While a mute space ship captain is doomed to repeat the same time loop over and over, they feel they are falling for their head engineer more and more, each life they live together. Captain will never lose hope in fixing the wormhole, but they feel...
Yancy was talking but hadn't picked up the phone. The Captain let him rattle on for a while before picking up their own phone and tapping it on the glass.
"Oh. I always forget that part." Yancy said with a smile. Captain tried to keep their composure but they wanted to talk to Yancy about what happened. They also didn't want Yancy to worry while he was in the prison and unable to do anything about it.
"Somethings wrong?" Yancy asked, tilting his head.
The captain closed their eyes, slightly dropping the phone from their ear.
"You've done something. I'm sure it isn't your fault." He said in that accent that felt like home. It was strange but it was comforting. Yancy was one of the people in the Captain's life that was a constant, someone who made them feel safe.
They shook their head.
"No, not you. You wouldn't hurt a fly unless you had to."
The Captain looked up, their face hardening. They had killed Dark for selfish reasons. Just words, all the man had given was words, a threat that could have been empty.
"You had to. It was for the best. You had no choice." Yancy protested.
The Captain smacked the window with the phone. It wasn't hard but Yancy frowned.
"No need to take it out on me, wise guy." Yancy lifted his hands up, "Look, the way I see it... sometimes you do crazy things for love and... you always were one of those familial types."
The Captain saw Yancy avert his eyes and his shoulders sag slightly. He shrugged uneasily.
Captain slowly lifted their palm to the glass, looking over Yancy with a soft understanding.
"Ah, high five." He said, seeming to go back to his normal self,"Oh, before you go, we been practicing another number for in case you ever came back."
The Captain was sure the song was amazing, but it was muffled behind the glass. They had loved hearing Yancy's voice again, and they would have loved to hear them sing, but they couldn't. Yancy had hung up the phone.
The warp crystal was glowing anyway, it was time to go.
They were yanked harshly into the wormhole, the blue spinning, nauseating, noisily.
They landed in their pod, the wakey wakey protocol initiating and ejecting them, but when they ran to the head engineer, the door opened, and a lanky man stepped out.
"Problem Captain?" He said as the ship shook, the lights blinking out.
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"Computer, damage report."
He did everything perfectly. Even as the Captain grabbed his hand to keep him from flying out the soon to be shattered window, Mack shut the blast shields.
The crew filed in soon after and Mack pushed the Captain aside, giving orders to a crew Captain had never seen before.
"And Captain. I think it's time we had a little talk. You don't seem like the kind of hands on sort of Captain. Why don't you take a break, relax. Let's be honest with ourselves. It's not like you're gonna be able to help anyway..."
He went on and on, trying to convince the Captain to step aside. Even though everything seemed so right, it was all going so well, Captain could only hear one voice in their head, screaming for them over and over.
And the voice didn't belong to Mack.
The Captain pointed accusingly at Mack's name tag.
"What did you say?" A look of confusion and terror spread over the other man's features, as the color left his face, "That's not my name, of course it's not." His voice pitched,"What did you say?"
"Mark? MARK?M-jdbkah-ARK? M@ r|\¿ Why would you s_aý that n-AHDK-ame¿ What did you do, Captain?"
Mack started to glitch before the captain's eyes, seeming angry in one frame and fear stricken in another. The Captain took a step back, trying to take it all in as Mack screamed in pain.
"This is my-!" Then Mack was gone.
"SHIP!" It was Mark again, standing in front of the Captain, looking as confused as they were. They each looked side to side,"Uh, Captain...?"
The ground started to glow blue but before it could change, the Captain took their helmet off and tackled Mark away from the wormhole, kissing him hard and awkwardly as they fell to the ground, a tangle of arms and legs.
They were a mess for a moment before Mark realized what was happening, and melted, pulling the Captain closer, and turning his head to deepen the kiss. The Captain didn't know if they were crying or Mark, they were just so happy he was here.
Mark parted the kiss first to whisper," We have to fix this, Captain."
Mark gently brushed their hair away from their face and kissed them again, but this time it was brief. He smiled sadly and sat up, shoving them hard by the shoulders. They didn't land on the floor. Instead, they fell... back into the wormhole.
{{Author note: honestly, this was my favorite chapter so far, I hope you guys like it too}}
