“You don’t.”

“I’m not everyone,” Louis says, overcome with the sudden desire to tell Williams the truth. He clenches his jaw to stop himself. 

“Neither am I,” Williams says, and Louis can only nod before his comm buzzes and he has to return to the bridge.

3098CE

Lying in his new bed, Harry drums his fingers on his chest. Since switching to the larger cabin, he’s ashamed to admit he’s started wishing for more engine problems to pop up. They haven’t. In fact, they’re going to test the system today. And if it all works, Thomas wants to test his wormhole. Fascinating, but likely a quick trip. Then he and Liam will be on their way back to Earth while Captain Thomas and his ship will go on to explore the universe. 

Harry sighs, frowning up at the panels of the cabin ceiling. It was once his hope to do the same, but a childhood filled with health problems meant that he didn’t qualify for the first wave of colonization. And the dream fizzled and died not long after the first spaceliners left earth—the day they formally announced the loss of the Anteros colony. 

Captain Thomas is waiting in the corridor when Harry’s cabin door slides open. “Morning, Williams.”

“Good morning, Thomas,” Harry says, fighting to keep his expression neutral. It’s only been a few hours since Captain Thomas left Harry’s bed and snuck back to his own cabin. 

“Everything’s ready for the engine test,” Thomas says as they fall into step together. “And barring any issues, we’re ready to test the wormhole as well.”

The engine room is more crowded than Harry’s ever seen it, but the sea of people parts for Captain Thomas, and Harry follows behind him. They crawl through the access panel, checking everything one last time. It takes a few hours, and by the time they’re done, the waiting crowd has thinned. Harry isn’t sure what they expected to happen, but engines really aren’t that interesting from the outside. 

With everything in place, Captain Thomas leads him to the bridge. It’s far less dramatic than the preparations beforehand would make it seem. Harry stands behind the Captain’s chair, chewing on the side of his thumb while Captain Thomas gives the order for Niall to start the main engines. 

It isn’t as if there’s immediate evidence whether they work. They don’t thunder to life, there’s no noise involved. So for a few seconds, Harry truly has no idea if he fixed the ship or not. But then Niall lifts his hand and gives a thumbs up. 

“We’re online, Tommo!” Niall shouts and the bridge erupts into applause and cheers, drowning out Harry's thought that he’s one step closer to going back to earth, and that for the first time he isn’t looking forward to his return. 

When the noise dies down, Harry turns to Captain Thomas and asks, “How long to prepare for testing your wormhole generator?”

“It’s ready to go now,” Thomas answers, clearly excited. His blue eyes seem to sparkle and when he smiles, the lines beside his eyes deepen. 

“Where are you planning to open the other end?” Harry asks, frowning at the screen in front of the captain as he toggles it and the video feed of the infrared cameras comes into focus. 

“Fourth galactic quadrant of Andromeda.” Thomas tilts the screen so Harry can have a better look, and says, “You’ll be closer to home.”

“Earth,” Harry quietly corrects him. He doesn’t think the captain hears, which is for the best. Explaining that he hasn’t felt like he’s had a home in more than half a century would take all day and no one else needs to know that anyway. It’s the first time he’s voiced the thought, and his slip has him on alert. 

“Exactly,” Thomas says, pointing to the screen. “Are you and Liam ready?”

Harry nods once. “Yes. My ship’s engines have been tested, and then powered down. I disconnected a few things, just in case.”

“A few things?” Thomas asks, looking up at Harry who nods again. The captain turns to speak to the room, raising his voice, “Cut the main engines.” A moment later, Zayn confirms that it’s done, and Captain Thomas says, “Cut backup power.” Zayn does so, and there’s a few seconds of adjustment as the emergency lights flicker on. “Route it to the captain’s quarters.”

“Ready and waiting for your order, Tommo!” Shawn sounds elated, and jealousy flares in Harry’s chest. All he’s ever truly wanted was the opportunity to explore space, but he’s far too old and jaded at this point. He shakes it off and focuses on the captain. 

“Backup power on,” Thomas says, voice steady as his hands tremble where only Harry can see them. “Input the coordinates and open the wormhole.”

Mentally taking notes while crossing his fingers and toes, Harry stares at the video feed. Step by step the crew opens a new wormhole inside the ship, and releases the tether into it, which sends the system of pulleys spinning so fast that Harry can’t watch them. 

“We’re on the other side!” Niall shouts, punching the air. “Cut the time by a full forty-eight hours, Tommo!”

“Okay, here we go,” Thomas mutters to himself. The tip of his tongue swipes over his lower lip, and he catches it between his teeth, holding it there while he works silently. It gives Harry a sense of déjà vu that he blames on the presence of the wormhole. They do funny things to time from this close. The line leading the tether goes taut, and the captain says, “Got it! Let it close!”

“Closing the wormhole,” Zayn says, frowning at the screen in front of him, and Harry’s stomach flips. “It’s closed.”

“Reversing the tether!” Thomas calls out. 

An instant of the most severe pain and nausea Harry’s ever felt passes, the ships alarms sound, but the emergency lights remain on.

“Bring the engines online!”

Niall shouts, “It worked!” and the noise on the bridge is deafening. 

“Shut up!” Thomas yells over the din, and when they quiet down, he says, “Reopen the wormhole.”

Carefully, the crew reopens the wormhole, releases the tether and winds it back up, before closing the wormhole completely and letting it wink out of sight. They run test after test, but it appears to have worked. The ship and its crew have traveled faster than light speed to a predetermined destination without a single problem. 

“You did it,” Harry whispers. 

“You helped,” Thomas says. “We did it. But don’t tell anyone I said that.”

“Right.” Harry nods, searching Liam out in the crowd and tipping his head towards the door. “I need to go check on my ship, Captain.”

Hurrying off the bridge with Liam at his heels, Harry heads straight for the hanger, entering the code to open the interior door. The desire to stay and celebrate with the crew scares him, and he doesn’t know exactly why, though friends is a concept he hasn’t realistically dealt with for a very long time. He wants to be a part of it, and he can’t, so he goes over his own ship’s systems, with Liam—Lieutenant Payne—checking behind him. It takes them a few hours to make sure it’s all in working order, mainly because they can’t test their wormhole generator at all, and have to assume it’s working based on the fact that everything else is intact. 

“Did you and Tommo exchange info?” Liam asks and Harry balks.

“What? Why would we?” It’s not as though they can keep in touch when the captain will be traveling through the universe faster than light speed or approaching light speed, aging so slowly that years will pass and it won’t be noticeable to the human eye, while Harry will be on earth, miserable. Maybe he’ll finally let himself retire. Live out the rest of his life planetside, let his old age catch up with him. 

“Why wouldn’t you?” Furrowing his brow, Liam says, “I’d think you’d want as much data on his ship and faster than light speed travel method as you could get.”

“Oh! Yeah.” Harry coughs and says, “Yes. We did.”

“Okay, then…” Liam pockets his tools and says, “It’ll be strange being back on Earth, knowing these guys are out here.”

Frowning, Harry nods. 

“I’ll miss these guys,” Liam adds, scratching the back of his neck. “Wish Earth had a legitimate exploration program.”

Laughing quietly as he follows Liam off the ship, Harry says, “Wish Earth had a lot of things.”

When Harry opens the door to his cabin, it looks just as it did when he left it that morning, except for the captain sprawled across his bed. 

“Want to celebrate?” Thomas asks with a smirk, folding his hands behind his head. 

“Can’t. Don’t have time,” Harry says, reaching under the bed for his bag. There are only a few things in the head that he needs to grab, and then he’s ready to go. “Thank you for your, um… hospitality, Captain. But the Lieutenant and I have to get back. Lots of work to do.”

“Oh, um… Right. Okay,” Thomas says, rolling off the bed. “I’ll arrange a proper farewell, then.”

“No.” Harry shakes his head. “No. Please don’t do that. It’s easiest for me to just… go.”

The captain looks taken aback. He tucks his lower lip between his teeth and breathes in deeply through his nose. “Don’t let me stop you, then.” 

Harry steps aside so as not to be trampled by the captain, who still manages to throw his shoulder into Harry’s as he passes. But Harry doesn’t let his little show get to him. He doesn’t really want to have one more romp with the captain, despite knowing that he won’t have regular sex again, possibly ever. 

On his way to the hanger, Harry follows the curve of the corridor, so preoccupied with his own thoughts that he almost bumps into Liam and Zayn. They’re standing close, speaking in hushed tones, and Harry feels like he’s intruding. The pained expression on Zayn’s face reminds him of Thomas, and he has to turn away. He was clearly too focused on Thomas if he didn’t notice anything going on between those two. He wonders what else he might’ve missed.

It’s a subdued crew of two in the hanger. The captain must’ve let everyone know not to bother them, and as soon as they’re on board and Harry powers on his ship, the exterior portal starts to spin open. A few minutes later, he pilots the ship into the black blanket of stars, listening to Niall’s voice over the comm, directing him where to go, not that he needs it. But the sound is comforting. 

Once they’re far enough away from the spaceliner, Harry gives the order, and Liam starts the process of opening the wormhole that will take them back to the Milky Way and Earth. The short-range comm disconnects, and they switch to a long-range connection, which is nothing but static at first. 

“Rear Admiral?” Captain Thomas’ voice comes through. 

Harry heaves a sigh. “Captain Thomas.”

“Switch to channel two,” Thomas says, and Harry obeys instantly, worried that something is so wrong that the captain doesn’t even want Liam to know. 

“Yes, Captain,” Harry says.

“Just wanted to say goodbye, um… you know, privately.”

“Oh,” Harry whispers, relieved. 

“And thank you. I wanted to say a proper thank you. I didn’t… I’m sorry about the way things happened in the beginning, and I’m grateful that you were willing to stay on, despite my, um… missteps.”

“Missteps.” Harry snorts into his headset. 

“Yes, Admiral Williams. Missteps. Tell me you wouldn’t’ve done the same in my situation.”

“I might’ve. But we’ll never know, Captain,” Harry says, and it hits him that this is the last time they’ll speak. The last time he’ll have the chance to… “Harry,” Harry says.

“Harry?”

“That’s my name, Tommo. Now we can say we were friends.” Tears well up in Harry’s eyes out of nowhere and he blinks them away.

“Ready when you are, H,” Liam says, unaware of the private conversation going on beside him. “Wormhole’s as steady as it’ll be.”

“We have to go,” Harry says, keeping his voice steady and professional to hide his regret. He gives the signal to Liam and pilots them toward the wormhole, still connected to the long-range communicator. “If you, um… Have any engine troubles, you know where to find me, Tommo.” It always takes a moment for the message to transmit, and in that time, Harry focuses on steering the nose of his ship towards the center of the wormhole. Slowly it begins to pull them in, and Harry’s breath catches at the thought that Captain Thomas won’t have time to respond before he’s gone. 

As the ship is sucked into the wormhole, Thomas’ voice comes through, scratchy and staticky over the long-range comm, “Tomlinson… Haven't gone by that name in a long time, but… Captain Louis William Tomlinson. Formerly of the ROE Navy. And it was nice to know you, Harry Williams.”

The fraction of a second it takes to travel faster than light speed through the wormhole and out the other side is not nearly enough for Harry to process the captain’s words. But as soon as they’re on the other side, and what Captain Thomas said registers, Harry gasps. He claws at his helmet, unable to get it off at first, but finally unlatching it and removing it, stumbling through the ship for his inhaler. A relic of his past that he still carries, despite the doctors telling him that he no longer needs it. 

Once he can breathe steadily, Harry makes his way back to his seat. He turns to Liam and says, “We have to go back.”

“What? We can’t,” Liam says. “At least an hour before we can safely go again.”

“Can’t wait. Have to go now. Should be fine,” Harry says, starting the countdown again to open another wormhole, back to where they came from. 

“H, what are you doing? Protocol states an hour.”

“Protocol.” Harry scoffs, insisting, “It’s fine.” 

The wormhole spins open, and Harry steers them towards it before it’s fully formed. It’s reckless, but he has to. The ship is pulled into the wormhole, and the fraction of a second it takes to travel through it stretches on and on, and Harry’s enveloped in darkness.

2997CE

Harry looks up at the analog clock on the wall. He wants to take it apart for no reason other than he’s bored and he’s been sitting in the same uncomfortable chair for what feels like hours, swinging his legs, which aren’t quite long enough to touch the ground. Just when he decides to stack a few chairs to try to reach the clock, the door opens and his mom is finally finished with whatever she’s been doing in that soundproof room with the people who look like doctors but probably aren’t. 

“Harry, come on in,” his mom says, holding her hand out. He takes it, though it’s clammy and he’d rather shove his hands in his pockets, because it makes her happy. She leads him to another chair, this one slightly more comfortable because of a thin cushion. 

“Do you know why you’re here, Harry?” One of the doctor-looking people sits across from him, behind the desk, while the rest stand, so he figures she must be in charge. 

He does know, but he shakes his head anyway. 

The not-doctor hums, looking to Harry’s mother, and Harry suppresses an eye roll. That would not be a smart move. 

“You do know,” she says, eyes still on his mom. “But we won’t punish you for lying this time.”

One of the not-doctors behind him lays a hand on his shoulder and says, “Harry, every tutor we’ve assigned to you has quit. Do you know why?”

“Because they’re stupid,” Harry offers the only explanation that fits.

“They’re not,” his mom says. “That’s incredibly rude, Harry. I’m nowhere near as intelligent as your tutors. Would you call me stupid?” 

“No, but you don’t act like, just because you’re a grownup, you’re smarter than me.”

“Than I,” one of the not-doctors corrects.

“Than me,” Harry says, words slow and careful. “Language is ever-evolving, sir, but in this case, I’ve used the word ‘than’ as a preposition, making the word ‘me’ the object of the preposition. In other words, you’re stupid.” 

“Harry!” His mom stares at him wide-eyed. 

“It’s fine, Anne,” the not-doctor behind the desk says, and Harry decides then that she’s definitely in charge, and the only one he plans to speak to for the rest of the appointment. “Do you want to explain further, Harry?”

Harry takes a moment to think it over, but in the end he decides not to. If they can’t figure it out, he’s not going to tell them. He shrugs and says, “Nope.”

“I didn’t think so.” She reaches across the desk to shake his hand and says, “This meeting’s been quite informative. Have all of your tutors been condescending?” Harry nods. “Well, that clears things up for me. We’ll send you home today with a new computer. Actually, make it two. One for you to use, and one for you to take apart. These are cutting edge technology, Harry. So, please do your best not to completely destroy them.”

“Okay,” Harry agrees, though he’s not sure why. He probably will destroy them both. But she’s likely well aware of that. 

She leans across the desk, eyes locked with Harry’s, and says, “You’ll no longer be tutored from home—”

“But—” Harry stops himself when she raises her eyebrows and lifts one finger.

“You’re not being sent back to school either. It’s a waste of resources. And to be quite honest, it’s discouraging to the teachers and other students to have you there. Your sister was able to fit in well, despite her genius IQ. You, however, have never made the effort, and I doubt that you ever will.” From the corner of his eye, Harry sees his mom open her mouth to speak, but she must think better of it. “From this point on, your education will continue at home. We’ve put together a program that will learn from you and grow with you. All of your schooling will be done online, with automatically generated weekly reports sent to me.”

When she doesn’t say anything else right away, Harry’s mom speaks up. “What about his health?”

“That’s been taken into account as well. Don’t worry,” the head not-doctor says, but Harry knows his mom will worry anyway. 

With the appointment over, Anne takes Harry’s hand and helps him down out of the chair. They make their way back through the winding corridors, with Harry leading once he realizes that his mom doesn’t remember which direction to go. It takes a while because, though he does prefer to walk, his legs aren’t nearly as long as hers. Once they reach the lobby and she recognizes their surroundings, his mom bends down and picks him up, propping him on her hip to carry him to the car. She fishes his breathing mask out of her purse which Harry allows her to put on his face. 

When they finally get home, he goes straight to his bedroom and puts himself down for a nap. Super genius he might be, but he still enjoys an hour or two of sleep in the afternoon, just like every other five year old child on Earth. 

3000CE

Harry watches out the window as yet another kid leaves his house in tears. It’s not his fault, really, when he can’t even carry on a conversation with any of the children that show up unannounced, but expected, every Saturday morning after breakfast. Just because he’s eight years old, doesn’t mean he’s interested in playing with children’s toys, and the not-doctors should know that by now. 

This one lasted a bit longer than the others, even managed to make it through lunch, but that’s because Harry ignored him for the first four hours that he was there. Someone must’ve warned him, though, because he didn’t seem to get his feelings hurt when he greeted Harry with a cheery ‘Hello!’ and Harry barely glanced up from his programming work. He’ll have to try harder next time.

“Harry?” His mom peeks into his room and he drops down onto his bed, sitting cross-legged. He should’ve been listening out for her, but was distracted by the sunshine—the smog has been so thick recently that he hasn’t been able to go outside without an oxygen tank and a mask, and that’s no fun, even for a little boy who only wants to go for a stroll around the garden. 

Rather than speak, he blinks up at her, waiting for her to say something else. Last week, he was chastised for making the little girl cry and had his computer taken away for the rest of the weekend. It was fine, he’d been able to spend that time reading and catching up with Gemma, who was home visiting. She’d spent half her time taking his vitals and forcing him onto the treadmill, hooking him up to wires and all sorts of devices that he assumes tell her something about the state of his cardiovascular system.

“Gemma sent you something,” his mom says from the doorway. “Come and see.”

It’s a portable breathing apparatus. Or at least, that’s what the note from Gemma says, but it’s basically a smaller version of the oxygen tank and mask that he has to wear sometimes. Only when he reads to the end of her note does he realize how different it actually is. Rather than carry oxygen, the ‘tanks’ aren’t tanks at all, but some sort of filtering machine that should allow him to breathe freely no matter how high the air pollution levels are. The desire to take it apart and find out how it works almost outweighs his desire to go outside unburdened. 

3002CE

“I don’t see the purpose,” Harry says, crossing his arms, but not stomping his feet. He’s recently stopped doing that, seeing as it never gets him anywhere. 

“Harry, you have to socialize with your peers.”

“Sure, okay. My ‘peers’,” he says with an annoyed eye roll. 

“You know exactly what I mean, young man,” his mom says in the tone which means she won’t accept his excuses and that he best go along with whatever she wants. 

He really thought that once they stopped sending kids over on Saturdays, he was well clear of ‘play dates’ with other children. It must’ve taken them some time to find another willing participant. They can only bribe so many kids with candy or promises that they’ll receive the latest and greatest unreleased game. Harry knows he has a reputation. It’s one of his proudest accomplishments. 

Heaving a completely unnecessary sigh, Harry says, “Fine. Where are they?”

“Out back. He didn’t want to wait,” she answers with a hint of a grin. 

Harry shakes his head, but follows her to their backyard—though he thinks of it as his own personal garden, not that he plants or grows anything, he just likes the way it sounds. It’s one of the few concessions the Protectorate made for him and he knows that if it weren’t for Gemma’s brilliance they wouldn’t have bothered. He’s never asked how she convinced them to move the entire family from the block of apartments where they used to reside, to the house where they live now. 

Air pollution levels have been up, so he slips on his breather—which is what he calls the machine that Gemma made for him—and steps outside. This time they’ve sent a boy over. They usually don’t last as long as the girls, though he’s not sure why. Maybe girls are accustomed to being ignored or treated poorly by their playmates. He should ask Gemma the next time they chat. 

The boy is on the far side of the yard, so Harry walks along beside the hedges, waiting for him to approach, but he doesn’t. Instead, this new ‘friend’ ignores Harry’s presence, continuing to kick a ball around by himself all morning. They’re outside for hours, and Harry hardly notices the time go by, too busy trying to figure out why this new boy doesn’t seem interested in so much as talking to Harry, let alone playing with him. 

When Harry’s mom calls them inside for lunch, the boy kicks his ball, but it bounces up in the air instead of sailing across the grass, and he catches it easily in one hand. Harry narrows his eyes and watches him carry it inside the house. It’s possible that some of the other children have tattled on him if this one knows better than to leave his toys unattended. 

During lunch, the boy doesn’t speak to him at all, though he’s kind and polite to Harry’s mom. He eats his sandwich and fruit, clears his mess away without being asked, and goes back outside, taking his ball with him. Harry is dumbfounded. He spends the rest of the day in his room, which his mom is fine with, considering that he spent hours outside before lunch. The first time in years he’s stayed in the garden for longer than a few minutes at a go. 

The following Saturday, the boy comes back. 

“It’s quite rude, you know, to come to someone’s house, play in their garden, and not even speak to them,” Harry says from his perch on the garden wall. It’s actually sunny out today, which means it’s horribly hot, and while Harry doesn’t need his breather due to pollution, he’s still taken a few puffs off of his asthma inhaler. 

The boy snorts loudly, but continues to ignore Harry, who picks up a decorative stone from the garden and throws it at him. He misses by a wide margin. The boy laughs this time, making Harry’s face flame, but he still doesn’t speak to him. 

“They must’ve given up on trying to find an actual peer for me. Found someone so stupid they don’t know how to speak properly,” Harry says snidely, though he knows that the boy can speak perfectly well. His remarks don’t seem to cause any reaction because the boy continues to kick his ball and ignore Harry, so he shouts, “Thank you for proving my point.”

The boy looks up, lifts his hand and wiggles his fingers in Harry’s direction before going back to his ball. Harry slams the door and locks it when he goes back inside the house, though his mom immediately unlocks it and calls across the yard, “Louis, it’s time for lunch!”

Lunch is virtually silent again, except for Louis speaking up to thank Harry’s mom, which makes Harry feel like a big jerk for not thanking her when she feeds him lunch every single day. 

“Thanks, mom,” Harry says, hoping it doesn’t sound fake or forced.

“You’re welcome, my dear,” she says, and winks at Louis.

Again, Harry spends the rest of the afternoon in his room. 

And the following Saturday, when Louis shows up again, Harry meets him at the door.

“You can’t come in,” Harry says, smiling smugly at the wide-eyed look of surprise on Louis’ face. “You see, it’s a matter of manners. And you have none. In fact, you’ve been nothing but rude since—”

Louis tilts his head back and cackles. When his laughter fades, he shoulders his way past Harry into the house, waving at Harry’s mom, who apparently snuck into the room when he wasn’t paying attention and watched their interaction. 

She waits until Louis passes through the room, then says, “Harry, you’re going to have to try harder. Though I think you might’ve met your match. Louis seems to be just as stubborn as you are.”

Harry scoffs, but she’s not wrong. At least about them being equally stubborn. He’s sure they don’t have anything else in common. Perhaps if he takes a different approach, Louis will leave like the others. 

“How much do they pay you to try to be my friend?” Harry asks around his breather when he walks outside.

“They don’t,” Louis replies, and takes off chasing after his ball. 

“Then why are you here?” Harry shouts after him.

Louis stops his ball with his foot and turns to face Harry, after a moment, he picks up the ball and walks closer. “Protectorate took me out of school because it was a waste of time. I’m tutored at home now, not that it’s much better, but I don’t have a yard or a playground near my apartment block. One of those fake doctors or whatever they are set this up.”

“So you’re not even here for me? This is like… recess?” 

“Suppose so,” Louis says with an easy shrug. “They want me to be ‘well-rounded’ since I’m going into the colonization program. Can’t just be book smart. Have to pass physical fitness tests and all that too. So here I am.”

“How old are you?” Harry asks before he can stop himself. 

“Ten,” Louis says. “Same as you.”

Harry spins on his heel and heads back inside. He spends the afternoon in his room, but this time he doesn’t work or read. Instead he lays on his bed, staring up at the model of the solar system he built and hung from his ceiling a few years back. Every kid that they’d sent prior to Louis had been ineligible for the colonization program. Possibly they thought that having that in common would make Harry want to befriend them, but it hadn't worked. It seems cruel to force Harry to spend time around someone with such a different future than his own. But maybe the point is to hurt—punishment for how difficult he’s made things for his tutors and all of the kids they’ve attempted to force on him. 

After letting himself have a good sulk, Harry wipes his eyes. If he refuses to let it hurt him, then he wins. Which means… He’ll have to stop being rude to Louis. 

3002CE

Snow has been falling since the previous evening and a white Christmas seems likely, not that Harry can go out and play in it. It looks pretty, but an alert was issued, just like it is whenever it rains. He watches it from his bedroom window, waiting like he does every Saturday morning for Louis to arrive. 

“He’s not coming today, Harry,” his mom says, and he turns to look at her in the doorway.

“Why?” Harry frowns and picks up his computer, pretending that he’s been working all along. 

“I wasn’t given a reason, but I assume because of the holidays.”

“Christmas Eve isn’t a holiday according to the Protectorate,” Harry says, climbing off his bed. If Louis isn’t coming over, then Harry might as well find something to do by himself. 

The following Friday, Harry plays sick, which for him means actually making himself sick. When his mom finds him vomiting into the toilet Friday evening after pretending to be lethargic all day and picking at his meals, she cancels on Louis for Saturday. Harry begs her not to, promises he’ll be well by the morning (while retching), and finally pleads for her not to tell anyone he’s ill. He listens in while she calls Louis’ mother, smiling to himself when he hears her say what he asked her to say, “Harry isn’t available today.”

Louis arrives the Saturday morning another week after that, and Harry stays in his room, just like he used to do when he first decided to not be rude to Louis anymore. He spent a good two months worth of Saturdays in his room while Louis played in the garden by himself. And then had slowly started to hang out near him—sitting on the garden wall and reading, usually, while Louis played—but continued giving him the silent treatment. 

When it’s time for lunch, Harry tiptoes out to the kitchen to sneak something from the fridge, but his mom is there and so is Louis.

“Harry, did you have breakfast?” his mom asks as soon as she sees him. He nods and slides into a chair across from Louis. “I’m glad you’re up. I didn’t know if you were ill again or—” 

“I’m fine,” Harry says, hoping that Louis won’t ask about his illness. 

“Good. I wanted to ask you about your birthday. I know you don’t want to have a party, but you still want a cake, don’t you?” 

“Yes, please.” In his petulance, he forgot that his birthday is only a few weeks off. Grinning at her, he says, “Carrot cake, if you can.”

“Sure.” She drops a kiss to the top of his head, setting two plates on the table. Before she leaves the room, she says, “You boys have fun.”

As soon as she’s gone, Louis asks, “You were ill?”

“Nope.”

“But your mom—”

“Faked it.” Harry shrugs and takes a big bite of his PB&J so he doesn’t have to answer any follow up questions. 

Louis rolls his eyes. “Is your birthday today?” Shaking his head, Harry holds up two fingers, and Louis guesses, “Two? February?” Harry nods, and holds up one finger. “First of February?” Nodding again, Harry goes back to his sandwich. Louis grins and says, “Too bad. I was hoping to be a year older than you for longer than a month.” 

Chewing fast, Harry gives up on manners and talks around his half-chewed bite. “What do you mean?”

“Keep up, Harold. I just turned eleven on Christmas Eve.” 

Harry chokes on his PB&J, but coughs it up before Louis can jump out of his chair and attempt to Heimlich him. 

He doesn’t apologize to Louis—not that Louis even seems hurt or annoyed at their missed Saturday—but he does go outside with him after lunch. 

For the first time in years, he plays. Only for a few minutes because his cardiovascular system isn’t accustomed to him running around after a soccer ball, but he plays, and his mom cries. She hides it fairly well, but Harry can tell the second he walks back inside and she’s overly attentive. It’s easy to understand where she’s coming from when the only exercise he’s gotten in recent memory is walking in the garden, or on the treadmill while Gemma or his doctors measure his lung capacity. 

3004CE

Since Louis started to visit on Saturdays, Harry has only seen the not-doctors once, and that was to get new computers, even though he did not destroy the other ones. The head not-doctor called it an upgrade, but all it meant was that Harry had to disassemble and reassemble another computer before actually upgrading it himself. 

This is his first visit in almost a year, but the waiting room chairs are the same, the analog clock is still ticking away on the wall.  His mom didn’t come with him this time, at Harry’s insistence. 

“Harry,” the head not-doctor says, holding the door open for him to enter her office. Her name is Marianne Woodward, and she is a doctor of psychology, but he only calls her “Doctor Woodward” to her face. 

“Doctor Woodward, how are you today?” Harry sits in the same visitor’s chair across from her desk, and folds his hands in his lap. 

“Fine, thank you,” she says, steepling her fingers and peering at Harry over them. “Except… Do you know why I asked you to come in today?”

“No,” Harry answers honestly. He usually knows exactly why he’s there, but he assumed it was something to do with his recent work with plasma transfer.

“A few days ago, there was a security breach in the R.O.E. Navy’s system. Do you happen to know anything about that?” she asks, and Harry works to keep his heart from leaping out of his chest. He was so careful not to leave a trace, but apparently wasn’t successful. Harry nods. “I thought so. Harry, your work for the R.O.E., while exceptional, does not make you invincible. If anything of the sort happens again, you’ll face more than a verbal reprimand. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Doctor.” Harry swallows hard, shifting in his seat. He’ll have to be more careful to cover his tracks next time. 

“You’ll be thirteen in February, Harry. Old enough to be sent to a labor camp,” she says, as if he isn’t well aware of that fact, dismissing him with a quick nod. “See yourself out.”

Harry winds his way through the building to the exit, popping his new breather on just before he steps outside. It’s a short walk to the nearest bus station, so he heads in that direction, stopping short when he turns the corner.

“Took you long enough,” Louis says, and Harry falls into step beside him. 

“Kept me waiting this whole time,” Harry explains, and Louis glances over with a frown. “Five minutes with the head not-doctor so she could threaten to ship me off to Texas for breaking into the R.O.E. Navy’s computer system.”

“Should be thanking you. Now they know it’s vulnerable.” 

Harry snorts, though Louis has a fair point. Maybe he should approach things differently. If he goes to the R.O.E. and offers to help, it might be easier for him to access his records and change things so he can enter the space colonization program. 

“Still don’t see why you’re so set on joining up,” Louis says as the bus pulls to a stop in front of them. Rather than respond, Harry climbs on board. 

Once they’re seated next to each other, and the bus takes off, Harry whispers, “It’ll be boring here without you.”

3006CE

Gemma adjusts the treadmill, upping the speed and the incline. She checks the readout on the screen, but Harry can make out what it says. His blood oxygen levels are good. His heart rate is good. And his lungs feel fine. If she needed him to, he could keep running, but sweat is dripping off the end of his nose, so he jumps to the side and lands on the floor while the treadmill's belt continues to spin. 

“Enough,” Harry says, wiping the sweat from his face with the hem of his shirt. 

“Yeah. I got what I needed ten minutes ago, but you seemed to be enjoying yourself.” Gemma turns off the treadmill and says, “Everything looks great. And there’s no evidence of scarring on your lungs.”

Harry can’t help but grin, and he can’t wait to tell Louis. He never thought the day would come when he didn’t need to use a breathing machine to get through the day. “What about the navy?”

“Not sure,” she says. “They might, they might not. Physically, your body’s no different from any other typical, healthy, fourteen year old boy. But they know your medical records and just because you’re no longer in poor health, doesn’t mean they’ll let you into the program.”

Resting his hands on his hips, Harry sighs. “I figured as much. Thanks, Gems. I… I can’t thank you enough, really.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she says. “Couldn’t very well be the best doctor on the planet with a sick brother, could I?”

“Guess not,” Harry says, scrunching his nose. “You here all weekend?”

“Yeah, I wanted to spend some time with mom. Is Louis coming over?”

“Probably.” Harry shrugs and wipes his face again. It’s hard to control his expression, but he’s learning. “He’s over most days.”

“As much as you resent the Protectorate, you have to admit, they knew what they were doing there,” Gemma says with a laugh and Harry rolls his eyes. There’s no way he’s letting them have credit for bringing Louis to him. 

“Louis was their last ditch effort. They didn’t expect him to stick around longer than any of the others.”

3007CE

“Can’t believe your sister spent all that time and effort and you still suck at soccer,” Louis says, easily stealing the ball from Harry, and dribbling it too fast for Harry’s feet to keep up. 

Harry takes off after him, laughing and shouting, “She fixed my lungs, not my feet!” 

Cackling as he runs away from Harry with the ball, Louis feigns left and then right. Somehow, Harry knows he’s faking—nothing to do with skill, but probably just how well he knows Louis—and he keeps going straight. It brings him closer and when Louis slows to check back over his shoulder, Harry puts on a burst of speed and dives, flying through the air and taking Louis down with both arms around his legs. 

“Ow! Fucker,” Louis says, rolling onto his back on the grass. 

Reaching over to smack Louis’ forehead, Harry whispers, “Shh! My mom’s gonna hear you.”

Louis bats his hand away, stretching out and looking up at the sky. From his position on his stomach on the ground beside him, Harry watches as Louis’ chest rises and falls for a few breaths, then he pushes himself to his feet and holds his hand out to help Louis up. 

“Have to tell you something,” Louis says, and instead of taking Harry’s hand, he sits up, hugging his knees to his chest. 

“Okay?” Harry drops back down and sits cross-legged, waiting for what sounds like bad news. All he can do is hope that Louis isn't being sent away to training camp two years early. It happens, but not for people like Louis. Not usually, anyway. Early admission is for troubled kids who’ve spent time in labor camps. The longer he waits, the more concerned he becomes that it’s something awful and he wonders how Louis has kept whatever it is inside the whole time they’ve been playing outside. 

Louis takes a deep breath, and says, “I’m gay. So, like…”

After that, Harry stops listening. He’s too relieved that Louis isn’t leaving for Texas to process the rest of his words. Only when Louis frowns and starts to stand does Harry realize that he hasn’t been paying attention. He grabs for Louis’ arm, but catches his hand instead and pulls him down to the grass.

“Me too. I’m gay too!” They sit there staring at each other for a moment, and then Louis starts to laugh, squeezing Harry’s fingers before letting them go and falling onto his back again. “I thought you were gonna tell me you were being shipped off early.”

“Shit, no,” Louis says, shading his eyes with his hands. “You’d know, wouldn’t you? You spend half your time breaking into their system.”

Harry shrugs. “Maybe they’ve caught on to me. I don’t know.”

“I thought…” Louis clears his throat and catches Harry’s eye. “I thought you might be, um, gay. I wasn’t sure and I wasn't about to ask.”

“I’m glad you told me, Lou.”

“Harry,” Louis says, pinching at Harry’s leg hair and pulling a few free. Harry doesn’t give him the satisfaction of complaining. “Were you going to tell me, you know, about you?”

“Didn't think about it, like, until now,” Harry says, realizing that it’s probably best if he doesn’t tell Louis exactly what he means.

Louis seems to understand him anyway. He laughs. “Of course you didn’t.”

3008CE

It’s been hundreds of years since the USPS was phased out, and when the Protectorate was established, they instituted a no-paper rule that applies to everyone but them. There’s no sense to it, probably just another way for them to seem important, especially since no one has a mailbox anymore, and their letters all have to be hand delivered. 

After Harry signs his name, the courier hands over a sealed envelope, tips his hat, and jogs off down the drive. Harry shuts the door and leans back against it, heart racing as he rips open the envelope and unfolds the paper. 

Mister Harry Edward Styles,

The Committee on Admission has carefully reviewed your file, and while we appreciate your eagerness, we regret to inform you that we cannot admit you to the Colonization Program. Your medical history makes you ineligible for space travel, and despite recent improvements to your health, we cannot in good conscience make an exception. 

Sincerely,

Admiral R. Havens

“Bullshit,” Harry mutters, ripping the letter to shreds. It’s fine. He took the chance applying the old-fashioned way, despite his initial rejection during the early application process. Now, he’ll just have to go about it his own way. No time to worry about it now, anyway, because Louis should be there any minute. They have plans to sneak out of the Protectorate after sunset to test Harry’s newest invention—a portable radio telescope that should allow them to see Vega under less than perfect conditions. And Louis is late, which isn’t surprising, but it’s still annoying. If he’d been on time, Harry would’ve missed the courier and he’d have one more day to think that he still stood a chance to get into the program. 

Louis is so late that Harry leaves without him. Smog and cloud cover outside the Protectorate have made it impossible to test his telescope, but tonight visibility is supposed to be better, and he’s not letting that go to waste just because Louis can’t get there on time. 

He bikes in and out of shadows along the sides of apartment blocks and through alleyways until he reaches the exit that the garbage and recycling trucks use. The bike is lightweight and easy enough to carry in one arm. As much as he wants to test his dirt bike build outside the walls, tonight is not the night. Harry shifts his backpack and hefts the bicycle frame onto his shoulder, standing in the shadow of a dumpster while he waits for the next truck. 

“Harry!” 

Harry's head whips around at Louis’ voice, and he holds a finger to his mouth to hush him. They aren’t supposed to be noticed and Louis yelling is not helping. 

“No one’s around,” Louis says, though he does keep his voice low this time. “Sorry I’m late.”

A recycling truck rumbles up the road towards the exit and Louis lifts his bike, standing just behind Harry. When it slows down long enough for the gate to slide open, Harry leaps onto the side, grabbing the hydraulic arm and flattening his body as much as he can with the bike on his other shoulder. According to his research, the security cameras are at an angle that should keep them hidden from view. 

As soon as the truck gets through the exit, it speeds up, and Harry tosses his bike, jumping down after it. He lands in a crouch, but Louis rolls in the dirt a few yards ahead, having waited too long to jump off. 

Still angry, Harry takes off, pedaling hard. He can hear Louis behind him, so he’s not hurt from the fall, though Harry kind of hopes he has some scrapes and bruises. 

A few minutes later, once they’re well away from the wall, Louis catches up, riding beside Harry, howling into the sky like an animal. He laughs, but goes wide-eyed when what sounds like a wolf howls back. 

“Shit!” Louis pedals harder and Harry works to keep up with him. 

“Told you there’s all sorts of wild animals out here,” Harry reminds him. 

When they get out of range of the lights of the Protectorate, Harry flips on the small light strapped to the front of his bike and Louis falls in line behind him. 

The water tower is ancient. A relic of the past left to the elements and the animals. When he first snuck out alone to scope out locations, Harry was drawn directly to it. It’s height and rusted exterior make it easy to find. Jagged holes cover the surface of the tank, but underneath it is almost completely gone. As they climb, Harry bangs the small aluminum baseball bat—which he brought for this purpose—against every support beam he passes. It does the job. Hundreds, if not thousands of bats fly out of the bottom of the tank when the noise or the vibrations become too much for them to bear. 

“Shit!” Louis shouts and Harry laughs, imagining his shock at the colony of bats descending on him, and swarming around him before flying off to find someplace else to roost for the time being. 

The first time Harry climbed the tower, he didn't know about the bat colony. When he switched from one ladder to another, the second ladder swung with his weight, creaking and clanging and scaring the bats out of their hiding place. He almost fell over a hundred feet. This time he’s barely off the ground. 

Harry climbs to the top, and while he waits for Louis to get there, he begins to set up his telescope. It’s small and doesn’t take much—one day he’d love to make one small enough to wear like a pair of goggles—and he’s almost finished by the time Louis drops into a crouch next to him. 

“Think it’ll work?” Louis asks and Harry shrugs. 

“We’ll see.” 

It is a complete failure. While it worked fine in a laboratory setting, nothing he could do there could really duplicate the problem of the layers of pollution in the atmosphere. At least not in his home lab. Maybe if he had access to R.O.E. laboratories. And financing. 

The trip back is quiet. Neither of them pedal any faster than necessary to keep the bikes upright and moving, and they don’t speak until they’re about a mile out from the gates. 

“Should be another truck along within the hour,” Harry says, checking his watch. He can’t help but sound defeated. What a waste of a day. 

“Hey, um…” Louis lets his bike fall and steps closer to where Harry stands, leaning against the wall. “Did you hear anything about the program?”

Harry scoffs. “Yeah. They regret to inform me that they suck.”

“Oh,” Louis says, so quietly that Harry turns to look at him. 

“What?”

“I got a letter today. That’s why I was late.”

“What for? You’ve been on track for the colonization program since forever,” Harry says, tamping down his jealousy and the inevitable sadness he feels whenever he thinks about it. 

“Yeah, so…” Louis kicks a rock and it bounces off the wall. “They’re sending me to Florida instead of Texas. Officer training. Gonna be a captain.”

3009CE

“Florida’s not that far away, you know,” Louis says, and Harry knows he’s trying to make light of what feels like a heavy weight on his heart, but it doesn’t help.

With a practiced eye roll that hopefully hides the depth of his disappointment, Harry says, “Yeah, ’cause I’ll be able to ride my dirtbike there.” 

Loudly, Louis scoffs. “Maybe I’ll fly in and pick you up.” 

Harry shakes his head. “I'll figure it out. With you gone, I won’t have anything distracting me.”

“Harry, don’t…” Louis sighs, and says, “Don’t lock yourself up in your room. Like… I’m still your friend. We can still talk—”

“Not the same,” Harry says, crossing his arms and turning away because he stands a better chance at stopping his tears if he isn’t looking directly at Louis. “I’ll join you soon. Already know what my fake name’s gonna be. You’re going to have to get used to—”

“Louis Tomlinson! You’re going to miss your flight!” Louis mom shouts from the door of the air taxi, waving excitedly at Harry and beckoning Louis to hurry.

“Shit.” Holding his arms out wide, Louis moves closer to Harry to bring him into a hug, but Harry refuses to uncross his arms and hug him back, which makes for an awkward half embrace. Louis steps away, and says, “Okay, um… Bye, I guess.”

Shaking his head, Harry says, “Nope. I’ll see you later. And I’ll write you. You know that.”

Louis closes his eyes and nods. “Right. See you later, Harry.” 

Pressing his lips together to keep from saying more, Harry waits while Louis takes the front steps one at a time, glancing back before climbing into the air taxi, and waving. Harry lifts his hand, wiggling his fingers, and goes back inside the house before the taxi takes off. He waits until he’s locked in his bedroom to cry. 

And when he’s finished, he wipes his eyes and gets to work falsifying the government documents he needs to get into the colonization program. 

3013CE

The fourth dirt bike Harry builds gets him all the way to Florida. On the first of February, Harry sets out after breakfast, taking what’s left of the two lane highways when he can, even riding along an interstate once or twice. He gets to the campground a few miles away from the Naval Air Station in the early evening, renting a camper, and debating for about ten minutes before following the signs to the beach. 

The water is salty and cool, and Harry only stays in long enough to wash, before heading back to the rusted Airstream he has for the night. There’s no glass in the windows, but there’s no air conditioning either, and he supposes the bars across the openings keep most things out. Not the bugs though, and probably not the snakes, but Harry doesn’t want to think about that. It’s the first thing he checks for when he steps up inside the camper after his swim. And he makes sure to check everywhere before finally sitting down to eat one of the meals he packed. 

Hopefully, his dirt bike is visible and Louis will see it. The yellow paint should make it stand out, even with the small amount of light from the bulb outside by the camper steps. He almost forgets to get dressed, but a giant bug flies in between the bars on the window, making him jump and screech, and after he kills it he thinks he should probably put some pants on.

He’s missed Louis so much since he left for training school, and since then, Protectorate censored emails, coded notes sent inside his home baked cupcakes keep them in touch. They haven’t seen each other in almost two years. Louis is permitted to call his mom once a month, and on Harry’s birthday last year, he’d asked Harry to be at his mom’s house and had spent half of his allotted time talking to Harry instead, but he can’t expect more than that. He almost doesn’t expect him to show up tonight, if he got the coded letter Harry gave Louis’ mom to hide inside the care package she sent for his last birthday. There was no time for Louis to send him confirmation. So he just waits and hopes for the best. 

It’s close to midnight when Harry hears something outside that he’s positive isn’t a bug, a snake, a dog, or an alligator. 

“Harry?” Louis’ tired voice carries through the open window, and Harry moves so fast across the small camper that the entire thing rocks with his weight. 

Flinging open the door that’s barely hanging on by its hinges, Harry finds himself staring down at Louis standing in the flickering yellow light. “Lou, holy shit! You came!”

“Happy birthday, man. You look so— It’s fucking crazy how two years can make such a difference. I mean, my mom sends pictures, but…” Louis puts one foot up on the metal step to the camper. He waits until Harry moves back, then takes a look around before joining him inside. “I can’t believe you built that thing. And rode it the whole way here?”

“What, the dirt bike?” Harry asks, pulling a sandwich out of his cooler. It’s at least three miles from the Air Station, and he’s pretty sure Louis walked. 

“You can’t call it that, Harry. It doesn’t have wheels. Call it like, a hover bike or something,” Louis says, taking a bite of turkey sandwich. 

“Sounds lame.”

“Whatever,” Louis says. “So what are we doing? What’s the big plan for tonight?”

Humming, Harry tucks his lip between his teeth. “I thought we’d just hang out.”

Louis’ eyes dart around, searching Harry’s face. He frowns. “I thought you had like, grand plans. Like, out of bounds, drinking homemade alcohol in some dingy bar, and puking your guts up, plans.”

“No, um… I just wanted to see you,” Harry says, not at all embarrassed. 

“Harry, you know what this campground is like, used for usually, right?” Louis narrows his eyes.

“Yeah, I mean, I did stay here on my test run. That’s how I knew to rent the whole camper instead of just a room this time.”

“You rented a whole camper?” Louis asks, and he sounds like he doesn’t believe him.

“Yeah, of course. Didn’t want to hang out with you while some people were, like, banging in the same camper.”

“Banging?” Louis laughs. 

“What am I supposed to call it? Fucking?” Harry cracks open one of the thermoses of cold water he brought and takes a sip, passing it to Louis. 

“I just…” Louis gulps the water and Harry watches his throat bob with each swallow. “Why are you spending your money on that?”

Instead of answering Louis’ question, Harry asks, “What am I supposed to spend it on?” 

“What are we going to do? Hang out and get eaten by mosquitoes?”

“I… I went swimming earlier” Harry says. He didn’t think about planning anything other than getting there, and now he’s let Louis down. Two years gone and this is what it’s like seeing each other for the first time. Harry offers the only thing he can think of. “I mean, we could. You know… have sex.”

Except for the crickets and buzzing mosquitoes, the camper goes silent. Louis looks like he’s waiting for Harry to finish his sentence, but Harry just stares at him, speechless. Tipping his head slowly to the side, Louis says, “You’re not serious.”

“Why not? You’re a dude, I’m a dude, we’re both gay. We’re friends. We like, might as well. I think. Maybe. I mean…” 

“I think…” Louis taps his chin as if debating the offer. He laughs and says, “We should go swimming.”

“Oh! Yeah, okay. Good,” Harry says, shaking his head, relieved that Louis seems to have decided that he was joking. He was, at first, but introducing the thought into his brain made it go haywire, and now it’s all he can think about on their walk down to the water. He wonders why it never occurred to him to think of Louis that way. 

They’ve undressed in front of each other before, but this time Harry is more aware of Louis’ body in relation to his. He knows his own body has been through major changes in the last few years. The increase in his aerobic capability led to a late growth spurt, and when Louis left, Harry spent a lot of time kicking a ball around by himself, which got boring fast. After that, he started doing push-ups and squats and other body weight exercises. Finally having the ability to bring about improvement to his body on his own, Harry put on muscle mass quickly, and he’s proud of what he’s accomplished. 

Harry pulls his shirt off, setting it on a dry spot on the dock before peeling off his socks, and stepping out of his jeans and underwear at the same time. He stands at the end of the dock, staring up at the stars. So many more are visible here than back home. Along the coast, there isn’t quite as much air pollution to block them. A splash draws his attention, and Harry watches Louis wade out. As soon as the water starts to lap at his bare ass, Harry hurries to join him, hand cupping his junk. The cool water is a welcome distraction. 

Standing just behind Louis, the hazy yellow moonlight reflects off the water and onto his skin, outlining him in gold. It seems impossible that he never noticed how beautiful Louis is until this moment, and Harry decides that it’s indeed not possible and that he must’ve accepted it as a known quantity and simply not appreciated it until now. Still, a horrible mistake. 

Fingertips inches away from Louis’ lower back, Harry freezes and drops his hand into the water, splashing Louis unintentionally, making him jump and squeal.

“You fucker!” Louis throws all of his weight at Harry, taking him down sideways. When Harry screams, it’s underwater. He comes up sputtering, wiping his eyes, and standing again, but Louis is already out deeper, with only his head and shoulders above the water. He makes a wave with his arm, twisting his body and sending salty water spraying all over Harry. 

“I hope you know I didn’t splash you on purpose,” Harry says, slowly making his way towards Louis. He sinks down so that he can float too, letting the water carry him. 

“Yeah?” Louis laughs, flicking the surface of the water with his fingers, droplets flying all over Harry. “I did. Totally on purpose.”

Though he’s completely underwater, he’s not out as far as Louis is, and if he were to stand, most of his upper body would be well out of the water. So when Harry jumps, he does it almost like a standing breaststroke, and he feels a bit like a flying frog, landing close enough to Louis that his hand finds Louis’ arm under the water. He takes hold of Louis’ wrist and drags him under, pulling himself closer. They surface at the same time, both of them shaking their heads and wetting each other with their hair. 

Laughing, Harry pushes Louis away and falls onto his back, kicking his feet, and doing an exaggerated backstroke. After a moment, Louis dives under and Harry waits, searching for bubbles or some sign of Louis’ location. He pops up a few feet away, and Harry drops his feet, finding the bottom just in case Louis tries to dunk him. 

Instead, Louis lays back and floats, talking to the sky, “Happy birthday, Harry.”

“Thanks,” Harry whispers. “Sorry I didn’t plan anything fun.”

“Nah, man. This is fun. Wouldn’t have it any other way, you know that.”

“Oh, so you definitely don’t want to have sex, then,” Harry says, hoping his tone comes across as humorous. 

Lifting his head, Louis watches Harry for a moment. He finds his footing in the mud and stands. “I never said that.” 

Harry snorts, floating on his back and kicking hard. He splashes Louis and Louis grabs his ankle, jerking him by the foot. Gasping as he goes under, Harry inhales salty water and chokes, scrambling to stand. Before he can get his feet under him, Louis hooks his hands under Harry's arms and pulls him up. 

“Sorry,” Louis mutters, backing up. “Wasn’t trying to drown you.”

Coughing and laughing into his fist, Harry says, “You were trying to do something?”

While he knows his own face is red for all sorts of reasons, it’s different watching Louis blush in the moonlight. He looks away and says, “I was trying to like, pull you to me to kiss you. Yeah. ’Cause you know… I thought you were serious about, um…”

Amazed that he managed to forget so quickly, Harry says, “I’m serious if you’re serious.”

Whipping his head towards Harry, Louis watches him for a moment, then wades closer until he’s just out of reach. “Did you plan this? Like, I—”

“No!” Harry takes a step forward, sinking in the mud a few inches. “No, I was— It just occurred to me. Dumb, right? I’ve known you more than half my life, and I’m just now realizing my best friend is hot and gay.” 

Louis scoffs. “Maybe it’s not a good idea to—”

“No, no, no. This is the best idea I’ve ever had, Louis.” Harry crosses his arms and taps his finger against his lips. “Yeah, I mean, okay. So I have this idea for faster than light speed travel, but it’s not like, physically possible with available technology. But, for ideas that I know for sure are possible with today’s technology, this is number one.”

“With today's technology,” Louis says, voice flat. “And you didn’t plan this.”

“I didn’t!” 

“Do you have condoms? Lube?” Louis asks, and Harry frowns. 

“No,” Harry says, pointing in the general direction of the office-camper. “They might sell that stuff here, but, I—”

“Kiss me,” Louis demands, and Harry stops, letting his arms fall at his sides, splashing them both. He bends his knees and lets his body sink until only his head is visible. 

“Seriously?”

“I’m serious if you’re serious,” Louis says. 

Harry floats over, rising to his full height as he approaches, but never taking his eyes off Louis’. The last time they stood face to face, they were the same height. In the two years since, Harry’s gained two inches on him, and Louis is forced to tip his chin just slightly.

Close enough to Louis to feel his breath on his lips, Harry says, “Do you think we should wait and do this back at the camper?”

Snorting loudly, Louis lets his head fall back. “Can’t believe I thought for one second that you planned this.”

“Didn’t think about it until, like, now,” Harry says, and Louis laughs again.

“Of course you didn’t.” Louis drops his chin, meeting Harry’s eyes. “You want to?”

Harry nods and inches forward, trying to keep eye contact, but he finds himself watching Louis’ lips. Aiming isn’t something he ever considered with relation to kissing, but Louis’ hands on his shoulders steady him, and when Louis slides them up the sides of his neck, Harry experiences a brief moment of disbelief. He presses their lips together, wrapping an arm around Louis’ waist and pulling him closer. The water sloshes between them and Harry remembers that they’re naked.

“We should go to the camper,” Harry says without detaching himself from Louis’ lips. 

“Fuck, okay.” Pushing Harry away, Louis swims for shore, waiting until Harry is following to dive under, sticking his perfect ass up and out of the water before disappearing underneath it. While Harry slogs through the knee-deep water, Louis is already pulling his clothes on. He checks his phone. “I have to be back before six. So I need to leave by three at the absolute latest.”

“Time is it?” Harry asks, yanking his t-shirt over his head.

“Two.”

“What if I take you part way back on my dirt bike?”

Louis smirks, looking him up and down. Then he takes off running. In the two years since he’s been gone, Louis has gotten a lot faster. But so has Harry. He’s on his heels along the path through the campground to the old Airstream, following him up the steps and letting the door fall closed behind him. Louis reaches past him to lock it and Harry laughs because the lock is just as flimsy as the hinges. 

Their second kiss starts even sweeter with Harry cradling Louis’ face and guiding him into it, making sure not to bump noses or tilt his head the wrong way. It’s so careful that, when Louis parts his lips and Harry groans, it startles them both. They giggle into each other’s mouths, and Louis pulls back, letting Harry move away from the door. Harry turns, falling onto the bed and wiggling his still damp body out of his jeans. 

“Is this your first—” Louis cuts himself off when Harry nods. 

“I’ve never…” Harry huffs, propping himself up on his elbows to pull off his shirt. “I mean, I had my first kiss tonight, so…”

“Oh, um, I—”

“It’s okay if you’ve—”

“I haven’t.” Louis shakes his head, and says, “Kissed a girl once when I was in kindergarten.”

“Really?” Harry asks, genuinely surprised. 

“Yes. Promise she means nothing to me anymore,” Louis says. 

Harry rolls his eyes fondly. “No, I mean, I thought… I never really thought about it, but I would’ve assumed you had experience with other guys. You always seem so confident.”

“Well, you always think I’m cooler than I am, Harry,” Louis says, peeling his damp clothes off more gracefully than Harry would’ve thought possible. 

“I…” Harry pouts. “Do you think it’s okay that we’re both virgins?”

“Who cares?” Louis shrugs and climbs onto the thin mattress beside him, looking more like his best friend Louis than potential sex partner Louis, and it gives Harry pause. “But also, like, we’re not— You’ve jerked off, right?” 

“Yes!” Harry rushes to say and then looks away, face flushing with warmth. 

“Okay, and we’re not— I’m not— Neither of us are, um… penetrating the other’s—”

“Lou!” Harry sits up, crossing his legs and making himself face Louis. Typically, he’d be the one focused on details, but thinking seems like the last thing he should be doing. “We don’t have a lot of time, so no. Can we just…”

“Oh, yeah, um…” Louis, still sitting on his knees, bounces in place. Harry unfolds his legs and circles his arms around him, falling backwards and taking Louis with him. 

“Oops!” Harry spreads his legs, letting Louis land between them, and heaving him up by the armpits. 

“Hi, you dick,” Louis says, elbowing him in the stomach. 

Laughing as he speaks, Harry says, “Sorry, it’s my first time.”

Louis groans miserably, letting his weight settle on Harry, lowering himself down until the tips of their noses touch. “We’re naked.”

“I just remembered,” Harry says, snickering. “Is this weird? Should we not, um… do this?”

“Your dick is like, poking me in the stomach, so I think we probably should,” Louis says, searching Harry’s face. He kisses Harry with his eyes open. Harry watches Louis’ eyelids flutter, and closes his own, licking Louis’ lips and moaning when he parts them. 

Harry bends his knees, wrapping his legs around Louis and rocking his hips, seeking the heat of Louis’ soft skin, bucking against him when he’s met with the encouragement of Louis’ fingers digging into the muscles of his ass. It might be February, but it’s Florida, and it’s been hot and muggy all day. Their brief foray into the brisk water only accentuates the heat of the night, and soon the skin that was clammy from swimming is damp with sweat. 

With his lips attached to Harry’s neck, Louis licks and sucks and kisses wherever his mouth lands, circling his hips and rubbing his dick against Harry's, against his stomach, his thigh. Harry forces his hand between them, stroking Louis the same way he does himself. 

“Do us both,” Louis pants into the side of his neck, lifting up and looking between their bodies. “Those hands have to be good for something.”

Harry huffs, offended, but Louis quickly makes him forget, kissing him messily and fucking into his fist. That’s all Harry needs to get him moving, and he wraps one hand around them both, holding them tight together as he jerks them off. Every kiss and bite and touch is hurried and while Harry wishes it wasn’t, at the same time he’s glad for it. His orgasm hits him fast and hard, and he grunts, throwing his head back as he comes, spurting over his fist, Louis’ cock, and his own belly. 

Shaking hands push Harry’s away, and Louis kneels between his legs, movements a blur as he strokes his cock, gaze traveling up and down Harry's body. He comes, catching it in his hand, but Harry reaches up and pulls him back down on top of him. They kiss lazily and then greedily, until Louis puts a stop to it. 

“Are you really gonna drive me back?” Louis asks, pinching Harry’s nipple and watching with fascination when he pushes into the sensation instead of pulling away. 

“Yeah,” Harry says, sitting up. “Should go, I guess. There’s no shower, so back in the water first.”

They wash off in the murky water and dress again. Harry packs all of his things into his bag. There’s no point in coming back to the camper to sleep when he knows he’ll be up all night worrying about Louis and whether he’ll make it back undetected. He’d rather go straight home. 

The dirt bike isn’t technically made for two people, but it doesn’t struggle with the weight. It’s the fuel cell that doesn’t make it. Harry drops Louis off just out of sight of the walls. Their goodbye is brief, and after one last kiss, Louis takes off, disappearing in the shadows. 

The fuel cell lasts until Harry’s about twenty miles outside of the Protectorate. He’s arrested before he reaches the walls. 

3013CE

“You’re sure you’re alright, Harry?” his mom asks, though she has to know he’s not. He hasn’t been since his arrest and subsequent work release program. But after he found out about Louis’ assignment, he’s been angrier than ever before. 

“I’m fine,” Harry says, and clenches his jaw.

Doctor Woodward is there, of course, to see off all of her charges who’ve been selected for the first wave of colonization, but Harry refuses to look at her. The head not-doctor is permanently on his shit list, since the day she told him that they were really pleased with how hard he’d worked to infiltrate the security system, and that they loved his little inventions, and that they’d like to offer him a choice: come to work for them willingly or they’d motivate him some other way. At first he refused, but then they got the news of Louis’ assignment, and Harry gave in. 

Somewhere among the neat rows of people in dress uniforms is Louis, and Harry started searching for him the second they began marching out and lining up. The ship behind them is so large that Harry would have to turn his head from side to side to see the entire thing, but he can’t look at it now, slowly and methodically making his way up and down every row until his eyes land on Louis.

“There he is,” Harry whispers, and his mom reaches for his hand. “Twelfth from the right, fifth in line.”

She squeezes it and says, “I see him. He looks so small.”

Harry scoffs. “He’s not small, mom. Just… Far away.”

“I know that. I mean… He’s so young.”

The ceremony is too long and by the time it ends, Harry’s feet hurt from standing in place for hours. He makes his way through the crowd, trying to keep Louis in sight, weaving in and out of families and friends saying their goodbyes. When he reaches Louis, he has to wait, standing aside while Louis hugs his mom, even though every atom in his body feels like it’s being pulled in his direction. 

“Hey,” Louis says when they’re finally face to face for the first time in months, voice so quiet in the surrounding crowd noise that Harry has to read his lips. Harry lifts his hand and wiggles his fingers, but this time he lets the tears fall, and Louis pulls him in, wrapping his arms around him. “Don’t get snot on my uniform.”

Harry snorts, resting his forehead on Louis’ shoulder. “Can’t help it. Need to send some of my DNA with you to Anteros so you can clone me.”

“Shut up,” Louis says, grabbing Harry’s arms and pushing him back a bit. He lifts Harry’s chin, forcing eye contact. “I don’t want a Harry clone. Just you. And you’re going to work it out, right? Invent some faster than light speed ship, and come rescue me. ’Cause I really don’t think I’m going to like Anteros.”

“That’s the plan,” Harry says softly. And it is his plan. He’s been working on it ever since he started in his unofficial capacity with the R.O.E. Navy. 

“Good. I mean, have you seen some of the people they’re shipping me off with?” Louis makes a disgusted face and Harry giggles. He recognizes some of them from Louis’ descriptions. 

Taking a deep breath, Harry steps back and says, “Have to tell you something.”

“Okay?” 

“Right. Okay. So, don’t be… Like, I know it doesn’t really matter, and I know you’re leaving, and I know I’m probably being stupid, but Gems said that I should tell you anyway, so I’m telling you anyway.” 

“Okay?” Louis frowns, tipping his head to the side.

“I’m like… I’m in love with you,” Harry says, and while he expected to feel nervous waiting for Louis’ response, he didn’t expect rejection, but Louis shakes his head.

“You can’t do this, Harry, I… I’m leaving.” Louis crosses his arms over his uniformed chest, looking somehow younger when he frowns. “Can’t believe this. Why would you—”

“Never mind,” Harry rushes out. “Forget it. Stupid, right? God, I’m sorry—”

“You're sorry?” Louis asks, words coming out clipped and sharper than he’s ever spoken to Harry before. Except, of course, during the first few months of their… forced friendship. Maybe that’s all it ever was. 

“Yeah, sorry,” Harry says, backing up and bumping into someone. He spins around to apologize, but whoever it was has already lost themselves in the crowd. Harry hurries to do the same. He can hear Louis calling after him, but he pushes through the throngs of people saying their final goodbyes, and when he gets to the edge of the tarmac, he breaks into a run. 

3018CE

The trip to Anteros should last five years, give or take a few weeks. So when the fifth anniversary approaches, the R.O.E. starts preparations for the celebration. The other ships reached their destinations within days of the estimated travel time, and the ships bound for Anteros should do the same. 

Any day now, the Anteros ships will signal that they’ve landed, and a few days after that, the R.O.E. will receive their message, setting off celebrations around the world. The Protectorate will probably be impossible to navigate due to street parties that will last for days. Harry’s just as excited and proud as the next person, though his thoughts are tinged with regret, as they often are these days. 

From his desk in his office in the same building that he used to visit as a child whenever they needed to reprimand him for not ‘following protocol’ or for ‘breaking the trust of the R.O.E. again’, Harry pretends to work on the design for his ship. In actuality, he’s halfheartedly thinking about wormholes while scanning all incoming messages from the Anteros quadrant. 

He started scanning for them months ago on the off chance the ships would land early, going so far as to set up an automatic alert to wake him should a message come in while he sleeps. His obsession is why he’s among the first to know that something is wrong. Ship to earth contact is one-sided, and nothing as complicated as verbal or written communication. But the connection is there, open and waiting for a signal, until suddenly it’s not. 

Over the next few days, Harry becomes even more consumed with scanning for signals, refusing to listen to Doctor Woodward’s commands or Gemma’s calls, or even his mom when she begs him to come home and get some sleep. When Woodward cuts the power to his office, he goes back to his mom’s house and sets up there, locking himself in his bedroom the way he did as a child. 

Harry winds up in the hospital after passing out in the kitchen of his mom’s house, attempting to sneak food at two in the morning. Unfortunately, it had already been days since his last meal and he didn’t even make it to the refrigerator. 

Over the next year or so, Harry mourns alongside the rest of the world. The loss of so many of what the R.O.E. calls top-tier people is devastating, and they very quickly declare the day an international holiday. What they keep from the public is the knowledge that the ships, while probably not functional, are still out there, and their passengers and crew are likely still alive. 

The first few probes leave earth with almost as much pomp and circumstance as the original colonization ships, but when the signals are lost in the same way and the same place, they refuse to send more. 

After a while, people forget. 

3098CE

“What the fuck?” Louis squints at the blanket of stars, positive that he’s seeing things this time. “Niall?”

“I see it, Tommo,” Niall says. At least he’s not completely losing his mind. Giving a Republic of Earth military officer his real name and sending him on his way back to Earth earned him a slap upside the head from Shawn of all people. 

The wormhole opens, sending a small, silver ship out backwards, spinning out of control. 

“Shit!” Louis taps his comm and says, “Zayn, are you watching this?”

“Tractor beam is ready when you are,” Zayn replies from the engine room.

Louis nods, but then remembers that Zayn can’t see him. “Right. Right. Okay. Lock on. See if you can stop its rotation.”

“On it, Tommo,” Zayn says, and Louis focuses on the massive screen, half-listening as Niall sends Shawn and Bressie to suit up for a spacewalk. 

Slowly, with Zayn’s guidance, the sleek silver ship stops turning end over end. Niall opens the exterior airlock and Zayn releases the ship from the main tractor beam. Separately tethered to the bay’s walls, Bressie and Shawn use smaller tractor beams to guide the ship while the portal to the outside closes. When they manage to dock it safely, Louis is already waiting in the corridor, entering the code into the keypad so fast that he mistypes it and has to cancel it and do it again.

Before he can finish re-keying the code, the hatch to the small ship opens, and someone stumbles out onto the walkway. As soon as there’s enough room for Louis to fit through the bay door, he climbs into the hanger and runs to meet him, while Bressie and Shawn make sure the ship is properly docked and locked in. 

Liam drops to his knees, clumsily removes his helmet, and pointing back at the ship, shouts, “I’m fine! Help him. He wasn’t strapped in. No helmet.” 

“Fuck. Okay.” Louis taps his comm to call for medical officers, but they’re already there, climbing through the portal. They run for the ship, and Louis chews his fingernails, waiting and expecting the worst, especially since Liam refuses to let the others take him to the medical bay. 

Finally, the medical officers exit the ship with Williams, who appears to be unconscious, floating on a stretcher between them. As soon as Zayn arrives in the hanger, Liam allows him and Louis to help him, supporting him with their arms slung around his waist. Holding Liam’s arms over their shoulders, they support most of his weight as they follow the stretcher onto the ship. 

“What happened?” Louis asks, struggling to keep Liam upright when he stumbles. 

Liam shakes his head. “Don’t know. He must've seen something or… I don’t know. We made it through easy enough, but the second we did, instead of piloting away and heading for Earth, he— Well, he ran for his inhaler. It’s a, um… medical device for—”

“I know what it is,” Louis says, voice clipped. “Go on.”

“Oh, okay, um…” Liam stumbles again, this time taking Louis and Zayn with him when he falls into the wall. 

Tapping his comm, Louis calls for anyone nearby, but again, the crew are a step ahead. Two more medical officers round the corner, coming towards them with another stretcher. They arrange Liam on it and take off, jogging down the corridor with it floating level between them, Zayn at their heels. 

Louis runs along a short distance behind, listening carefully while trying to figure out what could’ve possibly gone wrong. Maybe when he pulled his own ship through the wormhole, it damaged something in Williams’ ship. 

“So he took his helmet off, and ran to the other end of the ship. Then he said we had to come back here. I…” Liam shakes his head, looking away. “I should’ve tried harder to stop him.”

“He did this on purpose?” Zayn asks.

Liam nods, and Zayn steps aside as he’s moved into the medical bay. Louis follows right behind him, standing by the bed they’ve moved Williams to, and waiting while they transfer Liam to the next bed. 

“Why?” Louis asks. 

“Don’t know,” Liam answers, glancing over at Zayn. “But he wouldn't listen. Spun out a second wormhole as soon as the first one closed. Didn’t follow protocol. We came through twisting like a top and he was thrown. Think he hit his head.”

“Tommo?” Doctor Powell, head medical officer, clears her throat and says, “Injuries match up. They indicate that he was unconscious during the incident. Patient has lacerations to his face, but his hands are fine. His suit bore the brunt of it. There was blood and, um… other evidence that he hit his head on the control panel in the cockpit.”

Louis presses his fingertips to his temples, rubbing circles. He always hated the medical science classes he was forced to take in school, and doesn’t remember much other than basic first aid. “What’re we looking at? Surgery? Is he in a coma? What—”

“No, no,” she says, shaking her head. “We’ve already cleaned and repaired the wound to his scalp. There’s no internal bleeding. No swelling of the brain. He’s just knocked out.”

“Really?” Liam asks, and a surprised laugh leaves Louis before he can stop it. 

“Knocked out,” Louis says, pulling a stool over to sit between the two patients. He watches while Doctor Powell cleans the wounds on Williams’ face, waiting until she’s finished to ask, “When will he wake up?”

“Soon as we wake him. Didn’t want him waking up in the middle of cleaning his wounds, but we’re finished now,” she says, injecting a mild stimulant into his vein. “Give him a few minutes. And he’ll likely be confused at first. He needs to remain calm, so don’t yell at him or anything. Okay, Tommo?”

Louis gasps, affronted. “I wouldn’t.”

“Sure.” Her expression says she doesn’t believe him, and she probably has a point. “He’ll have a headache. And he’ll probably be pretty sore all over. The suit did absorb much of the impact, but that was still quite a trip they took.” She turns to Liam and says, “You should get some rest.” 

Zayn carefully lays his hand on top of Liam’s and Louis’ eyes go wide, but he quickly wipes his expression. He was obviously too wrapped up in Williams if he didn’t notice that going on.

While they wait, Louis searches his mind for what could possibly motivate Williams to take such a risk. The most reasonable explanation is that Williams was disoriented upon exiting the wormhole, though he isn’t sure why. Perhaps something to do with lack of oxygen. That would explain his inhaler, but—until the medical officers cut it from his body—the suit was fully functional. 

A quiet groan comes from Williams, and Louis turns to look at him. He doesn’t seem to be awake, at least not fully. His eyes dart back and forth behind his eyelids, his lips move like he’s trying to speak, and the muscles in his arms and hands twitch. 

“Williams?” Louis leans closer.

“It’s not—” Liam clears his throat, furrowing his brow. “He’ll probably respond better to Harry.”

“Right,” Louis says with a quick nod. “Forgot. Harry?”

Groaning again, louder this time, Harry blinks open his eyes, and reaches out, taking Louis’ hand and squeezing it. Thinking that he must be searching for Liam, Louis looks over, but he seems to be asleep, and he doesn’t want to get on Powell’s bad side. Not knowing what else to do, Louis squeezes Harry's hand back. 

Harry’s lips curl into a contented smile. His voice is so rough and quiet that Louis can barely hear him say, “Hi, Lou.”

3098CE 

Louis frowns down at him and Harry wonders how he didn’t see it before. His eyes are the same, and when Louis looks away, nervously fixing his hair, it sends a thrill through Harry’s body. He turns to Zayn, mumbling something, and Zayn leaves after brushing Liam's hair off his forehead and tugging his blanket up to his chin.

“What the hell were you thinking, Williams?” Louis asks, snatching his hand away. “You better have a damn good reason for what you did. You could’ve killed Liam. Or yourself. Not that I care, really, but you see what I’m saying? We had to pull your ship in with a tractor beam. My men could’ve been hurt manually docking your ship from the outside. My entire ship is in a state of emergency because of you, and I’m telling you, I—”

“Stop,” Harry says, trying to make it as much of a command as he can. His head hurts and he’s exhausted. “I use Williams as my last name on these long distance trips because of you, Captain Louis William Tomlinson, formerly of the R.O.E. Navy, born December twenty-fourth—Christmas Eve, which the Protectorate still doesn't consider a holiday—in the year twenty-nine-ninety-one.” Louis jerks back with a gasp, mouth falling open as if to interrupt, so Harry tries to speak quickly. “Kicked out of school for being ‘too smart of a smart ass’ but allowed to continue your education at home, provided you worked on your ‘issues with authority’ and made friends with some ‘lame kid who might be a genius but sure is a dickhead’ and kept him out of trouble. Except… You were more trouble than I was, most of the time.”

“I… I never—”

“You never told me that last part, but when the R.O.E. arrested me, um… on my way back from Florida, and I went to work for them, it made it a hell of a lot easier to break into their files. Watched all of your recorded interviews whenever I missed you, which was… often.” Harry coughs, making his head throb and his body ache. 

“Stop,” Louis says. “You’re not— You’re not him.” He stands and backs away from Harry’s bed and Harry huffs a quiet laugh through his nose. 

“Woodward deleted the masters of the interviews after the Anteros colony was officially abandoned, and she found me passed out in my office with the videos on a loop. Hated her so much, but she’s long gone now. And really, that was the best thing for me. Gave me the kick in the ass to get to work on something new.” Harry smiles, sucking his lower lip into his mouth and biting down. “When you asked me how many rescues I’d done, I lied, obviously. This one makes a dozen.” Louis backs further away and leans against the wall. “All of that traveling at close to light speed… The effects of time on the human body at—”

“How— How—” Louis holds his hand to his chest, and Harry watches him breathe, chest expanding faster and faster. 

“You should sit down,” Harry says, but Louis shakes his head. He should’ve known who he was just based on his stubbornness. “I look to be, what? Forty? Forty-five? On my next birthday, I’ll be one hundred and two years old.”

It’s the first time Harry’s ever said that out loud, even Liam has no idea of his actual age, and Louis’ reaction is probably one he would've expected if he was thinking more clearly. But at least he has the presence of mind to press the call button when Louis slides to the floor, unconscious. Understandable, as it’s probably quite a shock. Unfortunately, Harry passes out again before anyone arrives to help, and this time when he wakes up, he really is disoriented.

It takes him a moment to fully open his eyes, and it's a struggle to focus. When he finally does, he’s met with Louis frowning at him again. 

“You’re him,” Louis says, fingertip tracing circles on Harry’s wrist. “I used to draw faces on this birthmark. Said it looked like a baked potato.I... I forgot.” Tears gather in Harry’s eyes and he tries to blink them away, but all that does is send them streaming down the sides of his face. “How did I not see you?”

“I couldn’t see you either, Lou. But I do now.” Reaching up, Harry rubs his thumb over the triangle of freckles on Louis’ cheek. “The Summer Triangle. My favorite stars.”

Louis looks away and wipes his eyes. “I thought… For a long time, I thought you might come after me, you know? Or I hoped, maybe. But with the way things… When I left Earth—”

“Your mom, um…” Tears start to fall faster and Harry takes a shaky breath. “After you left, she came to see me. Told me, um… I guess things weren’t as one-sided as I thought they were, back then. And we sort of became friends. Well, she and my mom were friends, but I… I clung to her a bit.”

“She needed you,” Louis says, sniffling and rubbing his nose. “I miss her so much.”

It hurts to think about her, and his own family, now long gone. He begged his mom and Gemma to come along on the first few of his long rescue missions, but they refused, and then after a long trip, he returned to earth and his mom wasn’t there. And one day, years later, he came back to find that Gemma had passed as well. 

“She, um… She came with me on one of my short trips. Said she wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”

“Did she really?” Louis asks, sitting on the edge of Harry’s bed when Harry nods. 

While the medical officers check him over again, Harry tells him about it. And while the medical officers check Louis over to make sure he isn’t going to pass out again, he tells Harry a little more about Anteros, which isn’t far off from what he’s already told him, except that things happened a lot quicker than he led Harry to believe. The entire population of the ship has been traveling at near light speed for almost seventy years. 

Eventually, they’re allowed to leave the medical bay and they make their way through the ship’s corridors, hand in hand. Every person they pass looks at them like they’ve lost their minds, but Harry can’t stop grinning and when he looks at Louis, his smile is so wide that his eyes are half-closed. 

They wind up at Harry’s cabin. It’s only been a few hours since he left, and the bed is still unmade, making it easy for him to crawl beneath the covers once he takes off his medical bay gown. Louis stands there until Harry waves him over, and he steps inside the cabin and lets the door slide closed. 

“I’m tired, but…” Harry rolls onto his side and holding his arms open, belatedly noticing that he’s fully naked beneath the sheet, and wondering exactly how hard he hit his head. “Will you stay, Lou?”

Louis nods and undresses quickly, flushing pink as if it’s the first time he’s been naked in front of Harry. At the thought, Harry’s own cheeks heat as he remembers the things they’ve done together, not knowing who the other truly was, but his thoughts drift away as Louis settles onto the bed beside him and tucks Harry’s hair behind his ear. 

“Tell me more about Anteros,” Harry whispers. 

With a heavy sigh, Louis closes his eyes, and says, “There's not much to tell. We were there in orbit for ten years before we left. I never stepped foot on the planet. Neither did most of the crew.”

Harry traces the triangle of freckles on Louis’ cheek. “I’m sorry. I should’ve come to rescue you.”

“You should sleep,” Louis says, scooting closer until they’re almost nose to nose, resting his head on Harry’s arm. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

3098CE

When Louis wakes, it’s to an empty bed, but he can hear the shower and he hopes Harry's okay in there. 

“There’s a bath,” Louis says, the second Harry steps into the room again. “In the medical bay. I mean, it’s nothing fancy, but it might help.”

Bruises mar the skin of his arms and legs, but he looks better. At least his face isn’t tinged blue. 

“Maybe later,” Harry whispers, climbing back into the bed. “Sorry if I woke you.”

"Don't be." Louis shakes his head, trying not to think about the inevitability of Harry leaving again. “Want to be awake, if you’re awake, as long as you’re here. Want to spend as much time together as we can.”

“Oh, um… How long until I’m cleared to go?”

“Your head’s alright? Washing your hair didn’t hurt?”

“No,” Harry says, combing his fingers through his long hair. “They closed the wound completely. Powell said I could wash as usual.” 

Louis turns off the light again. It's easier to say it in the dark. “You could probably leave in a day or so. They like to keep head injuries under observation for twenty-four hours.” Before he can think it through, he offers, “You could stay. I mean, if you want.”

“Have to take Liam back.” He can’t keep Liam away from his family for longer than absolutely necessary. 

“Oh, yeah. Sort of forgot about him, but don’t tell him that.”

“I don’t know how long it’d be before I could leave earth again. They don’t exactly let me go wherever I want. I'm only allowed to do the long distance missions because it doesn't cost the R.O.E.”

“It’s okay,” Louis says, reaching for Harry in the dark to make sure he’s really there. “I’ll wait for you.”

“Louis, you… you have plans.” 

“No. I’ll stowaway on your ship if I have to. But I’m not losing you again.” 

Harry lunges forward, lips colliding with Louis’ chest. His cool hand cradles Louis’ side, slipping between his arm and his ribs. He pulls back and nuzzles his skin, humming and kissing as he goes. 

Pulling himself together, Louis says, “Baby, it’s dark, you have a head injury, and I think your—”

When he uses his mouth to guide him up Louis’ neck, and brings their lips together, Louis doesn’t stop him. Those lips are soft and plush like in Louis’ memories of all of their previous kisses on board his ship, but this time he’s kissing Harry. 

Harry, the annoying kid he was forced to hang out with. Harry, who was too smart for his own good, and too pitiful with his scrawny limbs and breathing machine. Harry, who knew what he wanted and went for it, damn the consequences and anyone who got in his way, even as a child. Harry, who he wouldn’t let himself think about during the five year journey from earth. Harry, who he used to wish would come rescue him. Harry, who he thought had died decades ago. Harry, the center of Louis’ universe.

Louis rests his hand on Harry’s side, gently pulling him closer. Chest to chest, skin to skin, legs tangled together beneath the sheets, he tries to be careful, kissing Harry softly, sweet and easy, even when he starts to get hard and feels Harry's dick thickening against his stomach. 

Separating seems impossible, so Louis turns his head slightly, pressing his lips to Harry’s cheek. “You should be resting.”

Shaking his head slowly, Harry says, “I want… Don't laugh.”

Taken aback, Louis nudges their noses together, and twirls his fingers through Harry's long curls, trying to will his eyes to adjust to the darkness. “I’m not laughing.”

“No, I mean, don’t laugh at what I’m about to say.” Harry hunches his shoulders and scoots down, burying his face in Louis’ chest. “All of the, um, sex we’ve had has been… I was angry for a lot of it. And I… I want us to— to have not-angry sex.” 

“Oh,” Louis says, kissing the top of Harry’s head and breathing in his scent. As if he could laugh when Harry sounds so earnest. 

Harry lifts his head and Louis is able to see the outline of his shape, but not much else. “I want you to make love to me.”

“Of course, baby. Yeah, we can do that.” Finding Harry's lips in the dark is easy, and Louis kisses him again before saying, “But not now. Not when you’re injured and—” 

Harry pushes against him, rolling him over and stretching out on top of him, grinding against him as if Louis doesn’t know how hard he is from just a few kisses. “I want you inside me.”

“I’m not fucking you, Harry,” Louis says. Harry huffs petulantly, pouting against his lips. “After you sleep, and you’ve been okayed for flying.”

“Think you’re that good, do you?” Harry sucks a kiss on the tender place beneath Louis’ jaw. Louis rolls his eyes, and cradles Harry's face in his hands, forcing him to stop biting and nuzzling his neck. Harry shakes his head and their noses rub together. He rolls off of Louis, turns his back to him, and Louis thinks he’s upset, opening his mouth to apologize. But Harry takes Louis’ hand and laces their fingers together, backing up until they’re spooning properly, and says, “You’re right. I should sleep.”

3098CE

Harry wakes feeling well rested and embarrassed about the night before. Then his mind goes to Liam, the ship, and how long they realistically have before they’ll have to leave. He can’t keep Liam away from Earth, and they can’t keep the entire population of Louis’ ship waiting. The more he thinks about it, the heavier the realization: Louis can’t wait for him, and Harry can’t take him back to Earth, not that either of them would want that for him anyway.

Figuring that he needs to make the most of the time they have left together, Harry rolls over in Louis’ arms and, ignoring his own morning breath, presses a kiss to his lips, hoping that will be enough to wake him up. 

“Morning,” Louis says, voice rough with sleep, and so familiar, Harry can’t understand how he didn’t recognize it before. 

Harry hums and kisses him again, draping his arm over Louis’ waist and fitting his thigh between Louis’ legs. Their kisses quickly turn heated and desperate, Harry’s thoughts of leaving spurring him to get as much of Louis as he can, while he can. The lube is right where they left it, tucked between the mattress and the wall, and Harry hurriedly wets his fingers and slips them between his cheeks, unceremoniously pushing one inside. 

“What are you doing?” Louis asks when Harry hisses, too quickly adding a second finger. Sliding his palm down Harry's back, Louis pulls Harry’s hand away. “Let me.”

Louis distracts Harry with a messy kiss while he pushes his hand between Harry’s thighs, reaching back and giving him two fingers at once, slowly. He takes longer to stretch him than Harry would like, scissoring his fingers, and curling them to find Harry’s prostate, sending pleasure zipping up his spine. 

“Fuck. That’s— That’s enough,” Harry says, pushing Louis onto his back and starting to climb on top of him.

“No,” Louis says, gently gripping Harry’s shoulder and urging him to lie down again. “You need to relax, baby.”

“Yeah, okay.” Harry rushes to get in position, heart racing as he lifts his hips and stuffs a pillow under his bum, situating himself on his back. It’s not romantic, especially when he nudges Louis with his foot and says, “Come on, come on.”

With a quiet laugh, Louis kneels between his legs, rubbing his hands up and down Harry’s thighs. He leans down again, dropping kisses on Harry’s lips, chin, nose, and cheeks, before whispering in his ear, “You said ‘make love’ so stop rushing me.”

Harry nods, and when Louis sits up, Harry has to press his lips together and bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself in check. Thankfully, Louis doesn’t seem to notice, looking down between their bodies as he slicks himself up.

Hooking his hands behind his knees, Harry spreads his legs, and Louis drags the head of his dick over Harry’s rim. With a shaky breath, Louis pushes in, glancing up, and Harry nods his encouragement. Gradually, Louis inches forward, and Harry closes his eyes. If he doesn’t watch, he can distance himself from his emotions. 

Instead Harry focuses on the touch of Louis’ hand on the back of his thigh, the soft gasp that leaves his lips when he first pulls back and slowly thrusts inside again, the heat from the friction of their bodies moving against each other making them sweat, the careful way Louis holds his thigh when he wraps Harry's legs around him. 

The slight change of angle makes it even more perfect, and Harry groans when Louis hits his prostate, tightening his arms and legs around him. Holding each other so closely, their movements are limited, and Louis barely shifts his hips back and forth, dicking in deep and grinding circles when Harry reaches down and slips a finger between his cheeks. 

“Baby,” Louis mutters, lips brushing against Harry's shoulder. “Gonna make me come.”

Harry just nods, pushing his finger inside, and Louis fucks him faster. With his cock caught between them, he can’t touch himself, but the warm weight of Louis’ body is enough, and Harry comes, making them both sticky, muscles clenching. Louis grunts, hips stuttering as his own orgasm overtakes him. 

Panting, Louis trails kisses over Harry's jaw. “Love you.”

“Louis!” Harry shoves his shoulder until he rolls off of him. “That’s not— You can’t say that.”

“Why not?” Louis pouts and says, “It’s true.”

Shaking his head, Harry sits up. “Because I have to leave. And I can’t ask you to wait for me.”

“But—”

“I don't want you to wait,” Harry says, looking away and blinking to stop his tears. “You can’t expect thousands of people to put their lives on hold, to sit here for years, probably, and age when they could be exploring the universe. Not for me.”

Taking Harry's hand, Louis says, “I’ll come with you then.”

“No,” Harry insists. “They need you here.”

“They don’t. Anyone could be captain.”

“Bullshit. You’re the heart of this ship, and you know it.” Harry swings his legs off the mattress and stands. “I’m showering, and Liam and I are leaving as soon as we’re cleared.”

“Harry, I—” 

Whatever else Louis has to say is silenced by the door and the running water. And when Harry steps out, Louis is gone. 

Harry has to bite his lip to stop himself from sobbing like a baby. Some things just aren’t meant to be, and he needs to believe that in order to make it through the journey home. 

3098CE

Once Harry and Liam are on board and Niall starts to dilate the airlock, Louis steps closer to the viewing window to watch. He thought he knew heartbreak when he left Earth originally, but this is far worse. Maybe in another hundred years, he’ll get past it. 

He keeps his eyes trained on the cockpit of Harry’s ship, and though he can’t see inside, Louis knows he’s there. After Harry pilots his ship away from the dock and towards the airlock, Louis breaks down. Bressie keeps him from falling to the floor, holding him tightly under his arms, and Louis tries to fight it, but it’s impossible to stop the flood of tears. Finding Harry after all these years just to give him up, and let him go willingly… 

“What the fuck?” Niall’s question is jarring in the silence of the corridor and Louis looks up. “What’s he doing?” 

Harry's ship is reversing through the airlock. They all stand by, assuming something is wrong with the ship that no one caught in the many engineering checks before takeoff. When Bressie loosens his hold on Louis, Louis stumbles back into the wall and slides down to the floor, folding his arms and cradling his head on his knees. He can’t say goodbye again. 

While everyone else is distracted, Louis sneaks off, catching the lift and taking it to the restricted nursery level. He wanders from room to room, trying to envision a future where they might need laboring pools or postnatal care, where the ship’s inhabitants would be ready to age a little, to increase the population slightly. Sighing, he rests his forehead against the window to the infant nursery and closes his eyes. 

At the sound of the lift, Louis takes a deep breath. Zayn must’ve found him. He heads back the way he came, stopping short when Harry steps out of the lift and sprints towards him. 

“Lou!” Harry shouts, running fast considering he’s still wearing his flight suit. He has to pull it together. Clearly there’s some sort of emergency. Jaw clenched tight, he crosses his arms and widens his stance. It’s a good thing, too. Because, as Harry gets closer, smiling so wide his dimples are deep in his cheeks, he yells, “We’re staying!” 

He jumps at Louis, fully expecting to be caught, and Louis does catch him, holding him under his thighs but he stumbles backwards until they both topple to the floor. 

Looking up at him, Louis searches his face for the truth and finds it in his eyes, staring back at him. 

“Liam doesn’t want to go back,” Harry says, kissing Louis’ forehead. “I don’t have to go.” 

“You can stay? You’re staying?” Louis asks, not quite believing. 

Harry nods, smacking a loud kiss square on his lips, then pulling back with a smirk, though his eyes are wet with tears. “You’re stuck with me.” 

Laughing while he cries, Louis cups his face, bringing him close enough to kiss him again. They have so much to catch up on, three quarters of a century is a long, long time.