Beep

Chapter Five

The moment the call ended I bursted out of my seat and ran off to find my friends. I found them in the kitchen grabbed them all into another group hug. "Thank you, thank you, thank you." I gushed.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, we got you your space man back, you're welcome." Iris said nonchalantly.
"Seriously question though," Turner started. "are you and him a thing?"
"Pfft, I wish." I blurted.
"I knew it!" Iris exclaimed.
"Yeah, yeah, I like him. I like him a lot, actually."
"Andy and space man sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-" I cut her off by smacking her on the arm.
"What are you going to do about this?" Turner questioned.
"I don't know."
"You have to tell him." Iris urged.
"You know I'm nervous when it comes to this stuff."
"But have you seen the way he looks at you? And the way he talks to you, oh my god, you'd swear he's been in love with you for years."
"Wait, how do you know all that?" Just from the look on her face I could tell I'd busted her.
"She was spying on your entire conversation." Raymond told me with a smirk.
"Traitor!" Iris scolded.
"You spied on our conversation?" I wasn't mad really, I found it more funny, actually. "Why in the world would you do that?"
"So I could convince you to tell him you like him, I know you'd need the extra push."
"Well Raymond, you're the only normal one left apparently." I said to him.
"Forget what I did, I only did it so I could help you now. Now I'm telling you that is a great idea to tell him how you feel." She convinced.
"Okay, give me some time, I'll see how it goes."
"If you don't do it soon I'll do it for you." She threatened and I knew she meant it.
"And if you do that I'll shoot your laptop into space." It was a well known fact that Iris was obsessed with her laptop.
"You wouldn't."
"I would." With that, I walked out.

I did a little more work in my room up until the lights turned off without warning. "Well ISAC, if you wanted me to go to sleep you could've just said something." I joked.
"Sorry about that."
"That's okay, I was just about to settle in for the night anyways." I put my laptop away, got underneath the covers and wiggled into a comfortable position. "Good night ISAC."
"Good night Andromeda." That night I fell asleep to a mind racing with thoughts, all of them about Evans and all of them happy.

That night I also had a dream. It was so strange, I was trapped in a maze where all the walls were just a maze of ones and zeros, like a computer code. I lost for quite awhile, but when I finally got to the end I found this baby just lying there out in the open. I picked it up and at first it was laughing, but then it started crying and screaming and it was driving me mad. I wasn't sure what to do with it, so I just put it down and started running. I ran and ran but never got anywhere, and just as hopelessness was consuming me, I woke up to the sound of my alarm buzzing.

"Good morning, Andromeda." ISAC said. I took a minute to get back my grip on reality before responding.
"Uh, g-good morning."
"Are you all right? You sound flustered." Since he couldn't actually see into my bedroom (a privacy feature), he couldn't tell that I was dripping in sweat and had moved around so much in the night that my sheets were tied in knots.
"Yeah, I'm fine, I just... had a bad dream."
"Would you like to talk about it?"
"That's okay, it was nothing, really." I made my way slowly out of bed and towards my closet. "What do you think today ISAC, silver, silver or silver?"
"That is the twenty fifth time you've said that this trip."
"Maybe one day we'll make it to a hundred."

When I walked into the kitchen that morning, Turner was- no surprise- fighting with something. "Come on, all I want is one piece of toast, one piece." He complained.
"Hey, that toaster giving you trouble? Need me to take him out?" I joked.
"Maybe you should, this thing is just not being obedient today." 
"Here, let me try." I offered. I grabbed the bread from him and put a piece in without issue. "Wow, that was hard." I said sarcastically.
"You know what-" He stopped himself and took a deep breath. "Huh, at least you got it working."
"Morning lovebird." Iris teased as she walked in the kitchen.
"Oh don't you start again."
"I'm not starting, I'm just politely showing you out the door and towards the mainframe computer." She did just that as she spoke. It was then and only then that the realization hit me.
"I know why you're so wrapped up in all this lovey dovey stuff." I told her. "You're missing someone."
"W-What are you talking about?" I could tell I'd gotten to her. In between coughs I 'subtly' said,
"Julia." Julia was Iris's secret girlfriend that she'd had for about three months, I was the only one who knew about them.
"What was that you said?" Raymond asked as he stuck his head through the doorway, showing off his rare gossipy side.
"She's not my girlfriend!" Iris shouted.
"Did I hear 'girlfriend'?" Turner questioned, his head appearing just above Raymond's. As she realized her mistake, she slapped her hand over her mouth.
"Okay, maybe I will head over to the mainframe computer, I'll let you explain this." As I ran away, the last thing I heard was Iris's exclamation of,
"Andy!"

I was just getting over my giggles as Evans answered my call. "Well that's a nice way to greet me." He said with a smile. The first thing I noticed about him was that he'd shaved, and I had to say, he looked absolutely perfect now.
"It is a nice way to start the day." I agreed. "So, how are you."
"Not as great as you are, that's for sure."
"Is that because I'm just extra happy or should I be worried?" I asked, the grin on my face still not totally gone.
"Eh, a little bit of both, but mostly the latter." Well, now it was.
"What's going on?"
"An alarm went off a little while ago but I'm not sure what it was for, so I'm probably screwed." Then he looked off to his side and his eyes bulged when he saw whatever he was looking at.
"You know I can't read your mind, right?" That shook him back to reality as he turned back to me.
"I think I figured out what that alarm was for..."
"Go on." I urged, really annoyed that he wouldn't just spit it out.
"Well, I'm heading straight towards a group of meteors. So just to confirm, I'm definitely screwed."
"I mean, technically they're meteoroids since they're still in space, but you know same diff."
"Yeah, this is really not the time for science, it's the time to save my butt." I'd never heard him this scared before, it even had me petrified.
"Okay, I know you don't know how to, but you're going to need to steer the ship either away or through this."
"I was worried you might say that. Okay, I'm going to hang up now so I can just focus on, uh, this."
"No, no, wait-" As I protested he looked to the side again and this time he jumped right out of his seat.
"Oh my god!" He cried.
"Evans, what is it?"
"Gotta go." With that he quickly hung up.
"No! Please don't die, I love you." I babbled. When I realized what I had said I gasped. I sat silently for a moment, frozen in shock. Soon enough though I calmed, it wasn't like I didn't know that already and he had hung up before I said it. So instead of surprised I chose to be happy, I even smiled as I said, "I love you, Evans."