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“All good on your end, golden boy? Lucilla mentioned that the Exostrider in the frostlands just moved. Please tell me that was you?”
“That was Aemeath. Given how well you know me, I assume you know her, too.”
“...You found her?”
“I brought her back to the Academy. It’s a long story. I’ll fill you in when there’s time.”
“Understood. For now, just be with Aemeath. It must be a great relief to have her back. I’m happy for you.”
“...”
“Rover? What’s wrong?”
“There is… something I’d like to ask of you.”
-
“It's been a while since we last spoke like this.”
Aemeath laughs, her smile sheepish as she lightly scratches at her cheek. On the surface, she doesn’t look a day older than in the pictures the Academy and Institute kept of her.
But with a trained and experienced eye for the slightest of changes and fractures in the human psyche, Luuk sees a maturity that wasn’t there before—the result of harmful stress and strain, one that forced a child into signing her name off her own consent form and taking a burden borne of desperation that should have been on the hands of the adults around her.
Luuk recalls that there were several investigations following the incident, heralded by months upon months of uncertainty and a surge of understandable concern among students and families who’d heard of the girl who disappeared without a trace. The safety of the Academy was subject to intense scrutiny for a while, and he supposes the only way that the upper management knew to deal with the backlash was to pretend like her disappearance was the result of some indeterminable anomaly.
They kept her name and student records. Some professors and students still openly talked about her. Her accomplishments remained hers. But as for what happened after she disappeared, Luuk found nothing, despite having tried to search for her himself.
How awfully convenient, he had thought, that she didn’t have any family left for them to tell. No one to mourn her, even as ghosts and traces of her haunted every corner of the Academy.
A beacon of light so dazzling, each rumor about her was more absurd and unbelievable than the last, yet somehow true. She was good at everything that she did, and so, when she was gone, it was easier to believe she had been nothing more than a myth. A thing of legends.
Someone who didn’t really exist.
“It’s nice to see you again,” Luuk says, feeling a slight tinge of regret for one of the children he couldn’t do anything to save, “Aemeath.”
“It has been a while, Dr. Luuk. Has it been more than ten years?”
Ten years—more than a decade. Luuk thinks it’s a long time to spend all alone, unseen and unfound by anyone. Aemeath smiles at him as if the number of years that have passed her by means nothing to her.
It’s a terrifying prospect to think that maybe it doesn’t, not to her.
“Give or take,” he replies lightly.
“And yet you still look as young as ever! Have you ever considered trying on a student uniform? You can easily pass off as a freshman if you do.”
Amused, he asks, “Now, why would I want to do that?”
She grins at him. “I know someone who might need a study buddy. He’s pretty new around here. Dark hair, golden eyes—ever heard of anyone like that?”
Luuk mirrors her expression, helplessly taken by her radiance. He can understand why she’s so popular and loved. There is a sincerity to her words that draws you in, a familiar warmth that he knows innately has been forged from empathy.
A child who has seen suffering and is trying to cast a light to drive it away. Perhaps he had been too transparent about his guilt.
“I have a feeling I might know who that is.” He holds his chin thoughtfully, playing along. “I suppose I could try. It would be a good opportunity to evaluate the curriculum’s effectiveness as a temporary student.”
“Really? You’ll do it?”
“Really. I’ll submit a request for a student uniform to the office later. You can take a look at it, if you want.”
Aemeath giggles as she puts both hands on her chair and stretches her legs in front of her. “I knew I could count on you, Dr. Luuk! Thanks for indulging me.”
“Of course,” Luuk tells her sincerely, “any time.”
A gentle lull descends on them. Aemeath’s smile doesn’t quite dim, but it does fade slightly. She looks up at him through the fringes of her hair.
“I’m happy that you’re doing well. It might be weird to hear, coming from a student like me—or I guess I’m not really a student anymore, huh? But I always wanted to tell you that." Her gaze falls to her lap. "I know that person must have felt the same. He worried about you a lot, even if he didn’t say it.”
Luuk’s mouth parts wordlessly, before he forcibly closes it.
An accidental tell, way too obvious, too honest. Beyond the radiance and bravery, it seems that their ability to disarm him is the same.
She raises her head and tilts it, her hair brushing over her bare shoulder as her smile widens again.
“Although I'm really glad I got the chance to talk with you… I wouldn’t have imagined that this is how we’d finally get to talk again." She lifts both hands and waves them apologetically. "Don’t get me wrong! It’s nice. I haven’t had a conversation with someone else in what feels like forever. It's just… how should I put it—unexpected?”
Luuk's smile gentles.
“Would you like to go back to him?”
She has only just returned. It would make sense that she’d want to spend her time back with the man who raised her after being apart from him for so long.
Aemeath blinks. Slowly, she lowers her hands and shakes her head.
“It's fine. He wants me to stay here with you for a while, so I will.”
“You’d like me to talk to Aemeath?”
“Please. She’s been through a lot, and I’m worried. If I ask, I have a feeling she’ll tell me nothing is wrong.”
Luuk’s mouth curves into a slight smile. “...And you think that she’ll open up to me, why?”
“She told me I can trust you. I don’t think she would say that if she didn’t trust you, too.” A short pause, a breath. He looks shaken by something. Haunted, almost, the look in his eyes mirroring the same one he used to see in them before he’d forgotten about his past.
Rover must have learned more about himself while he was in the frostlands, he realizes, and is simply doing his best to hold back the fallout now that he’s in Aemeath’s company. The same way any parent would want to hide their suffering from their child.
“And I do. I trust you. Am I… wrong to think that, Luuk?”
Luuk’s gaze softens.
This would be the second time he'd asked for his help. It felt nice to be relied on. To be confided in, like he used to.
“Bring her to my office, Rover.” He reaches out, almost as if to touch him, before remembering that he isn’t actually in front of him and drawing his hand back. He glances down at his fist. “You’ve earned a break. Go get some rest. I’ll take care of her.”
“...You take after him,” Luuk says, watching as her hands briefly still from his words.
It was something he couldn't tell her in the past, just like her. Watching over her from a safe distance following the years after Rover disappeared, he could see parts of him in her more clearly with each passing day. It had eased his mind, back then, to see the little girl that Rover took in growing up to become the person that she did. There was a sense of joy in watching her stand up on her own two feet, smiling and happy the way Rover undoubtedly would have wanted.
"He might not remember anything, but I do. I know he'd be proud of the person you grew up to be."
She had always been a brilliant child. Free-spirited, perhaps even to her own detriment—her only tether and remaining family led her to become an unparalleled Synchronist and a promising candidate unlike any other.
The person that Rover used to be had spared no words in letting Aemeath know how much he cared for her. For Luuk, who knew them both, maybe this is the one thing he could do for her—
"I'm willing to bet that hasn't changed even now."
To let her know that she was and will always be Rover's pride and joy.
Even if he has no memory left of you, I'm sure you've made him proud.
Aemeath’s eyes widen briefly. For a moment, they almost seemed to glisten, irises glassy and bright with a sheen. Her fists tighten on the edge of her chair, and she brings her legs back to her, knees pressed close like a child.
Because that is what she is, isn't she? No matter what she has accomplished, she is still just a child.
Just Rover's precious child.
“It would,” she says, laughing to cover up the way the words trembled, “it would be nice, if that's true."
"I know it's true." Luuk watches her with gentle eyes. "Are you sure you don't want to go back to him?"
More resolutely, she replies, "I don’t want to give him a reason to worry about me. If this can give him some peace of mind, then I’ll stay.”
He’s been through enough—he sees it written plainly across her face.
A sentiment that he is painfully familiar with. A thought that he himself didn’t know what to do with, at times. Where does your desperation to save a man who refuses to be saved go? Where do you bring that blazing fire, that depthless, insurmountable grief?
In this room, there are two people who would do anything to alleviate the burden that Rover carries. Some of the very few people in this world who have seen the human behind the name and his title.
“He will worry, regardless. That's just how parents are,” he says. It is unthinkable for any parent not to worry when it comes to their child. This is something that Luuk has only learned to understand upon seeing how Rover cared for her.
Luuk might have had a family, but it wasn’t anything like theirs. Rover had tried his best, asking him for reference materials on parenting in between his expeditions. He had seen the dark bags under his eyes and the notes he kept on him, the books he’d lent showing wear from how often he’d read through them.
Rover might not remember anything, but now that he seems to know enough, he wouldn't let her be.
From her seat, Aemeath whispers, “...Isn’t it silly?”
“What is?”
“How he doesn’t change.” Her shoes drag against the floor. “With or without his memories, he still…”
“Worries about you?”
“He cares.” Her voice quiets. “Too much. About me. About this world.”
“You think it’s a bad thing.”
“I think that it’s going to end up hurting him.”
Taking care of you was one of the few things that brought him true happiness, Luuk doesn’t say. It’s not his place. He is a doctor, here. A friend of her parental figure, at best.
He fights not to say it, despite the scared look in her eyes. He understands this, too.
Gently, Luuk tells her, “Rover is capable of making his own decisions.”
To make choices that would hurt, to make decisions despite the hurt—that was something everybody had to live with. Rover is no different.
Her smile turns sad. Resigned. “I know. Funnily enough, he said the same thing.” Glancing up at him, she laughs. “You really know him well, don’t you, Dr. Luuk?”
“You could say that it comes with the job.”
“No.” She shakes her head, and the tail end of her hair sways behind her. “I mean… I can tell. You care for him, too. Just like I do.”
The weight of her words momentarily silences him.
She says it so easily, as if it were a simple truth.
You care for him, just like I do.
Aemeath is his family, and Rover is hers. To liken Luuk’s own feelings toward him to what she feels for him, it reveals too much about him and about how he felt for the man who raised her. Too much that he refused to acknowledge in the twenty years he has waited for him to return.
“...Why do you think that?”
Aemeath’s expression turns sheepish. She clasps her fingers together, idly rubbing them before lifting her eyes to look at him. “I was… actually by his side the entire time when you met him in the frostlands.” She winks apologetically. "Surprise?"
“Then the entire time..."
Aemeath guiltily hides behind her hands. "I was there."
"When he would space out and whisper to himself...?"
She winces, laughing. "That would be me."
"And the glitch in the systems..."
"Yep!" Proudly this time, she points to herself. "All me."
Pushing off her chair, she starts walking around the room, the sound of her laughter bright. “Also, you got it all wrong, Dr. Luuk. It’s not that I think you care—I know you do. You smile more when you’re looking at him. Never once did you let him leave your sight while we were out there."
With a toothy grin, she says, "It startled me, you know? When you left to let him look around. But the moment that recording of him finished playing, you were somehow back at his side, telling him to delete it so that he doesn’t attract attention.”
Oh. Luuk stares at her, caught off guard. She saw all that?
“And I guess, there’s also this.” She points to herself and then to him. Linking her fingers behind her back, she leans forward, her grin childlike and glowing. “This was meant to be a counseling for me, wasn’t it? He was probably worried about me, and he thought I'd be more comfortable talking with you.”
The angle of Luuk’s smile is helpless. So she knew.
“Yes, it was. Although I’m not sure if it’s been doing much to help.”
Aemeath shakes her head again.
“That’s not true. It has helped." Her expression is soft. She turns away to hide it, hair whipping as she does. “It has helped way more than you think.”
Softly, tenderly, more to herself than it is for him—
“With this, I truly feel like I can…”
The silence that follows her words is raw with an ache that sets Luuk on edge. Those kinds of words, spoken in that kind of tone, leave very little doubt.
But the truth is, he already knew.
Before Aemeath had entered his office, before Rover had even ended the call, it was sitting there in the back of his mind.
What he can do for her—for them—is limited. He can listen, but to persuade someone to change their mind is another matter entirely. He recognizes the grim perseverance in the permanence of her smile, carved into her face like a scar from how long she has forced herself to wear it, that brightness eclipsing the fragility in her eyes, like she wants to cry but has forgotten how to.
The weightlessness of her laughter and the depth of her smiles, the levity of her every word, as if she has come to terms with herself. As if there is nothing that can truly hold her back.
Luuk knew. He has seen it too many times in his line of work.
That was the look someone wore—the signs someone showed—when they were determined to disappear.
He had already failed her before, and here, again, he is unable to change the fact.
Ten years—more than a decade. A person doesn't make it through that much time away from home without changing.
She’s been through enough.
It's a sentiment that he is painfully familiar with. A thought that he himself didn’t know what to do with, even now. Where does your desperation to save a child who refuses to be saved go? Where do you bring that blazing fire, that depthless, insurmountable grief?
He can’t take another heartbreak, he wants to say. He just got you back. This will break him when he realizes what you plan to do.
Aemeath looks at him over her shoulder, her eyes slightly squinting from her smile.
She looks happy. Really, truly happy. And Luuk thinks—
What can he even say to that? To her who wears the same burdens, the same exhaustion, and tireless resolve?
To her who seems to be carrying the weight of the entire world on her small shoulders?
“Dr. Luuk, have you ever made a promise to someone?”
Luuk inhales, heart aching. There isn’t anything he can say. Anything that can actually change her mind.
Because just like Rover, and just like him—
He closes his eyes. “...I have.”
Once Aemeath has her eyes set on a path, she never turns back.
"I made a promise with a friend from a long time ago," he says.
"Can you still remember what it is?"
"Yes." So painfully clearly, etched into his mind and blood.
"Did it come true?"
"...Yes," Luuk tells her softly, "it did."
"I'm about to fulfill a promise I made, too. I told this person I'd protect them. It's all I've ever wanted to do."
No, he thinks, dread filling him. No, you can't. Not alone. Not again. He's here now. We're here now. We can help you.
"Do you think you can make another one with me? You can think of it as me taking you up on your offer to indulge me any time I wanted."
"...What would you like me to promise?"
“Do you remember what I asked you earlier? About someone I know needing a study buddy.”
His fists clench as the silence rings.
...So, this is what she meant.
This is what she wanted, this entire time.
Aemeath raises a pinky finger with a small smile.
“Could you do that for me, Dr. Luuk? Could you stay with him?"
He hears it, even if she doesn't use her words. He knows, because he's thought about it, too. It's all he ever thinks about when he sees gold bleeding into the horizon of the frostland's bleached landscapes.
Could you stay by his side and make sure he never feels alone?
This wouldn't change a thing. He knows that she knows this, too.
Rover will not accept this kind of ending, but she wouldn't be his daughter if she didn't try.
She really does take after him, in every sense of the word.
He locks his pinky finger with hers. It's there, in that small point of contact, that he feels a slight tremble in her hand. Her smile and the look in her eyes don't betray her, but her heart, transparently worn in the name of her love for a father, does.
She is just a child.
"I promise.”
Did you know?
Dr. Luuk told me that I took after you.
That I would have made you proud.
I was happy to hear it. I've always wondered, and I had no one to ask.
I got to see you again, just like I wished.
I got to spend time with you one last time.
And I was able to protect you and keep my promise, like I always said I would.
Those days with you were the happiest days of my life.
...With this, I can only hope that you will be happy, too.
Don't be sad, okay?
You're not alone anymore.
I'll be right here, watching over you from the stars.