"What do you mean she didn't make it onto the ship?" Jennie's fingers curl into fists, her voice low and shaky as her mind buzzes and blanks out to a field of white, noise and heat colliding and melting till she can't think for the rush of blood behind her ears.
"She... she's not on the ship. I'm sorry."
"Sorry? Why are you sorry?" Jennie blinks and forces herself to breathe again, her mind untangling bits of logic, stringing it around her throat, pulling tight. "We just have to turn the ship around and go get her."
"I'm... I'm very sorry, but we can't do that."
"Why not?" Her teeth are gritted so tight the words barely make it out coherent.
"We can't just turn back around and land the ship again--"
"Why the fuck not?" Jennie takes a step forward and immediately, another man appears by his side, tall and broad-shouldered, placing a firm hand on Jennie's arm.
"Please, ma'am, it would be wise for you to calm down."
"You left my friend behind! My friend is back there! On Earth, the last person on Earth and you left her there!" Jennie's throat aches with the words she's shouting but she almost doesn't hear them over the sound of her fear, her agitation, disbelief, every single emotion she'd never thought she'd be able to feel surging up through her arteries and bones, sizzling up and down her spine, curling around her ribcage, constricting her lungs, her throat, her heart, her heart, her heart.
There were tears running down her face. She doesn't realize till she tastes them on her lips.
"We have to go back! My friend--my best friend is back there! We have to go back!" She's trying to claw her way to the pilot's seat, as if she could somehow turn the ship around himself, but the second man has her in a vice-grip, holding her with an arm around her waist.
"We can't," the first man says, voice wavering but final in its tone. "It will take another six months for the launch pad to power up again, and... and--," his voice falters as he swallows--Jennie lets out a ragged, broken sob, "and we powered down the atmospheric lattice generators when we left. We assumed... we assumed that it would no longer be necessary, given the... circumstances. So the oxygen supply will then be depleted by morning."
"Y-you... you turned off the..." Jennie's cry gets cut off in her throat.
"I'm very sorry... there's nothing we can do."
"Fuck that--fuck that--we're going back! I don't care if it takes another six months--we can all stay in this damn ship if we have to--," she's shaking her head as if it could rid her off the truths spilling over her cheeks onto the ground, shaking her head as if it would help her clear away the myriad of memories of Lisa. Lisa and her laugh like that space between closing your eyes and falling asleep. Lisa with her hands that are so thin but strong enough to knock the air out of Jennie's chest that one time they tried to teach each other boxing from a book. Lisa with her smile like sunrise and eyes like stars.
Like diamonds in the sky.
"She's just one person," the first man says, and he sounds like he's trying to convince himself more than anyone else, "we can't endanger the lives of tens of thousands of people for just one per--"
"But she's my one person--she's my only person..." Jennie's body goes slack and the arm around her waist loosens. A crowd has gathered around the cockpit, watching the entire scene unfold like some gross spectacle in a circus show.
"She's the only family I have... that I've ever had," she barely hears her own words over the sound of her breathing, can barely taste them over the sadness settling on her tongue, the aftertaste of a bad, bad nightmare that refuses to go away.
"Yer... not talkin' bout a fine, mid-height woman, bout yer age... taller, with dem cheeks, are ya?" an old man asks, stepping out of the crowd. People were murmuring and muttering, stepping back to make room.
"Yes! That's her! Have you seen her? Is she here? Where is she? Is she--," Jennie's head snaps up and she almost falls over the edge of the platform.
"Said she had t'go get summat she fergot at home... sounded real important n' told me t'look after her place in line fer her. Ne'er did see her come back," the old man warily says, shifting his hat on his head and heaves a deep sigh.
"And you just let her go?" Jennie makeshifts to launch herself forward but the second man's strong arm finds its way around her middle again and it knocks the wind right out of her.
"We can try to make radio contact," the first man's voice says from behind Jennie. It is soft, imploring, almost desperate. Try as they might, hearts are still made of soft things, tissue and blood and muscle. Things that wound easy. Things that tend to scar instead of heal. "Would that be okay?"
Jennie was gasping for breath that wasn't there but she nods. She nods, and nods and nods.
After a flurry of whispers in a language Jennie swears she doesn't know, and a mess of beeps and click and soft static, the first man speaks into a small microphone on a long cord.
"Hello? Is anyone there? Does anyone hear me?"
And then, like a piercing shard of clarity, painful enough to clear the mind, comes Lisa's voice.
"H-hello? Is someone there? Hello?"
YOU ARE READING
Wonder JenLisa AU
Science Fiction"You see, one loves the sunset when one is so sad." - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗲
